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Jonathan was always a little weird.

As a little kid, he would always talk about weird things, like specks of colors he would see at random places. Or weird animals where they weren’t. His parents took him to the doctor in case something was wrong with him.

But everything was fine.

It wasn’t that bad, the parents decided. Maybe the kid had a huge imagination, that had to be it. Given some time, the images will stop along with the colors and the imaginary animals.

…but they didn’t.

In fact, they just grew in intensity.

When he was five, Jonathan started talking about his best friend, Evan. They would pay hide and seek in the mansion, freeze tag or even video games. To say the parents were concerned was an understatement.

They were horrified. 

Jonathan talked about his imaginary friend as if it were a person. He told them that Evan was a really funny guy and that he really liked him. He also asked if Evan could bring his friends over some time. And at that moment, the parents knew they had to intervene.

“Jon, sweetie,” His mother started her pale brown eyes looking tired as she entered her son’s room. He was looking at her up from his drawing, a drawing of him and ‘Evan’. She looked at it closer and shuddered at the image. While the drawing of himself was a pretty simple looking stick man, the image beside his was almost nightmare-like. It was huge compared to Jon’s stick figure, with big yellow eyes, a long golden beak and red wings, looking almost like a beast that crawled from hell. “S-Sweetie…” she whispered. Jonathan noticed her stare and covered his drawing with a pouty glare. She cleared her throat. “I-I’m afraid E-Evan won’t be able to bring his friends with him tomorrow…”

“Why not?” he pouted at her. He looked disappointed, but she needed her son to wake up.

“Why, we’re going to the park of course! Daddy arranged that! Aren’t you happy?” She forced a smile. It was quickly washed away though as he glanced behind him.

“I’m sorry Evan… I thought they were going to say yes… Yeah I know-Don’t say that in front of her!” he hissed, looking at him mother out of the corner of his eye. She raised a brow at him.

“What did Evan say?” she asked curiously. Jonathan shook his head, knowing his mom wouldn’t like it.

“You won’t like it…” he muttered. He then glared back at an empty spot beside him, as if he was glaring at someone even though there was nobody there. “Don’t say that; it’s not true.”

“What is he saying, Jonathan.” She demanded, a little frustrated at her son. He stayed silent for a few seconds before sighing.

“He said… he said that you shouldn’t stick your nose in our business and that you should go back to sucking the chef’s dick, you cockslut bitch …” She gasped.

“Jonathan!” she scolded him, glaring at him while her face turned red in anger.

“You asked me to tell you!” he cried as he backed away from his angry mother. He didn’t want to be punished, not when his mom was so mad and his dad wasn’t anywhere near.

“That’s no way to speak about your mother, young man!” she stomped over to him, gripping his arm as she dragged him towards his closet. He struggled against her grip but she was older and stronger than him.

“It wasn’t me! It was Evan!”

“Shut up, Evan doesn’t exist! You hear me? He. Is. Not. Real.” She gave him one last tug, sending him falling towards his fancy wardrobe. She quickly closed the door, leaning against it as she heard her son pound and cry against the door. The pounding lessened as did his cries, leaving only the sound her own breathing and her child’s shuddering sobs.

She sighed, glaring at the empty spot before her, where her child spoke with ‘Evan’. She really didn’t know how to deal with this. Her child was speaking nonsense, obviously confused by the gossip the maids kept roaming around. She’ll have to make an appointment with another doctor soon, this was getting out of hand. Sighing again, she slowly opened the wardrobe’s door.

From it fell Jonathan, gasping as if he had been submerged underwater. She watched uninterested as her son drew sharp breaths, trembling on the floor like a leaf, so weak. She smiled.

“Ah, Jonathan… you know mommy didn’t mean to do that…” She cooed, falling to her knees besides her son. He flinched when she reached out to caress his hair. When she took him in her arms, he froze, not even breathing as his heart pounded strongly in his chest. She hummed under her breath, rocking them back and forth.

The view would’ve been adorable, if the boy didn’t look so horrified by the actions.

“Jon…”

“Y-Yes?” He asked tearfully, breathing shakily as he closed his eyes.

“You know mommy didn’t mean it right…” The small boy took a shuddering breath, almost letting out a sob as he nodded. “Because mommy loves you. And daddy too.”

“S-So Evan was lying about-”

“What did I tell you about Evan?” she snapped. Jonathan trembled.

