It was very late, nearly 2 AM.

Christian laid down in his bed and stared at his phone above a newspaper on the bedside table.

Samantha's case has been over the record and it's really disturbing. Lots of fake news keeps popping out of nowhere and he became one of the media targets since he's one of Samantha's closest friends.

At this point, Christian wasn't entirely certain if he'd say something to at least defend his friend or remain silent and avoid everything. He can't seem to trust the media's intention to clear Samantha's name regarding the issue about her being related to demons. Kathleen has been gone for three days and those nights of her absent, he's been suffering from insomnia.

Something just kept on bothering him. He feels like he's not alone. He could feel eyes staring through his soul ever since Kathleen left. Christian shook the thought off and tried falling asleep but minutes past and he only felt more awake. He turned to his side and looked out the window.

He blinked a couple of times as his eyes slowly focused on the two street lights outside. As him being a near-sighted geek, he still needs his glasses to make out the image of the street lights which he doesn't remembered being there.

All of the sudden, he felt his eyes getting heavy. Soon enough, he fell asleep.

He woke up the next morning feeling exhausted. He sighed and slowly pushed himself up with one hand when he felt a stinging pain on his back.

He paused for a moment, trying to feel the pain to its extent until it slowly feels bearable. He turned to look at the window and his brows raised when he didn't see anything outside.

The street lights weren't there. He took his glasses above the bedside table, wore it, and went back to the window. His brows met when he confirmed his confusion.

Nothing's really there.

His expression changed and twisted when he looked at the window glass and found claw marks as if something was piercing there.

Chills ran through his spine but he chose to shrug the thought away. He must be just imagining things last night. He decided to go the kitchen to drink a glass of milk when he heard a strange noise.

It was thin, scraping-like sound coming from a distance. Confused, he traced his way back and finally found the source. Someone had slipped a small note from underneath his bed.

"What in the..." He muttered, managing to look elated and slowly approached the note. He bent over to take it and found only two words written in a messed-up penmanship.

"Get out!"

He groaned and his body began to tremble when he felt as though someone had scratched him in the back and had to lean against the nearest wall for support. He reached a hand and winced when he felt his flesh being lacerated.

Taking his shirt off, he ran towards the bathroom to check it out and froze in horror to what he saw.

"W-what the hell is this?!"

"Hey!"

"Holy fu-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Christian screamed and immediately pressed his back against the wall.

Kaiser giggled, amused of his reaction. "I've been ringing the doorbell for countless of times, bro, but no one's answering. Besides, you left the door open so, I invited myself in. If you don't mind."

Christian's brows met. I just woke up, he realized. How's the door open? The horrified look of his face sent confusion to his friend. He felt cold sweat trickling from his forehead down to his cheeks.

"What happened to you? Have you had nightmares? It looks like you need a glass of water." Kaiser turned against his heel and walked towards the dining.

Christian swilled and was about to look at his back once more when he remembered the piece of paper which he no longer has. He must have thrown it somewhere when he rushed in.

"HEY! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT SOMETHING?" James shouted, placing three rolls of newspaper on the center table.

Christian scrubbed a hand through his face as wind snapped his cheeks, from the window, around his legs, lifting strands of his hair.

"If that is about Samantha's case, please not now." He intoned, grabbing a bathrobe from the bathroom cabinet.

"Why?" Kaiser's brows drew down as he watched Christian walk his way towards the couch in front of him.

He sat down and sighed. Kaiser waited for his expression to turn into a polite interest but it didn't.

"I've been avoiding this issue, Kaiser. So, please."

"Are you hearing yourself, bro?" Kaiser scoffed. "This is Samantha we are talking about. Your friend, my friend, your girlfriend's best friend! How can you not care?"

"I-It's not that I don't care but..."

"Where are Kathleen and Scott? They are together, right? Looking for her? Why didn't you tell Kim and Junel? At least we'll know where to find him. He's not answering our calls. Jess needs him, now that she's about to give birth."

Christian drew in a deep breath and then started swearing in Bisaya, a widely spoken dialect in the Philippines.

"Yawa man diay ka! If you only came here for that then you're worse than me. Stop caring about Samantha when you care much about that other woman! And as if I know, Scott went to find Samantha because of his conscience-oh, no! I forgot; he doesn't have one. He just wanted to make his image a bit pleasing because of these."

The newspapers scattered on the floor when Christian flicked them over. Kaiser's bit his lip when he realized what he just said.

"I-I'm sorry," he muttered with a broken voice. "I don't really know where to start, Tian. The moment I heard the news about what happened to her and that she's gone, I could no longer sleep soundly at night. Samantha has been always a good friend to me and was always the one who cheers me whenever I feel like giving up. If it wasn't for her, I might have already lost myself."

"I knew..." Kaiser's lips twitched. "Scott and Jess didn't have a clean end. They didn't really break up. It's just one day, she left. Scott never got his eyes around women since then. He's too in love with her until he met Sam. He was hoping she could fill up the missing pieces Jess took when she left and she did, or so he thought. Because when she came back, I saw that happiness in his eyes once again: the happiness I only saw when he's with Jess."

"Did he even love Sam?"

"At the very least, yes. She's been his savior and he became a better version of himself because of her."

"Then you're wrong. He must haven't realize this himself but maybe Samantha was just too good for his ego. You know what kind of person he is and having a smart, independent and well-mannered woman beside him makes him feel like he can do anything and everything."

"We don't know what's really going on inside that jerk's brain."

"I don't wanna know either. I really don't care about him anymore. All I know is he's a good-for-nothing jerk who loves playing around with someone else's feelings."

"What do you mean?" Kaiser's brows met.

"Some of his ex-girlfriends contacted me after knowing what he did to Sam. Even the mother of his daughter confirmed that he ran away when he got her pregnant and didn't even show up when she gave birth. He must be taking this incident as a huge opportunity so he could escape his responsibilities to Jess."

Christian saw the acceptance in Kaiser's face as though he's already aware of it and frowned.

"Anyway, I really need you to know about this, so please listen," he bent over and took one of the newspapers on the floor and opened it in a wide spread.

"You're aware of this, aren't you?" Christian's heartbeat picked up an abnormal rhythm and scratch his head.

"Get real, Kaiser!"

"I am being real--I mean; the evidences do. Are you not reading the internet? Lots of spiritualist confirmed the demonic events behind Samantha's case."

"And you believe those bullshits?!" Christian hissed.

"They are no bullshit!" Kaiser insisted, slamming a hand against the center table. "Samantha is taken by a demon. How do you explain those black marks? Look at this!" He took his phone out and hovered over his screen. He then flashed an image of black foot prints with an article explaining what it was.

"A mark from a black miasma of a soul-eating demon..." Christian muttered the last sentence as his mouth thinned into an obstinate line. "It doesn't add anything up!"

"What do I do to make you believe me?" Kaiser groaned in frustration.

"Nothing."

Christian swallowed as his eyes slipped behind Kaiser to where a long-haired woman is grinning at him in the most horrifying way.

Her faced is deformed as though she fell from a three-storey building and smashed her skull. Fresh blood is dripping from her hollowed head.

She raised a finger and crossed it against her rotting mouth to keep him silent.

"I told you to get out." Her voice echoed.

* * *

The woman sighed, scratching her head in rather amusement or frustration.

"Damn it!" She chuckled, staring at the screen of her laptop. She just opened it and a logo of a bug popped up.

"Who on the motherfucking earth have the god-like skill to hack my account?" She yanked her glasses off her nose.

The screen, in front of her, blurred into unfamiliar shades of colors so she pushed her glasses back on. Her breaths went unsteady as she shove her phone beside her when it rang.

A call from an unknown number. She stared at it for a couple of seconds and was about to answer when the caller hung up. She sighed and shrugged the thought off when it rang again.

This time, she was able to answer, however, remained silent. No one's talking on the other line as well but she could hear deep breaths. She immediately hung the call up and threw her phone on her bed.

"Damn prankters!" She backed over her laptop and hovered her mouse. She tried clicking the X button to close the tab but nothing's happening until a minute pass and take her phone to ring again.

She gasped as she eyed it from a distant. Her eyes wobbled when she seems to realize what is happening.

"Holy shit!"

She turned towards the door of her room and was horrified to see a man on his twenties, of average height, cool body figure, and above average looks. He leered genially down at her. His pose, no doubt, intended to show off his manly physique but she shove it away with the fact that the guy just barge into her house.

"W-who the heck are you?" She stuttered and swiftly reached onto something she could use for self-defense, apparently, she has chosen something she could not use at all-a pillow.

"Chill, woman! I'm not gonna hurt you." The guy said, having both hands raised in the air to surrender himself.

"Who are you and h-how did you get in?!" Her voice raised.

"Technology," a smaller guy emerged from the outside of the door and stopped beside his companion.

Slipping on a pair of his expensive chromatic glasses, he extended his hand for a shake.

"I'm Takumi Takahashi and he's Tomoya Fujishima," he shrugged to the guy beside him. "We're here to question you about lot of things."