Hocus Pocus (rewritten)

Cha. 4. The Girl

(Marvin's pov)

The girl in Anti's clutches is battered and bruised. Her nose has a trail of dry blood running down to her lip and there's a claw mark swiped across her cheek, drizzling live blood down her face, down her neck and into her hair. Her left arm is mangled, in contrast her sleeve is drenched in a crimson red...
The same red that's smeared onto Anti's hands.

Anti's pale-green face hold no emotion, being dimly lit by his sharp eyes.

The demon skims everyone's horrified gaze with a bitter taste, upholding an emptiness in his eyes that's shielding his true intentions.

Nobody dares to move, not knowing what else to do. Nobody can accurately pinpoint the situation to give an accurate response. So everyone remains motionless, including me.

Never in my life have I needed to plan for something such as this...

Anti doesn't have a weapon with him... no knives, no guns... no anything... just a body.

A cold lifeless body...

Before anybody could make a move, Seán slowly rises from the couch.
His slowness and carefulness mirroring the behaviour of being trapped in front of a carnivorous animal, not making any sudden sounds, besides the creak of the floorboards shifting under him.

Seán stands motionless, slightly waving side to side from the intense smell of gore. His face scrunching into one of anger and sadness...

He takes a shaky breath in, staring at Anti with fear and hurt swarming in his eyes. Everyone watching in complete silence. "...W-What t-the fuck is that!" Seán cries, his voice cracking through his teeth. Tears beginning to swallow his vision.
He knows what it is... We all do...
But like the rest of us... he's praying to the gods it isn't...

Anti looks down at the corpse, dangling in his arms like a rag roll. "...A human?" His voice glitches, perking his eyes up without lifting his head, looking over his cloudy eyes with an unreadable motive.

The silence is unbearable. If a pin dropped everyone would hear it like a church bell.

Then... I start to hear wheezing...

The struggle for breath.

In...and out.

In...and out.

I flick my eyes down to the body to see the human's chest slowly rising and falling in Anti's arms.

She's alive!?

The information seems to lock in with everyone too, when I glance back at everyone they're all wide eyed and confused.

Jackie clenches his fists and raises to his feet dangerously slow, his hero instincts kicking into full drive now.

Henrik quickly grabs Jackie by the hood and holds him tightly down by his side, draping an arm around him and murmuring 'it's gonna be okay' over and over again to the hero and Robbie, who's trembling in his other arm.

Chase is standing in front of JJ and Seán, beside Henrik, keeping a grip on Jackie too. Jackie could easily shake them off and take on Anti, but even he knows there's people here who can't defend themselves against a demon.

All while I feel like a bug trapped between two magnets, about to be crushed by two forces that if they collide... it's going to be difficult to break them apart without someone getting killed...

Henrik steps forward and clears his throat with a glare that could kill, getting Anti's reluctant attention.
"...vwhy do you have a half d-dead p-person vwith you?" Henrik asks firmly but stutters, fiddling with the buttons on his lab coat as he shields Robbie behind him, while Jackie remains squatted on the ground.