Lightening streaked across the sky, flashing thrice and followed by thunder. They weren't staring at it, or noticing the fact that it was raining heavier, or that their clothes were drenched.

They were staring at Yurika, the ghost was long gone but her words had stuck to their skin like their clothes did. Tehani was leaning on Castor drained by the ritual she had just performed, but when Yuri took a step back, Pollux noticed that the witch leaned forward like she wanted to reach out and hold her best friend close.

"What is wrong with you?" Castor spoke first, his voice sharp and accusing. Yurika flinched at it.

"I didn't do it!" Yuri cried.

Pollux's twin shook his head.

"You think I think you killed these people?" Castor asked. Now he sounded hurt.

Pollux knew his twin didn't know he had wrapped his arms around Tehani who was leaning against him, they looked like a couple and the worst part was that they didn't seem to know. Pollux wondered if there was anything between them that he didn't know about.

"You never liked me before, I wouldn't be surprised if you thought so because some ghost said so." Yuri said, tone bitter. She was shivering under the rain and when Pollux squinted his eyes in the dark, it looked like she was cloaked in pale yellow light. By the way, Tehani shared a glance with him, he knew she saw it too.

"No, pendejo," Castor said with a shake of his head, his hair was flopped down to the nape of his neck, he looked ridiculous, Pollux would have laughed if his brother wasn't a copy of himself. "Your aura is glowing and I can scent death on you thick and pungent."

"Like I have on the past locations where people have been killed by this evil entity." He continued.

Pollux shared another glance with Tehani, his was concerned, for both the witch and the fox.

"I'm going to die next, aren't I?" Yuri said, her lower lip quivering, she wrapped her arms around herself and Pollux wanted to steal an umbrella and shield her away from the rain and anything that seemed to be following them.

Castor shook his head again, this time impatient.

"No, whatever is killing people is drawn to you. I've noticed this before."

"Like a parasite? Feeding on life?" Tehani said. She seemed to have regained some strength, she untangled herself from Castor. "My father told me a story, some years ago, only I'm not so sure it was just a story. Ewreburg Island was left uninhabited for many years because it was rumoured to be an island left for demons and otherworldly entities to roam, my father told me that it took several years of cleansing to make Ewreburg safe to live in, he told me that many of those monsters still roam the country, hidden and cursed from causing chaos."

The graveyard seemed to have quieted to listen to Tehani's story, even the rain was subsiding.

"If you remember, like a year ago, there was an incident in Sunville, a girl released a monster that plagued the town for two weeks before it disappeared suddenly, the whole thing was swept under the rug and dubbed a lie." Tehani continued, she was staring at her best friend like she was a totally different person. "The night the news of it aired on TV, my father had laughed and blamed the coven of Sunville,"

"There are witches in Sunville?" Pollux asked, ignoring the irritated look his twin sent him, he was the only human among them and that allowed him the right to be fascinated about things that were strange to him.

"There used to be, they don't practice anymore. Sunville has always been a community of white people with very few blacks among them, practicing in public is dangerous for them." Tehani answered with a patient smile, it looked more like a grimace. "My father said something about how Eden would be much worse if the Yako spirit his coven hadn't locked it away."

"Yako?" Yuri said with surprise in her tone. "It's a parasite, my father called it a nogitsune."

"It can only possess people with affinity like it, it could possess a normal body but it would be powerless in it and easy to destroy, it needs something powerful, with  someone like Yuri as a host, we wouldn't stand a chance at killing it." Tehani finished. "It's why it's been stuck in this timeline, because it needs a host like Yuri to leave."

"So we can kill it?" Castor asked.

The best friends exchanged a glance that was filled with so much sorrow that it made Pollux flinch back..

"Yes, we can only kill it in a host, if it were to possess a human, then we'd have to kill the host to kill the parasite." Yuri stumbled on her words, silent tears ran down her cheeks and Pollux was suddenly very tired, he just wanted to go home and wish none of this ever happened.

"But it isn't stupid enough to possess a human, especially when it knows we are onto it." Realization dawned on Pollux as he spoke.

"We would have to kill Yuri, to save ourselves, we have to kill her." Castor said what everyone was thinking.

"No," Pollux snapped at once. "We came here together as four and we are going to leave as four."

"That isn't your decision to make, Pollux." Yuri said with venom. "It's my choice and I want to do it."

"Before it gets to kill any of you to complete the ritual." Yuri added. She ran a hand through her wet hair. It had stopped raining, and the stars didn't look pretty to Pollux, they looked wicked, winking down at their ill fortune.

"But Yuri was marked like us too," Castor pointed out. Pollux hated that his twin looked unaffected by the news but a rational part of him knew that Castor had always been able to hide what he felt and thought when he wished it.

"Possession is the same as death, if it succeeds, there will be nothing left of her, she won't be the Yuri we know." Tehani deadpanned.

And love, Pollux added silently, staring at the said girl, afraid to look away.

"Why hasn't she been possessed yet, what is it waiting for?" Castor asked another reasonable question.

"Yako spirits feed on fear, hate and chaos but they cannot take an unwilling body. Yuri has to be willing."

"Then it cannot make her do it, we'll find another way to destroy this spirit and return home." Pollux argued, raising his voice up a notch.

"And we rot here? There is no way out other than what Tehani has said. Nogitsune spirits are like Kitsune spirits, they are tricksters, predators. Make no mistake, Pollux, what it wants, it will get. My mind isn't strong enough to ward away the tricks of a Nogitsune." Yuri cried out suddenly, spreading her arms in a wild gesture.

"We either come up with a plan to kill me while I'm possessed or it uses me to kill you three."

***

The fox stood in the shadows, watching and listening. The time was near to take back what had been stolen from it. Its current host was a waste, a foolish human soon to waste away. Humans were sentimental, like this one, keeping a token of love on a necklace that the fox toyed with, ripping the chain and tossing it to the wet sand.

A good hunter knew when to strike, taking the time to scent out the fear of its preys. When it was time, it would take, and take and take until there was nothing left to take.

Soon.