What goes around comes around. No matter who you are, no matter how clean you believe your slate might be, the past always has a way of returning to haunt those with skeletons in their closets. Sometimes, all it took was to be associated to the wrong people at the wrong time.
Thousands of years in history can make a difference in one’s life, whether in the near or the distant future. Lies become truths. Blessings become curses. Grudges become… something beyond personal.
Something or someone tore through the frail foundations of this building, taking apart one of the most fragile walls in two fell swings, like ripping through wet papier-maché with one’s bare hands. Its strength truly shone as being every bit as monstrous as its silhouette. Heavy footsteps, accented with the quiet foley of cloth and metallic armor, made away with the eerie silence that once filled the spacious abode.
With breaths just as heavy and deep as the steps it took, the terrifying figure of something more than a simple man let itself become known to anyone paying even a hint of attention.
Though his presence here is not unwarranted. Victims. Those who submit to a stronger will. They leave all a manner of tracks, imperceptible to most, yet not to those who know how to find them. He couldn’t smell fear within his prey this time. Not without some sickening sense of smug contempt overruling it, the natural human instinct of fearing death becoming shrouded in a flimsy wall of false bravado.
He knows this one. And this one… this one knows him.
It had been time she previously encountered the ominous presence. Not a single sight after the day of her arrival. Barely making it alive. Still, she could feel it. A burden. A curse. A heavy shadow following somewhere behind her. An indescribable evil she couldn’t name, but what resembled the demonic characters in her grandmother’s cautionary folktales. An oni.
Like a sting - the silence was broken in this strange, dream like existence, now taken a form of a rotten, traditional home.
The heavy steps didn’t respect the paneled corridors - and with a crash followed a sound of torn paper and crushing of light wood under each step without an effort. Closer... and closer. Until, once again she locked eyes with the presence himself - towering before her. Intimidating, yet, she ignored her most primal instincts to run. Slowly, she stood up from her knelt position - awaiting a move before making hers - in concern of being struck immediately, should he predict her.
❝ What do you want... ❞ She instead asked - fists closed, knuckles white while her feet itched to move. Still, she managed to part her lips to ask: out of curiosity to know why. What was the purpose of this, why was she followed by this entity? There might have been no reasoning with him - nor spoken answers to expect. But she needed to try. On the road she had been struck by immediate fear and confusion, leading her to escape who knows how long time before losing her consciousness - but now, she was used to the fact home was but a distant dream anymore. And suddenly, the bogeymen felt just less frightening. ❝ Who are you...? ❞