“T-That he isn’t real…”  

“Good, good boy…”

After their small talk, the mother sent her child to sleep and went back to her husband’s side, where they talked about his work. Afterwards, they headed to bed and fucked. During the process, the mother thought about the chef…

After the incident, Jonathan stopped speaking about Evan to his parents. The father assumed that he was over that phase, and rewarded the kid with a new gaming console. The mother, though, knew that her son was up to something, so she kept an eye out for him.

It was all nice, incident-less, Evan-less, until Jonathan turned 6.

At the day of his birthday, carcasses of animals, both domestic and wild animals, were all around the mansion. In the rooms, hanging from the chandeliers, in front of the doors, blood splattered on the walls, organs in different corners of the rooms. But the most noticeable piece was the one on Jonathan’s room. It was a human body, half eaten, decomposing, with agony written all over his face.

The human obviously died a horrible death.

But apart from the human, there was also a message on the wall. In a chicken-scratch like font was “Happy Birthday Jonathan” written in blood.

The family quickly called the police, who assured them that they would find the person that committed the crime. There was an investigation, where they interrogated all the staff members, Jonathan’s parents and their business partners. They also, obviously, interrogated Jonathan.

“Evan did it.” he told them, as if it were an everyday occurrence. The parents shared knowing looks. They thought Evan was gone, but it appeared they were wrong.

“Excuse me?” The police officer, a young man named Cody, asked the child confused.

“Evan. He’s my best friend. My parents say he’s imaginary but I know he isn’t…” He leaned forwards towards the officer, giving him a serious look. Cody gulped. He didn’t like that look in a six-years old kid. “Do you believe me… Mr. police officer?” Cody cleared his throat.

“O-Of course I do.” He replied. The kid leaned back, looking satisfied with the answer. Nervously, the officer leaned forwards towards the kid again. “S-So, how does Evan look? If he did something wrong, we have to take him into custody.” He knew he sounded ridiculous, but he couldn’t give his superior a blank sheet of paper.

Jonathan snorted, laughing loudly at his words. The laugh sent chills down Cody spine. It sounded… insane.

“You can’t catch him! He’s too strong…” He smiled. “Plus it’s in his nature, he has to eat, you know.”

“In his nature?” Cody asked but Jonathan just grinned.

After interrogating everyone, the police couldn’t find any suspects, much less the culprit. So the case was left unresolved. Once finished with all the hassle, Jonathan’s parents decided to take matters in their own hands.

They took Jonathan to a psychiatrist, where they examined him and diagnosed him with a psychotic disorder.  They gave him medication that made him drowsy and tired. He could barely go through the day completely awake. They told him it was until he grew accustomed to them, but with each dose he felt like he was slipping more and more. Jon felt unattached to the world, to everyone, to Evan, god Evan left him alone, didn’t he?!

In his tired sluggish state, Jon could barely pay attention to Evan, which made him sad. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, anything to do, he was alone and there was nothing he could do about it.

The parents, when they saw how subdued their child was, were concerned. They called the doctors and told them about it, receiving responses that ‘it was normal, his body will get used to it in a few days’, but days passed and Jonathan was looking more miserable every day. Jon’s father decided to stop giving him the medication in case it was some sort of side effect.

In a few days, Jonathan went back to his original self. Smiling innocently around the dining table or laughing quietly to himself in his room.

They decided to leave the medication for when their son was old enough.

When Jon was eight, an incident caused the parents to give him the meds again.

The kid was alone in the mansion, running around like he always did when his parents weren’t around. The maid that was supposed to look after him had left to smoke, Lui told him, so they decided to play a little hide and seek. At the moment, Brian was it. Which wasn’t fair at all because Brian was really fast and his nose could probably smell him from all the way across the country, but Jonathan still tried.

He ran towards the kitchen, looking around for the smelliest ingredients so he could rub them all over himself before Brian started looking for them. He heard a moan and he stilled. Curious, he headed towards the sound, getting into a small room where the bigger quantities of ingredients like the rice and flour were located. Opening the door quietly, he felt grossed out at the sight.

His mother, his naked mother, was moaning under the figure of a man, a man that was not his dad, and it was disgusting. He glared at the two, promising himself that he would tell his dad when he got back from work. He was about to leave when he felt eyes on him. When he looked back at the two he met his mother’s brown furious eyes.

“Jonathan!” She screeched. The man turned, eyes widened at the kid. Jonathan squared his shoulders, walking forwards and crossed his arms.

