The Stories of Latia, Vol. 2: Demon's Curse

Chapter 5: Pachakutiq's Curse

Chapter 5: Packautiq's Curse

The Narrator

Jayme woke up early the next morning, or earlier than he normally would, at least. He quickly dressed himself in the clothes he had left for himself on the back of his desk chair, today being a Phantom of the Opera t-shirt under a burgundy sweatshirt and ripped black jeans, and of course his usual red socks. He quickly washed his face in the bathroom sink, before putting his rounded glasses back on and rushing down the spiral steps to meet Cassidy and Avery, standing together in the kitchen.

"Morning," he greets, entering the kitchen and pulling a blank white mug and a teabag from the cupboard, entranced by the thoughts in his head.

"Morning. You're up early," Avery notes.

"Oh, uhm... yeah," Jayme stammers in response.

Avery deeply sighs, which sounded a little fake to Jayme "I gotta go. Early job today."

"Oh, okay. Good luck. See you tonight?" Cassidy asks, giving Avery a brief kiss on the cheek.

"Yeah, see you tonight. Bye, Jayme."

"What? Oh, yeah. Bye," Jayme once again stammers as Avery snatches her coat and hat off the coat hanger, rushing out the door.

"So, are we going to do this?" Jayme asks as he finishes making his tea and once he knows Avery is out of earshot.

"Uh-huh," Cassidy sighs, pulling a sweatshirt off the back of Avery's desk chair while Jayme pours his freshly brewed tea into a travel mug that was sitting on the counter.

"Let's go, then."

"James?" Cassidy calls, after she and Jayme had made their way to his apartment complex only a couple blocks from Avery's and knocked on his front door.

"I don't think he's home," Jayme says after they'd waited for a bit.

"Do you know anywhere else he could be?" Cassidy leans against James' door, fidgeting with the blue strand of her hair.

"I don't know-" Jayme begins, but is interrupted when James' door swings open, causing Cassidy to almost fall over, but she manages to stay on her feet, quickly tucking her blue hair behind her ear again.

"Hey," James tiredly greets, firmly holding an ice pack to his right temple, which was bleeding slightly.

"Geez, what happened to you?" Jayme asks, concerned.

"What can I do for you two?" James dodges Jayme's question.

"We wanted to ask you about something really quick," Cassidy says.

James sighs, gesturing for them to come in.

"Do you guys want anything? Like water or coffee or..." James offers, limping through his short hallway into his living room with Cassidy and Jayme following behind.

"I think we're okay, thanks," Cassidy says, as she and Jayme take a seat on the couch. The living room had hardly anything in it, just an old couch, a wooden chair that looks like it should be in the kitchen area, and an overpacked bookshelf, with a few stacks of books sitting in front of it that didn't seem to fit.

"So... what did you want to talk about?" James sits down in the wooden chair across from them.

"Oh, yeah. It's... uhm. We know it's still kinda... raw, but we needed to ask you something about Two," Cassidy edges.

James leans back and crosses his arms "I didn't retain any knowledge it had."

"I know you weren't really conscious during it, but do you remember it ever talking about... blue, fluorescent hair, or anything like that?" Jayme asks, trying to sound as nonchalant about it as possible.

James' posture shifts almost instantly from leaned back, arms crossed to leaning forward, with his arms resting on his knees.

"W-What do you mean? Why do you ask?" James sounds more afraid than Cassidy or Jayme have ever heard him.

Without saying a word, Cassidy cautiously pulls the strand of hair from behind her ear, revealing it to James.

"Oh... oh no. Oh no no no no," James' voice trembles as he leaps from his seat and leans towards Cassidy to examine it.

" 'Oh no' what?" Jayme asks, his voice now trembling a bit, too.

James rushes over to his bookshelf, frantically pulling books from it and flipping through them.

"Here!" He exclaims, bringing a heavy book over to them, flipping to a page in the middle of it.

Pachakutiq's Curse, the top of the page reads.

Pachakutiq's Curse, also known as "de vloek van een demon" by ancient Zarians, resides in a mysterious corner of the Leveni Faith.

Based on ancient records, predating the Great War by around a thousand years, the Curse entailed as follows:

The recipient of such a curse must acquire it consensually; they must accept the Curse of their own free will.

The symptoms began 1-6 months after the Curse was received.

Symptoms started with the hair becoming a fluorescent shade of blue, followed shortly by the sclera and iris of the eyes becoming pitch black, and the pupil becoming the same fluorescent blue.

The symptoms following the eyes are unclear, but anywhere between 3 months and a year after the eyes change, the Curse would take over the recipient's body, shutting it down, leading to the death of the recipient.

There is no concrete evidence to support the existence of Pachakutiq's Curse, and thus there are no known cures or treatments for it.

There's more on the page all about the background of the Curse and its other supposed recipients, but Cassidy stops reading after that part. She suddenly feels light headed, her vision hazy, and her hands shaking so violently she could barely push herself off the couch to get to her feet.

"Cassidy?" Jayme whispers, but her heart was pounding in her ears so loudly she couldn't hear him. She rushes back through the hallway and out James' door, stumbling to the ground once she was outside, curling into a ball with her head between her knees and her hands pressed into the back of her neck.

"un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept... " she softly counts to herself in French, a trick her old therapist taught her to control her rampant breathing.

No, no, no, no, no.

This can't-

I was ready 70 years ago but I'm not anymore.

Please, no.