Page 36

Ethan and I slipped out the back window, landing softly on the dry, overgrown grass.

The motel’s dim neon glow barely reached us as we maneuvered through a cluster of bushes, avoiding the main road.

The night air was thick with the scent of earth and old pavement, and the occasional hum of a passing car in the distance was the only indication that the world beyond our small path still existed.

We crossed the street, heading toward a desolate house that loomed under the weak moonlight.

It stood like a forgotten relic, its structure warped from years of neglect.

The windows were boarded up haphazardly, some with planks barely holding onto rusted nails.

The front door was slightly ajar, creaking gently in the night breeze, as though waiting for us.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "This looks haunted. If I die here, I swear I’ll haunt you."

Ethan snorted but didn’t reply. Instead, he kept walking with a quiet sort of reverence, leading me toward the fence.

We climbed over, and he offered his hand as I landed.

I didn’t think much of it at first, but the way his grip lingered made something flicker in my chest—something I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

As we stepped onto the creaky porch, Ethan’s demeanor changed. His usual cocky smirk was absent. Instead, there was something far heavier in his gaze, something that made my stomach twist uncomfortably.

I frowned. “You’ve been here before.”

Ethan exhaled through his nose, pausing at the bottom of a staircase. “Yeah. This is my childhood home.”

I blinked, thrown off by the sudden confession. I looked around again, trying to picture a younger Ethan running through the halls, filling the space with laughter instead of silence. But all I saw was decay.

“This?” I gestured to the eerie, abandoned structure around us.

Ethan nodded, fingers skimming the dust-laced wooden railing as he started up the stairs. “I was happy here,” he said quietly. “Happier than I’ve ever been.” His voice had that echo people get when they’re talking more to the past than to the present. “Before my father joined a demonic cult.”

I froze, foot suspended mid-step. “I—what?”

But Ethan kept walking, steady as a ghost retracing old steps. The staircase groaned beneath us, the air thick with age and something heavier—unspoken truths stirring like dust in sunlight.

“He wants me to join,” he added, voice flat, emotion buried beneath exhaustion.

A chill uncoiled through me, slow and crawling. I knew little about Ethan’s family—his rich, distant father and a house that was more a museum than a home. But this wasn’t just secrecy. This was rot.

“Why would he want you to—” My words tangled in hesitation. “What kind of cult are we talking about?”

Ethan gave a dry laugh, hollow as an empty grave. “The kind that worships demon gods,” he said. “The kind people sell their souls to, just to keep their yachts and power.”

My stomach clenched. The supernatural had long since stopped being unbelievable. We’d seen things—felt things. But cults… cults weren’t just creatures or curses. Cults were deliberate. Organized. The kind of evil that didn’t just haunt—it recruited.

At the end of the hallway, Ethan stopped. His hand hovered over a faded brass doorknob, trembling slightly before he turned it.

I hesitated behind him. The room beyond looked like someone had tried to pause time and failed.

A twin bed leaned against the far wall, covers still rumpled like someone might return at any moment.

Posters peeled from the ceiling like old wallpaper memories.

Dust draped every shelf and surface like cobwebs spun from forgetfulness.

“This was my room,” Ethan said.

He stepped inside slowly, his presence feeling too large and too small all at once. His fingers brushed across the edge of a wooden desk where a few relics still remained—an old toy car, a rusting keychain, a sketchbook frozen mid-doodle.

I hovered in the doorway, not sure if I was intruding or being invited in.

“You were happy here,” I said, softer this time.

Ethan sat on the edge of the bed. “Yeah.”

The silence that followed didn’t feel empty. It pressed in, thick and humming with memory. I didn’t fill it. I waited.

Eventually, he spoke again, more to the floor than to me.

“He used to be different. Cold, yeah, but normal-cold, and sweet. Distant, work-obsessed. But the kind of dad who bought bread for breakfast and toy dragons in my birthdays.” His hands clenched the sheets.

“But then he changed. Started talking about things that made my skin crawl. The Path. The Offering. Started coming home late, eyes… wrong. Like something had reached inside and flipped a switch.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t. Every word he shared felt like a thread pulled from something barely holding together.