“Evan was right. You really are a cockslut.” The woman fumed at the words, but the chef merely looked amused. He pulled away from her, standing up and zipping up his pants.

“Young Jonathan! You won’t tell, will you?” Jonathan ignored him, glaring at his mother once again with promise before turning to leave. Before he could open the door, the chef moved, stopping him from opening the door with his hand. Jonathan glared at him. “You won’t tell.”

“I will tell dad. Now back off, asshole.” He glowered up at the man, who looked shocked at the curse word. Jon almost rolled his eyes at him. It was Tyler’s fault, he was teaching him how to speak adult language.

Jon tried to open the door once again but he was pushed from behind, his head banging against the door painfully. He let out a cry, his vision swimming as he saw the man glare down at him. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision as he leaned back against the door for support. He saw the blurry man sneer.

“You won’t tell.” Then he felt a pressure in his throat, blocking the air he tried to take. He gasped, trying to draw a breath, as his hands tried to grasp at the other man’s that were wrapped around his neck, strangling him. The man didn’t let up the pressure, instead increasing it so no air could pass through. Jon gasped weakly, clawing at the hand as his eyes watered and his vision blurred.

“Eric stop! You’re going to kill him!” he heard his mother shout, and he thought wow, what a hypocrite. Jon struggled against the older man, but the pressure didn’t let up and he was growing weaker and desperate with each movement. He clawed at the man’s hands once more, trying to lighten up the pressure, just to draw a little, just a little breath, but he was too weak. His lungs painfully burned against the air loss, and he grew light headed with each attempted gasp. Before he succumbed to the darkness that was clawing at his vision, the pressure faded completely.

He slumped to the ground like a string-less puppet, gasping weakly and almost whining at the short amount of air he could barely get through. He distantly heard his mother scream, and he saw something splatter on the ground before him. Trying to focus his eyes on it, he noticed it was red.

He noticed everything was red.

The walls, the floor, the food, the stands, the door, the man that was now lying dead on the floor, the face of his horrified mother, everything.

He closed his eyes, continued to try and draw a breath as he felt something warm press against his back instead of the door. He flinched lightly but he didn’t have the strength to really move away.

“Shhhh…it’s okay…” Jonathan immediately relaxed at the words. It was Evan. Evan saved him.

“Evan…” he rasped. His throat hurt.

“Don’t speak. Don’t worry about this. Lui and I will clean this up.” Jonathan nodded. He could trust Evan. Evan was his best friend. “Now I need you to rest. I’ll see you when you wake up.” Jon nodded once again, feeling sleepy just from hearing the words. The darkness consumed him once again but this time he let go willingly.

Next time Jon woke up, Evan was not with him, but his father was.

Apparently, his mother was still restrained in the hospital after she started screaming about demons and about murder and about how her child was Satan’s kin.  Jonathan laughed when his father told him the story, but stopped soon after because his throat hurt. His father had stared at him hard, but Jonathan couldn’t help the maniac grin that split his face.

He was just so happy.

His mother was sent to a mental institute, where they treated her for her hallucinations and other problems. Whenever they went to visit her, she would launch herself at Jonathan, scratching and clawing at him, shouting ‘demon’ and ‘devil’ at him while he laughed.

Not long after that, his father started to medicate him again. And this time, it was for the long while.

He was forced to take injections, and they worked. Jonathan stopped seeing his friends, but due to the fact that he was too weak to even focus on them. He could only listen to faint whispers, and to do that he had to focus a lot. Eventually, he stopped trying to get to them. It was too hard. And it was not worth it if he would never see them again.

He grew sad, but with time, like every child does, he began to forget. He forgot about Evan and his pretty red wings; about Tyler and all the curse words he taught him (except for ‘cockslut’ since it was the one that his mother seemed to hate the most); he forgot about Lui and his squeaky voice that always made him laugh; about Marcel’s hide and seek games; about Brock and his puns; about Brian and his pretty black fur; about Craig and his thunderstorms; about David and his songs…

He forgot about all of them. And it hurt.

Soon, taking the injections became more of a routine than a necessity. He stopped enjoying life, stopped playing in the mansion, stopped running around. He just stopped being Jonathan.  

His father, as a last resort, signed him up in a public school. Before, Jonathan was homeschooled, so he didn’t have many friends or knew many people for the matter.

In school, that didn’t change much. He got to meet people, students that were creeped out when he started drowning the insects in the playground or burn the ants under the magnifying glass, teachers that were proud of how smart he was…

It was all pretty boring, but it was better than being all day inside the mansion.

