Chapter 38 CHAPTER 38: TISHA NANCY (BROKEN PROMISE)

The hyena beastmen were able to detect the scent of his children because of their excellent sense of smell, so what would happen if he marked everything in the room with another scent… the scent of his blood.

And so, he played along with their whims and slowly got covered with injuries that caused his blood to flow freely. He pranced around the room under the guise that he was attacking whichever one of them was closest to him, and with this deception, he was able to mark almost everywhere in the room with his blood, but after a while, his body failed to keep up and he fell to his knees.

The human body couldn't continuously lose that much blood and expect to still be alive, not to mention functioning and he owed the fact that he was still alive to his extraordinary willpower, born from deep within him to protect his children at any cost.

After that, the eventful happened, he tried to stay strong but was mocked, his wife's corpse was mutilated and she was cut apart in a bid to injure him, and then his flesh was torn from his body while he was still very much alive and conscious. The pain had caused him to faint in the end, but now he was able to awaken one last time to confirm whether or not he had succeeded and luckily, he had.

He had protected his children with the last of his very self. Even his soul had been scarred due to the traumatic experience, but all that didn't matter as he had succeeded and fulfilled his God-given and self-imposed mission to protect his children at all costs.

He was proud of himself, as this was a story that he could tell proudly to his wife on the other side. His only regret was leaving his children alone in this world.

As his vision began to blur and his eyes began to close, his vision noticed the rug slowly being raised. It seemed his daughter could no longer stay in the secret room and decided to come out.

He wished his daughter wouldn't have to see his and his wife's terrible state and end up being traumatized by the sight, but whichever being he had made his wish to did not care much for a dying man's wish… perhaps he should have prayed instead, this was the last thought that crossed his mind as everything went dark.

***Inside the secret room, a while earlier***

Tisha's parents had told her to stay in the little dark room under her room that even she didn't know about. If she knew about it, then this was where she would have hidden during the 'hide and seek' games that they played regularly.

They had also handed her brother over to her to carry. This was very strange, as in Tisha's memories they never allowed her to hold her little brother, always telling her she was too young,

"A baby cannot carry a baby," they always said, and Tisha always vehemently disagreed.

'Which part of her was a baby… apart from her slightly chubby baby face', she always thought as she fumed from her parent's decision to not let her hold little "Romero", yet now they had handed him over to her and they had put them in this dark room and told her to stay quiet no matter what.

As she was a good girl, she had done exactly what her parents asked of her, even though the little dark room was scary since she couldn't see anything but black.

She stayed quiet even though the booming noises came closer every minute, and she stayed quiet even when it sounded from right above her startling her, but she didn't fret too much and held on tightly to Romero, who shockingly, was still asleep, even after all the noise.

She couldn't hear any clear voices as all the sound that managed to get into the room was muffled and sounded weird, but she heard voices from above her, then she heard a bang followed by a shout that sounded like her father screaming her mother's name.

This was where her unease had begun to build up as she couldn't help but wonder what was wrong, but after that nothing but sounds of movement and the occasional shout came from above, so she was able to calm down for a bit.

Things were like that for a while until she began hearing constant screams of agony from above her.

At this point, her unease was at its peak and she barely stopped herself from pushing open the door and coming out, but something told her that her parents wouldn't want her to come out at this moment and so she held it in and stayed, continually tortured by sounds of screams and what seemed like something being torn apart, but it didn't sound like paper.

It sounded wetter and more disturbing… she tried to cover her ears to shut out the sounds, but she couldn't. Tears streamed down her face as the sounds from above continuously tortured her mentally, because every time the tearing sound came, it was followed by a scream of pain.

After what seemed like forever, the noises stopped, and she heard footsteps running out of the room in a hurry but didn't know why.

What followed after was torturous silence. Everything happening above seemed to have stopped, yet her parents did not come to let them out.

She waited impatiently, but her parents still hadn't opened the door to let them out… and when she had finally had enough, something dripped onto her arm.

Due to the darkness inside the room, she couldn't see what it was, but this was the prompt that pushed her into making a move, she no longer cared if her parents would be angry with her for coming out even though they had told her to stay put.

She could always tell them that she was scared of the dark and they wouldn't get mad. She thought all this to herself and pushed against the door to the secret room, and it began to move upwards.

Luckily it seemed her parents never locked it. The door was quite heavy, so she set herself against it and pushed hard, all the while shielding her little brother with her body.

The door moved upward but was obstructed by the rug, which was quite heavy, but Tisha didn't give up and continued pushing until she finally pushed the door open and was able to come out.

Upon stepping out, she was hit with a weird metallic scent that filled the room, but she paid it no mind for now and turned to look at the room.

"Momm…" she was beginning to call for her mother when her eyes fell upon an image that would continue to haunt her for the rest of her life.

If the torturous sounds of tearing and screaming caused her to cry uncontrollably, then this image stunned her into silence.

A horror so great she could not even scream in fear and pain because she couldn't understand.

They had been playing together earlier today after all. Her mother had told her a bedside story and her father had acted like he always did, and they laughed together after.

It wasn't even an hour ago... Yet...

From now on her mother would never be able to tell her any bedside stories and they wouldn't be able to laugh together like they always did in the past.

Her parents wouldn't scold her for not obeying their instruction to stay in the little room… because they no longer could.

They had broken their promise.