The tanned man’s eyes open wide, and he lets out a big breath. A gust of sudden wind pushes me a few meters back, I crash into a table and some chairs. My back is killing me, I can’t stand back up. I look up, I see the man standing a few meters back from where he was, the wind must have pushed him back too.

“Please don’t kill-“

Wait, even if I die the lady will just bring me back, I don’t have to beg for mercy.

“I see that the darkness is as merciless as ever, it freed me only to decide I needed to die right after. Its fine, I have done so many bad things to repay my debt to it, maybe if I stop you from doing the same I can make up for those misdeeds”

Stop me? He must mean kill me. I can still barely stand up, I was launched straight into the air, and a few chair legs hit me right in the back. He looks fine. But then again if I die she’ll just bring me right back, healed. Wait, maybe he doesn't know that! I'll try and run away when he turns his back on me, thinking he killed me.

“Your face went from fearful to clam in a split second. Hmph, tell me, is someone from the dark keeping you from dying?"

..He knows. But he said that he approached the dark, that he wasn't dying when it found him. So how does he know?

"I was offered that same power, told it would make me strong enough to get what I want. But thanks to god the all mighty, I was able to resist the urge, because I was blessed with knowing the true cost. Let me erase that calm expression on your face. Every time it brings you back, your connection the darkness grows, you become more and more a part of it. Eventually, you’ll be stuck there, alive unable to return to this world. I’ll just keep killing you till your trapped there with the cursed creature who gave you that power. If you are anything like I was when I made the dark deal then you deserve to be there anyways.”

...Trapped in the dark. No there's no way, the dark lady never mentioned anything like that! But....I remember when the rhyming man killed me, I noticed it became easier to breathe in the dark, easier to see, was that me becoming more apart of it? This is bad, so I can’t just sit here and pretend to be dead. Dammit why isn’t the dark lady helping me!

The tanned man takes a big breath, and exhales in my direction.

I can almost see his breathe coming towards me. It's like a cloud of...something coming towords me. I need to act fast, who knows what this breathe will do to me. Maybe it will trap me, and he’ll just kill me over and over till I’m stuck in the dark. I need to do something now. He’s across the room from me, a few meters away. The best I could before with my cuts was maybe a foot away. I’m screwed.

“Make a large single cut, across his body. From this distance you won’t be able to do as many simultaneous cuts as you could close up, but one single larger cut should be possible for you. Well I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing you don’t have any better ideas.”

The darkness, so this is where I would be trapped. I can’t even imagine that, being alive but stuck here, where I can barely see anything, and my only companion is this woman, or maybe she would leave me once she realizes I’m stuck here, unable to get to that kid. Her plan doesn't sound awful, if I can do many small cuts close to me, I might be able to do one large cut a little bit farther away. Its worth a try, I’ll die if I don’t do anything. But that’s going take a lot of control, it's not something I’ve done before. She lets me back into the real world.

I can almost feel his breath moving towards me, fast, I feel like it will reach me in a few seconds. I prop myself up against a knocked over table, and raise my fist towards the tanned man. It goes black, it's getting easier to activate my power. I focus on making a single cut on him, from across the room. I feel the energy flowing into my hand, and....and I see it! A faint black line being drawn across the tanned mans waist! Dammit! Most of the black line is to the right of him, but at least I didn’t completely miss, I can see it get at least half way across his waist on one side. The tanned man looks down, and his eyes open wide again. He starts to inhale, but right before he can exhale my line cuts. I can see blood, and even from the other side of the room I can see that the wound was deep. He falls onto his knees and hands. He inhales, but his time weakly, and exhales with the same force. He blows onto the wound. The wound doesn’t change, but I see his face relax a little. Maybe he reduced the pain of the wound a little.

I…I feel so tired now, all of a sudden. Was it his breath? No, I can feel the energy that was coming towards me dissipating. When I cut him he must of lost focus, I guess that’s making his attack disappear. Maybe it was controlling my powers that did this to me, going from a bunch of cuts all close around me to what I just did is a huge jump. Just one controlled cut makes me feel like I ran a marathon, but the adrenaline won’t let me pass out right now.

“I’ve never fought someone who could do what you can do, most transmuters can just change their limbs into different objects, but you, you can change them into the darkness. Even I couldn’t create darkness like that when I was its slave. You will be a good servant to it, so willing to do whatever it asks and so tightly coupled with the dark.”

His face was grimacing in pain. His long dreads touching the floor, being dipped into his blood. His robe was more red than it was brown now.

I stop propping myself up on the table and slide back down to the floor, it's less painful lying down, and I was too exhausted to keep standing up. My back is really messed up, maybe the chair cut into me, and I just couldn’t tell because of the adrenaline. I would almost prefer to die and come back healed like I did in the house, but I need to find out if the old man was telling the truth about being stuck in the dark.

I look over to the old man, it looks like hes dying, I've never seen that much blood in my life. Or atleast, I don't think I have.

“I’m sorry, I had no choice.” I said it so calmly, I never thought a sentence like that would come out of my mouth. Maybe the old me was the type of person to say stuff like that too.

The old mans face was still pointed towords the floor, but I could see his eyes shoot up to stare at me.

“Maybe my intention was enough, to kill you, to stop you. Maybe that will save me from the hellfire. I’ll find out soon I suppose”

All of a sudden I hear yelling and a loud large bang. It sounded like someone had torn the doors of the hotel straight from their hinges. From behind me men in soldier uniforms enter the room. Theres' only a few of them, they must of heard the commotion from outside, the cracked walls of this hotel must let a lot escape. They grab the old man, and then me.

I see the old man’s eyes light up, it looks like he’s smiling.

“Help me, this young man dragged me into this abandoned building, told me he was robbing me. Look at what he has done to me, I need treatment now, or I will die!”

One of the soldiers watching over us yells “get this man medical treatment now! But treat him as a suspect, we need to get to the bottom of what happened here. Bring this man there as well. Keep both of them under watch, at least one of them is clearly capable of miracles”

Miracles, is that what these powers are called? I feel myself passing out from the pain, I can feel blood wetting my clothes, my back must have been cut by one of the chair legs, I was right.