In middle school, the dynamic was similar, but people started to get closer to him due to his money. It was annoying, especially when girls started to declare themselves his girlfriends when he wasn’t even interested in romance. He started to slack off in his schoolwork, not paying attention to his classes as he looked out the window.

On the occasional day he would see birds flying by, and he would grow excited for no reason. He quickly calmed down, trying not to act weird before they put him in a mental institute like they did to his mother.

Once he entered high school, that changed. There, he met someone important to him: his first human friend. Luke was hot-headed kid, loyal, and most of all, sincere. He wasn’t his friend due to his money, and that made Jonathan glad. Jonathan met him when he needed to have some alone time (classmates got overwhelming sometimes).

He went into a random classroom, trying to escape the classmates that were pestering him like flies. Closing the door silently behind him, he didn’t notice the other person in the room until the smell of smoke made him frown. Looking up, he saw another student, sitting on the windowsill with a cigarette in hand. He raised a brow at him.

“Don’t classrooms have fire alarms?” Jonathan asked the other. The bigger male took a long drag, sighing smoke and giving him an unimpressed look.

“The ones on this room don’t work.”  Jon hummed, sitting at one of the chairs and closing his eyes as he heard the other breathe the cancer stick.

When he finished, he heard the other one near him. He opened one eye lazily, watching the other watch him.

“So…” The other started, and Jonathan hummed. “You’re the new kid with the rich family right?”

“That’s what people say about me? It seems my reputation precedes me.” Jon chuckled.

“If I were to steal from you right now—”

“You’d die.” Jonathan finished the sentence, opening both eyes to stare seriously at the other man. The other stared at him with serious eyes before slowly smirking.

“I’m pretty confident in my abilities.”

“So am I.” Jonathan said, smirking. The other guy saw something there, a hint of insanity that called to him.

“I’m Luke, Luke Patterson.”

“Jonathan.”

Soon after that, nobody got near Jonathan. Nobody wanted to be near the delinquent boy, after all, he had killed his family without a second thought. Or so they say. No one else was in the room where it happened, only Luke and his now deceased parents.

Jonathan started playing games with Luke, being online or games they played including other people. Like charming girls and guys, breaking their hearts, getting other people in trouble for their doings, etcetera. Jon and Luke were known in their last year as the school’s tricksters. They were always seen together, like brothers.

They were each other’s family.

They graduated and went to the same university. Jonathan’s dad bought him a car and an apartment. Jonathan and Luke moved to the apartment together, living a messy unruly life like most college students do.

At the end of his semester, Jonathan stopped using his medication. He no longer needed them, plus it was a pain having to refill each time he ran out of it. He couldn’t even remember why he used them in the first place.

When it was time to return for Christmas break, Jon invited Luke over to their house. When they arrived, something that Jonathan didn’t expect happened.

“Hello, Jonathan.”

His mother was back.

She was released from the institute. Apparently, she was ‘cured’. And as long as she took her medicine, everything should be fine. He glared at her then at his dad. His father, whom he knew had an affair with someone from his workplace, was looking just as mad as Jonathan felt.

“Hi mother…” he muttered. She headed towards him with open arms and he stepped back, right into Luke. Luke noticed him tense up and offered the woman a grin stepping in front of his friend.

“Hello there, Ma’am. The name’s Luke.” He offered his hand. She looked at him, then at Jonathan. Jonathan sighed.

“He’s my friend, mother.” She froze, for some reason, and Jonathan frowned. Luke glanced at Jonathan’s father and the older man sighed.

“Darling, Luke is a good guy. How about you meet him better after they set up in their room?” Jonathan nodded before she could answer. Taking his things, he headed upstairs towards his room. Luke followed with his own things.

Once in Jon’s room, he closed the door. He leaned against it and slid down to the floor. Luke watched his friend silently, wondering what was wrong with the later. That was until he started to laugh. A maniacal loud laugh that echoed in the big room. He smiled slightly at the other. He knew his friend was a little messed up in the head, but he didn’t care.

When the laughter died down, Jonathan was left breathing hard, staring hard at the floor.

“That bitch cockslut…”

After they put their stuff, they went down to eat. Jon’s mother was in her room, so it was all pretty calm. The week went like that, a routine of waking up, hanging around town with Luke, dinning with his family (the yucky time, as Luke called it) and going to sleep.

Until one day…

Jon woke up to yellow slit eyes staring him down. He almost let out a yell at them, but he felt like he remembered something.

