𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 12. 𝕴𝖓 𝖂𝖍𝖎𝖈𝖍 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖘 𝕿𝖔 𝕶𝖓𝖔𝖜 𝕺𝖋 𝕽𝖍𝖞𝖘'𝖘 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝕬𝖓𝖉 𝖂𝖍𝖞 𝕳𝖊 𝕮𝖆𝖒𝖊 𝕿𝖔 '𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖙𝖚𝖆𝖗𝖞'

(𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 :- 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚊𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎. 𝙸𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚍𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚎, 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚘𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚜)

(𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝟸 :- 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚜 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚖𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚌 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚏𝚏, 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚌𝚑 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚛 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎. 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚍𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚢𝚙𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚏𝚏.)

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(𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 :- 𝐑𝐡𝐲𝐬 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭'𝐬 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞)

Mavis came home and was fairly greeted by silence. It was strange seeing herself getting attached to 'silence'. After all, she loved chaos. But, everything was quiet nowadays. Ever since they left...

"What's the meaning of this?" Luna questioned her younger sister just when she entered her room.

At first, Mavis couldn't understand what was happening. Then, her eyes fell on the stack of papers Luna had in her hands and she visibly paled.

"Tell me. You know where they are. Right?" Luna questioned her sister once again. Mavis gave a weak nod. She knew better than anyone else that it was futile to resist this confrontation. Once, Luna is ready to search for answers, nothing can stop her.

"Why didn't you tell me about all this Mavis? Did I not have the right to know?... Well, leave the formalities for now and start telling me what you know." Luna sat across her sister. Angry, she was, but, not on Mavis. It was herself, who she thought was useless, at that moment. How could she be ignorant about everything till now.

The stack of papers in her hand were of three kinds. First one contained the police reports of a search operation. There was a copy of an FIR between those papers. The person they were searching for was charged with sexual assault on Blaze Braxton. The reports revealed that due to not having enough evidences, the case was officially going to close. Luna couldn't believe what she had read. Blaze had suffered so much, yet, Mavis kept all these to herself. Wasn't family a place to share your pain, sorrow, grievance and happiness in equal proportions?

The second stack of papers were printed details of Rhys's psychology sessions. Rhys had disclosed his dreams about seeing dark figures fighting among themselves. His psychiatrist had concluded that Rhys had done some sort of 'domestic violence' and now, his brain was just trying to block those memories by showing him several images, rather than one. Luna instantly knew that the psychiatrist had been lying all along. Even without reading anything about psychology, her instincts refused to believe the interpretation of Rhys's dream.

As if all these papers weren't disturbing enough, Mavis had another stack of papers where Luna saw someone she never wanted to.

One by one, Mavis started explaining about all those papers. Once, she finished her theory of first stack... she could tell that even Luna wasn't satisfied with police' searchings.

"So, you're saying that nobody went out of his office?" Luna questioned.

"Yes. But, it's strange... Thinking that they found the recording of someone entering his office but, didn't find that 'someone' exiting the same."

"You do understand that it's not natural... Right?" Luna confirmed. And Mavis could nothing than to nod. It wasn't natural and she knew it.

"Blaze has got a serious issue but, there's something more serious with Rhys. His dreams... They weren't natural." Mavis replied in a weak voice. Strained, with all the tension from the past one month. Yes, it had already been more than a month since Christmas. Christmas was the trigger in everyone's life here...

"What exactly did he see in his dreams?" Luna questioned Mavis, who, in turn, just looked at Luna for a long time and didn't answer anything. When she answered, all the colours left Luna's face and her lips parted with shock.

"He saw..."
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(𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 :- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦. 𝐀 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠...)

"I saw myself dying..." Rhys answered Sylvie looking very confused about it himself.

"This can't be..." Sylvie's hand flew to cover her mouth, which were parted due to shock.

"It's true. It started after Christmas. If I were to count and tell you the exact number of days... I would say, 36. The dreams I was having were so weird... I can't even explain it properly. I would like to be aloof and alone always. I was annoyed and irritated most of the times. Even my appetite was gone... And, look at my nails..." Rhys showed his nails to Sylvie.

Sylvie started her cerulean conflagration to see it clearly. His nails had almost turned black... His eyes looked like they were on fire... Instead of being their natural Amber colour, they were turning more and more red... Sylvie understood it then and there, what exactly had gone wrong...

