Spirit World

Cause of Everything

The time she realized that they were different from any other family was when she realized the way how her mother dressed differently from the others: glaring colors of various dresses, different designs that were so outdated and very much old even in the eyes of the mothers of her class that almost at the same age as her. She was often laughed at by those parents, and even her classmates were laughing at her because of the kind of mother she had which led her to be aloof in their class. She was still famous, though. She was known as someone who had a 'witch' mom.

There was some rumor going around the school, or around the community to make it worse, that her mother, Mrs. Caryl Cobb, was seen talking to someone that they couldn't see, saw her praying with candles around her that only witches did before. They were calling her out for dressing the way how ancient civilizations did before. Exaggerated, certainly, but the way they were paying too much attention to their family was also more than necessary. That was also the reason why that certain families were so scared to get out of the place and were even more embarrassed than the rude things the rude neighborhood was doing to them.

It's nothing to Mrs. Cobb, though. She could endure everything, she was taught how to ignore those harsh words from these people, but she was more worried about her kid. The poor girl had been the target of bullying, and she could see how it was affecting her. Her child, Callie Cobb, was a bubbly girl before, when she had not gone to school yet, or when her classmates had not found about her mother yet. But, as soon as she had become the laughing stock of these people who mock her for her culture and the practices that she was doing, her little bubbly girl had changed.

"Mom, it's hot. I don't want this," the little girl said as she looked on her red, long-sleeved dress that went down to her toes, covering all of her body even her n, neck and barely showing any of her skin. It was exactly how her mother dressed, the way of dressing that her classmates and their parents were making fun of. "I don't want to wear this, mom. Please."

The mother sighed and kneeled, leveling to her eyes and cradling her small face softly. "We have to continue this practice, Callie. Please understand, mommy. Someone in our every generation has to preserve this tradition, this will help us someday, you would know what to do when you're gone in this world."

Little Callie violently shook her head and pouted. A kid like her had not known anything about such a thing, she didn't care at all. What mattered to her was what her classmates would think of her once they found her in that already too old dress that no one had ever worn as such in the current contemporary generation. She wanted to fit in, she was just a kid who wanted to live a normal life, without people laughing at her or making fun of her mother. But she couldn't do that if her mother had the main problem with her.

"Mom, please, they're making fun of me. They've been teasing me a lot of times from morning to afternoon. I don't want this. I want to dress like yesterday, I don't want this," she stubbornly said, trying to rip herself off of the dress, taking it off frustrated but, she couldn't do it alone, it had to be zipped out by someone else's hand, her mom's to be exact.

"Callie..." Her mom called, feeling defeated and sad about the influence those people were having on her daughter. She had also experienced that before, but it was only minimal. As the generation progressed, the humans had been close-minded over the tradition of before, and now, they were using it as a laughing matter in everything whenever they would see people not dressing the same way as they do.

"Mom, please. I don't want to go to school like this. Everyone's staying away from me," the poor girl said with her tears brimming in her eyes as she continuously walked away from her mother. "Mommy, they're scared of us. We don't kill people, do we? We're not weird, right? We don't do illegal things."

Her mother rushed to her and hugged her twelve-year-old kid who obviously had been traumatized by all the teasings that the people were doing to her kid. "I'm sorry, Callie. We have to do this. We have to conserve-"

"No! I don't want to!" the little girl promptly replied and threw her tantrums, shaking away from her mother as she completely cried loudly. "Get off of me! I don't want to go now! I don't want to go to school!"

"Alright, alright. How about just trying this once and if they still tease you, you're not going to wear this anymore. How's that sound, Cal?" Her mom proposed, no matter how much she had to follow the preservation of their tradition, and this time it would be through her daughter Callie like what happened to her, but this time, the whole world had changed, she couldn't sacrifice her child's freedom for this.

