Virgin Sins | Harry Styles

The Only Evil Ones Are Us

There was a store that was wedged between two taller buildings, it looked squeezed, as if the neighbours were closing in slowly. The sign was old, some letters had become illegible in the peeling paint and the windows were dirty, the frightening artifacts on display were clearly antique. There was no theme to them or colour coordination and they were crammed together messily rather than artistically arranged.

He pushed the door open and a bell rang. The building was far longer than it was wide, almost a corridor with shelving spanning both sides. The tall bookshelves that framed the walls, had a slight layer of dust coating the wood and it seemed as though the place had been completely abandoned. But, there the woman stood, a wooden cane in her hand, awaiting his arrival.

He made his way to the elder and they cut right to the chase. They spoke in hushed voices as if they were scared someone would hear them. She told him everything over again, like she had not so long ago. Her words began to map themselves out on an invisible spreadsheet in his mind.

He wanted to know everything, he wanted to change everything.

A gun sat heavy in his belt holster and when his hand clasped it, he felt the cool metal that brought a sense of sovereignty. He wanted to kill and he had all the tools he required to do it.

But before he arms himself for the beginning of the apocalypse, he desired to understand how to end it.

"How do we kill him?" Zayn asked and the old, brittle lady who owned Dornwhich's Alternative Spirituality and Demonology library, sighed as she gripped her cane tightly.

"You need to take away it's only reason for living."

***

Nina can't really remember just how she got home. She only remembers being dropped off alongside her ashamed Grandmother by Zayn, who promised to be back shortly. The memory was blurred, and Nina doesn't know if that was due to the heavy rainfall or her salty tears.

She does though, remember Zayn's words perfectly. They replayed over and over in the back of her mind like a broken record player, scratching and etching their words all throughout her mind and even onto her skin. And, they hurt, Everything hurts.

She knew just what she had to do. She just didn't know what the demon would require for her life in return. Or if he would even consider her offer.

A piano could be heard as it played darkly and slowly, carrying it's rhythm from the downstairs office, and up all the way to Nina's room. Grandmother Mary secluded herself away once again. She couldn't bare to look at Nina, and Nina refused to ever look into her pale grey eyes ever again.

The girl sat on the edge of her bed. She still was wearing her blue raincoat and dirty shoes, not bothering to get changed or brush out the tangled knots in her long hair. All she could do is sit and cry as she stared outside her bedroom window, and if she wasn't doing that, she was gnawing at the insides of her mouth nervously. She felt like she was being watched and it terrified her to the core.

She started to taste the metallic of blood.

Her legs began to bounce nervously as her tear stains began to dry up. Nina worried and she wondered just where Grayson was. She had texted him a while before but he had yet to respond. She needed her brother the most she had ever needed him.

Grayson was her safety and her shelter when any storm hits. Being his sister in her life, Nina owed Grayson more than she could ever give. There had always been some unmentioned tie to the siblings. Maybe it was because of the absence of their parents, or the abandoned shell of their Grandmother who was never mentally there to raise them.