“He brought them here,” Ethan went on. “Men in robes. Women with voices like smoke. They whispered things in some guttural, ancient tongue.”

My skin crawled. “And you—”

“I stayed in my room.” Ethan exhaled shakily. “At first, I thought it was just some weird phase.

That maybe he’d snap out of it. But he didn’t.”

I kept silent, barely able to digest half of what he’d said.

His voice cracked. “And now that I'm seventeen, he wants me to join him.”

I swallowed. “And you said no?”

Ethan laughed, shaking his head. “Of course I said no.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until Ethan looked up at me, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “Surprised?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “No, I just…” I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. “I don’t get it. Why are you telling me this?”

Ethan leaned back on his elbows, looking up at the ceiling. “Because you're a good listener, Ghost Boy.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. I had spent so much time assuming Ethan was just another reckless, cocky idiot. But sitting here, in the abandoned shell of his childhood, he looked… human. Or at least a demon with sense.

I sat down on the old desk chair, exhaling slowly. “What happens now?”

Ethan looked over at me, something unreadable in his expression. “I don’t know.”

I stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

And for now, whatever he had shared was enough.

Then, he stood up and moved toward a section of the wall, running his fingers along its surface as if searching for something.

His movements were careful, deliberate, like he’d done this before.

Then, without hesitation, he tore away the top layer, the old wallpaper peeling back with a dry rip.

Beneath it, something incredible emerged—a sprawling, intricate map, detailed and vast, the kind detectives use when trying to solve a grand mystery. But this wasn’t just any map.

It was a story.

My breath caught as I got up and stepped closer, eyes scanning the familiar outlines. "Wait…this is—"

"Our country," Ethan confirmed, his voice quieter now, almost reverent.

The map was massive, covering a significant portion of the wall.

It was marked with various notes, drawings, and most notably, a series of colored pins pressed into different locations.

I took a step forward, examining them closely.

There was something about the arrangement that tickled at my memory, a nagging sense of familiarity. And then it hit me.

"These…these are all the places we visited during our documentary," I murmured, my stomach twisting. "That’s—how is that even possible?"

Ethan let out a small chuckle, though there was something unreadable in his expression. "Yeah. Coincidence."

Coincidence. The word hung between us, empty and unconvincing. But I didn’t push. Not yet.

Instead, I took in the map’s details. The faded lines, the careful handwriting, the sheer dedication that must have gone into it. Some of the pins had small notes attached, scribbled in a young, eager hand.

‘The Enchanted Park of Aislad—where real magic happens’

‘Lake Orion—blue like a dream’

‘Mt. Cain—high as the sky’

‘Dragon Park—infernos from mouths’

I scanned the entries, my chest tightening as I recognized each location. The realization sent a shiver down my spine. Ethan had made this. He had planned this. Long before our tour even began.

I turned to him, a question forming on my lips, but he moved again, pressing his fingers against another section of the wall. This time, what he revealed wasn’t just a map, but something far more personal.

There, drawn in the clumsy scrawl of a child, were two stick figures standing beneath the grand outline of the country. They were holding hands. The drawing was simple, almost laughably so, but there was something undeniably touching about it.

Ethan exhaled, brushing a hand over the old sketch. "I made this when I was a kid," he said, his voice softer now. "Back then, I had this dream—to visit all these places. To see them, to experience them, to make memories. But…I didn’t want to do it alone."

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. "You—"

"I wanted a mate," he continued, eyes fixed on the old drawing. "Someone to take the journey with. Someone who’d be there, through it all. I guess I thought…if I imagined it enough, if I wished hard enough, maybe one day, I’d find them."

My fingers twitched at my sides. The weight of his words settled over me, heavy and suffocating.

I looked at him then, really looked at him.

Ethan—Paramount High’s golden boy, the troublemaker, the reckless demon who’d spent the past few weeks sneaking out and dragging me into ridiculous situations.

Ethan—the guy I couldn’t seem to stop watching, the one I couldn’t seem to shake, no matter how hard I tried.

His eyes met mine, blue and intense, searching for something in my expression. My heart pounded against my ribs, loud and insistent.

Then he said it.

"Clark," his voice was steady, sure, "I think you’re that mate."

The world stilled.

My breath caught, my mind raced, and I didn’t know what to say.