I saw Lay put his hands over his ears to silence my screaming, and then I stopped when my throat was in agony. I opened my eyes but instead of seeing the bloody ghouls or the beasts, I saw two people who I never thought I’ll see again.

“Dad? Mum?” I said in shock, “Are you really here?”

“Raine!” they both shouted and ran over to me, it was more of floated over to me.

We hugged and my mother sobbed when she realised we were dead.

“I’m so sorry we left you!” my mother apologised.

I shook my head which was leant on my father shoulder.

“It’s so good to see you again, I’ve missed you so much my sweetheart!” my father said.

After a few minutes of a bittersweet reunion, we gathered our tears and wiped the remaining tearstains away and settled down on the sofa with me by my mother side and Lay on my other side. My mother had her arm around me and hugging me closely, not wanting to let go.

“What are you doing here in Lay’s mansion?” I asked, curiously, looking up at my father.

“We died ages ago, dear, but instead of going to our afterlife, we are stuck in limbo looking for Yixing,” my father started to explain, “I guess you must have found out, but we are part of the Vandeviere family, so it is our duty to protect this village even if we may have failed previously.”

“So the story your grandfather told you was real,” I said to Lay.

He nodded and my father continued, “We are dead now, so we can’t do much, but you two have the power to return to human life and fulfil the eleven spirits wishes, we are only staying here in ghost form to tell you.”

“What is going to happen to you when you have told us?” I asked, holding onto my mother tighter, not wanting them to go.

“Over the past few years, we have been haunting the island looking for reasons as to why we cannot move on to the next part of life, so we think there must be something we need to do, the other day, we found this mansion and found out that Yixing is here and the book over there said that he has been told to look for you,” my mother said.

My father continued, “Never would we have thought that you would end up here too and dead as well. But I guess it doesn’t matter because you have the power to come back to life.”

“Come back to life?” I asked, a little confused about this whole thing, “How?”

“You need to find the eleven spirits first and they will supply you with the power to make their wishes come true,” my father explained, “Both of you need to work together, without one of you, the bond would be broken and everyone would be in grave danger.”

“Where are the eleven spirits?” Lay finally spoke up.

“I hear that they are here, in this very village, roaming around.”

“How do we know what they look like?” I asked.

When I asked that question, I looked at my mother and noticed that the bottom half of her body was fading away.

“Mum!” I shouted, looking at the space where her leg was a few seconds ago, “What’s happening?”

“I guess we are moving on now, sweetie, we are only here to tell you the news and now that we have, I guess it’s time for us to leave.”

“No, mum!” I cried, “You have to stay, I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too, dear, but I guess we really have to go and there’s nothing we can do,” a tear fell from her face and her grip around my shoulder has vanished too.

“There’s an old book in our old house, go and find it,” my father commanded, “Both of you, stay strong and stick together, I believe in you!”

And with that, they vanished as if they were never there.

“Mum!” I shouted into the air, “Dad, don’t leave me behind again!”

I fell onto the floor from the sofa and sobbed. Lay patted my shoulder and said, “They had to go, be strong, you can do it.”

I nodded and remembered our mission; I can’t let them down so I stood up and wiped away my tears on my sleeve and look up at Lay, “You’re right, let’s go and look for the book.”

“Where did you live before coming here?” Lay asked in a serious tone.

“Gisborne, New Zealand,” I replied.

“That’s a long way.”

We both snuck our heads out of the door and made sure there was no one around before running down the hallway.

“You suitcase!” Lay suddenly stopped and said.

“Your books!” I said back.

We looked at which door we were standing by.

“Your suitcase should be in there,” Lay said, and opened the door, his hand reached up to turn the light on but he let out a shriek when another pair of hands held onto his wrist and pulled him into the darkness of the room. I quickly grabbed his other hand and pulled him out. But the force on the other side was stronger, I pulled harder, it was like playing a game of tug of war with Lay as the rope. Lay fought hard with whatever was holding onto him.

“It’s all sticky!” he said and wiggled his arm.

Once his hand was free, he pulled the handle and closed the door; red and purple goo was smothered over his arm and dripped when he shook it.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Well, that was the wrong room,” he said casually, “I think it’s this one.”

He opened the next door and kicked it open with his foot instead. The door flew open and the light from the hallway lit the room up immediately, just enough to make out a bed and a little case by the bed.

“There it is!” I said, pointing to it, I was about to walk in when Lay held me back and peeked into the room first.

The suitcase was only a few steps away, so I ran in and grabbed the handle then back out again.

“Now, your books,” I said.

We ran down the hallway again and Lay snatched the books off the desk whilst I held the door open. Then we ran out the front door, luckily, nothing stopped us apart from the door mat which I tripped over ungracefully.

Outside was pitch black, the night isn’t over yet so we made our way back to the café very carefully. Lay held my hand and we speed-walked down another alleyway. Soon we arrived but the living room light was on.

“You’re back!” Suho said, he ran over and gave me a hug, “I was so worried that you might run into some trouble.”

“We did, but we’re fine now,” I assured him.

“OMG!” Baekhyun shouted, covering his mouth with one of his hand whilst his other was pointing a shaking finger at my leg.

“You’re bleeding!” Chen exclaimed then he ran over and lifted me up; he gently placed me onto the sofa and went to look for something.

“Does it hurt?” Kai asked.

“It did, but I didn’t feel anything afterwards, now that my mind is back on it, yes, it does hurt a little,” I replied.

“Is that your suitcase?” Luhan asked, wheeling the pink case around in circles.

“Yes.”

“It’s so dirty, but so cute!”

“Stay still, Raine,” D.O said and held out a pair of scissor.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, a little worried with the expression he wore on his face.

“I’m just going to cut your jeans so I can clean the wound.”

“They are your jeans, I’m so sorry I ruined them,” I apologised.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He cut the material up to my thigh and dumped it onto a tray which had a first aid kit. When I looked up, half of them have disappeared back into their room and some were playing games. Lay was still watching D.O.

“You should go to sleep, Lay,” I said to him.

“I’m fine.”

“No, go to sleep.”

His face serious as he got up and walked away.

“I’m so sorry, D.O.”

“For what?” he looked at me.

“For being so troublesome and useless and dumb,” I confessed.

“Don’t say that,” he said, “Lay is like a brother to us so you’re like a sister to us now and Lay is always so lonely when we talk to him whenever he came to visit.”

I winced when he dabbed a wet towel on my leg.

“Flip around,” D.O instructed.

I obeyed and lay on my stomach as he treated my wound caused by the beasts when they were chasing after us.

“He said that he has been looking for a girl and we thought she was someone that he liked, but he explained everything to us,” D.O continued, “He has spent half his life looking for you so I guess he would care for you very much and made sure you’re safe and not out of his vision, he probably blames himself for getting you hurt.”

I was fully touched by what D.O told me. Lay was the first human I met when I arrived at this village and we both died together. In the expanse of a few days, we have been through so much and our journey is still yet to go on. I eventually fell asleep but woke up a little when my body was shifted and being lifted up. I was placed down onto the bed and someone whispered, “Good night.”