Ben shouted "It's down to four!"

Aya said "It's fine" , held her hand and the life bar showed five minutes again. "see?"

Ben could breathe again but he was still stressed like hell.

"Take these" she gave him four little black squares. They looked like beads from little girls' arts and crafts bracelets, but without a hole for the string.

"When the bar goes down, give her one. Just press it to her palm until it dissolves. I'll prepare her… um, her medicine".

"Okay"

Aya mixed a few herbs and liquids from the shelves and started drawing with it on the concrete floor. She drew a big circle and a small circle, and filled it with all kinds of shapes and Ben could tell she was trying very hard to get it right and precise.

"Aya, Aya, she's moving!"

Aya looked over to see Gwen shaking unnaturally. She turned Gwen over and Gwen puked on the magic circle. Aya laid her back again.

Ben said "I'm sorry" Ben felt guilty.

Aya frowned at him. He said "You distracted me and she went down two… two life force so I gave her two magic cubes"

Aya caught his wrist in anger " Listen, kid, I can't do this by myself. So if you want your cousin to live you have to watch her and listen to me. I said, if it goes down, give her one. One!"

Ben nearly cried "I'm sorry, I'm sorry".

She flicked his hand free and got back to work. Now having to clean the floor. Aya made more herb mix and drew the circle again. This time way faster and way less precisely.

Ben told her "AAh! She's gone two down!"

Aya said, "Give her one. Don't overdose her again. And watch her better, for Pete's sake".

Ben came to Aya. "I'm out of cubes. Give me more".

Aya got more stressed "She can't have more. Grab a brush and draw the other circle".

Ben copied from Aya's black leather book and drew with the stinky green herb mush. He started with a circle.

"Smaller"

"But the drawing says-"

"I said smaller!"

Ben glanced back at Gwen for a moment "She's down to two"

"That's one minute for us"

Ben announced, "I'm done!"

Aya dropped her paintbrush "Finish mine"

Her circle was way bigger, but it was almost done.

Aya went to the mice cage and moved one to a tiny cage.

"Done!" Ben said again. He never drew that fast in his life. His hands were shaking from stress.

Aya looked at it. "Shit" She erased the most complicated symbol Ben drew and drew it herself, slightly tilted this time.

She lifted her hands over their completed work and whispered gibberish. A black smoke came out of her hands and got absorbed into the herb mix. The lines now released black smoke themselves. With the flickering green lights in that weird-smelling garage, it was one of the creepiest things Ben ever saw. That's saying something. She put the mouse cage on the small circle, and rolled Gwen's hospital bed on the big circle. Still whispering the whole time. The black smoke covered Gwen, then moved to the smaller circle and covered the mouse. Then Aya stopped whispering, the black smoke faded, the lines were green herb goo again.

Ben cried out "Why isn't she waking up? Why didn't anything happen?"

Aya took Gwen's hand in her palms "She'll be okay now".

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Release Schedule

Hi, Melody here. Thank you for reading and following the story. I wanted to let you know when the next chapters are coming out. In the middle of January, I'll upload chapter one again, after small changes for clarity. And I'll also finish chapter four and upload it later this month. After that, the chapters will come out at the start of every month until the story is done. I try to keep them around the same length.

Release Schedule:

20th of January - Chapter 1 and Chapter 4

1st of February - Chapter 5

1st of March - Chapter 6

And so on.

Thank you for reading!