Neo City: Totem

Prologue

A child sits quietly in the corner as pairs of adults file into the funeral room one by one, paying respects to the two pictures at the centre.

"Poor child, he is too young to be without parents." one of the old ladies who is currently done gives respect to the two persons who already passed away, the parent of the child who silently sits at the corner of the room.

The two ladies just give the child a petty look before they go, and other groups of people get inside to give respect.

The day passed as the child watched all the people that he had never seen in his life, giving respect to his parents.

The child sits silently in the corner, holding back his tears. He doesn't want to cry in front of people who have given him a dismissive look as if they have no concern for his family. He doesn't even know them.

When the visiting time stops, the child's official guardian walks to him. "Malik, Let's go, we need to go home now, you still have school tomorrow." his Auntie said and made the child look at her.

The child silently follows his Auntie and both of them go home.

When the two reach his house, Malik goes to his room silently and locks himself. His Aunt just follows him by looking at him with a worried face.

Because she's thinking about what going to happen now to her nephew, especially since Malik didn't want to come with her. She understands Malik, because she knows even though Malik might still be in middle school, the child already can diced on his own, and he respects it.

Malik drops his body on his bed as he feels the tears slowly come out of his eyes, he doesn't want to make a sound as he cries because he doesn't want to make his auntie who he knows is already worried about him. So he cried until he fell asleep.

In the middle of his sleep, he wakes up with a heavy force pinning him to his bed. He tries to move his body but he can't feel anything.

"Arrg, Sleep paralysis again," Malik said through his thoughts. He already knew what he should do when he experienced sleep paralysis, as always as he had a couple of episodes of it while growing up.

He closed his eyes again and breathed deeply as he tried to feel his numb body, but a deep sound suddenly made Malik freeze and slowly open his eyes. And shocked at what he saw in front of him.

"Arrg~ powerful soul" a voice coming from the black smoke made Malik back to his senses as a panic kicked him.

He panics as he tries to move his body and scream through his thoughts, a mix of all scared emotions can be seen in Malik's eyes.

"Soul~ a delicious soul" the smoke speaks again making Malik start to go insane as tears start to build in his eyes. As he doesn't want to die in this kind of situation. He has still many things to do before following his parent from the afterlife.

As Malik panics the smoke starts to roam Malik's body as it continues to state 'Delicious soul'.

"I want to eat your soul~" The smoke states and roams Malik's body as Malik's body starts to feel the struggling.

Thankfully, before the smoke can kill him, Malik manages to feel and control his body as he immediately wakes up and the smoke around him despair.

"What the fuck is that? " Malik whispered as he massaged his neck and breath. He pulls himself to stand up and look around his room, he knows that he's not dreaming because he already heard about that creature from his parent.

Malik didn't believe in that creature and sometimes took it as a myth to scare children, but what currently happens to him? He realized his parents weren't joking.

"What the hell" He said as he chased his breath and held his chest, but a cold. Malik looked at his room looking at the creature he saw in his sleep paralysis. But a cold breeze he felt on his nape made Malik freeze for a second as he slowly turned around.

"GRAAAAAA!!!!!!" (forgive me... I didn't how to write a growling sound 😅😅😅) The smoke creature grew on Malik's face and made him fall to the floor.

Before Malik can stand up a smoke roams around him and holds Malik and lifts him up

"Ahh!!! Let me go" Malik screamed, and the Creature threw him away. Malik hits the wall before he falls to the ground.

He moaned in pain as he pushed himself to get up, but stopped as Malik noticed how his palm suddenly brightened but disappeared after a second.

As Malik lost to his thought the smoke attacked him and threw him again. He moaned and before he could manage to move the smoke already got him and held him to his neck as he lifted him.

"Ahh," Malik moaned and grabbed his neck.

"GRAAAA!!!" The smoke creature growls as it comes closer to Malik.

When the smoke finally comes closer, the creature embraces Malik as it slowly enters his body to absorb his soul energy.

Malik starts to feel numb as he can feel like he wants to sleep. But he doesn't want to sleep knowing if he lets himself sleep this going to be dead.

But before he loses consciousness a bright light comes out to his hand once again as it slowly comes up to his shoulder and before he could see what happened his eyes closed.

The light embraced Malik's body making the Smoke creature growl in pain and drop Malik's body, and fully eaten by the light that filled the whole room.

And when the bright light appeared only thing left was Malik's unconscious body, his messy room, and a small animal standing in front of unconscious Malik.

The small creature squeaks and turns around to his Human as he speaks.

"it's too early for me to come out," The small creature said and sighed.