The days began to pass with a deceptive calm, returning Lief's life to a daily orbit he had almost forgotten.
Stepping away from the frenzy of demon hunting and immersing himself in the "normal" existence of a high school student had its own benefits.
Especially when that normality included nights like this.
In the intimacy of Jennifer's bedroom, the air was heavy, saturated with an intoxicating mixture of sweat and something else...
Lief, beneath her, propping himself up on his forearms to admire the mess he had created.
Jennifer lay on top of him, totally exposed and defeated by pleasure.
Her black hair was spread out in a messy fan, sticking to their bodies due to the fine layer of perspiration covering them.
Lief ran his gaze over her nakedness.
Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths, making her juicy breasts tremble with every exhalation.
A smile curved Lief's lips.
"Sorry if I was too rough... it's just that I missed you too much," he whispered, slowly caressing her back.
Jennifer's consciousness was still floating in a cloud, taking her a few seconds to focus her gaze on him.
Her glassy blue eyes, unfocused from the recent climax, and her lips swollen and red from so much kissing.
"Me too..." she managed to murmur with a husky voice. "I missed you... I missed you inside me so much."
Those words, spoken with that lewd vulnerability, were like gasoline for him, making his smile widen, losing any trace of apology.
His hands took on a life of their own with a ravenous restlessness, and he slid his palms down the pronounced arch of her back, tracing the curve of her spine eagerly until finding the fleshy softness of her hips.
He continued his descent without stopping until completely filling his hands with the trembling and solid flesh of her buttocks.
Lief claimed that obscene ass with possessiveness and squeezed hard, sinking his fingers deep into the elastic and smooth skin of her butt to mold it against his body.
"Ah~~..."
Jennifer immediately arched her back upon feeling his rough grip, while her legs, which were still suffering slight tremors from the previous exertion, gave way and parted a little more to leave her pussy, swollen and glistening with moisture, totally exposed to the cool air of the room.
Her body twisted weakly under his grip, feeling how Lief's fingers kneaded her buttocks with absolute ownership, spreading the flesh with force to press his pelvis against her opening.
"W-wait... Lief, give me a minute..." she gasped, placing her hands on his shoulders, though without real strength to push him away. Her voice was a weak plea. "Let me r-rest... you've been too intense today."
But this plea only made Lief increase the pressure of his hands, enjoying how Jennifer's flesh overflowed between his fingers, becoming marked with the red of his grip.
"Too intense?" he raised an eyebrow, leaning in until his breath hit her ear. "Should I take that as a compliment?"
Without waiting for an answer, he pushed his hip forward, grazing his erection, which had already regained its hardness, against her slippery pussy.
"A-AAaaah..." moaning breathlessly, Jennifer's legs reacted on their own, wrapping around his waist despite her exhaustion.
With his grip, Lief captured her lips in a deep and dominant kiss, silencing any protest.
Jennifer, without energy to resist and betrayed by her own desire, surrendered, melting beneath him and opening herself completely to receive him again.
"Lief..." she moaned against his mouth, feeling him enter. "T-This time... you feel different. You've become much more resilient... bigger."
Stopping, Lief looked her in the eyes while settling deep inside her, feeling how her hot walls squeezed him.
"Mmm," he grunted, beginning to move his hips again with a slow and deep rhythm. "All thanks to you…"
...
"I'm back!"
With a carefree shout, Lief announced his arrival as he kicked the door shut gently; however, as soon as he crossed the threshold, his steps stopped dead.
!
The living room was plunged into total darkness.
The curtains were sealed tight, blocking any trace of light, and the only illumination came from the television in the center of the living room.
The screen emitted a sickly bluish glow, flickering with static and streaks of chromatic distortion, accompanied by an annoying buzz.
And it was cold.
But it wasn't the cold from the air conditioning... it was strange.
In front of the television, three small figures were sitting on the rug, their backs to him.
Esther, Emma, and Lillith remained motionless, as if they were hypnotized.
"Hey, what the hell are you guys doing? And why did you turn off the lights?" Lief frowned, annoyed by the lack of visibility, and reached his hand toward the wall, searching for the light switch.
"Don't turn on the light!"
At Esther's shout, Lief's hand stopped inches from the switch.
But it wasn't the fear in the girl's voice that stopped him, but what his senses picked up in that instant.
A malignant energy emanated directly from the television.
With his curiosity ignited, he pushed aside his boredom.
"This is getting interesting," he murmured, rubbing his hands together.
Ignoring the attention, he walked toward the sofa and dropped heavily onto the cushions.
With total shamelessness, he propped his legs up on the coffee table, ending up right behind the three girls.
"Alright, tell me. What are we watching?"
As if responding to his voice, the static on the screen cut out abruptly.
The image stabilized, showing a black background over which appeared the expressionless face of a woman with a perfect bob haircut.
