“Something’s going on out there.” Marcus paced around where he was for a brief moment.

“What’s wrong? What did you hear?” Elvin asked.

“Something abnormal.” Marcus rushed over to the altar and took two talismans out of the pouch, leaving all the rest to his father: “Stay here. I’ll go check it out. There should be a candle under the kitchen sink, light it up.”

“Wait!” Before his father could stop him, Marcus already opened up the front door and slid out, locking the door behind him.

Some kind of dark fog was lingering in the space outside, so much so that Marcus could barely see the sky and the moon. He noticed a familiar, slightly salty smell as well, along with the humid air.

A human shaped shadow stood in a small distance in front of him. Hunched back, narrow shoulders, right arm missing the entire forearm, and both legs were missing several big chunks of flesh, revealing some of the bones. It was facing the door, appearing to be either unmoving, and banging its head against the door. But, either because it did not commit, or the force of its motion was too light, he did not hear anything from the shadow’s actions.

Marcus lightened and shortened his steps. The shadow did not notice him, and was still standing in front of the door to his neighbor’s door, bumping his head against the door. With a smaller distance, he could see that the shadow’s actually did not really make contact with the door, but stopped at a very small distance every time. And within this distance, Marcus made out what the shadow looked like - an old man, in ragged clothes, missing a shoe and had a plastic bracelet on his right ankle. Marcus raised his eyebrows while looking at this old man’s ankle, for it was standing but on its toes, even though it had only three and a half toes left.

No - the shadow was indeed making contact with the door - just not with its “flesh”. There was a visible layer of dark fog concentrated around the top of the shadow’s head and its shoulders. And everytime the shadow bumped its head against the door, what made contact was the body of fog on its head, not the humanly looking part of its head.

With his Qi concentrated on the tips of his right index and middle fingers, and with one paper talisman tucked between them, Marcus stomped the ground with his left foot and shot at the shadow like a cannonball. His right hand thrusting forward, like a glowing sword.

The shadow turned to Marcus and roared. Dark smoke came out of its mouth and two eye sockets with yellow and green slime inside. Marcus did not fret, as the tips of his fingers struck right at the back of the shadow.

Marcus pushed his Qi one more time to protect himself from the dark fog, while keeping his eyes and fingers locked onto the space behind the shadow.

The fog was cold and wet, Marcus’ clothes became moldy, rotten and even crumbled with each second of prolonged contact. He was worried, but did not hesitate as he kept thrusting his fingers forward.

Another human-shaped shadow made of dark energy manifested and let out a loud screech. The folded talisman lit up, as the sensation of poking into something solid but slightly spongy substance registered with Marcus. He pushed his Qi harder, blasting it into the body of the shadow in full force.

The shadow on the old man’s back screamed again. The flames from Marcus’ Qi and the talisman exploded the upper part of its body. As a final attempt at struggling and fighting back, the shadow controlled the old man’s broken right arm and aimed it at Marcus. Another gush of dark fog as thick as mercury shot at Marcus. At the same time, more flames burst out from under his left chest under his shirt. The explosion of energy blasted right back at the dark fog, incinerating the black substance like a thick stream of gunpowder.

“Boom!” The explosion threw Marcus back, but not by any amount of force he could not handle. He adjusted his posture in the air and rolled on the ground. His Qi concentrated around his leg again, ready for another lunge attack - the two talismans had been expended, yet the shadow should be in no position to fight or harm him either.

The shadow on the old man’s back twitched and screamed, as it tried to reassemble its torn body and quell the flame chewing through its shoulder. Marcus fixed his eyes on the shadow on the old man’s back, as well as the old man. Right now, the old man’s body was in a state of strange stasis - his extremities were still, but his fingers, exposed toes and lips were all shaking at a fast pace, and all at the same rate. He was no longer standing on his toes, but floating in low air. His forehead was against the door.

After contemplating for but one moment, Marcus breathed in and cursed with almost all of his might: “FUCK YOU! YOU FILTH!” While the sound was still echoing in the empty corridor, disrupting the flow of the dark fog for a brief moment, he launched himself at the shadow made of dark fog.

His right arm swung across the space in front of him, releasing a bright orange claw mark at the dark shadow while his left retreated back and ready to strike.

The shadow turned into a puff of dark smoke and shot up towards the ceiling, with only a small portion of its tail grazed by the claw mark, turning into ashes in an instant. It tried to turn and fly to the open air, but just in time to be stopped by a flying weapon - a long baton of sorts, covered in strips of paper.

The dark smoke exploded into a flurry of hundreds of bright fiery sparks. Ashes fell and roamed the air. The chilling aura dissipated. But barely a moment passed before it was replaced by another, as a clunky metal chain shot from the open space behind Marcus and wrapped around the body of the old man.