Shudders: Reclamation Day

Chapter 7 - The Shadow

Photo by Graham Clark
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"I'm not sure if we'll be able to keep this one." Saren muttered as she observed the demon they had captured in its cage.

    (Y/N) stood next to her and watched the demon too. It was just sitting in its cage snarling at them but making no attempt at escaping like before. Saren said it reminded her of a skinny homeless man but since it was the first humanoid they had come across she thought it would be worth studying a bit. She might have jumped the gun with this.

"You think you can-" Saren started making weird gestures and noises with her eyes and hands pointing from her to the demon. (Y/N) chuckled and nodded.

    The Head Keeper crouched down and met eyes with the demon. It continued to snarl at her with rotten yellow teeth but (Y/N) made no move to get closer to the cage. Before she could tap into its mind, a Capturer walked towards the two women and caught their attentions.

"We need you two outside. The Scientist team came back with results on that mark you had found."

    Both their eyes widened at this. They've both been curious about the mark the whole day. It was currently night and snow began to come down again which sort of slowed the process for the Scientists due to lack of light and low temperature.

    The ladies followed the Capturer out of the carrier which allowed Dog to finally come out of hiding. Thankfully the back of the carriers was pretty dark, especially the space above the cages that he was able to crawl into. It was a tight fit but he's able to contort his body enough to fit inside. The demon looked around before sliding his head out that slowly regained color from just being black. Apart from being able to contort his body, he can also camouflage pretty well into the shadows. He looked down at the demon underneath him and the demon growled back in response.

    He could let it free to see what the humans would do. It would give him a chance to see how quick they are once they spot a demon on their grounds.

    Deciding to do it, Dog reached down with one of his spider legs towards the lock on the cage. But once his leg tapped the reader, he got an access denied screen. There goes his plan.

    He pulled his leg quickly back when the two ladies came back inside. His body merged back into the shadows quickly with the only evidence of his presence being the demon in the cage looking up at where his head was just a second ago.

"So it was blood. I guess I shouldn't be surprised." Saren spoke as she leaned against a wall next to the cage. "Maybe there's a demon who's an artist?"

    (Y/N) slowly shook her head."But why use blood? Unless it's just to be grotesque. And the marking looked too specific to be just art."

    Saren tilted her head and smirked. "What you got any bigger ideas for it? You sound like a character in a horror movie who just found evidence of the monster."

"And you sound too nonchalant about it." (Y/N) countered.

"The mark dates back around 30 years ago. If it was meant for anything, it's probably gone by now. Besidessss-" Saren sung as she turned back to the demon who was biting at its own fingers. "We need to figure out what to do with this thing."

    (Y/N) went back to her original position and tried getting the demon to look at her by snapping her fingers. "Not much else we can do if it's not worth studying. I'll see what I can find."

     Saren nodded and watched as the woman was finally able to get the demon to look at her. Dog crept out a bit to take a peek as well, seeing the woman's eyes light up in a bright yellow and her freeze in place. Was that normal for humans to do?