Below her, red letters in a bloody font flickered on the screen:
[Beyond the Gates]
And with that, a female voice, devoid of any human emotion, emerged from the television speakers.
"Welcome back, players. The game continues."
The woman's image remained static, but her eyes seemed to move to look directly through the screen.
"Level Two: Hide and Seek."
"Rules: Find 'it', or... be found by 'it'."
"The countdown begins now... 10... 9..."
With the start of the count, the presenter's image was replaced by a first-person shot.
The camera, low-quality and grainy, showed a dark and familiar hallway shaking violently, as if the person recording were running for their life.
Lief's gaze shifted from the screen and fell heavily on the back of Lillith's neck.
"Explain yourself, Lillith."
Without turning, she kept her gaze fixed on the television's countdown.
"It's a cursed VHS tape game," she responded dryly.
"The rules are basic: once it starts, you must play to the end. If you win, you survive. If you lose, or if you stop playing... you die. And I'm not talking about a metaphorical death."
"Sounds cliché," Lief shook his head in disappointment. "So? What's the progress?"
"We just passed the first level: 'Guess Who I Am'." This time it was Emma who responded with a trace of morbid excitement in her voice. "The game made us choose between three doors. If we failed... the woman on the TV said that 'a friend would disappear'."
Emma raised a finger and pointed to the side wall of the room.
"We failed twice."
Lief followed the direction of her finger.
On the wall, which was previously immaculate white, a fresh and wet red stain now stood out.
It was the perfect impression of a human palm made with blood.
"Every time we make a mistake, the room changes," Emma added, fascinated.
Lief observed the bloody print and then turned his attention back to the screen with a grimace of boredom.
"Is there nothing else? A little red paint and vague threats?" he snorted, crossing his arms. "I expected a big production.."
However, the game did not wait for his critique.
"The countdown has ended," the female voice announced. "The game begins."
At the exact instant the voice cut off, the lights in the entire living room flickered violently once, and then went out completely.
The television also shut off abruptly, plunging the house into a suffocating darkness.
And soon in total darkness, a sound came... .
Scratch... Scratch...
It was the sound of hard nails dragging across the wooden floor and it seemed to be moving.
Something uncoordinated crawling from the farthest corner of the living room, approaching slowly but inexorably toward the sofa where they were.
Scratch...
The sound was getting closer....
"How annoying."
But Lief's voice cut through the suspense.
Snap
With the sound of his fingers snapping, a pure and incandescent bluish light exploded with Lief as the epicenter.
Illuminating every corner of the room, violently eliminating the shadows.
Esther and Emma turned their heads, blinking from the sudden brightness.
Less than half a meter behind their backs, a humanoid shadow had materialized.
It was a creature made of oily black smoke, with elongated and unnatural limbs ending in sharp claws, frozen in the act of lunging at them.
But under Lief's radiance, the creature didn't stand a chance.
It began to boil.
The black smoke hissed upon contact with the blue light and evaporated, and in less than two seconds, the entity that intended to kill them was completely disintegrated.
With its disappearance, the television turned on.
!
The screen came back to life, but the presenter's image was no longer calm. Her face was distorting and pixelating frantically.
"Warning! Warning! Illegal intrusion detected! Unauthorized player! Elimination system compromised... Error! Fatal error!"
"AHHHHHHH!"
The television screen could not withstand the energy overload and with a burst of sparks and smoke, the image imploded and went dark.
In the VCR below, a crack was heard, followed by a small internal explosion.
The cursed VHS tape also could not contain the pressure and exploded inside the device, reducing itself to a tangle of melted plastic and shredded tape.
With it, the supernatural cold enveloping the room dissipated instantly and the lights came back on.
Yawning, Lief stood up from the sofa and walked toward the smoking remains of the VCR.
With the tip of his boot, he absentmindedly kicked the fragments of melted plastic, making sure the threat had been completely neutralized.
Satisfied, he turned his head toward Lillith.
"Alright, now the million-dollar question. Where the hell did this trash come from?"
Looking at him with innocence, Lillith confessed
"Mom brought it."
"Mom...? Are you serious?"
"Mmm," Lillith nodded. "She said it was part of the evidence from an old case and that it was gathering dust in storage. Since she saw we were bored at home and had nothing to do, she thought of bringing it for us."
"She said it would serve to entertain us."
The expression on Lief's face turned strange.
In a matter of seconds, his mind went from disbelief to shock, and from there slid into a state of catatonic resignation.
His brain tried to process the logic behind that decision: his mother had taken a cursed artifact capable of murdering people, had taken it out of a police storage, and had given it to her daughters so they could have fun…
Throwing his head back, he looked at the ceiling, seeking an explanation for his family misfortune.
"My dear mother…"
________
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