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1590 Bentley Hill Road, House 4E\'s had many, many potted plants propped on either side of the driveway. Recently, the days have been cloudy, but never rainy… so they\'ve sat beneath the harsh blaze of the sun all this time slowly shriveling and withering feeble limp. 

Out of all the properties in the neighborhood, his was the only whose greenery was visibly shifting to an unhealthy yellow tinge. The only outlier, the sole outcrier against the scene of normalcy. 

Irene found a hose somewhere in the backyard and slowly winded and untangled it towards the front. With a twist of the spigot, Irene took the end of the hose and began watering the dry, brittle soil - quenching their thirst, while also slightly soaking herself in the process.

Once she was sure that every plant had had its fill, she rewinded the hose, retightened the spigot, and made her way back to the front, where she trod cautiously on the now puddled driveway, her soggy shoes squelching on the wooden boards of the porch. 

The usual foul odor permeating from within the house had gotten stale, having lingered and festered for so long, it had gotten arid, musty… and though it was a slight improvement from yesterday stench, she still had to take a brief moment to brace herself before she swung open and passed through the doorway, and as soon as she did so, she could hear him already.

A cry in the air, a faint whimper, feeble… exhausted. At first, he screamed, he shouted, the voice that would echo throughout the silence of the house was a harsh one, but with time, he eventually wore himself out, and all that could be mustered now could barely even be considered a whisper. 

Irene took a step further inwards past the living room… appearance-wise, skimming at a surface level, say for example a curious onlooker was to peer through the windows, they could be forgiven for thinking nothing amiss.

Perhaps one could question the absence of a television in the household but apart from that, there was not a speck on the ground, pictures on walls, items on shelves and cabinets, aligned perfectly and in order - she made extra sure they were in order.

The drawl droning noises only got louder the deeper she delved in. From this close, Irene thought it sounded a bit husk, coarse… parched. She took a brief detour into the kitchen, rummaged through the fridge, and found a still unopened bottle of water, with various teeth marks indented onto the bottle cap. 

Finally, Irene entered through the slightly parted doorway into the bedroom. She swung the door a little wider, cleansing the darkness, - sunlight traversing past the doorway, across the carpet, unveiling forth from the shadows, an office chair sprawled sideways against the floor, and a gaunt-looking man, his arms and feet bound with rope to the seat strewn alongside with.

In a pooling puddle of drool, the man\'s narrowed, enfeebled gaze slowly drifted towards the slender figure standing still beneath the doorway, and with lips crackled and unmoving, he expelled another croaky groan.

"I said not to struggle," Irene closed the distance, heaving hard as she pulled the man and the chair back upright. "You\'ll only make your wrists bleed more, see?"

Indeed, in the light, the man could more easily see the stains of red seeping into the seams of the rope, but he didn\'t care, he looked back at blurry face inches from his, and went back to groaning, "Please…" went back to pleading, "Please let me go…"

Irene didn\'t answer with words, her reply came with the retightening of his binds, she had it straining, grinding against his skin. The man felt it sting, felt it burrow, and could only stare and moan helplessly at the ceiling as it did.

With him looking upwards, his neck was exposed to the sunlight, and Irene could easily see the two faint puncture marks on his bare skin in the process of fading, healing. 

"Eight hours," She muttered quietly to herself, feeling in the bleakness of things, a sliver of hope, of promise. "Don\'t fail me now, Amelia." 

After a final tug, Irene drew her hands away, and with the faint sound of crinkled plastic, brought the man\'s ailing focus back towards her.

"Keep your head up," Irene quietly but firmly commanded, raising the uncapped water bottle to his chapped lips at an angle. "Try not to choke, I\'ll go slow, alright?"

Without even a second\'s hesitation, the man spread his mouth wide open, tongue jutting, reaching out all too desperate. Irene began to slowly pour in intermittent trickles, she wasn\'t sure how much he needed at first, but after a full minute of pouring, that answer was made and clear - and the bottle now sat on the ground beside him completely depleted.

So close to withering, shriveling… the man gasped out loud, breathing in an air of newfound life, a newfound vigor. He didn\'t look as pale anymore, not as gaunt - though his scruffy beard, his disheveled graying hair still left much to be desired. 

"Alright, focus, focus," Irene said, snapping her fingers, beckoning his attention. "What\'s your name? How old are you? And what happened to you?"

The look of relief on the man\'s face was quickly overtaken by despair once more having heard her questions. 

"Again?" He exclaimed, his face scrunched in agony. "Why again?" 

"You know why again," Irene sternly replied. "You want my help, you want to be saved - answer the damn questions." 

His eyes trembled, his teeth were clenched, and after a moment\'s passed, he quietly, with a quivering breath, relented. "My name is Harry Leonard. I\'m fifty-six next year… and I don\'t know what happened! I answered my door, I just answered my door… and then I couldn\'t move, I couldn\'t speak, I-I wasn\'t me… someone else, something else… was in me..." 

"Okay," Irene kept her stare locked to his. "And this... something else, can you still feel it inside you? Do you feel it emerging? Do you sense him taking control? At any instance at all, even briefly? "

"No!" He shouted at once, angry and lost. "I told you a million times! I don\'t feel that thing anymore! I feel like myself! I am myself! How many times do you want me to say it before you believe me?! How long are you going to keep me tied here for?! I\'m starving, I\'m in all sorts of pain, and I smell like fucking piss and shit! I can\'t bear this anymore!" 

Harry was struggling again, grinding his bare skin against the rope, the chair squeaking and groaning with his shifting and squirming. Irene kept quiet, staring blankly at the outrage in his eyes in deep contemplation - eight hours was not a sufficient enough time frame to believe him cured, if that was even a prospect possible.

Amelia herself even said as much, begrudgingly piercing her fangs into his nape upon her request - purging a parasite like this, overriding its control on a soul with a Matriarch\'s ability to enthrall was a dubious solution at best. 

The best solution, the only solution, for an affliction such as this, as countless spellbooks had informed her, as Amelia condescendingly reminded her, was death. 

But even still… Irene had to try, make an effort… and so, she continued to ask him.

"Tell me about your children now."