Bry was annoyed by Erick's genuine question, it bothered her that he couldn't understand why she had specifically sought him out, but still, she didn't want to push him and risk scaring him away. She answered with some lies mixed with truths.

“My sister couldn't care less, and Lerroy is busy comforting Linda and Rosa after how you pranked them today.”

“Yeah…” Erick was embarrassed again remembering his own actions “I may have gone a little overboard.”

That morning the kids had sports classes, at the end of which, while the students were cleaning up, the two bullies had collected dirty water from a sewer in the yard to wet Bry after she changed her uniform.

With this Erick planned a contra attack that he would carry out during lunch.

He left an anonymous note summoning them to the janitor's closet on the second floor of the school, making sure to block off most of the hallways with chairs to set up a single escape route. Using food he stole from the cafeteria, he posed as a corpse.

Once the frightened girls approached him, he jumped out, scaring them, sending them running in terror along the route he had marked. As they fled, the two of them fell down the stairs into the front yard of the school, next to the cafeteria, both places with a perfect view of their painful accident, where the rest of the students were having lunch.

In addition to the scare, the girls were humiliated and injured by the fall, full of bumps and scratches, luckily without having broken a single bone.

In Erick's eyes, his joke and his costume were a fairly innocent thing, in the eyes of the rest of the students and teachers, all of high birth, growing up in environments of overprotection and haughtiness, his appearance was a disturbingly realistic recreation with disturbing implications.

“They weren't supposed to fall like that. Maybe I should apologize.”

Erick felt guilty for having put his classmates' health at risk.

“But... you told me that they had harassed you for years and I-”

“I also told you that it doesn't matter.”

“Come on Bry, I know that-”

“NO. YOU DON'T KNOW.”

Bry spoke angrily, she hated that her dear Erick had gotten into trouble for her, and that such an interruption could have complicated her plans. She softened her voice so as not to make the boy feel uncomfortable any more, but she couldn't soften her words.

“I really don't care, why would I care what a couple of vain useless girls say to me? Or what the rest of the school thinks, who watches them bother me and do nothing? They are all insignificant to me.”

Once she started to express her true feelings she couldn't stop.

While her words could be interpreted as the resentment of someone hurt, Erick knew there was something else behind them, he could see it in Bry's eyes.

“Their lives have no value to me, if they all died it wouldn't affect me at all. I could kill them myself and it would still not affect me, like killing an annoying fly. Why would I care how such repulsive beings see me?”

When telling his guardians this, Erick seemed disturbed, the honesty in Aubrey's voice was undeniable. Her expression and those words also disturbed Jake, remembering why he had only taken Erick with him when they escaped from the orphanage.

“Ah!”

The tension in the atmosphere was cut when Erick remembered something else, something he wasn't very happy to tell. Forcing a smile and a more tender face he looked at his two guardians.

“By the way… one of you have to go talk to a teacher later in the morning… I might be suspended. Heh.”

“It’s not funny” they answered angrily.

Diverting their attention, Erick continued with his story.

The two children continued searching along the path until it began to get dark. They shouted the name of the cat, Lady, as loud as they could. Without realizing it, they were getting dangerously close to the Kastafor region. Erick, tired, decided that it would be better to go back home.

“Bry, we’ve been here for more than three hours. I don’t think we’ll find her today.”

“You’re right” Bry looked sad “she might even have come back home on her own.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“What the-”

A terrible scream interrupted the calm of the forest, frightening the boy. All the fauna fell into an eerie silence. Erick, with the habit of meddling to help others, tried to go to the place where the scream came from.

“Where are you going now?”

“Someone could be in trouble.”

“Exactly!” Bry tried to stop him with her words “It could be dangerous.”

Erick took out his cell phone again, which barely had a signal, showing Bry the messages from Klaus.

“My other da~ GUARDIAN is already in town and is coming here. Don’t worry” he continued running “I’ll be fine.”

“But…” after being ignored Bry had no choice but to follow him “Wait for me!”

The two ran on another adjacent path in the forest, arriving at a small clearing of dirt. There were the two girls they had been talking about, Linda and Rosa, with their backs to them.

In front of them was a red-haired girl, who looked more like a porcelain doll, of a similar age to theirs, with shorter hair on the left side, as if it had been pulled out, and cracks marked on her arms and face.

In the tree behind the little redhead was another boy, smaller, with black curly hair, yellow eyes and a piece of metal sticking out where his right ankle should be, humming with tranquility.

The little boy jumped from the tree, landing on his feet without any effort. Upon seeing them, the boy raised his left arm, made of metal patches crudely joined with rivets, at its joints where a black material, which seemed to be rubber. With the other hand he surrounded his mouth so they could hear him more clearly.

“Hey! You two! Get out of here, please!”

“I know those girls!” Erick answered.

“We want to know what's going on!” Bry joined in.

Hearing them, both children looked at them with a bit of pity and urgency. The little redhead stepped forward to speak.

“All the more reason you should leave!”

“What a coincidence" exclaimed the black-haired boy “Oops, too late.”

Erick and Bry’s classmates turned to look at them. Their faces were distorted by a smile curved inward at the corners of their mouths, pointing to their upper lips.

Their irises now covered the entire eye, their pupils had advanced lengthwise and wide, forming a pulsating spiral. Their teeth had twisted to follow the shape of their new smile, framing elongated serpentine tongues.

On one of their cheeks a small black crystal could be seen. Their hands ended in sharp claws, not made with their nails but with their own fingers.

At such a sight, so similar to that of his nightmares, Erick’s anxiety increased.

«Those eyes… those smiles…».

For a moment he was frozen in fear.

«Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? ...».

Taking advantage of the fact that the two creatures were distracted, the little redhead ran at high speed, coming face to face with them. She jumped and landed with her fists on the faces of both of them.

«What-»

Erick's concern was cut short by the sudden act violence. Bry was also confused.

Meanwhile, the little black-haired boy smiled peacefully.

The little redhead then used her legs, kicking the two creatures to propel herself backwards, doing a pirouette, landing on her feet and facing them, sliding backwards on the ground.

The strong impact left the two girls with their backs completely bent, with their heads about to touch the ground, still smiling. They stood up with a bang, with clumsy movements more alike to those of an animated corpse than a person.

Linda rushed towards the children in front of her while Rosa went to attack her classmates behind them.

“You better run!”

The little black-haired boy spoke loudly, still calm, bringing his right hand over his forehead.

Silver rings formed in his palm, with a strong light that seemed to emanate from the space between it and his head. The rings expanded forming a metal handle covered in leather. Pulling this handle, a chain came out of the light, attached to this chain a small ball with metallic spikes.

«It's like Jake's sword».

Erick was more than surprised, he had never seen another person with the ability to generate weapons in that way.

The ball, still floating in the air, emitted its own light and grew rapidly, forming a heavy chain mallet. As the ball continued to grow, Bry pulled Erick's arm to escape from there.

“The boy said to run!”

“But-”

“But what?! We don’t even know what’s going on!”

“I DO!” Erick broke free “We can't lose sight of them, we must wait for my da~ GUARDIAN, so he can capture them and take them to Jake and…”

With a chill running down his spine, Erick realized the imminent danger, he lunged at Bry causing them both to fall to the ground, dodging an attack from Rosa, who had lunged with her claws facing them. That’s where their first scratches were made.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

A disturbingly deep laugh came out of their classmate's mouth, standing on her hands, looking at the two of them upside down.

With all her strength she threw her foot at them, in a kick. Erick blocked it with his right arm, protecting Aubrey from the impact.