Shattering Humanity-Chapter 473: What A Family Is...(1/2)

"You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun."

Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. " - Acts13:10-12

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{Tristan & Stephanie’s Apartment}

Sitting alone in the same room she first woke up in after her attempted fight with Shelly, is the Eyelien dependant Isfet.

Having killed her sexually abusive owner, after being separated from her sister, the transfered alien symbiote absorbed the undeveloped ocular sensor visually impaired girl was born with. She still lives unsure of how to behave within her new reality.

After managing to play as an ally to the same woman who killed her precious sister, an attempt to get retribution before the Iceman ambush ultimately failed.

Isfet: "Edom...

Why?

Why did it have to turn out like this?"

She looks at her palms and from the black iris center of her symbiote, a single snowflake falls off and drifts into her closing fist.

Isfet: "Now that I have the physical ability to actually see the person who had always saved me, you’ve been taken from me and I’ll never have the chance to admire my guardian angel’s face.

Everyone else got the privilege to see you, but I’m your little sister, and all I’ll ever get to know you as is a red blur, with a laugh that is one of a kind..."

From the other side of the closed door, tiny sock covered footsteps scurry across the hardwood floor.

Immediately following, Stephanie can be heard reprimanding her younger siblings down the hall.

Stephanie: "Don’t run in the house, girls!

Especially when you’re wearing socks, or have you already forgotten the last ’traffic accident’?"

There is a polite knock, just before the door opens and the woman of the house enters.

Taking a deep sigh of relief, wearing a modest two piece pajama set, Stephanie steps in the room and shuts the door behind her.

Clearly exhausted, the eldest sister slides down all the way to the floor.

Knees to her chest, Stephanie takes a moment to appreciate the silence and buries her face into the ball she has made of herself.

Isfet looks at the girl across from her, mentally struggling under all that lime green hair. After collecting her thoughts, Stephanie lifts her head and is also unsure how to discuss herself out of the slightly awkward situation she has created.

Stephanie: "There are just some of those days...you know?"

Not fully grasping the people skills to navigate through the small talk, Isfet answers with her blank expression.

Isfet: "No, I’m sorry.

I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Seeing the lighter side of the unusual response, Stephanie sighs while smiling and looks up at the glow in the dark sticker stars on the ceiling.

She reaches up, turns the light switch off right next to the door, and in the pitch black, the stickers shine the same hue of green as the caregiver’s hair.

Admiring the manufactured phosphorescent phenomenon together, the big sister of a currently active family has the opportunity to vent to a little sister who lost hers.

Stephanie: "When I first developed feelings for Tristan I was a little girl. It wasn’t until later on when we graduated middle school that I realized, I wanted to have a family with him."

Not being outward emotionally supportive, but willing to listen, in the dark room, Isfet does just that while the gracious hostess confines her feelings.

Stephanie: "That was, until those four were born. As a surprise, my mother and father hid the results of her ultrasound from me.

So when my mother gave birth to quadruplets, I suddenly realized what a family actually is."

Thinking about her life revelation under the glow-in-the-dark stickers, Stephanie smiles.

Stephanie: "A family is a bundle of surprises.

Surprises that could be happy memories, or positive experiences you would have never went through without them.

Or they could be the entire reasoning behind your downfall."

Isfet looks at the palm that caught her snowflake tear while wallowing in her sorrow about Edom.

Stephanie: "Everyday they stress me out, they are fighting constantly, getting into things they shouldn’t, getting injured and cry, but I can handle all that... only because of him."

On the other side of the closed door, muffled Tristan can now be heard trying to calm down the children with no blood relation to him at all.

Tristan: "Girls, please!

Don’t fling your food at each other!

Timothea, don’t eat that off the floor!"

Regrettably, Stephanie reaches back up for the switch.

The bulb within the crown designed shade hanging in the center of the room lights up.

Stephanie: "I feel guilty dragging Tristan into this life he must now feel obligated to participate in. Sure, nobody asked for an apocalypse, but he has to deal with my baggage too..."

Isfet takes a moment to think about Esau and how she felt emotionally more at ease knowing the caring older sister had assistance in taking care of her.

Searching deep in her heart, the light skinned Middle Eastern woman finally tries to give helpful insight, using her own life experiences and knowledge.

Isfet: "Well it sounds like when it’s his turn to be an actual father to his own bloodline, he’ll have the experiences only your family could have provided him."

Stephanie blushes bright red, knowing exactly how that situation can happen, and hides her face back into the fetal position.

Isfet lets the words pour out of her. Forgetting she is trying to give advice, but now, the monotoned voice from Don Laban’s ex-homie is venting her true feelings in disguise.

Isfet: "You may not have the time or want to now, but sooner or later, this life will become routine, your little sisters will become more independent, and nature cannot be denied.

