3:45 pm September 12th 2019
The Association HQ
Sai stares at the scared girl in the glass frame. Her brown eyes look even bigger bordered by her pale face and the bright blue hair hanging like dead vines. She appears nothing like the girl she was not two days ago. She looks so lifeless.
Sadly she undoes the braid her mother had done the day before and brushes her hair. She should look presentable when she sees her parents for the last time. She doesn't want to worry them from wherever they may be.
Oda had requested for a white dress to be sewn for her urgently and it lay on her bed. It was a pretty thing, knee-length with a ribbon to tie at her waist. She slipped into it silently and knotted the bow as well as she could. Standing in front of the mirror again, she tries to smile- to show her parents that she's okay.
The girl in the mirror just stares at her blankly, her hair much too bright for such a solemn occasion.
Sai brings a pair of scissors to her hair and with a little prayer, she cuts it off.
"We are here today to honour two of the greatest Hunters that ever walked the corridors of the Association; Nicholas Osama and Elise Frau."
Sai stood the closest to her parents' caskets, so glad that the lids were replaced and she didn't have to see their limp forms. Tears prick at the back of her eyes and she struggles to keep them at bay.
The sky darkens and rumbles, a cold chill settling on the mourners. Sai recognised several of them from the training session earlier that morning and some other much older faces paying their respects to their seniors. Surprisingly there were a few female Hunters as well, scattered among the attendees.
The caskets are lowered into the gaping hole in the floor and the earth is replaced over it. Sai places a bouquet that she had arranged earlier on the mound of dirt and kneels.
"Thank you for looking after me, mama and dada," she says quietly. "I love you both so much."
6:10 pm September 12th 2019
The Osama House
There was still a faint chill in the Osama house, even after over a day had passed since the Daemon attack. Sai enters her parents' bedroom cautiously, the sight of the splintered wardrobe door bringing memories that she would rather leave behind. She kneels and checks under the bed for her parents' weapon storage but there's nothing. She then remembers her mother took it to the kitchen.
Sai came back to her home, accompanied by Oda and a few other Veteran Hunters, to collect her belongings. She has already packed up all her clothes and some of her parents' too, they lay at the entrance in a lonely cardboard box.
She turns to go to the kitchen when she notices a drawer that's slightly open in her parents' dresser. Curiously, she pulls open the drawer and finds a leather-covered book. Keeping the book close to her, she walks to the kitchen to look for her father's longsword, Oda close behind her.
The longsword lay on the tiled floor, a melted mess, leaving only the hilt untouched. Oda squats and inspects it closely.
"Mama stabbed the Daemon with that," she says softly. Never has stabbing an Upper-grade Daemon done that to a sword before.
"It's definitely a High Daemon," Oda hisses.
Sai merely picks up the desolate hilt and leaves the kitchen. She feels the chill of the house getting colder, and the memories of the day before threaten to come flooding into her if she doesn't leave soon.
"Please, let's leave soon," she pleads to Oda who agrees. What she doesn't know is that one of the Veteran Hunters sensed Daemonic energy spiking up again.
8:24 pm September 12th 2019
Dormitory, The Association HQ
Sai lays sideways on her bed, watching the stars through her window. The box of belongings from the Osama house sits untouched on the dresser by the mirror and her uniform still lay discarded on the wooden floor.
She hasn't changed out of her funeral attire, feeling much too sad to go through her old things right after coming back. She tries to sleep, closing her eyes when her scar burns. She hurriedly gets out of bed and runs to the infirmary, but when she opens her room door, there's nothing but vast blackness.
"Sai," a voice drifts from the depths of that darkness. A cold voice that she has heard before, One that brings back the face of a murderer. "It's almost time, my dear..."
YOU ARE READING
Marked by Daemons
ParanormalSai Osama's parents were murdered at their house when she was fifteen. The murderer? A thousand-year-old High Daemon, unlike anything the Association has dealt with before. Not since High Daemons were eradicated decades ago. What's more? Sai has bee...
