The Demon's Half

Chapter 1

The first time I heard the whisper, I told myself it was the wind. The second time, I could've sworn it called my name.

I tilted my head.

It came from the attic—soft, insidious—slithering through the cracks in the ceiling. My pulse quickened, my grip tightening around the knife in my hand. Midnight wrapped around the house like a blanket, the air so dense it felt like the walls were even scared to stand still.

Four days.

That's how long it had been since Mia and I made a mistake we couldn't take back. Since we sat in this very kitchen, hands trembling over the Ouija board, desperate enough to ask the kind of questions that never should be asked.

And now, something was answering.

Shadows moved when they shouldn't. Whispers pressed against the walls. And in the silence, something else listened.

A breath of cold air brushed the nape of my neck. My stomach clenched. I turned —but the kitchen was empty.

It was always empty.

The sound came again. A soft thunk from the attic above. I stared at the ceiling, at the spot where the sound had come from, and reminded myself to breathe.

It's nothing.

But I knew better.

The house had become a battlefield of unseen war. Shelves rattled without warning, dishes shattered midair. Even the air felt hostile, wrong, like we weren't just being watched... but hunted.

And yet, beneath the terror, there was something worse.

Hope.

That foolish, gnawing hope that these weren't just random hauntings. That it was him.

Our father.

Dead. Gone.

But maybe... not entirely.

"What if it's him?" Mia's voice was a whisper, her hands trembling as she clutched the edge of the table. "What if he's trying to tell us something?" Her blue eyes, too big for her thin face, locked onto mine, searching. Begging.

I swallowed hard. I couldn't answer, not then, not now. Because what if it wasn't? What if we hadn't called him back at all?

What if we had invited something else?

I forced myself to move, to do something normal, grounding. The kitchen knife bit into the apple I'd grabbed, its crisp flesh splitting with a sharp crack. I wasn't even hungry. Just needed something to do.

Mia stood and lingered next to the fridge, her hands twisting together.

"Morgan, we should try again," she said.

I stopped slicing. "Try what?" I asked, though I already knew.

She hesitated, then lifted her chin. "The board."

I exhaled slowly, setting the knife down with more force than necessary. "Right. Because inviting more spirits to wreck the place is such a great idea." I tried for humor, but it landed wrong.

She shrugged, the corner of her mouth twitching up like she wanted to smile but couldn't quite get there. "If it's him... maybe he has answers."

I didn't reply.

Because what could I say?

That I wasn't sure I wanted answers? That all I really had were complaints? Complaints about the crushing weight our father had left us to bear. About the life he abandoned us to navigate alone.

A thud rattled the house.

Not the dishes. Not the shelves.

The attic.

Mia stiffened, her breathing catching at her throat. The sound wasn't the scurrying of rats or the loose groan of old shingles. It was heavier. Furniture scraping against the floor, like something up there was moving.

A chill seeped into my bones.

We had no furniture in the attic.

It was empty.

I swallowed, forcing my voice to stay level. "It's nothing," I said, the lie sour on my tongue. "Probably just the wind."

"You know it's not," Mia whispered.

And of course she was right.

Laughter bubbled up in my throat, but I refused to let it out. It was absurd, wasn't it? How our house, our lives—our very existence—wobbled on the edge of collapse, one bad day away from breaking completely.

But laughter felt like an indulgence we couldn't afford.

I took the knife again but it slipped from my hand. Clatter. The sound cut through the silence like a gunshot, and Mia flinched.

"You didn't mean it, did you?" she asked suddenly.

My brows pulled together. "Mean what?" I asked as I reached again for the knife.

"What you said before. About... them wanting you dead."

For a moment, I couldn't even remember what she meant.

Then it hit me.

The joke I made that morning. Or—half-joked.

I didn't think she'd been listening. She hadn't responded. But she had heard me.

And the fact that she was bringing it up now...

I was the worst sister in the entire universe.

My eyes locked onto hers, really seeing her. The dark circles beneath her lashes. The way she stood too still, too controlled, like if she moved the wrong way, she'd shatter.

She was holding it together for me.

Just as much as I was for her.

I couldn't let her see how much of me had already crumbled.

"Of course not," I lied, my smile brittle as glass. "We're fine, Mia. We're going to be fine."

The ouija board sat where we'd left it, untouched but watching, like a door we'd cracked open but never truly closed.

It was just a piece of wood. Just letters and numbers.

But it held power.

Or maybe it wasn't the board itself, but what we had poured into it—our grief. Our desperation. Our questions that should've never been asked.

"Once we contact Father, it'll get better," Mia said, her voice trembling with fragile hope.

I nodded. No point in arguing. No point in telling her what I really thought. She was just a kid. She didn't need me to take away her only source of potential happiness.

But as my gaze flickered up the stairs to the attic door, to the shadows curling against it, pulsing like a second heartbeat, I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't just searching for answers anymore.

We were being haunted by them.

The cold air brushed my neck again, but this time it felt different— almost tender, like a caress.
I shivered, not from fear, but... something else.