36 Chapter 30 - Malignan

"I see that you are done with your food, right?" The kid glance over to the dinner table.

"...Yes..." Medusa bashfully said.

"I guess we'll continue on the topic of this house!" The boy takes a sip of his refilled wine and leans back; he is short, so when he leans back his feet aren't able to touch the ground. Therefore, his feet are on the mid-air swing.

"..." Medusa peeks at the boy from time to time then puts her head down because she is too shy to be sitting face to face with this boy.

"I hope you'll understand my story!" The boy smiles.

"Long, long time ago..." The boy sees that Medusa has nothing to say then starts his story.

"In this town, the town of sin just got through a hard time! Every winter, the wild beast from the forest would come down to this town to hunt for food. They eat anything and everything; they are sly, wild, and fierce. They will do anything they can to capture these town people. Meanwhile, these town people are ironically the opposite of these beasts! The town people were dumb, lazy, weak! They have no power to defend themselves from these beasts, so every year hundreds of thousands of people got killed by these animals! Therefore, there's a lot of empty houses that nobody lives in." The boy pauses and takes a sip of his red wine, then keeps it in his mouth for a few moments then swallows it.

"A couple with a kid comes by the area and saw that there's an empty house right up on the mountain. They are excited, they've been homeless for the past few weeks, and it's the winter, so they are freezing from head to toe! They run toward the house as quickly as possible. Once they got to the house; the house they thought was a house turns out to be a vast castle-like mansion! They thought to themselves, 'it must be a rich family's house they left behind!'. Then they walked in without a second thought about this strange house. Many small homes surround the foot of the mountain of this house; also, this town has never been an enormous mansion like this one ever existed." The boy stops again, and glances at Medusa then add on a comment, "Because the town people are too dumb to build something like that house."

Medusa saw that the boy stops his story and looks at her for a second, she immediately puts her head down again and starts to blush.

The boy sees everything that is going on with Medusa, and then continues his story,

"When they opened the door and walked into the house. 'BANG!' " The boy suddenly escalates his volume for Medusa to paint the picture of the situation.

"Aha!" Medusa's face immediately turns white and screams.

"Hahaha!" The boy laughs.

"...It is not funny! Stop laughing!" Medusa's face turns from white to red and said.

"Hahaha...! Okay! Okay! I'll stop laughing; there's nothing to be afraid of! You got me! I'll help you with anything!" Then the boy quietly said to himself, "With a price..."

It looks like the sweet talk from the boy works well; Medusa then puts her head again signaling that she is fine now.

"Okay...Let's continue! After they walked in, the door shuts by itself behind them. These people were scared at first, but due to the cold and tiredness, they decided to ignore the detail and walk straight into the house. Not too long after they decided to explore for a bed to sleep on; a group of dark shadow rises from the ground and forms into a half human half monster looking creature. They are staring at this family. The mother and the father are both scared by the unbelievable scene that is happening right in front of their eyes. After a quick minute of staring at the parents, the creature said, 'What are you doing in our house?'. The couple was dumbfounded, they would never have thought that a monster like them knows how to talk in human language!" The boy stops for a quick moment and takes a sip of his red wine then continues,

"After seeing the couple was shocked and did not give them a response, the creature asks them again, 'What are you doing in our house!", But this time the creature increases it's volume a little bit to give the couple a heads up that he is not happy of what is going on right now! Then the couple comes back to reality but still in awe. They then frightenedly said, 'We have no house to stay warm, and the beasts destroyed our house.'. The creature looks at him for a second, then silence come upon. Suddenly the creature said, 'We allow you to stay...But only under one condition!'. The couple feels elated for a second, then turns extremely concern after they heard there's a requirement for the offer." The boy takes a deep breath then exhale the air out of his lungs, then takes a sip of his red wine and asks Medusa,

"Can you guess what the requirement is?"

When the boy asks her that question, Medusa quickly put her head down and shakes.

"Come on! Give a guess; it doesn't hurt to guess one time!" The boy leans forward and stretches his arm out on the table wanting to reach toward to hold Medusa's hand, but that is not possible because the distance between both ends of the table is about twenty feet long.

Medusa shakes her head even harder because her parents abused her during early childhood she now doesn't have a cheerful personality; when she is around people, especially the ones that are nice to her, she will get nervous and doesn't want to say nor do anything.

"It's just me in here right now! I'm your freedom! Get used to it." The boy reminds.

After hearing that the boy said that he is her freedom, she then slowly picks up her head and looks at the boy. Her eyes glow hopes, expectations, yearn. She was looking forward to this 'freedom' for a long time! She can't lose this opportunity; if she wants freedom, she will have to deal with many different people in the future. If she can't handle the boy right now, how can she handle other people that might be nice to her when she gets out of this town.

she then slowly and bashfully sound out her guess,

"Mon...Money...?"

"Good job Medusa! But no, your guess is wrong! Take another guess!" The boy looks at Medusa with massive interest like she is a new toy that he discovers.

"Uhm...I...I...think...It's...their...body...for sex?" Medusa carefully guesses.