It was such a sudden, grand entrance that managed to catch all their attention. Of course, why not? Jael was bent like a damn circus performer.
Iven followed Oris's gaze and looked at Jael in disbelief. "Jael, what are you doing? If you want to go downstairs, hey, don't crawl!"
What does Jael look like now?
Jael's body is bent at a weird angle. It reminds Iven of those horror movies. Never in his entire life would he have thought that he would be in a situation where he'd face someone doing that pose.
Still, despite trembling from fear, he tried to approach Jael. "Again, what are you doing? Stop scaring me. Enough." But before he could even touch Jael, Cail pulled him away.
Iven looked at Cail, feeling confused. Cail ignored him. This was not the time to explain. Looking at how red Jael's face was from the exertion, it was obvious that he was feeling pain.
It was such a random and creepy thing to do that no one had the time to react.
The entire room went silent. Cail, being the only person who had an idea as to what was happening, slowly approached Jael and tried to pull him up.
It felt very solid for some reason.
Jael was stuck; he wasn't moving. It was as if he was glued to the stairs.
To be honest, if this had been nighttime, they would have probably been screaming bloody murder. But it was still 12 PM. It was the height of noon, and now Jael was acting possessed. What should they do?!
Cail saw that Jael seemed to be whispering something.
"It's very noisy... Please make the noise stop... It's inside my head..."
Then Jael moved. It was a sudden jerk of his body, as if he were electrocuted.
This is bad, Cail thought.
No time to be gentle. Cail tried to wrestle Jael when he noticed that he seemed to want to do those impossibly deadly body twists. He was ridiculously hard to restrain.
Seeing that things were escalating quickly, Iven and Oris ran towards Jael. They were very stunned by what was happening, but they still wanted to help their friend.
"Jael, wake up!" Iven thought about the most logical explanation. Jael was probably sleepwalking.
Unlike him, Oris was a bit apprehensive. He looked at Jael's bleary eyes and thought they resembled something that was looking through a window.
Cail held Jael's torso. Oris and Iven were restraining both his hands to stop Jael from pulling his ears. This time, he was already screaming, "Something! Please make the noise stop! MAAAKE IT STOOP!"
Oris was already panicking. "Stop moving—what noise are you talking about?!"
Jael seemed to be more conscious now. "They are chanting. CHANTING. THEY JUST KEPT CHANTING!" His face was filled with tears and snot from desperation. He felt an itch in his brain that could never be scratched, and it was driving him crazy!
"Chanting?" Hearing that, Iven was reminded of what happened. "No one is chanting here. You're safe now." He thought that Jael was probably traumatized from what happened.
"THERE ARE!" Jael insisted, trying to wriggle his way out from their grasp for some reason. "It's in the walls! The doors! The air! It is the shadow!"
Then he looked at them in horror.
"You guys... Why are you chanting?"
The three of them looked at each other. They were pretty much clearheaded. There wasn't anyone chanting among them.
But Jael didn't seem to think so. He looked so betrayed and horrified. He was going wild, biting, kicking, and screaming at them. "Help! Help! Ahhhhhhhhhh!"
Seeing that he was acting like he was being tortured, Iven and Oris felt a wave of panic and embarrassment. My gosh, what would the neighbors think?!
Iven said impulsively, "Should we just knock him out?" He said that out of helplessness, but Cail thought it was a good idea.
He chopped the back of Jael's neck and caught his falling body. It looked very professional, as if he had already done this before. He ignored Iven and Oris's strange gaze as he carried Jael to the sofa.
Oris fixed his crumpled clothes and pointed at Jael. "Should we find an exorcist?"
Iven stepped on his foot. "Exorcist, my ass! We need to find a psychiatrist!"
"Aren't you a staunch believer in myths?" Oris looked at Iven up and down. "Jael looked more possessed than traumatized."
Iven looked away guiltily. He loved myths and Deities, but he was absolutely a scaredy-cat when it came to ghosts.
Cail ignored their meaningless argument and checked on Iven. Some of the 'alarms' that were implanted in Iven's body were triggered after that outburst. So those void users probably knew that something had happened. But why did Jael suddenly hear some strange chanting? What exactly was the chanting?
The fainted Jael didn't look at peace at all. He was frowning, and his mouth kept moving. Cail had no idea what he was saying, since aside from the subtle movement, there weren't any words coming from his mouth.
I just freaking hope he wasn't chanting some summoning ritual, Cail looked at Jael darkly.
"I should send Jael back to the room," Cail said calmly, as if what happened was just something normal.
Although Oris and Iven felt that what happened was strange, they just thought that Jael was probably too stressed from what happened. He was almost kidnapped by a cult, and his house was blown to pieces.
"You need help?" asked Iven.
Cail waved his hand dismissively and carried Jael upstairs like a sack of potatoes.
"That hold must be uncomfortable on the stomach," Iven muttered. Then he felt something was wrong. "I seem to have forgotten something?"
Oris heard Iven and shook his head. "Maybe you forgot about the movie?" He said, pointing at the still on television.
Iven still felt something was off, but he couldn't remember or pinpoint it. He looked at the empty sofa, and after trying to recall what it was, he sighed.
"Since I forgot about it, it probably wasn't important," he said.
He and Oris went back to the couch. This time, they were sitting on the big one.
The two of them watched TV together. Just the two of them in the living room.