"There's danger in that house!"
Lorne pointed at the house Fors and Xio rented, his tone grave.
Xio is here, so the person inside should be Fors, right? Could something have happened to her?
Lorne's heart tightened as well. Fors was a friend of his, after all.
He glanced at Xio beside him and found her deathly pale, her eyes brimming with worry.
"Don't tell me-that's your home?" Lorne asked softly, deliberately bringing it up.
"Are you sure something really happened in that house?" Xio abruptly looked up at Lorne, her voice trembling with anxiety.
"Yes."
Once she received confirmation, Xio dashed toward her home without a moment's hesitation!
Fors! Please, please be all right! she prayed desperately.
"Hey! Don't be so reckless!"
Seeing Xio charge off without a care, Lorne hurried after her.
Inside the house, Fors had been writing furiously at her desk, inspiration flowing after her pleasant meeting with her pen friend. Suddenly, her brow creased in pain. It was a full moon-she raised her head with difficulty and looked out the window.
The moonlight outside grew stronger and redder, and the agony on Fors's face deepened with it. Fine beads of sweat seeped from her temples.
Thud!
Unable to hold herself up any longer, she fell from her chair, writhing and struggling violently in unbearable pain. The full moon's whispers had returned!
"Great God of Steam-and Machinery..." "You are-the embodiment... of essence..."
With immense difficulty, she recited the honorific name of the god she believed in, hoping to find salvation.
Yet none of it helped. Her suffering did not lessen; instead, it intensified.
As she rolled and struggled violently, she accidentally knocked over the nearby coffee table. The sapphire fountain pen she treasured as a token of love rolled off it onto the floor.
*No... don't.