Callie agreed, but she shouldn't have at all. The time she went to school she was laughed at, got a concussion because of the stones thrown at her. Her mother even had to come to the hospital because her head was bleeding, but more than her bleeding head, she was already forever scarred and had been really angry over her classmates that she turned rather cold and not able to trust most of her classmates anymore, especially when they mention about her mother being weird and traditional, she would receive a soft block from her.

Until she grew up, she was entirely aloof now with people, though she often have parties as she grew up with her most trusted friends. She dressed normally after that incident in her last elementary grade, and her mother had been very much quiet about pushing her to continue their traditions. She had been quiet about that, and she had been coping with how her daughter lived along with the wave of the world. She had no problem with raising her straying away from their culture, but she was still continuing their traditions for them, maybe she would be the last.

Well, it seemed like it would also not happen because of this certain incident one day when Callie was now twenty years old.

Unknown to the two women who were sleeping in a peaceful house, a white van stopped right in front of the vicinity of the small house. Instantly, six men went out and crowded on the door, pick locking it as if they were so experienced with doing it and they had already planned out everything even before that was why they had barged in the house so easily and swiftly.

It also seemed that way especially when the men went in briskly and smoothly inside both rooms stealthily. Two men were in the smaller room where the sleeping Callie was still awake with her headphones on, while the other four went to the room across it where the mother was already sleeping, but since she was a light sleeper, her eyes shot open and were welcomed by the sight of four people already surrounding her, and so she screamed.

It went through Callie's headphones as she took them out and immediately looked back, however, her heart almost fell on her stomach when she was welcomed by two men who were wearing bonnets, and their faces were firmly covered by black masks. They jumped on her and took her by her arms, taking her out along with them outside.

"No! Who are you? Where are you taking me!? Help! Mom! Help!" she screamed, trying her best to fight off their strengths and take her arms back. But, when she was outside her room, she was greeted by the sight of her mother pleading inside her room, kneeling in front of them and crying. That sight alone was enough to break her heart.

"Please, spare my daughter. Take me, but don't take her with you. She doesn't know anything. She's not like me," her mom said, putting her hands together and bowed. The mom the Callie thought was the strongest looked vulnerable in front of her makes her cry too.

"Who are you! Let go of me!" she said as she tried to get near her mother but she was pulled back by the two men. "Mom! What are you crying about? Who are these people!?"

"So you know about the chant that prolonged life?" the man asked, kneeling in front of her mother as well as he raised her head using his finger on her chin. "Just say the truth and we'll spare your kid. After all, you're the only one whom we needed the most."

"Y-yes... I can. But you have to know the consequences-"

"Great!" the man exclaimed, not letting the woman continue what she was saying and completely disregarding the fact that there was something about the consequence that she was talking about which he had no time on listening at all. "Spare the girl. Put her to sleep. Take the woman."

"No, wait! Mom! Don't!" she said as she surged forward, but once again being restrained by the two men. "Let go of me! Let go of my mom! Mommy! What are you doing!? Fight them, please! Don't leave me!"

But her mother only smiled at her while she was being dragged, looking over her shoulder, sadly with tears brimming in her eyes. "I love you always, Cal. Always remember that alright? I may not be with you, but I remain with my books. Find me there."

Those were the last words that she heard before a man put her to sleep by putting a handkerchief on her face and made her sniff the chemical on there, whispering threats not to tell anything to the police, and everything went black.

---

She woke up by the sound of her alarm. She groggily took her alarm and turned it off. Then like a robot, she stood up, went to her closet, and pulled the dress that she didn't know she would be wearing voluntarily without her mother reprimanding her to do so.

She then changed, and without having taken into her mouth and stomach, she went down to the basement and started the ritual. As soon as she woke up from her sleep, after realizing what happened and thinking of her mother's last words, she immediately went to her mother's sanctuary which was the basement, and there, she found a book, containing everything that she had to learn when she was a child.

"Hmm... Sovereign of the Spirit... Hmm."