Velvet Black

"Mrrraow..." Moshi yawned as he pawed at the foot of the tree. I looked up and it was, in fact, getting dark. I groaned as I carefully descended the tree. Another day good and wasted.
When I met the earth Moshi looped between my legs in little figure eights. I could tell he wanted more than berries and leaves for dinner. I didn't mind leaving, it was just that I preferred staying.
Looking around I could see that no changes were made to the land, no traps were set off, and not so much as a nut on the floor was out of place. My shoulders sank as I grabbed my bicycle and snapped my fingers at the cat. Lazily it toddled beside me with its bottleneck tail swishing in the dusk. "Mrraow," it groaned again as we came to the beach.
"Yeah, yeah," I rolled my eyes as I grabbed him with both arms and set his doughy body into the basket. "Can it, fatso."
"Mrraow."

The ride back to the shrine was eventless. I didn't run over Rumi's toes, no one was frightened by my arrival around a curb, and I didn't have any close encounters with the hot grill of a bus. Lucky, I suppose, but dull.
By the time I'd gotten home the sun was sinking beneath the earth and on to the other people waking up. I yawned in time with Moshi as my brother audible rolled his eyes. It was more of a huff and a sigh plus the eye roll, but you understand... right?
"Where have you been?" He popped me over the head with the back of his hand.
"Where else," I stretched out as I locked the bike against a tree.
"You shouldn't be in that... that place," his face screwed up when he said it. My own eyes rolled on their own accord as I took the stairs into the shrine two at a time. Nagi called after me, but I'd already escaped to the kitchen where my grandmother and my childhood friend, Juri, cooking dinner.
Juri was a thin girl with long dark hair like water. It was soft, free, and always moved around her fluidly. Her hips were swinging to some unseen melody as she tossed rice, chicken, peas, and many other things in a red sauce. The sweet smell of omurice cooking in the kitchen made me realize that I'd neglected to pack a lunch when I went Guardian scouting for the billionth day in a row.
When I leaned over her, Juri gasped. "Just me," I calmed her as I reached over and grabbed the spoon on the counter and tasted the mix.
"Sae!" She went pink as I licked my lips. "Don't spoil your appetite!"
"Impossible, dear. I haven't eaten since dawn," I swept over to grandma. She was working away with the egg mix. Though she was considerably short for her age and seemed blind with her thin eyes, Grandma was sharp.
"In the forest again, I presume? I can hear Nagi's whines from here," she chortled as I grabbed five plates(One for Moshi, of course!) and set them next to the range. Juri was still working hard at making enough stuffing for the omurice. "What exactly is bothering that boy lately?" The old woman thought aloud.
"Which?" Juri said absent-mindedly.
"Nagi, of course! So irritable. Maybe he has the runs," the old, wise woman thought in all seriousness. However, the same could not be said for her grandson and Juri for they were trembling and keeling over to stifle their laughter as Nagi walked in. Juri turned purple to hold her giggles and I just choked as I tasted more food.
"What's so funny?" Nagi asked as he came into the kitchen and made the same route around the girls as I had.
"No-nothing," Juri said quietly as she finished her work.
"Boy, change out of those ridiculous robes right now. We're having dinner soon," the old woman barked as she swatted Nagi's hand away from the food.
"But you gave them to me!" He protested as she shooed him away.
"Doesn't mean you have to die in them," her lips were pursed as Nagi turned pink. "Go off! Change," she barked down the hall as Juri only giggled uncontrollably. "Nearly done?" Her neck craned over to where we stood.
"Almost," Juri said softly.

By the time Nagi had come downstairs in a t-shirt and jeans the food was already piled onto the table. Juri had just placed two decorative iron pots of tea on the table when he took his seat across from me. Juri swept her fluttering skirt beneath her as she sat right on her knees. I cringed at the thought of being so stiff like that, but to each their own.
Obaa-san poured herself some tea, filled her plate, then clapped her hands over her food, chopsticks in hand, "Itadakimasu!"
As if by command we all choired in, "Itadakimasu."
Not a second was spared to dive into the food. We each had our omurice, yes, but there was a baby salad, herbed potatoes, and sweet buns waiting.
Nagi made a sour face as if his stomach was upset. Obaa-san gave him a sidelong glance with an eagle's eye. "Nagi, do you have the runs?"
Neither Juri nor I could contain ourselves any longer. We both exploded in laughter, I choking on my food, her nearly spitting her tea. Nagi turned red as a beet at the question while we floudered around on the floor until our stomachs hurt.
"B-b-baa-san!" He squeaked.
"What? You seem that way," she said matter of factly.
"Quiet!" He barked at me, never at Juri. I snickered through my food as I tried to keep away from his eyes.