Big yellow eyes staring at him…

The thing atop of him let out a laugh, joyful and happy.

“Wow! Wont you look at that! You can see me!” Jon stared hard at the-the thing. It was like a dog, except it had lots of tails, it had a lithe body and weird marking around its body that glowed a soft purple in contrast to the light blond fur.

“What…?”

“You seriously don’t know what I am? Well… that’s disappointing.” The thing chuckled, disappearing in a puff of smoke and reappearing over Luke.

“What are you doing?!” he glared at the dog, getting up angrily. It huffed, lowering its ears.

“You really don’t know what I am…” it whined and Jon felt a little bad about how he was treating the strange creature. That was until he saw the mischief that danced in its eyes. He sighed, rolling his eyes at it.

“No, I don’t. You gonna tell me or what?” the creature huffed, disappearing and reappearing again on his shoulders. It didn’t weight much, but he stumbled in surprise at its movements. It chuckled again.

“I’m a kitsune, of course!” it said proudly. It jumped off him, sitting before him and stretching its tails. “How many tails do I have?” Jon knew enough about kitsunes to answer that question without having to count them.

“Nine.”

“We have a winner!” Jon chuckled at the absurd creature, and that’s when Luke woke up.

“What the hell you laughing about…” His friend asked him in a slur, his voice rough due to him being half asleep. Jon pointed at the spot before him that was, in Luke’s eyes, empty. He stared at the spot hard before groaning and falling back on the bed. “Nevermind. Forget I even asked.”

The kitsune crackled at the words, jumping back towards Jon’s shoulders.

“You guys are fun! I’ll stay with you guys!” Jon chuckled.

With the addition to the third party (even when Luke thought there were only two of them), Jon spent a lot of time doing research about mythological creatures and demons. He wondered why he could see the spirits, but the only answer he could find was that he was either a demigod (which obviously wasn’t the case) or he was possessed. But he doubted the second one. So that left him in nothing once again.

After that, Jon developed a new routine: wake up, spend time with Luke, dinner with family, pretend to fall asleep, play with the kitsune whose name he didn’t know yet, actually fall asleep, rinse and repeat.

Sometimes the kitsune would disappear for days and, while Jon was relieved, he found himself worrying when it was their play time. Other times, the trickster spirit would make people trip (including him and Luke) or items float and fall. It was hilarious, watching the people of the house get creeped out by that. His mother specially.

She once saw him speaking to the spirit, and instead of pretending he wasn’t talking to thin air, he smirked at her. And continued to chat with the kitsune. The creature was confused for a moment, but when it felt the hatred that Jon had for his mother, it started to pick on her more often.

When winter break was over, Jon and company headed back towards their apartment. On their apartment, something weird happened.

The kitsune growled ferociously. Jon was so startled by it (it was standing on his shoulders) that he dropped his bag and it went rolling down the stairs. Luke laughed at him and he gave him the middle finger. Luke opened the door and entered as the kitsune jumped off of Jon. Jon rolled his eyes, and went to pick up his bearings. After reaching the top of the stairs, he took a peek into the apartment and almost regretted it.

Inside it, on the living room, was the kitsune snarling at what looked like a huge wolf. It had gray fur, with black markings (he could faintly make out the omega symbol) and black smoke rising from its skin. He took a deep breath, going inside the house and ignoring the two snarling beasts.

“Jonathan! Tell this asshole to go away!”

“What? You’re the one that went to my territory, pal.”

“This is Jonathan’s territory!”

“Yes. And I’ve been living here since he moved in. Now kindly, go away.”

Jonathan took a deep breath and put his bag in his room, going back to the living room to glare at the two creatures.

“Stop please, I have to unpack and you guys are going to give me a headache if you continue.” The kitsune looked smug at the words while the wolf gaped at him.

“You can… see me?” Jonathan narrowed his eyes at it.

“I don’t know, you tell me. I’m seeing a pretty big ass fucker in my living room. Is that you?” The wolf chuckled, lowering himself to the ground to lay down. The kitsune didn’t get comfortable though, merely going nearer to Jon with narrowed eyes.

“You’re not fooling anyone Ohmwrecker.” It spat at the wolf.  The wolf merely looked amused.

“Oh, you know me?”

“You know him?” Jon asked. The kitsune nodded with a low growl.

“Yeah. He’s dangerous, Jonathan. Throw him out.” Jon sighed.

“Well, Brycey, I would say the same for you. Out of all the kitsune I’ve met, you’re by far the most perverse one.”

“Brycey?” Jon repeated to himself quietly.

“It’s Bryce!” The kitsune barked angrily. “And I did what I had to! He was going to kill us all! Better me than my whole family! Unlike you, I had a reason to kill! You just slaughtered them all for no reason!” Ohmwrecker shrugged.

“Mistakes are made. No one is perfect.”

Jon sat on the couch, not understanding a bit of what the other two were bickering about. He sighed, watching as Luke walked out tripping over one of Bryce’s tails. Bryce yelped, glaring at Luke while Jon and the wolf snickered. Luke muttered a curse and continued on his way out, saying he was going to buy some food since the fridge was empty. Jonathan nodded at him, throwing him the car keys and continued to watch the two spirits argue.

“Okay, so what actually happened? I don’t really understand.” He admitted. The two creatures looked at each other and then Bryce decided to explain.

Apparently, Hell had rules. And if you killed someone that ranked higher than you or that hasn’t done anything wrong (which was not likely), you were sent to earth as ‘punishment’. Most of the times, you could get away with murder in hell, Ohm explained, but if you kill someone too important (he glanced at Bryce pointedly, who looked away as if it wasn’t his business) or if you kill a lot, the generals will be on your tail until they expulse you from hell.

Jon understood, somewhat, the system the demons had. But it was still a little silly to just send them to the human world as punishment. When he voiced his thoughts, Bryce scoffed.

“The other side is not what you think it is.”

Luke returned with some pizza that they both ate before going to sleep. Bryce creeped into Jon’s room in the middle of the night with the excuse that Ohm could kill him while he slept. Jonathan just scoffed at him while returning to sleep.

The next semester of college went by in the same way the last one: Study, pretend to study, party, have sex, drink, pretend to study, party, study, finals, drink, end. Much like last time, Luke and Jon went back to Jon’s house for the summer break. Jon decided that they’ll only stay a few days before heading towards a house that his father had near the beach. Bryce whined that he hated the beach while Ohm was wagging his tail like a dog all the way.

Jonathan entered his house, looking around as he didn’t find anyone but he expected as much. His father was in a business trip (either because he was a workaholic or because he was trying to avoid his insane wife). Shrugging he entered, followed by his three friends. Ohm and Bryce immediately started running around the house like children, while Jonathan rolled his eyes and went up after Luke towards their room.

They put their things in Jonathan’s room and went back down to see what happened. Jonathan saw his mother in the dinner table, looking out the window, deep in thought.

“Hello, Mother…” he smirked when he saw her tense up. She gave him a look, and he chuckled, leaving her alone. Luke made small talk with her before following after him towards the gaming room.

After a while, Bryce and Ohm joined them in the gaming room. Even though Luke couldn’t see them, he could definitely feel something, because when the two spirits entered the room, his shoulders relaxed. Jon grinned slightly, and kept playing with his friend.

It was late at night when Luke collapsed. It had come as a surprise to Jonathan, who wasted no time calling the hospital so they could take care of his friend. The doctors checked on him, stabilized him, ran tests on him, but they couldn’t find what was wrong. Instead of getting better, Luke got worse. He stopped moving, stopped reacting; falling into some sort of coma.

That day, Jonathan spent all his time near Luke in a room they had prepared to him in the mansion. He had all the machinery there, everything that Luke needed, and there was a nurse going in every now and then to check on him. Ohm looked sad as he laid beside Jon trying to comfort him, a lot like a dog, while Bryce was nowhere in sight, probably playing tricks on people so he would get distracted and not think about Luke. 

He felt his eyes close sluggishly, even when he tried to keep them open. He knew he couldn’t help Luke in his current state, but he could try… he could…

“You can see me?”

A voice asked him. He turned around, trying to find the voice, but he saw nothing but darkness. He whimpered, he didn’t like being in complete darkness. As if responding to his wished, a light flickered in the distance. It was yellow… two dots of glowing yellow eyes.

His first thought was ‘Bryce!’ but when he looked closer, he noticed that it wasn’t Bryce. These eyes were bigger than Bryce’s, rounder than Bryce’s and also they didn’t have a slit like Bryce’s did. So then…

Whose eyes were they?

The eyes moved closer and with them, came the details. The first thing Jonathan noticed was how huge the creature was. It was big, bigger than him and his mom and his dad…

Or was it him that was small?

It had red wings, the color of blood, and a golden long beak that complimented the claws on the four talons the beast had.  It walked on two of the talons, for the other two were hidden in the wings and they served as hands to grab and as swords to slay.

When a talon reached for him Jon tensed up, watching as it came close to his face before resting atop his head. It patted him, disheveled his hair, and then the creature laughed.

“It’s been a while since I last saw someone like you…”

“Who’re you?” The tiny voice that was his but not actually his asked.

“My na m  e      i      s        E        v     -”

Jon woke up with a start and with a name burning in his tongue.

Evan.

As if a lock broke, all the memories associated with Evan resurfaced too. He remembered Evan, and he also remembered Tyler, Craig, Marcel, Brian, Brock, David, Lui… He remembered all of them. Remembered how they used to play in the mansion, how his mother always hated him for it, how Evan killed his mother’s lover and how he pushed Jon’s mother to the brink of insanity…

He glanced up, knowing that his friend would be there, in the hospital bed, but what he saw terrified him. The bird creature was leaning over Luke, with eyes wide and one talon reaching out to him. Jon stood up quickly, hurrying to his Luke’s side. Before he got there, a talon stopped him. He stared at the yellow unblinking eyes, knowing now why they were so familiar.

He knew this creature.

“Evan.” Jonathan regarded the bird, watching as the bloody red feathers stood up on the end as the bird puffed up pride.

“I see that you remember me.” Its voice didn’t change: young, soothing and relaxing. Jonathan nodded. “Good.” Evan purred, his eyes shining with mirth before he looked back at Luke’s unconscious form.

Jonathan stayed silent, looking around the room and wondering where Ohm and Bryce were. When he felt Evan move, he stilled, waiting for the creature’s actions. But Evan didn’t move towards him. Evan put a hand over Luke’s form, watching as the human’s face distorted in pain with amusement. Jonathan glared at him.

“Stop.”

“I can help him, you know.” Jonathan blinked. Was Evan serious? Could a spirit help a human heal? The answer should be ‘no’, but Jonathan didn’t have any other thing in mind. The doctors clearly said that they didn’t know what happened, they didn’t have a cure, and they were only waiting for the inevitable. Jonathan, on the other hand, still held on to hope.

“How?”

“Why, don’t you trust your old friend?” the creature asked mockingly and Jonathan glared.

“I don’t, actually. A lot of things can change in a couple of years.”

“I can see that.” Those yellow eyes were staring at him once again, but this time Jon wasn’t intimidated and he stared right back into them. Evan looked back at Luke. “He was cursed. It seems someone close to your really wanted him dead… to cause you harm.” Jonathan’s eyes widened at the words.

It couldn’t be—

“We both know who it was, don’t we?” Evan purred, watching as Jonathan seethed in anger at the knowledge. He should’ve let Evan kill her back then. Or just killed her himself when he had the chance. Oh and he had lot of chances to kill the cockslut bitch … “It’s not late, Jonathan. We can still kill her and save your friend.” Jonathan found himself nodding at the words, a slight smile spreading across his face as he thought about it.

No more mother, no more fear, no more cocksluts in his life. And he’ll get his old friends back. He’ll get them all back. He just needed to listen to Evan. Evan was always right after all. 

“The others are already here to join the party…” Jonathan distantly heard the rumble of thunder, and he knew who it was. Craig was creating a storm nearby, striking the pillars of the house to make it collapse. Accompanying him in his feathery dance was Brock, who was smashing windows with gusts of wings of his enormous Roc wings.  He faintly heard David’s singing his Death song to the staff people to put them to sleep forever…

A snarl snapped him to the present time, where Lui was looking at him with his blazing eyes along with Brian. The monkey-wolf mix gave Evan a nod of acknowledgement before taking Luke and jumping out one of the windows. Brian gave Jonathan a long stare, the wolf, so similar to Ohm but so much more different, then went after Lui. Screams pierced the silence the mansion previously had and Jonathan sighed in content. He had forgotten how enjoyable it was to hear people scream…

 Evan guided him out the room, and up towards a room he had grown familiar to as a child. On his way there, he saw Tyler, his goat head rotting like it always has been, while his lion head spewed flames that liked at the walls of the mansion. When he passed by him, the chimera’s snake tail curled around his wrist in a soft caress before letting go.

Jonathan and Evan reached their destination. It was his Parent’s bedroom. And there, pined to bed by Marcel, was his mother. She was obviously frozen in place, confused, gasping in pain at the pressure on her chest and Jonathan was trying hard not to enjoy the show too much. He neared her side, touching softly Marcel’s mane in greetings, before grinning down at her.