"Listen to me Rhys... Watching yourself dying in dreams is nothing common. You can never ever die truthfully in your own dream... That’s because most, if not all of us, have no prior experiences of dying. Most of what we dream of is accumulated experience, mixed and matched, combined to form something interesting. If you never experienced something before, the dream will pull up every memory close to that experience and try to simulate it. As we cannot really tell what happens during the process of death, or after death, you can’t die in a dream because the dream has no prior experience, and therefore can’t simulate it. Which concludes that..." Sylvie averted her gaze from his face. She didn't want to say it out loud. For it would hurt her and others.

"Do you know what's wrong with me?" Sylvie nodded in response to his question.

"You're under one of the most dangerous black magics ever performed. Kalia Masan... In other words, you've only five more days to live, if, we didn't do anything."

Blaze and Rhys didn't know how to respond to that. So, they were just silent. Only five days... He would die before telling Luna that he was truly sorry. He would die before seeing his daughter, or holding her. He would die without giving Mavis' hand to his best friend... There were more than one regrets in his mind at that moment.

"Ash of the Dead or Kalia Masan is black magic by getting the victim to eat food containing ashes of a dead person. Death happens after 40 days often through the sudden onset of a fatal disease. The theory behind Kalia Masan is simple. In dreams we travel to other planes, and meet other friendly souls. Sometimes we meet people who have passed on. Our connection with these other worlds is deep, intrinsic to who we are. Tell me, what did you eat all this time and who fed you?" Sylvie tried to explain this thing.

"I eat food prepared by Luna only. But, when I'm out in the office, my personal chef prepares it. Are you saying he did this..." Rhys questioned. He, honestly, didn't want an answer to that.

"No... He didn't make the food. It was Lorelei." Sylvie exclaimed once she got her flames to peek and reveal the figments of his past. Bluish butterflies covered her whole body and they vanished as soon as she spoke. Only one remained fluttering around her figure with it's glowing wings.

"The church lady? I haven't even met her before coming here..." Rhys tried to get this thought out if his mind. It was too painful to see himself getting manipulated like that.

"I'm certain it's her... My flames don't show me wrong. We'll have to leave this place if we want you to be safe." Sylvie was clearly panicked herself.

"Can't you undo it here?" Blaze spoke for the first time.

"I can't. Only the caster can now, take it back..."

Kalia Masan… is the most dangerous type of black magic, it uses the power of disturbed souls on the lower astral plane who are suffering and wandering without any direction to elevate them and live as parasites on the people dwelling on earth. The Lower Astral is a magnetic continuum along a dark tunnel that attracts the lower thought forms of human beings. It collects human negativity the way a sewer collects wastes. It's energy is strangely fascinating and hypnotic; it's methods are seductive, intimidating, and ruthless.

If you get a very bad thought in your mind that’s either filled with Hate, Lust or Vengeance and if you are unable to get out of your mind, during your sleep cycle (when the body is in incomplete rest mode), the subconsciousness travels out and passes on this energy to the beings on the lower astral plane. You would have dreamt some real bad dreams and nightmares, which actually is nothing, but an out of body experience of your mind and subconsciousness which has traveled out while your physical body was asleep into the lower astral plane and the beings there have started to devour on your negativity. While this act has occurred without your will … you may actually do such an act of traveling to different astral planes using various ways of astral projections and third eye meditations, if someone puts this curse on you.

The elevated soul will be accompanied by a spirit guide who will directly take soul after death to the mid higher astral plane and will continue it's journey to the next level. On the other hand, when a soul leaves the body which is not yet prepared to leave as in cases of accidental death, suicides and murders; the soul is lost and does not know where to go. It is out of the physical realm because the body cannot accept the soul anymore and is medically termed as dead. This lost soul reaches the lowest astral plane, this is the plane that has maximum negativity. Souls who have left the physical plane with extreme lust, hate, or any negative emotion dwell here.

At the entrance of this plane, there is a river where, there are some souls waiting for the spirit guide to help them elevate from here. Those souls who carry a negative emotion stay back in this plane forever and often communicate with the people on earth who use black magic rituals to invoke them on the earth.

