Gifted

XI

"How do I look?"

I turned around and inspected my friend. To my surprise, he cleaned up nicely.

"You look fine. Who you trying to impress?" I smirked at him. His face lit up and he turned back around to face the mirror.

"You gotta loosen up Kuri, you'll burst right out of that suit. And why on Earth are you being so formal? It's just dinner." I jumped onto the bed next to Ebi and he went flying upwards and off the side.

"Hey! I'm reading here, stop disturbing the peace!" He shouted. I laughed and apologized.

"Reading? What is it?" He picked the book up off of the floor and handed it to me. I flipped it over and read the title:

"Off Santiago With Sampson?" I said aloud. Suddenly the air became really humid  it became hard to breathe. Ebi and Rafe reacted the same way. I glanced at the direction of the door and a black mist was forming.

"Don't tell me..." I barely managed to get out the words as the air became even more dense. I grabbed my throat and fell off the bed and onto the carpet. The mist became began taking shape and becoming more solid. It was almost impossible to breathe at this point. It felt like I was being smothered by an invisible force. My vision became blurry as the lack of oxygen began to take effect. Ebi was still on the bed but he wasn't moving. Along with Rafe who had collapsed on the other bed and fell off. The black mass shapeshifted a bit and began to take form. My eyes were half-way open and I was about to pass out as the mass took shape.

"Yo, Yukine! Long time no see..." said Sampson. I would have liked to respond, but instead I passed out.

"...hey...yuki...Hey...MR. ZOLDYK!" I sat up in a panic and hit my head on the dresser in between the beds.

"Owww!" I rubbed the top of my head and whimpered. Sampson was in his usual goat head form floating above me.

"What the hell did you do?!" I shouted at him. He looked around the room and sighed. Papers had flown all over the place and the curtains had fell down, revealing Sin City's nighttime cityscape. Beautiful buildings covered in neon lights were scattered all over.

"Well, to put it shortly, it takes a lot of energy for me to manifest in this dimension. Sorry for the inconvenience." he said bluntly.

"INCONVIENIENCE? WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING READY FOR A DINNER AND YOU MADE US SUFFOCATE! PLUS YOU DESTROYED OUR ROOM AND-"

"So, why'd you call me?" he said nonchalantly.

"DONT CHANGE THE SUBJECT YOU FU-" Ebi began to groan from on top of the bed. I quickly stood up and shook him awake. When he stirred awake he looked extremely dazed.

"Wha...big brother, what happened?" he asked slowly. His gaze shifted from me to Sampson. He stared at him for a second, confused. 2 seconds later his eyes went wide and he shrieked. He backed away quickly and almost fell off the bed.

"B-big brother! T-theres a g-goat!" he reacted with insane speed and hid under the covers.

"Huh? How can he see you?" I turned around and raised an eyebrow at Sampson.

"I am no regular Ayakashi boy! Do not underestimate me. An intimidating being such as myself wont simply be ignored." he replied with nothing but arrogance. My eye twitched a little.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. Why do you mimic the Devil?" I asked.

"Ha! For the fear of course! I reside in very religious places and use the fear of the Neutrals as my power source!" he boomed.

"So you scare little kids to boost your ego?"

"What?!"

"Never mind that. Look, I didn't mean to call you. Ebi over here was reading a book and it happened to have your name in it." I looked around for the book and found it under the dresser. I fished it out and showed it to him.