“Hello mother, having fun with Marcel I see…” he chuckled. She looked at him in horror, flinching when she heard another scream.

“What’s going on Jonathan?! H-Help me!” Jonathan smiled at her, sitting beside her head and playing with her hair. “J-Jonathan…?” she repeated fearfully.

“You see, mother… An old friend of mine,” Evan chuckled, “told me that you sent a spirit to curse Luke! Now how crazy is that?!” He laughed loud, maniacal and insane, until he was crying and his mother was crying hysterically beside him.

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh hush, Evan knows everything, and I know that you’re one hell of a liar.”

“Again with Evan!?”

“I should’ve let him kill you long ago… He had always whispered how rotten you were for a human being back then…” He whispered harshly. She whimpered, struggling against Marcel’s claws before her eyes widened. He followed her stare, meeting Evan’s form and he smirked. “Oh, you see him now, don’t you?” He laughed when she closed her eyes, shaking her head and whispered nonsense under her breath. Jonathan sighed, standing from the bed.

“Evan, do it.”

In the blink of an eye, his mother was torn to shreds. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the ceiling, on the walls, on the bed, on Marcel, on Evan, on Jonathan… but he didn’t mind.

They left the burning, rotten and dead building behind. Evan guided Jonathan towards the front of the mansion where his friends awaited him. Both birds were perched on trees, even though Brock’s looked like it might break at any second. On the ground were the hellhound, the chimera, the siren that was actually looking Luke over, and the Chug monkey.

It was hilarious meeting them once again after all this time.

Jonathan sighed, heading towards where David was healing Luke from the curse. His friend awoke with a deep groan, giving David a confused look before closing his eyes.

“I must be dreaming… because I’m seeing a beautiful man and I’m 100% straight.” Jonathan laughed loudly at that, knowing that his friend was okay.

“Jon!” Jonathan turned, watching as Bryce hissed at the huge group of spirits with his tails shinning a bright purple. Ohm was engaged in a fight against Brian, both hellhounds ripping at each other’s flesh viciously.

“Guys, stop.” Jonathan called to them. Bryce immediately teleported to his shoulders while Ohm and Brian stopped fighting grumpily, still growling at each other. Ohm neared Jon’s side cautiously, eyeing him seriously as if he knew what was going to happen. Jon smiled at him sadly and Ohm sighed, nearing his side completely. Luke looked at the creature atop Jon’s shoulders and gasped.

“What the—”

“This is Bryce, Luke. And that’s Ohm.” Jon introduced the two, while Luke looked at him like he was crazy. “Luke, listen… I… I can’t stay here anymore.” Luke sat up immediately, looking seriously at Jon.

“What happened? What—” But he stopped once he saw the mansion that was still smoking. It was shocking that the police wasn’t here already, but it was understandable, since the building was pretty far away from the city. “Oh…”

“Yes… I did that… and I now have to pay for it.” He smiled slightly. “I hope you understand, bro.”

“I-I don’t! What does that even mean? Is this some sick joke you’re playing on me? Because it’s not funny and I know how much you like those!” Jonathan chuckled.

“Nah… I just… kind of sold my soul to the devil, that kind of thing…” Evan motioned at Jonathan to finish since they had to leave. Half of the group was already gone, the only ones left being Evan, Tyler and Marcel. Jonathan faced Luke again and smiled.

“I’ll be fine. I have these guys to take care of me! And you’ll have these two idiots to watch over you while I’m gone.” Jonathan motioned to the two sad spirits near him, and Luke didn’t, didn’t fucking understand half of the shit Jonathan was saying but one thing was clear.

He was leaving Luke.

Luke sighed, knowing that this time was going to come one day. He gave the other a teary smile.

“Make sure you visit, asshole.”

“You bet your ass I will.”

And just like that, Jonathan was gone.

After Jonathan’s disappearance, police, detectives and agents from every place obsessed over the case of his family. It became a mystery how such a great amount of people died inside the mansion while it caught fire. Multiple theories involved the house members being killed before the fire and then put in the mansion to delete the evidence, but none came close to the truth.

Luke went to the beach accompanied by Ohm the hellhound and Bryce the kitsune. They stayed for days in the beach, knowing that something was missing but there was nothing they could do to find it. they waited and waited and waited…

But Jonathan never appeared.