This river is very frightening and when seen, inspires misery. Even hearing an account of this river arouses fear. It is a thousand miles in width and it does not contain water. It is a river full of blood and pus with heaps of bones on it's banks and mud of blood and flesh. It is impossible for a sinful disturbed soul filled with vengeance, hate, or lust to cross this river as it is obstructed by hairy moss. Also, the river is filled with huge reptiles like, crocodiles and alligators, crowded with hundreds of flesh-eating birds and fishes. When a lost soul comes near the river in an attempt to cross, it seethes and becomes overspread with smoke and flames like butter in a frying pan. It is also covered with dreadful throngs of insects with piercing stings and vultures and crows with metallic beaks. It also contains leeches, fishes, turtles, and other flesh-eating water animals.

It is said that the hungry and thirsty sinful souls drink the blood flowing in the river. The sinners who fall into it wail with pain and fright. There is no rescuer for them. The hundreds of whirlpools in the river takes the ones fallen into the lower region. They stay for a moment in the lower region and then they rise again. Such a soul sits on the bank of this river filled with frustration and awaiting some means to cross this river.

"Do you know who the caster is?" Blaze asked and Sylvie just shook her head.

Suddenly, the blue butterfly, wandering around Sylvie, left her side and flew towards the door. In a blink of eye, the door opened with a 'thud'. Someone's feet made their way towards the trio. Wherever the feet touched the ground, golden flames lit and burned their way. Sylvie's butterfly stopped flapping of it's wings and the person raised her hand to touch it...

(Ground and the door started burning as soon as the person's feet touched them)

(The intruder holding Sylvie's butterfly)

"Where have she landed us, Rhys?" The person touched the butterfly and it's wings changed their colour... Blue had now, turned golden.

(Sylvie's butterfly changed it's colour from blue to Golden, with tinge of crimson)

Slowly, the butterfly strated ascending upwards. It's golden wings turning crimson with each passing second... The butterfly soon burned away and crimson flare showered upon them.

(Sylvie's butterfly had it's winged getting burnt)

(Crimson flare showered upon them like petals)

Before them, stood a five months pregnant lady... None other than his wife.

"Luna..." Rhys breathed.

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Number of words :- 2110 (Excluding Author's Note at the End of the chapter)
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Author's Note :-

I don't really have much to write today... The chapter this time, contained some disturbing knowledge related to black magic. I can't say things like these exist for sure but, who knows??? That's why, we should try to be as cautious as possible.

For people who want to know the source of this information... It's from Quora and Google. I searched for some similar things in Bible too. This is what I found :-

"Ash of the Dead or Kalia Masan is black magic by getting the victim to eat food containing ashes of a dead person.  Death happens after 40 days often through the sudden onset of a fatal disease.

The theory behind Kalia Masan is simple. In dreams we travel to other planes, and meet other friendly souls. Sometimes we meet people who have passed on. Our connection with these other worlds is deep, intrinsic to who we are.

The souls from suicide, accident, murder or sudden death, or who were not ready, go to the lower planes. People were depressed, morbid thoughts, negative emotions, also went to this bad place.

In the Bible, Isaiah finds a place of bones and skeletons. Magicians travel there, to rescue people who have fallen into this site. Black magicians do not have to go there – they need ashes from a funeral pyre."

Things that are written in Bible about this :-

"At the entrance to this place is a wide river, full of blood and pus with bones blood and flesh on the banks – there is no water, and on the other side are the souls waiting for a magician to help them back. Black magicians use the ash to tie them to the living victim, so that they can swap places. The river is full of crocodiles and alligators and flesh-eating birds. if a lost soul attempts to cross back the river seethes and boils. Terrifying insects are everywhere, there are flesh-eating fish and leeches. Whirlpools pull down the souls who enter the river in their attempts to escape, and deposit them back."

So, yeah... That's the whole story. I hope I didn't disturb you with this type of content (I honestly am myself scared of such things...).

Let me know what do you think of this chapter and characters so far.

BTW how do you think Lorelei managed to replace Rhys' chef at office?

And how come Luna suddenly appeared there?

Does Luna control flames or something else?

Till then, take care of yourself and those who are around you.

Ohh... And I came across this beautiful gif so, I thought of sharing it with you. How's it?