Chapter 4

William's steps and breath in his chest were so slow. However, it's all inversely proportional to the pacemaker, which is not abysmal. Even a bead of sweat had drenched his wrinkled forehead. He stood momentarily, trying to hide his old body on the right side of the door close to the knob. She took a breath and moved to punch whoever scared her to death.

One.

William held the knob as he took one more breath.

Two.

He turned the knob and, with a quick movement, opened the door, then called out,

"Whoever is there, I will kill you!"

William's body froze. He wanted so badly to scream as loud as possible when he saw the figure of a fox. It wasn't unusual to see the nocturnal animal, but those two orange furry eyes that William remembered so well. Her golden and emerald green irises lit up in the darkness of the garden behind the house, leading her to a glimpse of the woman's face in the mortuary last week who was now staring at her so intently.

Unknowingly, William's steps backward made the medium-sized fox enter his residence. Occasionally she wagged her long tail and then ran towards the window with a curtain patterned with the late Alice's favorite lily flower. A few seconds later, a taller figure appeared than a fox's body, accompanied by a woman coughing.

"Who are you!" William brandished his baseball bat with shaking legs. He was scared by the rumors that the pseudo-humans that were the talk of the Tasmanians were true.

"Do not be afraid."

A girl peeked from behind the curtains; her long hair was well-groomed. She smiled broadly as if she had known William for a long time.

"Could you lend me clothes like what humans wear?"

Like hypnotized, William fell silent and took his daughter's clothes which were still stored in the room. Not long after, William gave the woman a set of blue pajamas without a word. William's fear evaporated when he saw the fox demon's pretty face. Instead, his mind was filled with all kinds of questions.

"Sorry, William, I startled you," said the fox man as she emerged from behind the curtains. She saw that the pajamas that William had given her looked so contrasting with her white skin, which was very pale, like marble. The scent of lavender lingered in every fiber of her cotton cloth; she kissed it occasionally with a sweet smile.

"You know my name?" asked William with a deepened frown. "Who exactly are you? How did you find me?"

The woman tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, watching William. She could see a puff of smoke around the white and curly-haired man's body suddenly turning gray, accompanied by pounding heartbeats. Her two magic eyes could also see the red liquid in William's body flowing fast in every vein. Her sharp nose sniffed the smell of a mixture of tobacco and cinnamon wafting from the body of the owner of the house.

Then, she glanced around the damp place humans often called home. The smell of the building seems to have not been exposed to the sun for a long time, and looks quite full. On her bare feet, she walked over to a table with assorted photographs of William and two women and a long withered flower in a vase. The flower smelled slightly rotten, and she turned to the house owner with a mocking look. Then, caressing the house walls, which felt rough, touching his hand, he believed that these walls were made of rocks or sand.

"Can this place protect you from attack?" asked the girl without looking at William. "How did you guys have a shelter without being disturbed? Are humans that strong?"

"How did you find me?" asked William ignoring the questions asked by uninvited guests.

The long-haired girl glanced at William for a moment before taking one of the photo frames of the house voters and saying, "I found you because of your scent, William. You smell different from the others."

The man's reflex smelled the scent of his armpits. There was nothing specific except for the scent of the cigar he had just smoked. How could people easily find someone with just a smell that sometimes can only be smelled from a short distance, thought William. Come to think of it, the human in front of him wasn't just any human, considering he could kill two humans without feeling guilty. Ah! Realizing this, he should have grabbed the cell phone in front of the girl so the police would come and arrest him.

"Then who are you?" asked William in a probing tone. "You came back from the dead, or are you human?"

The irises of the two foreign women's eyes lit up again with the snake's tongue sticking out while looking at William's suddenly changed expression. While the man froze with the thought that his life would surely fly away any minute. After a few seconds, the mysterious girl shook her head hard to return her tongue to the shape of a human tongue, then smiled broadly.

"I am Stella Rogers, the last clan of foxes to die in the Gordon River," Stella said.