Dinner went on like this much and the same as Nagi remained red, Juri and I giggled most of the time, and Obaa-san kept her eye on us all.
After the meal I was to walk Juri home as I usually did. However, something that night would drastically change my fate forever.
Juri swept her hair from her watery eyes and gave me a sideways smile. Her soft lips lit by street light curved when she spoke. "Do you think Nagi likes me?" She asked softly, Moshi's purring made the loudest sound on the street.
"Well he takes you into consideration constantly," I nodded. "So maybe."
"That's good," her cheeks rosied and in an instant I knew she liked my brother.
Somehow this hurt me. My shoulders fell a little as I picked Moshi up just as we rounded the corner to her apartment building. The building was short, narrow, and filled to the brim with young people. It wasn't surprising that Juri lived alone there, even in these days.
Turning on her heel she stared at me with such intensity that I blushed. Her smile was coy, her intent pure, and was just standing there, I frozen in fear of her actions. She pushed on my shoulders as she tipped on her toes and looked me straight in the eyes.
Since I'd known Juri this was nothing more than a form of interrogation, especially when she looked so focused. I found her hands gripping my shoulders more tightly than usual. I could tell she'd seen something. My grandmother had called her a clairvoyant. A person who can see into the future, sometimes the past, and what's happening in the present. Juri was a future-tense clairvoyant with a knack for saying everything you thought you couldn't.
There we stood beneath the stair case leading up to her apartment, her eyes lit by a dim light coming from the window next to us. The sign on the door said manager, but I hardly cared. Juri pursed her lips in concentration as I gripped Moshi tighter to my chest.
Just when I thought she'd stopped breathing entirely she lifted all pressure from my shoulders, though her hands remained there. Her feet dropped to the ground, her hands slid away like they were numb, and she looked at me with the most perplexed look on her face.
"I swear, I saw it wrong," she said nearly in a whisper.
"What'd you see?" I asked.
"Sae... you're not a psychic... are you?"
"No, not really. I mean, I say something that someone else was thinking, but no..."
"Mn," she bit her lip nervously. "Sae, please... come in," she whipped around and grabbed my wrist, almost dragging me up the stairs of her building.
Gasping as she threw the door shut, locked it twice, shut the blinds, and turned the lights out. "Juri, I can't... I can't see!" I said as I tried to find something to grab onto as a guide. Just before I could get a firm grip on a lamp her hand pulled on my wrist once again.
"This way," she whispered.
Shocking still she drew me forward along what seemed like an endless hallway with far too many twists and turns. My throat was aching from all the dashing by the time we came to a blinding doorway of light. I shielded my eyes as she threw me across the room and onto a bed where she locked the door behind her and repeated her security measures on her own room.
When I looked around I saw that there was an excess of candles, probably one hundred, burning, melting, and dripping over shelves, books, and even stacks of cards. It looked like something out of a horror movie when I saw that one such candle was dripping black over a human skull. Her hand shook it off as if it were a pet dog. Sorry about my skull. If you ignore him, it won't mind, she might have said.
Nervously she looked all around the room before sitting in front of something demonic looking. It was a grand altar with stacks of tarot cards, twenty, maybe thirty, candles, books with foreign words and symbols on them, and even something brewing in a little black pot that smelled a lot like cloves. Her eyes lowered to the cards with little labels above them. One said Nagi, the other said Sae, and the final was the Unknown. I stared down at the cards as she spread out Unknown's three and my own set.
"Juri?" I asked sheepishly as I saw her read into their English encryptions.
"I meant to show you earlier, but you're always in places you needn't be," she muttered as she took a taste from the pot. "Mm... almost done."
"Done?"
"Yeah, done," she nodded as she pushed Nagi's cards away. Clearly he wasn't as important to her as he thought. "Sae, have you come in contact with anyone strange?"
"Define strange," I returned her query as she stared deeply into the Unknown's set.
"Magical... not human."
For a moment my heart stopped. I remembered the Guardian, the Seeker, the Soul... the Watcher Hag... I remembered them all. Recalling carefully, I told her about the silvery blood, the light, the pathway... about Rumi and how she'd tried to one up me. I told her how the man said Dominici and had made a mark on my forehead for days. People had thought I'd drawn on myself, but I'd swear up and down that it wasn't me.
"Do you still have that mark?" She leaned up suddenly.
"Well, it went away a while ago... I'm not sure when," I shrugged as she stepped right over her altar and confronted me on the bed.
"How soon ago?" Her face was just inches from mine.
"I-I don't know!" I gasped as she swept my bangs from my face and licked her finger. When she pulled that finger away from her lips it was glowing blue.
I couldn’t recall if it was the bright light that was reminiscent of the silvery blood or if it was the fact that Juri was glowing that took me by surprise. Her eyes were fixed in absolute concentration as she reached over the table and towards my face. Panic turned my body to stone as my long-time friend neared me.
"Hold still," she whispered.
"J-Juri?!"
"Dominicia," her voice rang through my ears as if she'd punctured my ear drum.
A violent pain shot through my head as I arched back onto her bed. My head felt as if it were splitting, my hands cradling it to try to stifle the agony. My scream was silent as it caught in my throat much like it had that day. I felt a hot burn rip across my forehead as Juri nervously watched me. "It's true," her face went white as I stared at her through parted fingers.
"Juri, wh-wh... what did you... did you do?!" I hacked up a spat of blood as I keeled over myself.
"Sae, please stay still," she pushed me on my back as she pushed up my bangs once more. My eyes went wide as she muttered her next words carefully. I couldn't hear them because a loud ringing was reverberating inside my head. I let out a great whine as if I were a kicked dog. It was the loudest sound I could manage.
"S-Sa... Sa..." A word came to me from a dark and hidden place. My lungs burned as she grabbed my face and turned it toward her.
"What's the name?" Her voice was urgent.
"Sag... sag... Sa..." I choked, tears spilling over my face.
"Yes?!"
"Saa.." I faded into darkness as my entire body went limp.
"Sae, please!" She shook me.
As if her concern was a defibrillator to my heart, I jolted upright with a sudden surge of adrenaline shooting through me like a bullet. Every inch of me was sweating and shaking as I shoved her aside. I didn't see whether she was hurt or not, I just ran.
My feet carried me back into the living room where I literally ripped the door off its weak hinges. I really hoped that I wasn't doing this. I wanted it to be a dream. No, a nightmare. "Sa..." My lips trembled as I saw the sky.
"People are afraid of Harvest moons... they say they're cursed. They drag people to hell on that night," Rumi's teasing voice filled my head as I took the stairs four at a time.
"SAE!" Juri screamed from her door as I skidded around the corner.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the thing I feared. Dark shapes chasing me. Please be Nagi, please be Nagi, please be Nagi, PLEASE BE NAGI!!! I chanted in my head as I ran straight past the shrine where, to my utter dismay, Nagi was standing.
"Sae?" He called after me as I scaled a neighbor's garden wall and ran atop it.
"No," I choked as I fell and collapsed into a heap of limbs. I quickly recovered when I saw the tall, menacing shapes lurk closer. "No!"

The chase seemed to last for hours until they'd finally cornered me on Night Fall Island's beach. I had bruised my feet and torn a deep gash in my left calf. They cared not. I backed against a muddy bank wall as they crept closer still. Knowing of nothing else, my hands dug into the muddy, root-dappled bank and clawed up to solid ground. My heart dropped as I staggered up to my feet and bolted deep into their dark depths.
I could feel the pain of a cramp creep up my leg as I ran faster and faster into the moonlit forest. Orange light cast long and intimidating shadows along the ground. My hoped died when I saw the shadows were mixing with the shapes that were slowly taking forms of men. They had eyes of every color, teeth as long as my fingers, and claws as thick as my ankle. I jumped when I found the small path of fungi that lit my way.
"Sa-sa..." I stammered as I jumped over a rocky edge and rolled into the clearing.
My lungs squeezed when I saw the entire edge of this clearing line itself with the demonic creatures. They all snickered excitedly as one with especially dark eyes hopped in and landed flat on its feet. I watched as it walked over to me and sneered widely with yellowed teeth like razors. Head becoming dizzy, I saw him pull out a long knife that rivaled his teeth. I winced as he pulled me by the by collar and dangled me above the ground. "No!" I gasped as he slid the blade across my arm. I cringed at the sharp pain as he dropped me against the earth.
In some strange language of clicks and grunts the one nearby called the rest into the clearing. I was belittled by their height and faces as my blood seeped into the earth. Just when I thought it was over the tallest one picked me up and dangled me over the crowd. They sniggered excitedly as their hands ripped and scratched at my skin. I fought the urge to scream, but lost focus and let one word and one word only come from my mouth.
"SAGO!!" My lungs belted in a scream.
Just when my world began to turn black as the shadowy demons around me the earth below us cracked open. Great shafts of light shot up into the sky, many of the monsters crying out in pain. My eyes rolled into the back of my head just as the crack became a great gaping mouth in the earth.
Just as I passed out a warm, bright light engulfed us whole, a strange sensation of peace overcame me.
Before I could see what was happening, though, I was knocked unconscious...
Who... no... what, is Sago?