Bridge Jumper Comes Back To Life For Help: The Century Curse

006

Diana latched onto the knob of the basement door. Ian looked down the dimly lit wooden staircase as the creaks of the old wood door hallowed through the house. The pair looked at each other before the boy took the lead down onto the first frail step. Of course, the woman descended with a nervousness, though the spookiness seemed nothing to do with it. Instead, he guessed her nerves originated from his own. He himself weary to enter his own sister's domain. Yet, they continued their march. And as they reached the bottom, the image of a girl, adorned with a black sweater, surrounding herself with books, came into view.

Citrus was sitting in a wooden chair, hunched over a matching desk she'd slave over for work. Ian couldn't remember his sister making remarks of any pain that wasn't a joke. But by her posture, day in and day out, anyone would've felt chronic aching by now. A silver lamp arm stood just behind the books, the bulb lighting up the cubby Citrus had manufactured. Looking around the room showed nothing out of the ordinary, no undiscovered bodies hiding in the darkness. But ordinary to one person may not mean the same to another.

He watched his follower observe the dreadful room, her bones surely quaking. A cherry-red cloth couch with a single pillow and a single sheet strung across the removable cushions sat against the far wall. She'd purged each surface of drywall and insulation. The cubbies between the studs were now filled with wooden shelves, those planks brimming with books. And hiding behind each rack of paperbacks, another spine sat visible, meaning each shelf ran two books deep. Then, in the corner, under the stairs, there sat countless boxes, neither of them having a clue of what they contained.

In tandem, they turned back to the dimly lit desk. Locks a plenty, one for each face of each drawer. One special drawer, just to her right, had two locks fixated on its surface. But ogling the girl's insecurities for privacy wasn't the matter at hand. They approached the left side of his as she continued to speed read through the pages.

"Sis..." Ian reached out his arm, clasping the shoulder of the preoccupied woman. Wiggling, as if a shiver had just shot down her spine, she jumped back, tipping her chair, and followed it, crashing to the ground. The messy ponytail laid against the concrete floor, softening the blow she would have otherwise taken to her head. Citrus laid there, her body motionless, but her eyes blinked beneath her framed oculi. The boy opted out of lending her a helping hand. After all, she was a tough girl and seemed to sustain no physical damages.

Swiveling her legs, she sat upon the back end of the chair, exposing her thighs leading from her short black shorts. After what seemed like a minute or two of pouting, Citrus looked up at the two of them and made her way to her feet.

"Well, are you ready?" Checking with Diana, she seemed as puzzled as Ian. But they knew the just of what she'd been looking into while they were gone. She'd gone to the library to study every bit of the occult and such. Any information that could help trace the entity attached to Diana, back to its original enchanter, was a must. But there was a disappointed air about her as she picked up the chair and set it in the middle of the room. This action concerned onlookers in even casual settings, and this was no such setting.

"Were you able to find what you needed?" Diana said, her hands clenching together in front of her chest as if she were praying. Citrus stood there for a moment, looking down at the floor, before nodding her head in response. Making her way to the boxes below the staircase, she shuffled through them, pulling various contents from within and making stacks around her feet. She placed a box of children's play chalk, a matchbook with one match missing, and a small baggie of birthday candles.

Getting down on her knees, she drew symbols in a circle around the wooden chair. Markings of distinct lines and contorted shapes that Ian had never seen before. However, Diana looked as though she found some familiarity to them. As she finished the third loop, she rose and pulled matches through the starter on the matchbook, lighting the candles forming a fourth and final ring.

"...you're going to talk to whatever's inside of me, aren't you?" Citrus straightened as she finished preparing the last candle, looking at the disgruntled face showing in the flickers.

"I'm going to interrogate it, try to find out where the person responsible is." Diana's fist shook. She needed to muster the strength to endure this. That much was obvious to the group. But Ian was afraid, and he was sure the girls felt the same. Not only about the ritual, but the repercussions for conducting it. But there was also this lingering fear in the back of his mind. This creature she held. What would something so evil manifest as?

Ian placed his hand on her shoulder as he did back at the bridge. If his comfort could imbue some confidence within her, that would be enough. With that, Diana took her seat, looking up at the two individuals volunteering to interact with this thing.

"Are you ready?" Ian crouched down, looking at Diana. She nodded, attempting to display a reassuring smile. Citrus collected the book she'd been reading minutes prior. Beginning the read, she spoke in an unintelligible tongue. With each passing word of the passage, Diana nodded off bit by bit.

Eventually, Diana stopped moving altogether. Her body was as lifeless as it could be if not for her chest still rising. But, other than the shallow breaths of all occupancies, nothing was happening. The room was as silent as a cemetery, ironic really.

Citrus knelt, studying the unconscious girl's face and then the mysterious symbols etched on the ground. She flipped through the book in her hand, revisiting the highlighted sections she shouldn't have made in the library's borrowed property. As she paced around the sleeping figure, she looked as though she couldn't shake a nagging feeling that she had overlooked something crucial. She reexamined everything trying to pinpoint the error she'd made.

Did we mess up?

Stress spread between the siblings as Ian checked Diana's face for any signs of life. His attention was drawn by a sexually driven attraction as he looked at her lips, reliving the moment they shared on the bridge and wondering if he would ever have another chance. But as he gazed, a tiny black shadow leaked from her bottom lip. Leaning in for a closer look, Ian lost his balance and stumbled, only to realize that one of his feet was resting on a symbol on the ground. The black fog quickly expanded, growing into a shape resembling an eye and fixing its gaze directly on him.

"Woah-ho-ho! You're about to have a very bad time!" A charismatic voice echoed through the room. Citrus stopped in her tracks, making eye contact with Ian, who now blocked one of the protective symbols. The black mass coiled from the girl's mouth as if it were a snake dropping from the ceiling of a tunnel. Suddenly, it shot out toward Ian before diverting down below his chin, uppercutting him in the jaw. The sibling was airborne, flying back through the room, crashing onto Citrus's desk, the books and lamp falling to the floor.

"Ian!" Citrus shouted.

His vision was failing, but he could hear footsteps dashing towards his location. Hands patted his chest and cheeks, but he hadn't the strength to respond to his sister. If something happened to him in this moment, would he be full of regret?

Failing to set off on the road his sister paved. Being decommissioned before making any head way on Diana's case. Dying in such a despicable way.

Yes, it seemed he'd be passing on with regrets this day.