9:00 a.m., Monday – The Cabin in the Woods
Marci tried to understand what Bai was telling her. She was beyond tired—her mind a fog between exhaustion and disbelief. Gwen still hadn't stirred. William sat beside Bai on the small ottoman, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. The sun had just begun to rise outside, pale light cutting through the dust-lined curtains.
Jacob entered, sliding his phone into his pocket, his boots thudding softly against the wood floor.
"Suns coming up," he muttered. "I need a few hours of sleep. Detective Stone says we're safe in daylight."
It sounded more like a question than a statement.
"Shadow Demons rarely, if ever, venture out during the day," William assured him.
Jacob managed a tired smile and made his way to the porch, collapsing across a bench and drifting into uneasy sleep.
Marci turned back to Bai. "So all three of you… are the Blessed?"
William shook his head slowly—patient, almost fatherly. "No, Bai and I are Draíochta. There are five families of us—Mother called us the Blessed. Jacob is an Afflicted."
"Afflicted?" she repeated softly, as if afraid of the word itself.
Bai glanced at William, and the old man nodded for him to continue.
"The Blessed are born with gifts. The Afflicted inherit theirs—through infection, curse, or experiment."
Marci's voice trembled. "How did that happen? Who would even create something like that?"
William exhaled, lifting the small glowing orb of light Bai had conjured earlier. "That," he said, "is another story."
---
The Birth of the Afflicted
After many lifetimes, man and the Blessed flourished. Mother guarded the West; Father watched the East. Together, they believed their world finally healed.
But what they didn't know was that Mother's blood had made the Komodo King immortal.
While centuries turned for all others, his body never aged. Only his hatred did.
It festered. It consumed him.
He befriended the Blessed to learn their crafts—spells, potions, enchantments—then murdered and ate them when they no longer served his purpose. He hunted orphans and beasts, dragging them to his castle where he experimented in horrors no sane mind could conceive.
Marci wanted to look away, but she couldn't. The visions made her stomach twist. Children screaming. Flesh merging with metal. Shadows that took shape and moved on their own.
When the King's twisted experiments survived, he moved on to the living. He fused the flesh of beasts with that of man—magic, machinery, and nightmare stitched together.
And thus, the Afflicted were born.
Vampires, Ghouls, Were-animals, Shadow Demons—creations forged of agony and hunger. Each monster a fragment of his madness.
The Shadow Demons were his pride. Born from souls already blackened, murdered in such horror that their essence stained the world itself. Their powers reflected the corruption within their hearts. They were his perfect soldiers.
Rumors of monsters swept through the villages of man and Blessed alike. Whispers of eyes in the dark, of screams swallowed by shadow.
Mother dismissed them, believing the tales were just echoes of the fear she herself had woven into mankind.
More lifetimes passed. The Blessed healed. Blight and disease became distant memories. Even Mother and Father withdrew from the world, content that peace had returned.
But the Mad King never slept.
He perfected his army and waited. Slowly, his monsters infiltrated Mother and Father's castle—first the guards, then the servants. Each corrupted creature became his eyes, his mouth, his will.
Then one day, his spies brought word that would change everything.
Mother and Father had children. Twins—a boy and a girl. Divine offspring who aged slower than time itself.
The King's hatred twisted into a new obsession. He no longer wanted only vengeance. He wanted the children to betray their creators.
He wanted Mother and Father to suffer as he had suffered.
So his agents began to whisper.
When the children were scolded, they told them that the world could be different if they ruled instead.
When they slept, the King's creatures visited their dreams—were-swans and will-o-wisps for the girl, vampires and wolves for the boy.
Each told stories tailored to their hearts:
—of heroes overthrowing tyrants,
—of children defying absent gods,
—of the weak conquering the mighty.
The siblings would wake laughing, sharing stories of their "dream friends."
Mother and Father were overjoyed to see them happy.
For them, it was paradise.
For the Mad King, it was the beginning of the end.
---
The Son and the Forest
Years became centuries. The children grew apart.
The boy—proud, impulsive, headstrong.
The girl—fierce, kind, radiant with compassion.
Mother aged gracefully; her warmth never faded. But the children's hearts began to change. The whispers had rooted deep.
One day, an argument broke out between Mother and her son. None remember the cause, only that it shattered his heart. In fury and shame, he fled the castle.
Mother wanted to send guards. Father stopped her.
"Let him find his own peace," he said gently.
But Father's wisdom was blind to what had already taken root.
The boy's steed thundered through the trees, hooves striking sparks on stone. The forest swallowed him, and with it came the waiting shadows.
As the sun bled across the horizon, the Mad King smiled in the dark.
His trap had finally been sprung.
End Chapter 16.