I grabbed my bag and quickly began rummaging through it, trying to find the medicine that I stole from that underground hospital.

Another sharp jolt of pain hit me in my stomach, which came along with my vision slowly fading.

I placed my gauntlet in front of me, and as a last-ditch effort, I yanked one of the bottles full of Pazzo’s blood, opened the mouthpiece of my mask, popped the top off, and began greedily drinking the delicious red liquid that I know will only grant me an hour of sanity and emptiness.

Only, I didn’t feel that. Instead, it tasted fulfilling and nourishing as I consumed more  and more. As soon as I finished the first bottle, I immediately moved on to the next one and began drinking that one as well, only this time more gracefully to ensure that the last one wasn’t a fluke. But it wasn’t, oh god it wasn’t.

I laughed to myself and teared up as I continued to drink the blood that finally made me feel refreshed instead of dry. After the last sip of blood dropped from the now-empty bottle, I simply dropped the bottle on the ground and began looking up at the sky as I finally began to feel something other than the constant dryness.

I feel okay. No, I feel great. No… I feel powerful.

I need more.

I began to laugh at the sky as I began to run my fingers across my lips and feel how smooth they were, it almost makes me want to take off my mask.

“Hey,” a person said beside me. I turned around and saw the guard who was guiding and showing us around. “Are you alright? