Of friends and fears

*This story is underneath my folder called “The Laurence family’s deepest woes”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33[2]”. Enjoy!*

Chapter One-Where’s the way out?

The sun was setting down into that of near afternoon, almost night. Asher and Paige still hadn’t made any progress with finding her family. Paige didn’t know which direction to take to get back to her house. Asher tried holding her while he flew, trying to see if she would be able to spot her house from his place in the sky, but no matter how high he got, he couldn’t get a view of the neighborhood. Only trees, all cluttered together.

It got to a point where they both wondered if they were doing something wrong, if they weren’t paying attention enough to their surroundings. There had to be some way out, it wasn’t completely hopeless.

But it was getting late and the thirteen year olds wouldn’t be able to think clearly if they didn’t rest.

It wasn’t like they wanted to stop, though. Thirteen years old they may be, but Asher was a demon, and Paige a witch. Wouldn’t that make them less helpless than the average teenager? Wouldn’t they have the advantage?

Asher wished that he could help Paige like how he helped his family, Paige wished that she had spent more time in the local woods so that she would be able to find her house.

Both sat slumped on the same tree trunk, tired, hungry, and wondering how long they could survive in the woods with just the two of them.

That was, until they heard metallic clanking and clacking in the distance.

Chapter Two-A glimmer in the gloom

“Somebody else is here.” Asher said softly, afraid to speak too loudly. He didn’t know yet if whoever was there was good or bad, but either way, he didn’t want to alert them.

“Maybe they can help us. Maybe they know their way around the woods.” Paige said. Though her voice was as worn as his, there was an air of hope to it, an air of optimism.

Asher smiled a little in spite of himself. She could be right. Whoever was out there could help them. It was odd that there were metallic noises, but maybe there was a good reason for it. He really, really wanted to give up, but he wasn’t quite ready for it. Giving up didn’t help him defeat Dad and Aunt Eleanor, giving up didn’t help him save Mom, Rosalyn, and all of the victims of Dad. Fighting did. Doing his best did. Rising up to the challenge did.

So, Asher got up from the ground and said to Paige:

“Let’s see what they’re all about.”

Chapter Three-Contact from beyond

They both followed the metallic sounds until they saw somebody digging a wide, deep hole into the ground. The somebody in question looked like a man with mottled, rotted gray skin dressed in dusky-colored clothes, with stitched lips and light gray snake eyes. His clawed hands gripped the shovel handle tightly as he dug.

“He could be different, like us.” Paige whispered, as though she didn’t want the man to hear them just yet.

Yes, the way he looked could very well mean that he wasn’t a regular human, but that one similarity didn’t mean that they could put their full trust in him. They had to talk to him, they had to learn more.

“Yes, but what is he digging up? We can’t make any judgements until we start talking to him.” Asher replied back in a similar manner.

“I know. I’m just making a statement.” Paige said.

He had an idea that what she said was just a statement, but he felt like bringing up his point just so that that they could both be reminded to be careful, to be wary, to be safe.

With that in mind, Asher said to the man:

“Excuse me if this sounds weird, but me and my friend here, Paige, we’re lost. I tried flying up in the sky before to see if I could find a neighborhood or any houses, but I saw nothing but trees. I don’t know if we’re missing something or anything like that but we’d really appreciate your help.” Asher said, hoping that he made enough sense, that his words weren’t all ramble.

The man stopped digging and turned around to face him. Asher had already seen a side profile of his face when he was digging, but to come face to face with those stitched lips brought a cold prickle of fear up Asher’s spine, a thought that asked: What happened to him?

“You’re a demon and you…I suppose you’re not normal either. Or else you wouldn’t be here right now.” The man “said” in a rasping voice that didn’t sound like he was quite talking, like his words hadn’t been used in a while and were echoing throughout the woods, turning towards Paige.

Asher had never heard a voice like that, a voice that wasn’t quite there. Could it be that the man spoke like that because of his stitched lips?

“Yes, I’m a witch. But what does that have to do with anything?” Paige asked, her eyebrows creased over her black-brown eyes in confusion.

The man sighed-well, as much as he could sigh, with his stitched lips-and set the shovel on the ground next to him, turning around to face them both.

“There’s a part in these woods that no ordinary human could ever possibly go to. It’s blocked off from them, completely hidden. It only attracts the dead and the monsters. It’s like this because this part is where soul-eating demons reside under the Earth. Their energy is what draws in the different.” The man said.

Soul-eating demons? Did that mean that Asher’s Dad had originally come from right under the ground of the woods? Was he still around? No, no. Asher killed him.

“So it’s like the afterlife?” Paige asked.

“No, not like the afterlife. Those who are here aren’t all dead. It also doesn’t have any punishment or prizes, like the afterlife. You’re both here either because you’re in misery or because you were trying to seek a demon out. It’s either one thing or the other. Or both. I should probably mention that ghosts like me can come here voluntarily, but monsters like you can’t.” The man said.

Great, so it could have very well been Asher’s fault that they were lost. Because his misery drew them to the woods. That wasn’t a pretty thought, but at least it was something.

“I suggest either trying to find the demon you were trying to seek out or coming face to face with whatever causes you misery. That’s your way out. I’m going to have to leave soon. There’s a boy who needs protection and I have to come to him. Now, what’s your name?” The man asked, turning towards Asher.

He had asked the question as though he were merely curious, as though he just wanted to remember Asher’s name, keep a name to a face.

“It’s Asher. Yours?”

“I’m Nicholas. It was nice to meet you both, Asher and Paige. I hope you find your way back home.”Nicholas said.

Nicholas then walked towards a tree and went behind it. Asher checked behind the tree, trying to see if he was behind it, but found nothing. No people, no souls. Nothing. It was like Nicholas had completely disappeared.

“Asher, look!” Paige called out.

Asher turned away from the tree and went up to where Paige stood, looking into the hole that Nicholas dug.

Deep into the hole, there was the body of a man, brown skin all rotted and molding, lips stitched shut, dressed in the same clothes as Nicholas. Save for the more human skin and human eyes, he looked exactly like Nicholas.

“It’s his dead body.” Asher said, feeling his heart sink inside of him, his words floating and echoing around him just like the words of Nicholas.

Again, what happened to him?

Chapter Four-It’s all wrong

Asher and Paige set out to find a way to escape, Nicholas’ words still circulating through their minds. Well, Asher didn’t know what Paige was thinking about, but he assumed that she was thinking about what Nicholas said.

“I still don’t understand why we’re both trapped here. I mean, I did feel misery in my past, but I’ve moved past it. I killed my Dad. I saved my Mom and sister. I’ve faced the source of my broken childhood, so how could my misery draw us here? Unless I still somehow haven’t completely made peace with my past. But how? What else am I supposed to do? What-“

“Asher, it could just not be your fault. The more that I think about it, the more that I doubt it was your fault completely. I don’t know much about you personally, but the more that I think about our conversation with Nicholas, the more I don’t think you’re the reason we’re here.” Paige said.

Why would she say that? To be nice? Should he tell her anything about what happened to him? It seemed like the fair thing to do, so that they could get to know each other more, but would it be necessary? Would she want to hear it?

Maybe her opinion would change after he told her about his life. Maybe she’d see him as a monster. Maybe she’d try to find her family herself. He’d be fine with it if he didn’t think that she would get even more lost than she already was, if he didn’t think that she wouldn’t be able to find a way out.

But he wanted to tell her more about himself. She seemed nice enough and it’d feel awkward to walk with her when they didn’t know each other well. He didn’t want to forget her, he wanted to remember her beyond her blond hair and black-brown eyes, he wanted to remember what her soul was like.

Would she want to remember more of him too? What did she think of him? Did she think that he was sweet? Did-

Yet another noise sounded off in the distance, but it sounded more like a tree trunk was being hacked away.

What else was in the woods?

Chapter Five-No time to talk, there’s a soul to save

Just like before, they followed the noise until they found the source of said noise.

Right in front of them both was a small puppet girl in a pink dress that had a white apron. She wore a pink bow atop her head of curly black hair and slashed a tree with a knife, the puppet strings that were attached to her arms doing nothing to stop her.

Leaning against a tree trunk with his arms crossed was a boy who had gray skin and black eyes that had white snake pupils, dressed in a dark gray long-sleeved shirt, wearing white tights (or very very long socks, Asher wasn’t sure) under ripped jeans, white and gray boots, and a gray ivy cap that had brown buckles atop his long black hair with violently red highlights.

Before Asher could say a word, the puppet girl’s knife was flung out of her hands by the air, the puppet girl’s eyes going wide with bewilderment.

“We’d like to know if there is any way out of here, but I think I’d be a lot more comfortable talking to you if you didn’t have your knife.” Paige said, her voice wavering between fright and assuredness, as though despite being afraid, she still wanted answers.

Asher respected that, but he really, really hoped that she wasn’t making a mistake, that she wasn’t getting herself and Asher on bad terms with a puppet girl with a knife.

“Did…did you do that? Did you fling my knife from my hands?” The puppet girl asked, her voice in between surprise and anger, her eyes wide as she looked at Paige.

“Yes. Unless you have a good explanation for having a knife, I don’t know if I trust you enough. Now, can you please tell us if there’s any way for us to get out of here?” Paige asked.

They had already asked Nicholas that, but would the puppet girl and the long-haired boy provide clearer answers? Most of all, would they want to help after what Paige did?

“For your information, my knife is a defensive weapon! I’m not going to hurt you or anything. And how am I supposed to know how you’re both going to get out of here? I don’t have all the answers, I’m just here to work on my strength! I have to prepare myself to fight her, after all.” The puppet girl said, turning around to retrieve her knife.

Asher and Paige turned around to look at each other, each wondering if they thought the same thing.

Who was the puppet girl talking about?

“Who are you talking about?” Paige asked. Asher said nothing, he only hoped that time wouldn’t be wasted with talking to them, that they wouldn’t have to worry about whoever the puppet girl was preparing to fight, that there was nobody else out there waiting to fight the both of them.

The boy turned to look at them and said calmly, coolly:

“Nobody you have to worry about. We were just training to fight this demon woman who is trying to hurt this little boy. We’re going to go now, we need to kill this woman soon. So, uh…what are your names?”

“I-I’m Paige and this is Asher. But what do you mean? What about a boy? What-“

“Just a boy who needs our help, kind of like how you both needed the help of others. Janina, I think we should go now.”

The puppet girl-Janina-joined the boy’s side. Asher and Paige thought that Janina sounded a little younger, like eight or nine years old, whereas the boy sounded young, but not too young. Probably fourteen or fifteen.

“Kevin, I’m not done practicing my knife slashing skills. Don’t you-“

“You’ve practiced enough, we have to go now.”

“Don’t you tell me what to do!” Janina cried out, leaping towards Kevin with her knife.

But before she could even slash him, Kevin grabbed her hand that held the knife with one claw.

While still holding Janina’s hand, Kevin walked behind a tree, just like Nicholas did.

Asher and Paige checked behind the tree, only to find that both of them were gone.

Chapter Six-Speak your rotted, broken heart out

The near afternoon, almost night sky had faded into night, the pale moon hanging high above the bare trees on the black sky.

Asher and Paige had met some interesting characters, but still, they had no help with getting out of the woods. The night air around them was cool and still.

Asher was amazed that he was still in his semi-human form. He didn’t think that he would be able to keep it on long enough, but he was certainly grateful that it was happening, that he didn’t turn into his full demon form yet.

But that wasn’t the only thing that surprised him.

“The people we just talked to mentioned protecting a boy, just like Nicholas did. This whole talk of protecting someone from an evil force is interesting, isn’t it? It reminds me of why I even live in the woods in the first place…”

Asher stopped, his memories feeling much colder than the night air. Paige had stopped too, looking up at him with her black-brown eyes, her blond hair and pastel clothes looking unnaturally bright under the moonlight, as though she were a whispering, wavering ghost who only wanted to listen.

Well, he wanted to talk to her more. He wanted to be more open with her. There was the chance to say it, but how would he say it? Was he supposed to word it a certain way? How was he supposed to word all of the jumbled, troubled thoughts from his past? How was he supposed to make sense of it?

He pushed aside those bothersome, worrisome thoughts. Nothing was normal anymore, he couldn’t afford to let his past stop him from being himself. He had already dealt with his demons, the final act to put them to rest was to speak of them.

So, he began:

“I…I wasn’t always a demon, you know. I used to be a human who lived in a neighborhood, not in the woods. I liked playing video games, I went to school…but then my Mom got crushed by our TV, I had to grapple with her dead body flattened under a TV for…weeks? Months? I don’t remember how long, I was seven years old then. But anyway, I learn from…my Mom? My older sister? Both, I think…that my Dad was, in fact, an actual, literal, demon. Not only that, but he murdered my Mom and then put a TV over her dead body. Why he didn’t just leave her body on the floor without the TV remains a mystery to me. Was he trying to make her death more upsetting? I don’t know, but it definitely was upsetting to see. Long story short, my Mom is a ghost, my sister is a demon but my Dad only wanted me to become his successor because I’m “his son”, my Aunt Eleanor was in love with him for some reason and they both worked together to steal souls, so I had to fight them both twice, and not only that, but I have to live in a cabin and be homeschooled since I turned into a demon. I can’t go out into the real world because of how I look and even now, this semi-human form might wear off. But at least my childhood friends are witches and I still get to see them. That’s the silver lining.”

Asher stopped to catch his breath, the words having tumbled out of him. Paige’s black-brown eyes were wide and searching, searching for something to say, Asher guessed.

“That’s…that’s a lot.” Paige said.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Asher laughed, the laugh choking his throat. It sounded so insane to say it out loud. It was a relief to talk about it, but how did Paige take it? Did she think any less of him? Did he say it in the wrong way?

“Asher, I-“

A tree in the distance fell.

Chapter Seven-A demon is out for David

Asher and Paige looked at each other in silence, unsure if the noise was worth checking out.

“Every noise that we ran over to only provided eerie words and no help whatsoever. What would make this noise any different?” Paige asked, her voice sounding like she was on the verge of yelling.

“I wouldn’t say that it wasn’t helpful, because we did learn that we were sent here by some kind of energy, but I get what you mean.” Asher said.

He looked off into the distance, then looked back at Paige. Maybe there wouldn’t be any help, but maybe there would be. They wouldn’t know unless they tried.

“Perhaps the third time is a charm.” Asher said, walking towards the sound where he thought the tree fell. It was all silent after that one tree fell, but he thought he remembered where the tree falling noise came from.

He heard Paige following after him.

…………………………………………………………………

After much walking, the both of them found a gray-skinned woman with long, black hair that had purple streaks. Her eyes were red, her teeth were sharp, and her dress and hat were purple, just like the streaks in her hair.

Next to the woman was a gray-skinned girl with long white hair, an iron blindfold over her eyes that dripped black goo. Her dress and bow were a dark-gray color that almost looked black, but not quite. Her scarf was white, as were her boots.

“Is there any way that we can get out of here? We’ve asked around and we still haven’t gotten any answers.” Paige asked, her voice on that on-the-limit edge.

The purple woman looked like she was about to reply, but then the girl with the iron blindfold pulled it off of her face as though it were only made of cloth, revealing large white eyes and exclaiming:

“You’re a monster, like me and Lola! And you…you must be a witch, if you’re with him!”

“Yes, I am, but again, what does that have to do with us getting out of here? That’s exactly what all of the other people said and-“

“You talked to others? What did they look like?” The purple woman-Lola-asked.

Neither Asher nor Paige knew why it’d be important for them to know what the others looked like, but Paige decided to answer them and say:

“One was a gravedigger guy named Nicholas, the other was a puppet girl named Janina, and with the puppet girl was a gray-skinned boy named Kevin. But why do they matter? Why-“

“We know them. They’re our friends. They’ve told you what to do, so use that information. We have to go and protect someone, we only stayed here to train to fight. Now, good luck-“

“That’s what everyone says! Is there a way out? An escape? Can you point us to the nearest one? Can-“

“How are we supposed to know? I’m only here because Lola took me here! The both of you were drawn here. We have to go now, David needs us!” The iron blindfold girl cried out.

At that, Asher felt that it was his moment to say something:

“David…is that the boy’s name? There’s a demon hurting him? I’ve dealt with that before, but I had to do most of the fights myself. He’s lucky to have someone like you guys helping him.”

As he thought about it, he wondered if David was going through something similar to him, if David had the same struggles. Maybe not quite the same, but just about.

Hopefully he wasn’t too young.

“Thank you. That’s really nice to hear. What’s your name? I’m Lux.” Lux beamed.

Lola looked wary about Lux introducing herself to them, Paige looked annoyed, but Asher thought it wouldn’t hurt to talk to them more, so he said:

“I’m Asher, this is Paige. It’s nice to meet you, but-“

Lux and Lola went behind a tree and disappeared.

Chapter Eight-Hurt heroism

Asher turned to look at Paige, upset that they weren’t able to get any information about how to get out of the woods. He thought that talking to Lux and Lola would help them find more concrete information, but there was nothing. It was just the same thing as before. Asher didn’t want to give up just yet, but would they find a way anytime soon? Would they make any progress? He didn’t want to walk around in circles forever.

“I think I know why I’m here.” Paige said, her voice grim, her black-brown eyes dimmed.

“You do?” Asher asked.

“Yes, I do. Remember when you found me a few hours ago and I said that I was teleported here in my sleep?” Paige asked.

Asher nodded. It was only hours ago when he found Paige in the woods, but it felt many, many lifetimes ago. Really, it was amazing, how much time seemed to slog on in the woods, the bare trees with spindly branches seeming to stretch on for eternity.

“Well, my parents have all these books about ghosts, magic, demons, you know name it, and I decided to read one of the books before bed. I then came across a chapter on soul-stealing demons and the more I read it, the more horrified and disgusted I grew of it. So, I tried using my powers to see if I could find a soul-stealing demon and when I did, I tried to kill that soul-stealing demon with my magic, but the demon put me to sleep, and I’m pretty sure that the demon trapped me here. It’s my fault that we can’t find our way out, because I tried to bite off more than I can chew, and now I won’t be able to get out of here. You might have a better chance of escaping if you leave me here, if you run off to go save yourself and sever connections with me, if-“

“Paige, calm down. You tried to kill a real, true monster. This isn’t your fault, you just wanted to do a good thing. Now that I know a bit more about you, I know that the demon you tried to kill is responsible for making this difficult for us. All we have to do is find the demon and kill it.” Asher said.

He hoped that his words comforted her enough, but seeing that Paige was still crying, with a heavy heart, he knew it was not so.

“Find the demon?! We can’t even find our way out! What makes you think we’ll be able to find this demon?!” Paige cried out, tears spilling from her eyes.

It was her family that they were trying to find, her family that Asher was trying to take Paige to. He wanted to help, he wanted to find whatever demon she was trying to kill and kill it himself, but would he find the demon? Would he even find the way out? What was the point of trying? What-

“Asher, help!”

Chapter Nine-Bring out the angel

Asher and Paige turned around and found Lux running towards them, holding a small human boy in her arms. Though she was still wearing the blindfold, Asher could guess that her eyes were just as panicked as her voice.

“You fought demons before, right? Maybe at least once? You’re a monster, right? Can you help David? He’s dead!” Lux said to Asher.

Did she take a liking to him because he said that David was lucky to have monsters protecting him? Lux sounded young, the same age as Asher when he first started to deal with the supernatural, when he was seven years old.

Asher looked at the boy in her arms. He put a claw to David’s heart and felt nothing. David didn’t move, David didn’t open his eyes. His face was round and soft, his body looked like it would splinter and break if not handled carefully. He seemed to be only five years old and yet, Asher could see deep, dark circles that indicated sleepless nights, dark like bruises.

He couldn’t bring David back to life. That would be impossible. Nobody could come back to life, nobody.

But he couldn’t just leave David all broken in her arms and he couldn’t bear to see Lux’s crestfallen face when he told her that David could not be helped.

Paige was still wiping off excess tears, Asher wanted to comfort her, but he also wanted to save David, a little boy he never met, a little boy who had monsters and pain and probably sadness in his life, from what Asher could guess. His heart was racing just as it did many times before, when he had to save people so, so much, when the fear of watching loved ones die haunted his soul.

He’d save David the same way he saved his Mom.