Whether or not they want to, the love and care your younger siblings have received will influence their life decisions."

A light knocking comes from the other side and Stephanie shifts over so Ichythis can step through.

Having taken a shower she is wearing a tight spaghetti strapped crop top, boy shorts, and has her blood stained orange bandana tied around her large bare bicep.

She spots Stephanie at her feet and chuckles while pointing her thumb back behind her.

Ichythis: "You might wanna go check on ’Ms. AllTalk’.

Once my clothes dropped, she’s been mumbling nonsense and twitching on the bathroom floor with a nosebleed. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

I would’ve told you something before I finished my shower, but...meh."

Alert Stephanie jumps back up to her feet and with another deep inhale she exhales with a smile before opening the door.

Stephanie: "Don’t worry, she was like that after accidentally walking in on me too, teehaha!"

The specific laugh makes Isfet’s expression momentarily shift to a bittersweet smile before returning to her stone face.

Isfet(thinking): *...But now I understand, it isn’t a very unique laugh, but instead the gleeful tones of all guardian angels."

...

{MamMon’s Forest}

SeiõrSnow continues to fall through the circular open at the center of Seiõr grown greenery.

The mythical wolf pulled from the Æther notices the witch’s presence first, lifting his head, and stares in her direction with yellow battle scarred eyes.

Not moving a face muscle to his permanent scowl, the unselected Yin Vessel spots the expected visitor with his own green human eye and alien symbiote.

MaMmon DæMon: "Well, I’m impressed, unfortunate Esau. It seems you have finally earned the privilege to visit your late, beloved wife.

Well, are you ready?"

Sitting up from his fur covered resting spot, the doubtful Esau looks directly at the witch.

Esau: "I’m sure you’ve got more conditions for me, so can it wait until the morning? I’ve had a long day..."

MaMmon DæMon: "Well then, as a hard working man, you should have a moment to rest while accompanied by a woman who loves you."

Esau swallows his spit, now his hopes completely up.

The blonde witch holds out her hand.

MaMmon DæMon: "Come now, unfortunate Esau. I shall grant you time in the Æther, which you have respectively earned."

Looking at his giant wolf companion the man gets to his feet and pats the beast’s head. Dry blood is stuck to the adopted monster’s fur and pokes between his thick fingers.

Esau: "Stay here Garmr, and take a nap.

I’ll be right back."

Having already built a special bond with the ’unchosen Yin Vessel’, Garmr does as he’s told and rests his chin on the soft, cool grass.

Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, Esau approaches his commanding leader cautiously and with deep suspicion.

Now having a companion to worry about, the top heavy muscular man looks back at Garmr, the wolf’s eyes closed in sleep.

With her Money Tree cloak hood over her head, MaMmon DæMon turns her back on the loyal subject.

MaMmon DæMon: "As ’adorable’ as it is that you have quickly built a relationship with the mythical monster I have summoned from the Æther, you need not worry.

If you would please follow me, this shouldn’t take more than 45 seconds of time in this reality."

Once again doing as he’s told, Esau walks only a few steps deeper into the forest’s darkness with the DæMon before she stops and turns around.

Staring at the skeptical widower, the witch’s blue eyes shine in the shadows of her hood, without any outside light source.

MaMmon DæMon: "Prepare yourself, unfortunate Esau. We are about to enter the small sliver of subconcious where the Æther and your Mindscape intertwine.

Before I deliver you there, I’m going to need some cooperation from you as well to make this go as smoothly as possible, got it?"

Not taking the request seriously, Esau rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders and slightly shakes his head in comedic dejection.

With an equally dejecting sigh, already having made the decision to use her Seiõr for the mental spell, MaMmon pinches the bridge of her nose before fully containing herself and stares at the ill fated man.

MaMmon DæMon: "First, I need you to close your eyes..."

Esau narrows his eyes, and tries to focus on the untrustworthy DæMon a few yards away, until the very last sliver of light turns to darkness.

In an impossibly quick instant, the instructor’s docile whispers send shivers down Esau’s spine.

MaMmon DæMon: "...now imagine your own ideal version of the wife you lost..."

Before he can open his eyes again a pair of hands blocks his vision and the whispers return into his other ear.

MaMmon DæMon: "...please keep your eyes closed until I say so...

...this process is one of the more delicate and dangerous of PsychoSeiõrSpells....

...any mental complications on your end could lead to the both of us dying in your mind."

The Seiõr subject swallows his spit nervously and finally takes the situation seriously. Nodding his head before the hands lift themselves off his returned closed eyes.

MaMmon DæMon: "... again, envision the woman who you would want to talk to the most..."

Esau: "I don’t have a preference of how Edom should look.

I want to see the face of the woman I lost that day.

I want to see an Edom with the life still in her eyes."

Edom’s Voice: "Esau?"