Chihiro came back into the room with 3 large bowls, rolling her eyes. One bowl in each hand and the third balanced on top of her head. She sat across from lee, and put one at her left, his right for Mother.

Mother came and sat down, not eating until given permission. Chihiro looked at the white wolf and nodded. Mother bent her head down into the bowl and began to chow down. Chihiro passed a set of chopsticks across the table to her guest and revealed her own personal pair. "Your scary stories are sooo boooring!" she began, exaggerating. She rose an eyebrow and had a coy grin on her face. "Now, it's my turn."

She cleared her throat and began. It would seem she took on another persona as she spoke. "This morning wasn't the first I had woken up with scratches on my body. I noticed that my abrasions also appear after a violent nightmare. But it wasn't a nightmare of horror, helplessness or sorrow. I still felt powerful, even though I wasn't in control of my imaginary visions.

But after the small carving reminders on my body, I began to think they weren't so imaginary. I don’t notice them right away, sometimes others notice before me.
“Evelyn, what’s on your neck?” Then I’d run to the bathroom with disturbed eyes. At least once a week this has happened, I haven’t told anyone yet.

But it started last year, when we put the recorder up that attic.

“Amelia, hold the chair! If you let go I’ll fall right on your face.” Amelia giggled. The dust quickly roared its way into my eyes, while my arms were still pushing the lid of the attic up. An atrocious yelp escaped my lips. Amelia immediately flinched.

“It’s in my eyes!” I panicked, letting go of the ceiling. Tears started to form as my hands were trying to remove the agony. I got off from the chair.

“I think it’s too heavy to lift up anyway.” I explained. “I think you’re just scared.” Amelia teased. How ridiculous, of course I wasn’t scared.

“You think you’re so tough, you go try yourself.” But we both new Amelia wouldn’t of been able to reach the roof, even with that chair. So we came up with plan B.

Amelia volunteered to use her chakra as a paranormal tracking device. We opened the attic door just enough to put a stream through, and then scrambled away.

We stayed in my room for about half an hour, trying to make the least sound as humanly possible.

“Evelyn.” She breathed, “what if we hear something terrible.” I stayed silent as our minds began to race. I envisioned execrable things. What if I lived beneath a disgusting monstrosity? What if this unknown creature gets enraged because of disturbance? What if it watches us while we sleep? Hairs on my neck began to rise, but Amelia’s voice interrupted my haunted thoughts.

“I think it’s been long enough, we should go check.” The blood in my veins started to rush. We walked to the room with great hesitation. And the atmosphere seemed to be thick on the other side of that door, and the chair still stood underneath the attic with anxiety. Amelia and I looked at each other with emptiness. I slowly meandered towards the ceiling attic, feeling her count every step.

She crawled upon the chair and soaked the stalled chakra back into her body. The pull whisked through her and she emitted the recorded sound through her mouth.
There was no sound. We held our breath, still nothing. The recording went on for 20 minutes, but we don’t move a muscle.

At 26 minutes my heart stopped, my brain began to pound, and my body started to shake uncontrollably. Amelia’s face was pale and her green eyes were filled with disbelief and fear. Her lips were fiercely tightened.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

It sounded like something was scattering around with four legs. Amelia and I began to brain storm, it couldn't have been a mouse, it was much heavier than that. Not even a raccoon, it sounded like something so alarmed, and angry. It was running around the whole attic, panicking. And at one point it came so close we could hear it breathe. Its breath was terrifying to listen to, it wasn't an animal. It was something so dark, so powerful. Like a demon.

Lee laughed lightly to himself as Chihiro returned to the room whilst rolling her eyes, most likely at his story and with food. She placed herself across from Lee and placed a bowl in front of him and one at the side, most likely for the wolf in which, with a small signal of sorts, would cause the wolf to begin its feast. Lee then looked back to Chhiro asshe spoke of his stories being less than entertaining to which he would pick up the bowl and took the chopsticks "What can I say, I'm not good at telling stories like those." She then spoke of it being her turn to which he would begin to eat slowly.