Asher then closed his eyes and imagined David rising out of his body, with wings to fly towards hope, with a halo to keep him conscious, a spectral body that could phase through different points in reality. Sure, he was dead, but that didn’t mean that his soul couldn’t still maintain a form, that he wouldn’t be able to travel from Heaven to Earth and back again. The wings and halo would give him the freedom to choose whether he wanted to pass on or stay in Earth longer, and it wouldn’t make him a lost soul, either.

When Asher felt the last of the energy he was giving to David fade away, he opened his eyes and found that David was a ghostly angel, floating beside a stunned Lux. Asher turned to look at Paige to see her reaction, but she wasn’t looking at David and Lux.

She was looking at him.

“You’ve…you’ve changed.” Paige gasped. She didn’t seem afraid, just astonished.

Asher looked down at himself to see what she meant and sure enough, what little human traits he had disappeared. He was back to his true gray, hulking demon self. It was bound to happen, but he didn’t expect to happen right at that moment.

Paige wasn’t scared of him, though. Why would she be scared, when she was a witch and attempting to kill a demon? It didn’t seem plausible and yet he still thought that she’d look at him with terrified eyes at the sight of what he really was. Would being a demon always haunt the innermost corners of his entire being like the desire to eat flesh, like the fear of one day eating humans? He wasn’t anything like Dad, but that didn’t stop the rattled, clawing thoughts from racing around his head, the sheer horror of resorting to eating humans taunting his mind. Even eating animals still felt evil, like-

The ground shook and rattled with the force of an Earthquake, just like the thoughts that kept him from sleeping every night.

Chapter Ten-We’re nothing if we don’t work together

From out of the shadows, there came a hunching horned woman with deep gray skin, her eyes pure white, so white that they looked like they wanted to snuff out all light and her smile was a row of jagged, pointed white teeth, dusted with bits of blood. She wore a blue turtleneck, a brown belt that held up gray pants, and tall brown boots. Her clothes were so incredibly ordinary that it looked wrong on her as she ran towards them at incomprehensibly lightning-fast speed.

Asher was just about to go deep into his mind to tap into his powers, but just when the demon-woman was mere inches from them, she stopped.

She looked them over, clicking her teeth together as though she were laughing at them. Asher’s heart raced in his chest, the feeling all too similar to when he faced Dad and so, he squeezed Paige’s hand reassuringly, making sure not to squeeze too hard because of his claws, letting her know that he’d do what he could to make sure the demon woman wouldn’t hurt anybody. He was used to saving people and he especially didn’t want the ghost-like Paige to be harmed, not after all she went through with being trapped in the woods.

The demon-woman’s gaze set on David and then, she said in a hissing voice that seemed to echo just like Nicholas’ did, except it came with a headache whenever she spoke:

“So you’re here, David. Well, don’t make this hard on me. Come and take my claw.”

The demon-woman extended a claw out towards David, her white eyes flashing with hunger. David hid behind Lux, who had a claw on David’s back as though she were determined to not give him up to her. Asher felt a lump form in his throat as he thought about how Dad did the same thing to him, except he wanted Asher to rule with him, whereas the demon-woman looked like she wanted to eat David.

“I’m not coming with you, Lacrette. I don’t want to go…and where are my friends?” David asked, his voice on the edge of fully breaking out into tears, just like Paige and Asher when they were both trying their hardest to keep their composure in the woods.

The demon-woman-Lacrette-cackled, a grating, nails-on-chalkboard sound as she replied with:

“Oh, your monster friends? Don’t worry, they’re not dead. I just beat them when they tried to fight me. But what does it matter? You’re going to come with me.”

Asher bit down on his tongue, biting back all of the spiked words that he wanted to say. The nerve Lacrette had to think that she could force David to come with her, to make him think that he had no choice. There was always a choice and he’d make sure that David’s soul wouldn’t wither away at the claws of a demon.

David vehemently shook his head no while Lacrette seemed to smile wider, if that was even possible, and said:

“Well then, I’ll just have to deal with your other friends.”

Lacrette flexed her claws as though she were eager to slice through skin and bone, so Asher and Lux prepared their own claws for a battle.

