People had an upper limit to how much life changing information they could stomach back to back; Saber was reaching his. 

It made sense;

Echo said he had a family. 

Echo said his family were also mediums. 

Echo told Saber to answer because he recognized the number. 

Unfortunately logic and sense didn’t matter much to a madman. And Saber’d been feeling less than sane for the past few days. 

“W-wait so you…?” Saber covered his eyes with his hand and yelped when he got a glimpse of vines tapping on his window. He lifted his hand and shook his head before continuing, “You know about… I mean Echo and- You know what happened to him?” 

“No,” A new voice answered. Similar to Filla’s and Echo’s. Likely another relative. 

[Xenia] 

Echo supplied. 

A third voice— identified by Echo as Despinia —joined the overcrowded conversation, “We knew he’d been unbound. Knew it as soon as we started the funeral rites. Filla just…guessed it had something to do with you, Saber.” 

Saber groaned. He stared up imploringly. 

[I don’t know what you expect me to do] 

“They’re your-“ Saber clamped his hand over his mouth. 

“Wait!” Xenia exclaimed excitedly, “Can you- Is he…with you?”

As much as Saber wanted to spill everything— to dump every little piece of information onto someone competent —he could feel Echo’s unease. It sat in Saber’s stomach like lead-- nauseating and suffocating. 

“I can’t see him.” 

“That’s not a no!” Xenia noted. 

“Mhm,” Saber hummed, noncommittally. 

The sisters started to whisper on the other end of the line. Saber couldn’t make out their words nor did he care to. He tapped on the mute icon. 

“What do we do?” 

Echo made a soft noise. Something between shock and delight. It felt warm in Saber’s chest but coated his tongue in something bitter. 

[You make it sound like we’re a team] 

Saber deadpanned the air. 

[Point taken….I suppose we should…] 

A dizzying sensation came over Saber. Like pacing back and forth while also sitting completely still. It was worse than being out at sea. Saber braced his hand on the bed to stop himself from toppling over. 

[…They’re not…bad people]

”Could you find a comforting way to say that?” 

[They’re good people]

“Tell me one more time and I’ll believe you.”

Echo laughed. Saber could feel him shaking his head. 

[I love them. And they love me, but that’s the problem]

Echo sighed. 

[I’m- Well I was the youngest. They…spoiled me]

“Any chance I’ll get the same treatment now that you’re inside me?” 

“He’s inside you?” An indignant voice from Saber’s phone, too strained for Saber to identify which sister it came from. 

Saber looked down. He’d clicked the unmute button when he steadied himself. Not that he could do anything about it now.

“Don’t say it like that,” Saber shivered at the implication. 

“But you said-” 

“Yeah, I know what I said! But I didn’t- I mean, he’s like haunting my brain.”

It felt like Echo was clawing at Saber’s shoulders. Digging his nails in and trying to pull him away from the cliff he’d already jumped off of. 

“Can he hear me?” Despinia’s voice was steady with a lilt of hopefulness that made Saber want to cry. 

[Tell her I can’t] 

“He can.” 

Saber got to experience the pain of being struck in the head from the inside. His eyes twisted closed in pain. 

The light that should’ve been in the room went out. The window Saber faced was fully covered in vines. They twitched and pulsed eagerly like a mass of worms crawling over each other in a desperate bid to find soil. 

A soft, slow, creaking sound gave way to a deafening crack. Saber’s heart skipped several beats and he wrenched his eyes open. The vines were gone, the crack was not. 

[I already told-] 

“Oh fuck!” Saber grabbed the curtains on either side of his window and yanked them closed. Like the gentle, gauzy cloth could protect him from the mass of discard(?)-- was that what Echo called it? 

“What is it?”
“What’s wrong?

“Where are you?”
All three women spoke over each other in an unhelpful jumble of noise. Saber latched onto a singular question. He grabbed his phone and began backing out of his room. He frantically typed his address and sent it to the number Filla was calling from. 

“Help,” Saber hated how pathetic he sounded. Almost as much as he hated the sound of his bedroom window shattering. 

[Saber! Get to the kitchen! You need salt!] 

Saber’s bare feet slapped against his hardwood floor as he scrambled down the hall. As he stepped onto the kitchen tile, the sweat coating his body made him slip. He went careening forward, his arms pinwheeling in a desperate bid to catch himself. 

Luckily, his hands met the kitchen island before his head did. When he lifted his head he was face to face with his ghost themed salt and pepper shakers. He grabbed the little white ghost with shaky fingers. 

[Please tell me you have more than that…] 

“Who do you think I am? Fucking Johnny Salt?” 

[Who..?-nevermind, we’ll make it work] 

Hesitantly, Saber closed his eyes again. A column of intertwined, fleshy, tentacles fell through the doorway to Saber’s room with a wet smack. Each breath felt like inhaling glass, or maybe more like when Saber inhaled the salt and pepper while fighting the last creature.

“What do I do?” Saber kept his eyes closed and tried to steady his breathing. 

[Good job Saber, you’re doing great. That shaker’s ceramic, right?]

“Why?” 

[Throw it now! At the entrance!] 

The thought of the little black ghost being forced to watch its lover get obliterated tugged on Saber’s heart strings. Thankfully, his weak heart was even weaker to being consumed by a flesh monster. He slammed the shaker on the ground beneath the arch between the kitchen and the rest of the house. 

Sparkling granules of salt spread out across the tile, mixed with the shattered remains of Saber’s friendly ghost. His lips turned down at the edges and his brows pinched together. He reached behind himself and deftly smacked the pepper shaker to the ground to join its mate. 

[Why?]

Saber closed his eyes. 

The vines were surging down the hallway. The thinnest reached the kitchen first. They reached out tentatively. When they tapped the edge of the salt they reared back like they were a thousand tiny slugs. The small vines retreated to the larger vines whose approach had been slowed, not halted. 

“Can’t they just climb over?” Saber leaned back against the kitchen island. Both hands braced against the counter like it was the only thing keeping him upright. It might have been, honestly. 

[You know the ghost stories about salt circles? Think of it like a forcefield] 

Saber nodded, pretending to feel reassured.

[...which is why I need you to step into the middle]

Saber’s mouth fell open in disbelief, “Then why the fuck did you make me break it!” 

A large tentacle began edging up the side of the arch. Saber’s eyes went wide; as wide as they could while closed. He stepped forward and gritted his teeth as tiny shards of porcelain bit into the soles of his feet. 

The cuts wouldn’t have been nearly as painful if not for the gritty salt rubbed in with every step. Blood seeped out from under Saber’s feet. The pain reminded Saber of the time an anti-fan paid a staffer to slip gravel into his quick change boots. Just as he had then, Saber tensed his jaw and shook off the pain. 

[Oh… it had a stopper] 

Saber lifted his food to reveal the tiny rubber plug that’d been sealing the refill hole of the salt shaker. Blood beaded along the rubber. 

“Of- fucking -course it did you stupid piece of shit!” 

“Don’t talk to my brother like that!” 

Saber glanced down at his phone, it was dead. When he looked back up, towards the vines, he saw three bright balls of light. He opened his eyes. 

Three women, all varying flavors of badass, stood in the hallway. The woman closest to Saber held a staff covered in ribbons with tiny chiming bells. She held the staff out, all the green ribbons tumbled forward while the yellow, somehow, remained tight to the staff. A chorus of tinkling bells rang through Saber’s kitchen. 

Something told Saber to close his eyes again. But by the time he did the vines had already retreated. 

He shook his head as he opened his eyes, trying to shake off the blinding light Echo’s sisters gave off in the veil.