She began to speak about waking up with scratches and it started to paint an all to familiar scene. There was an Evelyn and a Amelia and it seemed that the story was taken from the viewpoint of this Evelyn. She then began to speak about an attic where this Amelia and her went to where they thought of something to be, something that for some reason or another would be unearthly or feral. Lee continued to eat at the same pace he had been and kept listening. It seemed that used some sort of chakra technique that would record what went on. They began to guess on what it was until finally, they went to receive the chakra and played it back. When she finished, Lee gave way to pause and let his head tilt to the side as he would point his chopsticks at her.

"How would Evelyn or Amelia know what a demon's footsteps sound like? How would anyone? What made them think it was in the attic and why would they live in the house even if it was a demon?"
14/30

Chihiro was in mid slurp of a noodle, and stopped as Lee spoke, pointing his chopsticks at her. A silent moment passed as he finished. Suddenly Chihiro erupted into laughter. She knew she liked this one.

"Fair enough." She began. "Alright, a new story then.

My family honored the old ways, the traditional Romanian faiths. We're Jewish, but with a heavy bit of mysticism and superstition thrown in. My grandmother taught me old songs and gave me charms, I always figured it was because of how my grandfather died.
He killed himself, before I was even born, when my mom was in school. It was so insane, the man went from smiling at dinner to putting a shotgun in his mouth without any signs. I always figured grandma blamed herself somehow, figuring she should have seen it coming. She loved him dearly, and I guess it was survivor's guilt.
Now I know the truth, and God I wish I didn't.
My grandmother died a few years ago, natural causes, but sudden. She went from healthy to weak and frail so fast, it was like she wasted away. We had time to get her to hospice, make her comfortable at least, but not much more. I was terrified to visit her, I was still in high school then and, well, kinda selfish, no other way about it. Still, I went, I knew I'd never forgive myself if I didn't.
When I got there she was alone, my mother and father had gone to get food I guess. She smiled when she saw me, and I instantly knew I was doing the right thing. I still remember that conversation well. After some chatting, and assurances that she wasn't in pain, her eyes grew big, and she looked at me with a face of pure fear. Her hand took mine, it was gaunt and bony, like a skeleton already, she begged me to forgive her.
I had no idea what she meant, she had always been a wonderful grandmother, spoiled me rotten while teaching me about our history, I don't have a single bad memory of her. I tried to tell her this, but she shook her head, she kept repeating 'I should have warned you'.
This is the story she told me, as best I can gather from her hysterics.
When my grandfather was a young man in Romania, he pulled a man from the sea. The man was tall, pale, and gaunt with long stringy black hair and sunken black eyes, he honestly thought the man was a corpse already until he began to sputter and wheeze. My grandfather took him to the shore and gave him a blanket and food. It was then he noticed the man's clothes. He had a white shirt, the front covered in blood, as if he'd been stabbed, but when he opened the shirt there was no wound.
This is when my grandfather became afraid, he thought this man was some kind of murderer. Well, he wasn't wrong entirely. The man said he was in my grandfather's debt, and he'd give him anything he wanted for this kind deed. Grandpa just wanted to get away, so he brushed the man off, saying 'If you want to thank me make me rich enough to never have to work again', figuring that'd be the end of it.
The next day the man came to his home, though grandpa never told him where that was. He had changed, his hair was clean and tied into a long ponytail, his skin was still pale, and his eyes were still sunken, but his bloody shirt was gone. Instead he wore a fresh looking white suit, and in his hand, with it's long, pointy, nails, he held a pair of plane tickets for him and my grandmother. He told them to call a man when he got to America, and things would be put into place from there.
My grandmother was weeping at this point. She said that even though the man left them after that, grandpa was plagued with nightmares, visions of death, horrible, dark, thoughts about him and his family. She said one night she found him in my mother's room, holding a butcher's knife over her head. He begged for forgiveness, he said he couldn't stop himself, but she never was able to look at him with that same love after that.
He shot himself a couple days after. She said when she heard the shot she was alone, and ran to see what he had done. When she got there she saw that man in white, leaning over my grandfather's corpse, mouth open wide, inhumanly so, revealing a black, toothless, maw inside. The white man breathed deep, and as he did so, his skin began to take on color, becoming the lightly tanned flesh of any other Romani. His eyes expanded and filled their sockets better, his nails shrunk back into normal proportions, he looked like a man again. My grandmother screamed, of course, but he didn't move to her, he simply nodded politely, smiling a huge toothless grin, and when she turned back from grabbing a phone to call 911, the man was gone.
In Romania we have a story, that of the Moroi, horrid spirits, vampires, yet also mortal. They rise from their graves and suck the life force of the living. Unlike the more traditional vampires who feed for power and such, Moroi feed to live, they can starve just like a mortal man. They're disgusting parasites of the living, the spawn of real vampires, twisted beasts not at home in the realms of the living or the dead. One was tormenting my family.
My grandmother said she saw the man outside her window often in the past weeks, she knew he was why she was so 'ill', she knew he would kill her soon because my grandfather deprived him of his full meal.
He spoke to her, sometimes, taunting his prey as he fed. He whispered stories of death and doom, trying to drive her mad like he did my grandfather. She told me he said she could end the torment, give him another life, a corpse to raise as his own spawn, unsullied by his feeding. If she wanted freedom, she'd have to kill me. She rejected the deal, faster than grandpa did thankfully.
I couldn't handle this, I thought my grandmother was on death's door, I thought she was insane. I pulled my hand away and went to find a nurse, get her some drugs, anything to stop her rambling. There was no one out there, it was entirely empty outside her room. When I came back, there he was. The man in white, hunched over my grandmother's side, face close to hers as if he was going to kiss her, toothless mouth wide open like a snake.
My grandmother jerked, eyes huge as plates, while once again this half-born beast took life from her death. She looked at me, this desperate, pleading, look, but I was frozen. I watched it kill her, like a coward, and just like before, he simply nodded to me, and by the time the nurses responded, he was gone."