Asher and Lux both struck at Lacrette with their claws, but Lacrette caught one claw of theirs each with both of hers, so they tried to use their free claws to break her, but goodness, she was holding onto them so hard that they both found it difficult to use the claws that weren’t held by her. They couldn’t break free, for she held on tight as though her claws were glued to theirs.

Asher tried reaching deep inside of himself to use his powers, but everything in his mind was all addled and mixed up into a mess, as though something was blocking him, trying to stop him-Lacrette? Was Lacrette blocking him from his powers? Was she doing that to Lux too, if she had any other powers?

“Nice claws, kids! But alas, I have far more experience than you, and thus, you are powerless against me.” Lacrette smiled.

But that wasn’t the case with his Dad, who surely had more experience than Asher. Maybe it had something to do with strength or even something deeper with Lacrette.

Either way, Asher couldn’t do much against her, which made him feel wrong. Guilty, even. Sure, it wasn’t his fault, but it still hurt, because the fate of others were at stake, nobody wanted to be trapped in the woods, nobody-

White-purple light flowed out of Paige’s hands, encircling around Lacrette’s legs. Lacrette seemed to twitch a little from the light, but didn’t let go of Asher and Lux. David watched with anxious eyes, frozen in panic as he watched the scene unfold.

Then, David ran over to Paige and held onto her leg, his eyes squeezed shut as though he couldn’t bear to see what was to come and Paige’s light…it grew more vibrant, Asher swore he could feel heat emanating from the light, and there was a pale, ghostly grey color amidst the white and purple…what was the grey color about? What did it mean? What-

Asher felt Lacrette’s claw set him free, he saw Paige’s light obliterate Lacrette into nothingness.

“You did it! You got rid of Lacrette!” David cried out joyfully. Paige didn’t say anything, she just looked at Asher with astounded eyes.

“I’m glad that we’re okay. Let’s go find the others, then we’ll go home.” Lux said as she walked up to David.

As Lux and David walked away, Paige ran up to Asher and said:

“I don’t even know if all of that was me. Like yes, I used my magic, but when David grabbed onto my leg, I felt something more. I don’t know what it is. I…I don’t-“

“You said you felt something more when David grabbed your leg?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe…maybe what you felt was David’s energy mixed with yours, his energy that he might not have realized that he was using. Either way, Lacrette is gone, which means that if she trapped you here, then the barrier should be lifted, and it should be easier to find home. Do you feel more confident about finding your way back?” Asher asked, hoping that Lacrette truly was defeated, that she wouldn’t come back to mangle and murder them.

Paige’s eyes wandered off behind Asher and she said in a breathy, bewildered voice:

“That’s…that’s my home. It’s right there. Right behind you. The trees literally parted as you were talking about David’s energy helping me kill Lacrette. I guess that Lacrette really was the one keeping us trapped and now that she’s gone, I can go home.”

Asher turned around. Sure enough, right across from them was a house painted white, with a chain link fence surrounding it. It seemed to be the part where the woods cut off into houses, where the woods cut off into a neighborhood. If Asher looked at the sides of the house, he would see a house on either side of Paige’s home, an indication that it was her neighborhood.

“Is it okay if I visit you? It was nice talking to you and I’d really like to get to know you better, if you’re okay with that.” Asher said, turning back around to face Paige.

She only wanted to kill a soul-stealing demon and yet she felt so bad about even trying to do something like that. There was nothing wrong with wanting to save someone and goodness, he was glad to see her and David’s light combine to do something good.

“Sure. I like talking to you.” Paige said with a small smile.

“I like talking to you too.” Asher said with a smile of his own, thinking not of how he looked, but of how she made him feel, of how her wonder and magic seemed to radiate out of her in ghost-faerie beauty, of her laugh was like lilting wind chimes and the chirps of birds.

With one last smile thrown at Asher, Paige walked towards her house, her long, blond hair swaying behind her in a way that seemed entirely dreamlike. Asher then flew up into the sky and found that he could see paths more clearly and in the distance, his cabin.

He’d go home first and if everybody else was out looking for him, he’d wait for them to come back.

The important thing was that both he and Paige were safe and that no more did he have to spend his days locked away.

He could always visit Paige.