It was the ninth round. The monster had rolled yet another six, but this ti, it wasn't laughing. Jenkins once again guided his cat’s paw forward. Chocolate squinted, knowing another six was out of the question. Even if Jenkins had already spotted nurous tells, they couldn’t make it so blatant.
With a gentle flick of its small paw toward the die, the dim room concealed an unnatural stirring in the shadows. Myriad black threads, finer than human hair, slithered across the floorboards, converging directly beneath the black die.
In the ninth round, Chocolate rolled a three.
Relief washed over both Jenkins's and the monster's faces. Jenkins gave his cat a gentle shake, pleased that the string of sixes now seed like a re coincidence. The monster, silent, reached into the air and simply plucked the wallet from Jenkins's pocket.
For the tenth round, the creature’s stubby finger paused for a mont as it touched the die. For the first ti, the tumbling die wobbled twice in mid-air before landing on a one.
Jenkins eyed the result with suspicion, worried it was a trap. He had Chocolate extend its paw again. The die landed on three.
"So, are we free to go?"
"Yes."
It answered distractedly, glancing from its finger to the die floating in the air.
Unsure of what was happening, Jenkins didn't hesitate. He grabbed Fini’s hand, tucked the cat under his arm, and bolted for the door.
He sprinted past the bedroom doorway, his feet pounding on the floorboards as he crossed the living room. The exit, a door at the far end of the darkness, was finally in sight when an enraged voice roared from behind him:
"I see it now! Stop! You liar, you cheated!"
"Damn it, it's breaking the deal," Jenkins thought.
Jenkins pretended not to hear and quickened his pace. At the sa ti, the faint black spiritual aura covering the house was stripped away, flowing toward the master bedroom. The dark energy converged into the cyan-skinned monster's body, and a blinding light flared, a clear sign of its genuine fury.
Like a surging tide of insects, a black, foul-slling sludge surged from the bedroom like a tidal wave. Jenkins grabbed the doorknob and shoved the door open, but his feet were already caught in the viscous flood.
He leaped outward with all his strength, flas erupting around his feet to vaporize the filth. But the girl, Fini, was yanked back toward the house by an imnse force. Jenkins refused to let go. Standing outside, he looked back and saw what looked like an invisible film stretching across the doorway, holding the black flood at bay.
The monster’s enraged, cyan face materialized in the depths of the sludge, its hand clamped around Fini’s ankle.
"Hold on tight! Don’t let go!"
he yelled to the girl. She had regained a bit of her composure, and her face, etched with terror and panic, was only inches from his.
The Inexhaustible Fla traveled down the girl's body, clashing violently with the black sludge. Steam hissed and filled the air, but the vile liquid seed endless. Jenkins had a sinking suspicion that this was his own Bestowal being twisted and used against him by the Cursed Item.
A voice in his head urged him to let go, to save himself, but the moral compass he had honed over a lifeti wouldn’t allow it.
Fortunately, Jenkins was spared from making that choice. From the depths of the black water, another figure erged.
"Fini, I'm so sorry..."
Mrs. Stress, looking utterly deranged, threw herself onto the monster from behind, grappling with its body. Her voice carried clearly through the sludge, further proof that this was no ordinary liquid.
"Fini, live a good life! You have to live!"
She bravely opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the monster. At that exact mont, Jenkins's flas gained the upper hand. It was hard to say what made the difference, but in that instant, Jenkins successfully pulled the girl out of the house.
They watched as the woman in the black water reached out and waved to Fini one last ti before her torn body stained the dark liquid red.
Slam!
Jenkins kicked the door shut. A strange, gurgling sound echoed from within, but after a few seconds, everything fell silent once more.
Half an hour later, with the others standing guard tensely, Miss Bevanna pushed the door open again. What greeted the believers of the Sage was an empty, barren house.
Ti inside the house had apparently moved differently from the outside world. According to the records, less than three minutes had passed between when Jenkins and Fini entered and when they erged.
The blizzard had not let up. At nine in the morning, not a single ray of sunlight pierced the gloom. Fini clung tightly to Jenkins’s hand; she hadn’t spoken a word since their escape.
"This should be A-05-1-4490, Lucky Misfortune."
Miss Bevanna was the first to step inside, holding a kerosene lamp aloft as she surveyed the empty interior. The paint on the walls was yellowed and peeling, and the floor was littered with random trash. There was no furniture, no sign of inhabitants—the Stress family had left no trace. The lamp’s warm, yellow glow cast their shadows onto the mottled walls, making them dance and sway with the flickering of the fla.
The place looked as if it had been abandoned for years, with none of the filth or water stains Jenkins rembered.
Fini cowered behind Jenkins. For a few seconds, she thought she saw sothing unusual about the shadows cast by Jenkins and Chocolate—they seed different from the others.
"I think I fully understand the aning behind that na."
He handed the diary to Miss Bevanna. It was the only thing he had managed to bring out.
She didn’t open it right away. With a sigh, she turned her gaze to the girl Jenkins was holding.
"According to our records, this type of misfortune is rooted in a family’s bloodline. It’s a curse that is nearly impossible to break. It spreads outward through the bloodline of the one who made the deal and their spouse, continuing until every last mber of the family is dead. Although you won your wager with that thing, we can’t be certain that Fini Faithford is free from the curse’s influence."
Hearing her na, the girl timidly looked up.
"But that should be easy enough to verify," Jenkins said.
"Yes."
The woman understood Jenkins’s aning. "Which is why Fini shouldn’t set foot outside the church for the ti being. It will not only allow us to monitor her for any abnormalities, but the power of the church itself can suppress certain unusual abilities."
"Thank you."
The girl responded ekly.
"There's no need for thanks. You are a believer of the Sage, after all."
The Stress family house was worthless now. Just as the cyan-skinned monster had claid, everything belonged to it, and it had taken everything with it—including one of Jenkins’s Bestowals. His luck had been abysmal lately. It certainly hadn’t improved as the candy-giver had promised. In a single week, he had lost two precious items.
"It had better hope we never cross paths again."
He was, of course, referring to the cyan-skinned monster.
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