Lee looked back down to his food as he then lifted the bowl up and used the chopsticks to move the food closer to his mouth before pushing it in. He would then lower the bowl and chew as she laughed and spoke of how she enjoyed this one and began another story. She began to tell of old ways and a family. She then went on to speak of her grandfather whom was taken by sickness and that her grandmother was to follow. She then began to speak about how some sort of demon stole the life of the old man and by the end of it, the old lady and presumably her. Lee paused in his meal as he took in the silence...well, with the exception of the wolf and her eating and he nodded his head and pointed his chopsticks at her once more "Oh, I think I might have one. It's about a boy named Sam."

"Sam stayed with his grandmother when his parents went to a far away land for their vacation. “We are going to bring you back something nice,” his mother told him. “It will be a surprise.” Before they came home, Sam’s parents looked for something Sam would like. All they could find was a beautiful sombrero but it cost too much. But that afternoon, while they were eating their lunch in a park, they decided to buy the sombrero after all. Sam’s father threw what was left of their sandwiches to some stray dogs, and they walked back to the marketplace. One of the animals followed them. It was a small, gray creature with short hair, short legs, and a long tail. Wherever they went, it went. “Isn’t he cute!” Sam’s mother said. “He must be one of those Mexican Hairless dogs. Sam would love him.”" Lee paused to eat a bit more before pausing again to continue.

“He’s probably somebody’s pet,” Sam’s father said. They asked several people if they knew who its owners were, but no one did. They just smiled and shrugged their shoulders. Finally, Sam’s mother said, “Maybe he’s just a stray. Let’s take him home with us. We can give him a good home, and Sam will love him.” Lee paused yet again to finish off the noodles and placed the bowl on the ground in front of him and placed the chopsticks across the bowl.

"It is against the law to take a pet across the border, but Sam’s parents hid the animal in a box, and no one saw it. When they got home, they showed it to Sam. “He’s a pretty small dog,” said Sam. “I’m not sure what kind he is,” his father said. “I think it’s called a Mexican Hairless. We’ll find out. But he’s nice, isn’t he?” They gave the new pet some dog food. Then they washed it and brushed it and combed its fur. That night it slept on Sam’s bed. When Sam awakened the next morning, his pet was still there. “Mother,” he called, “the dog has a cold.” The animal’s eyes were running, and there was something white around his mouth. Later that morning Sam’s mother took it to a veterinarian. “Where did you get him?” the vet asked. “In Mexico,” she said. “We think he’s a Mexican Hairless. I was going to ask you about that.” Lee paused for more than a moment as he looked in the direction of Mother.

“He’s not a Hairless,” the vet said. “He’s not even a dog. He’s a sewer rat—and he has rabies.”"
15/30