Tokyo, Japan (modern time)

Unlocking the oaken door to his apartment, situated in a lovely complex in upper Ropongi, Cheval practically fell into the welcoming warmth of his flush rug. After five additional hours of work and having to work overtime scrubbing dishes for the insane amount of complaints that came with Xian Lien and her small friends exit, he had suddenly found himself utterly lacking in any energy. Not even bothering to take off his shoes, the young man trudged his way through the lavish house, throwing his keys lazily onto the counter as he did so. Normally he would have taken the time to hang it on the key organizer no more than a foot to his right, but it being well into the early hours of the morning and considering he didn’t have work the next morning anyways, figured he could always just spend the time searching for them the next morning. Effort just wasn’t worth it at the moment.

His arms outstretched, Cheval fell into the warm, plush embrace of his beloved mattress, burrowing his head into the ridiculously soft goose down pillows his father had shipped him a few weeks before. After what seemed only a second of his eyes being closed, Cheval drifted into the comforting land of sleep, body half draped over the side if the bed as he did so. The positions one could sleep in when tired were truly amazing.

“Pere?” a teenaged Cheval called lightly, his gaze directed intensely at the searing salmon before him, “Whatever happened to…happened to mom?” His father, a tall, lithe man of a soft face, froze at the comment, almost dropping the base he had worked all day with his son to make. For a split second, his ever grinning expression contorted into an agonized grimace, before shifting back to turn and face his son. “She broke Cheval, her heart, her soul, her mind, it all broke under the stress. Like I’ve told you,” his words came out soft and soothing, more for himself than for the young teen before him.

A frown touched the fair teens expression, the lower lip piercing he had jabbing uncomfortably into his gum. “That’s what you always say, but the stress of what?! Our life has always been perfect; there was never any reason for her to be stressed!” Though his words and the tone they carried came out much harsher than he intended, Cheval couldn’t stand the ignorance his father kept him in any longer. The pained, almost betrayed spark to his father’s eye and the way his grip on the skillets handle tightened to keep the tears at bay quickly softened the teen though. He hadn’t meant to hurt him, he just wanted to know. No, he needed to know. For a moment, he went to move a gentle hand out to his taller father, but the man only shook his head sadly. “No, you have a right to know, you’re not the child I used to coddle any longer, you’re a young man,” the tears broke free of their damn then, but the movement was one of relief and remembrance of happier times, not of sorrow, “Your mother, she was always incredibly superstitious, she feared mirrors, ladders, cats, cracks, all of the classics. She also feared ghosts…or spirits, as she liked to call them. Most of the time she held back her fears and played like nothing was wrong, yet in the nights, she would scream and thrash, claw at her own flesh in fear they would get to her, to you. It was on one of these nights that it happened. I awoke to her frantic pleas, to seeing her huddled in a corner, with you, small and delicate, in her hands. She had tears in her eyes, her body was covered in gashes and marred flesh, it seemed like she’d been in an accident. Fearfully I had went to go to her but…but she had already been gone by the time I reached her. Her grip had slacked, her eyes were vacant…she was gone.” With the last words muttered, the man burst into near hysterics, unable to remember the image of his wife as she had been, when he had been unable to help her.

“Pere,” Cheval whispered, tears in his own eyes, “Don’t do this to yourself. It’s not your fault…you’re going to make me cry.” With a sad, forced grin and tears streaming down his face, he embraced the father he had ignored for so long. For what seemed forever, the two continued the embrace, savoring the feeling of each other’s warmth, and the protection from reality it offered.

In a frozen sweat and with tears streaming down his eyes, Cheval awoke from the dream he had been having. His head, once on the comfortable goose down pillow, was now on the harsh wooden floor of his room, throbbing from a connection he didn’t even remember. Warily, he moved to rub at his aching skull, grimacing at the feeling of a warm, thick liquid that used from his touch. Great. Now he was bleeding to top of his killer migraine.

Figuring there was no chance of simply going back to sleep by then, he slowly moved to open his emerald gaze, barely retaining an uncharacteristically fearful scream at what awaited him. An apparition of a murky, smoke like character, danced above his head, the face it both had and lacked flickering with mischief and hate. Sharp talons and fangs would glisten every so often from its non descript body, or a silent cackle would be heard and for a moment, it’s attention would drift to the young man, dipping its body close and low, before diving back up to the roof above.

Cheval had never feared ghosts, hell he had never believed in them, but he knew in a moment that his life was threatened by the creature. Malevolence seemed to just radiate from its core, a malevolence he had never before felt by the likes of man. How twisted the soul must have been in life.

It twisted and curled in the faintly moon lit night, its cries and screams both audible and silent in its torment. With the utmost caution, Cheval edged his hand for the rosary beads hanging from his bed stand, his final gift from his mother. How ironic it seemed, all those years of thinking his mother mad and scoffing at the collection of tools she had kept to protect herself from spirits, only to find her demons were very much real and very much threatening his life. When his fingers had barely grazed the slick beads, was it that the creature attacked. With one haunting bellow echoing from its barely visible mouth and a one fell swoop, the creature was upon Cheval.

Tendrils of darkness wrapped around his struggling form, binding him as the creature descended, smothering him with its expansive darkness. Violently the young man beneath struggled against his lack of air and bindings, normally tranquil azure eyes wide in his fear. It seemed the spirit barely noticed though, delving agonizingly slow through the pores of his skin into his very being. The further it got, the less control Cheval felt himself have over his body, hell, his very mind. His emotions were the first to go, the fear and will that coursed through his being ebbed away by the spirits dark grasp, replaced with only a sudden craving for the pain to end, for it all too be over, despite his minds frantic calls to his body to continue its struggle.

Tears brimmed from his eyelashes, his eyes still wide and slowly turning a startling crimson with each blood vessel that deteriorated within its expanse. His throat was hoarse from the muffled screams, rubbed raw by friction and force, his lungs cried for the oxygen they were being depraved of, cried against the blood that was filling their expanse. Even through the veil of tranquility that the spirit was attempting to place over his being, Cheval’s mind knew quite well what was approaching him. Death.

With pathetic, wretched sobs, he watched through the fog of crimson that had covered his gaze, the last of his life slip away. The last thing he saw before all went black and the agony seized, was a taunting, gleaming grin.

With its victim limp in its arms and no longer of this world, the spirit retracted itself from the crevices of its mind, pleased with the way things had turned out. What delicious memories it had seen in the boys thoughts. What scrumptious fear it had tasted at his death. How marvelous it was that his mind had found its way to her in his final moments. Having successfully completed his wish, the spirit took one last glance at the corpse before it, laying sprawled across the floor, before vanishing into the night. Vaguely, it questioned whether it would get to use the boys form in another of his tasks. How wondrous it seemed to the spirit, to kill that girl with her friends face. Alas, he had not yet asked for her death and in every likelihood, he wasn’t likely too anytime soon. Ah, the plight of malevolent spirits who do their masters bidding, truly…though, a quick few stops around town, to make it’s earlier killings less suspicious, could easily be arranged.

With one glimmer in the moon lit sky, four more were added to the death toll of Tokyo that early morning.