C̸h̶i̴h̴o̶

*Knock Knock*

Chiyoye was watching tv with her husband Habiki when there was a knock on the door. She got up and went to open the door. Upon opening the door, she saw a couple. The woman's face was familiar.

"Ohh! What a surprise! How are you, Aki?"

'Aki?'

Habiki got up hearing that his wife recognised them as friends. He came over to his Chiyoye's side and began to remember her.

Aki was a woman his wife met at the kindergarten when she came to drop and pick up Chiho. They had met there and became friends. Aki was also the mother of a single child at the time.

Later he heard they had a son too. Chiho used to play with their daughter although she never got to meet with the son because of parental conflict. Aki and his wife slowly drifted away.

"I'm good! May we come in?"

"Yes of course!"

"Aki! It's been a while, how's uh, your-" Habiki said awkwardly at the end.

He didn't recognise the man next to her so he couldn't ask about her husband and so instead asked about her kids.

"Wait a moment, I have a gift for you!"

Aki revealed a bat she kept behind her back. Habiki used to play baseball at a club in his early thirties but he got old and his friends stopped playing for the same reason.

Everyone got busy and tired. Except for Fumito, the true baseball fanatic of the group. He heard that he was still playing in the club. He was kind of an oddball. A lovable one.

The gift she brought was metallic although he could tell it had lost its shine and there were a couple of dents. It wasn't newly bought...

"Ahh, a bat... I don't play anymore these-"

*Bang*

Aki had lifted the bat high in the air and smashed it onto his head. He fell after his skull was caved in.

*Thud*

It had happened too fast for Chiyoye to realise what was happening. After her husband hit the floor she began to scream. Aki's partner jumped on her with his hand covering her mouth.

*Thump*

They both fell to the floor with him on top. His other arm was pressed across her body horizontally, jamming both her biceps so she couldn't lift her arms. The hand that covered her mouth exerted a gorilla's strength, locking her head in place.

*Tatatata*

Chiyoye's legs banged against the wooden floor as she struggled to break free.

Aki swung the bat onto her forehead in one smooth motion.

*Bang*

After a sickening crack, she was dead.

"Why didn't you grab his body before it hit the floor?" He said irritatedly.

"Sigh. The daughter must be upstairs, you check down here." She replied rather annoyedly.

Had she remembered to grab Habiki, they wouldn't have made that suspicious noise. The smoother the execution, the lower the risks and less clean up.

She sprinted up the stairs with inhumane speed.

*Bump*

Aki heard a noise against the bedroom door. The daughter must have barricaded it.

She rammed the door open and the bed was pushed back. It didn't slow her down at all. She wasn't human after all. The bed was at a 45-degree angle from the door. She went in the tight space.

Chiho was waiting on top of the bed behind the door. This height made it convenient for the weapon in her hands. Seeing Aki enter, Chiho swung her makeup cabinet directly onto Aki's head and it broke into pieces.

One of the shards of glass was stuck on Aki's scalp and she was bleeding profusely. However, it didn't kill her. Chiho had lost her only chance to survive this.

Angrily, Aki growled and threw Chiho against the wall. She fell onto the bed after getting smacked. Aki ripped out the glass shard and looked at the mirror on the drawer.

There were cuts made by shards of glass that flew against her face. Some of them were stuck there. Her partner downstairs had come up into the room.

"What happened!" He exclaimed as he looked at her hideous face in shock.

Aki roared and choked Chiho on the bed.

Chiho clawed her fingers at Aki's hands uselessly and used her last breath to scream albeit breathlessly for help.

"hellp" she whispered.

Her head spins as she tries gasping for air.

'Hikaru...'

She called out his name in the dark veil that had closed over her eyes.

Her heart, once quickly beating, is now slowing in tempo.

Then the hands that were on her neck were removed.

*Gasp*

"I'm taking her body. Hold her down." With that, Aki slumped down with her head besides Chiho's face. A worm crawled out of Aki's ear and entered Chiho's ear.

The man looked at Chiho coughing and gasping. There was no need to hold her down.

Chiho started having a seizure as the parasite dug through her ears to her brain. It hugged the brainstem and tiny tendrils protruded from it and tapped into the surrounding brain matter.

After a moment, Chiho woke up still coughing a bit.

"Let's go, the others picked up the bodies already." He said as he turned around and walked.

*Kata kata kata*

He turned around at the sound of running footsteps behind him.

*Shplort!*

The sharp plastic end of a hairbrush was thrust into his neck, severing the carotid artery. The person holding the other end of the hairbrush was none other than Chiho. The real Chiho.

The hairbrush was pulled out of his neck. A second later, blood gushed like a volcano. Vibrant red blood sprayed onto her hair, clothes and face.

*Thud*

The two men downstairs had come up to tell the other two to hurry up.

They looked in shock as Chiho became visible after their crew member collapsed and so unblocked the line of sight.

Chiho still had her beauty mask on. It has become a blood-soaked mask and combined with her vengeful look; it was truly horrifying.

However, the two snapped out of it and ran towards her without hesitation.

She ran towards the closed bedroom window and jumped out of it, breaking the glass. She threw away her bloody mask while in the air. The sunset met her face.