"Where are we going ?"

  "Oh, I dunno, It's not like one of us here doesn't have a home anymore ! I don't even know where I'm gonna sleep tonight."

  "Why don't we go to the Madonna's house ?"

  Alma and Aria immediately shook their head in protest, clearly not a fan of María's idea.

  "I'd rather not return to that house..."

  This was getting weird, first her comment about her name and now this ? There definitely was a story she wasn't telling us. Not like I was interested nor would the psycho listen though ?

  "W-we should probably camp outside."

  "Aria... There are monsters everywhere, we would probably die if we camped."

  "Calm down, while there are some people here that weren't invited in the first pce, I know someone that can help us see more clearly about what's happening."

  "Tch. You want to meet with the old hag."

  Ah, right, Li's mom did tell me her and that woman knew each other.

  I looked at María's face, still unsure of why she was still following us. I could have asked the same thing regarding Jessica's presence, however.

  "Not invited ? As if I want to spend my time with you guys."

  "Yup, you're definitely the same. Still incapable of caring for others", Alma responded to her statement, mocking her.

  "There's never anything good that comes off trusting others. In this life, you should only worry about yourself."

  "And the fact you only worry about yourself is precisely what makes you an asshole ."

  Jessica turned her back on Alma, a saddened expression on her face.

  "You wouldn't understand."

  "Ah, whatever, you're pissing me off."

  I sighed, as I felt like I was in a kindergarten having to look after troublesome children.

  "Can we focus ? I'm fine with camping. I mean, it's not like I have much of a choice. Night is coming soon and I have nowhere to sleep. Besides, I don't think either of you live very close so it doesn't matter."

  We all became silent as we realised an important detail we all missed.

  "Miss Audrey... Don't you need like a tent for camping ?"

  "..."

  "..."

  "..."

  "Seriously ?! You guys didn't realise ?!"

  Alma pointed to a supermarket nearby, the building had a lot of fissures.

  "This should provide us with water and food for the next day. We should sleep in there."

  Seeing as we didn't have much of a choice, we all ran towards the supermarket.

  As we made our way inside, a little girl with quilts and a red backpack was taking candy off the counter.

  "Oh, hello. It's a lovely day we're having."

  Lovely ? What was so lovely about the sky being dark red and the streets being filled with monsters of various kind ?

  "Oh, that's weird, Sally was sure there was someone else with you."

  Now that she mentioned it, where had María disappeared to ?

  "I suppose that coward is still scared of me."

  "You know each other ?"

  "You know that skank ?!"

  "You and that girl are really bad influences on Aria with your foul nguage..."

  Jessica turned to me, a panicked expression on her face.

  "What's wrong, Jessica ?"

  "That voice inside my head, she's telling me she's after me."

  Before we could even respond, Jessica eyes were sealed shut by thread.

  "Aaaaaah !!!!"

  "Jessica ! What did you do to her eyes ?!"

  For some reason, even though I wanted to intervene, it was like an invisible hand was preventing me from moving.

  "Oh, that's interesting, Miss ! You give off the same scent as Mother ! "

  The neck of the child extended to reach my position, a creepy and eerie smile that reached her ears scribbled on her face.

  "Sally suppose she could keep you in the world Sally's creating. After all, Sally wants lotta friends to py with her."

  Even though the words of this child sounded innocent, they scared me to my core.

  Looking around, I could see she somehow used Alma body as a rope to bind Aria. How was she even able to do that ? Alma doesn't have a physical body...

  "Don't worry, I'm only interested in that little apostle girl over here. It's our god given's right to see which vision of the world is better after all."

  As she said this, I could almost discern an transparent barrier forming between us and them.

  *********

  My eyes! It hurts! It's so painful!

  "You were lucky to be born an apostle, we have a small amount of resistance against each other's authorities. Usually, my little trick does worse to people. Maybe they thought it would be over really quick if we didn't ? Who knows ?"

  "If you think I'm not gonna hit you for this, child, you're mistaken !"

  "Fascinating, even though I look like this, you're not concerned over hurting me. You're different than that fire coward."

  Even though it's painful, it would never be as painful as what happened that night.

  HEAL YOUR EYES, MY CHILD, FOR YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN DOWN RIGHT NOW

  Were the words Venus spoke inside my head.

  Heal them ? You're out of your mind. That's impossible.

  Tho art the apostle of Vanity, My Child, Anything you desire can change appearance.

  She told me to focus and imagine the beauty of my eyes, whatever that meant.

  "There's no way..."

  To my surprise, I could perfectly see again, the matter that was sealing of my eyes gone.

  "Oh, that's a bummer but I suppose it makes it more fun. As the gods decided, let's see whose vision of the world is better."

  I didn't understand what she meant by this.

  "I see you're confused so let me expin. When we apostle are pitted against each other and chose to fight it out, we enter some sorta pact where the ideals of both the gods we serve are judged equally. If I want my world of amusement to exist, I need to kill all of you. Still, some of you have your uses so I let you indulge me."

  She bowed to me, taking her backpack off her back and holding it with one hand.

  "I'm Sally, the apostle of bizareness, let this be a fight for the ages, apostle of beauty."

  All those weird events happening back to back where making me re-evaluate a lot of things. However, my instinct told me that if I wasn't able to get rid of this child, I would be the one dying.

  "I'm Jessica Juanary, the apostle of Vanity, no idea what that means but let me out if you don't wanna have a bad time, child !"

  "An immature apostle on top of someone that still has trouble accepting paranormal occurrences. It's a pity you guys ran into me."

  As I braced myself, green tentacles came out of her bag while a needle the size of a sword manifested itself in my hand.