A Dragon's Remembrance

5 - Kris

8:30 a.m.

I didn't find Rodan laying down next to me when I woke up. Reaching over to grab my phone, I checked the time, my emails, and found a good morning text from Rodan.

Rodan <3: Good morning Kris <3 I'm upstairs watching the house while Kadron sleeps. Breakfast is up here when you're ready! Love you!

I smiled before getting off the bed, stretching, and realizing that at some point in the night, I had lost my shirt.

Sighing, I searched the room for it. Instead of my lost shirt, I found some sort of shadow thing in the corner with bright white eyes.

"Who are you?" I asked out, not exactly expecting a response.

The shadow thing only stared at me. Whatever this was, I didn't like it. It was unsettling, and definitely did not belong here.

"I said, who are you?" I moved closer to it, hoping I could intimidate it into speaking, or at least scare it away.

It seemed to have worked because the shadow, which I now saw was more of a mist or fog, shrank down into the corner, before shifting and changing.

Soon enough, a figure, even paler than Rodan, stood in front of me. Its eyes were a silvery white, with no pupils, and its hair, a long, dark brown, was pulled into a low ponytail like I used to do mine before I cut it.

Then it spoke, in a tone so low and smooth it bordered on unsettling.

"My name is Devnox. And who might you be?"

"I'm the one asking the questions. Now what are you doing here?" My anger was boiling. No matter who this person was, they didn't belong here. Not here, or anywhere near my friends.

Devnox laughed. I was a warm laugh, but something sounded off about it.

"I'm a friend of Rodan and Kadron's. I saw them around town when I first got here, so I followed them back to this house. I haven't seen them since I left Michigan, so I thought I would come visit."

I decided to back away and let Devnox out of the corner. I crossed my arms over my chest, just now realizing I still wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Okay, but just know, I don't trust you."

Devnox looked at me coolly, a knowing smile appearing on that paper white face.

"I know that all too well already."

The sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to the room broke our conversation as we both snapped our heads towards the door.

"Kris, if you're not up yet, I'm gonna have to-"

Rodan froze in the doorway, staring at Devnox. His eyes flashed red before reverting back to blue quickly. He swallowed and blinked a few times, choking out a single word.

"D-Devnox."

"Rodan! It's so good to see you!" Devnox sauntered over to the pale boy, talking excitedly. "It's been too long! How have you been?"

Rodan stood, unmoving, growing paler by the second. His eyes flashed red once again as he moved away from the fast-talking Devnox.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

"What are you doing here?"

I had never heard Rodan speak in such an icy tone. A shiver ran down my spine, but Devnox didn't seem fazed.

"I wanted to see you! I heard Neri talking about you moving away after your incident with that family, so I decided I'd follow her route here. Did you miss me?"

That last question held an edge to it.

Rodan's eyes shifted again.

"I told you to never talk to me again. I told you specifically to never go near me or my family ever again."

My breathing hitched. What the hell happened between these two that left Rodan so on edge?

Devnox feigned hurt before flashing an eerily toothy grin.

"Touchy as always, I see. Why haven't you gotten over this already? It happened over a year ago. I thought by now you'd want to come back to the one person that understands you."

"You mean the one person that isolated me from my friends and family and tried to convince me that I could only trust him? Oh, yeah. I definitely want to go back into that kind of relationship."

The tension in the room couldn't be cut with the sharpest sword in the world.

This... was bad.