They Called Me FIVE

LANCE

It's not me who's crazy. It was them. All three of them. They could've warned me when they've been planning for a two storey feet dive to the ground. Or the spot where we'll land is actually a horde of rats and cockroaches sharing the basement together.

We crash right into an old battered king size bed. The sheet has been chewed off by rats and something is crawling under our butts. I did my best not to scream. I already overwork my voice when we fell.

Magnus was immediately on his feet. Sam is promptly tuck on his right shoulder. He's swinging and carrying him like he's used to running and escaping crazy horde of monsters while lifting someone on his shoulders. 

I find that amazing. I looked down at my hands. My thoughts traveled to my stomach. Trying to discern some weird alien energy flowing in my veins. 

"Hey, what are you closing your eyes for? Let's go." Alpha Beast pulled me on my feet. It took three seconds before I recognize him. He's copying a face of one of the skully warriors. The very one I sometimes see kicking and barking orders to his men.

"Your new face is horrible." I said. 

"Nothing feels so horrible than your face." Alpha Beast countered. I was about to say something back when Seven nudged me forward. 

"Fights later. Let's escape first." 

"Sorry," I let her push me until we're right in Magnus's heel. The basement was dank and dark. The walls have moss growing all over it. The rats is squeaking in our feet. Scuttling with their little feets and rambling how we disturb their peaceful afternoon bedtime. 

Cockroaches got it worst. I realized it was them crawling under our butts earlier. And they were pissed by it. I counted twenty or twenty five buzzing in the air. Flapping their wings and landing on our bodies. 

The old me would ran and try to kill each one in disgust. But my cell was far worse back in the Faery hole. At night, I would fight with other rats as big as cats for my blankets. They try to chew on them while I'm sleeping. 

So cockroaches buzzing and sliding in my clothes was not a big deal. 

Magnus guided as to the back door. A big cabinet block our way and he open it slowly. Careful of what's lying in the other side. We waited. The rafter in our left are filled with cobwebs. The smell of mildew and wet stones reaches my nose. 

What's inside is something I didn't expect. I initially thought the door is beyond the backless cabinet. It wasn't. Because it was just a normal cabinet. No exit, no clothes, just plain old wood eaten away by termites.

"What are we doing here?" I hissed. Magnus ignored me. It was Seven who answered. 

"We can't actually leave the building. Not unless we break the weapon that was used to kill Two's father." 

I froze. "Why? Does it have to do anything with blood hogs marking Two?" Magnus turned around to look at me.

"Yep, Blood hogs usually attached powers through knives, hammers, axe, or anything that they use to kill the parents –"

"But Sam said the Blood hog sank his teeth off to his father's neck." 

Magnus shrugged. "That won't kill a human. Injure them probably. But no. Blood hogs will only use physical weapons to torture the victim, savoring the pleasure of watching the children trembled in terror at the grotesque scene." 

He turned his back to us. "I can feel its here somewhere. Help me look." Alpha Beast melted his skully warrior body suit and wriggled out to his parrot form. He flapped his wings and peck his nose at the walls. Knocking them, listening intently at the sound, whether it echoes or not.

"Blood hogs are nasty creatures," Now Magnus is repeating the words of the skully warriors I heard outside of my cell. 

"They were known to prey children back in magical realm. Killing and eating the limbs of parents as they tie children on chairs. Knives are usually struck at the heart, then they leave the knife in the children's hand. That's how they were haunted. The nightmares, the hallucinations, no matter how many times they threw the knife it keeps coming back. They can't leave the house either. They'll just come back in the doorsteps everytime they tried." Magnus sighed. 

Seven beside me turned silent. The sounds were drowned by the tight atmosphere hovering around us. Deadly, I don't know if its right to speak. Magnus is narrating it with such tightness in his voice I suspect he have witnessed it happening many times before. 

Seven, on the other hand, is currently lost in her thoughts. Her eyes were glassy, her complexion pale and she's sweating cold I don't know if I should shook her off from her trance. 

It was Alpha Beast who break the silence. "Found it." 

Magnus raced inside the cabinet, his foot creak the old wood I'm afraid he'll break it apart by just jumping once. 

"Where?" his voice came out as a croak. Alpha Beast directed him to the farthest right corner, he's trying to scrape off a piece of hollowblock slanted against the wall. Magnus took it out. 

There's a small hole inside. Seven looked at me, tugging on my sleeves she said, "Get in. I'll stand guard in here."

"But –"

"Just go. Two needs you through this. It was you who he opened up to. Not Magnus. If breaking the curse will fail, it will be the end of him. So, go." 

A strange feeling swelled up in my chest. With a smiling nod, I patted Seven's shoulder and joined Magnus. He managed to uncover a plastic wrapped object from the hole. Elongated and a bit slanted at the tip.

This is what we're looking for.  Magnus eyed it apprehensively. Alpha Beast urged him to unwrap the plastic. I waited. We waited. I swallowed down the feeling that things might go wrong with this. 

Knowing it won't be. Guess I just don't have a clue.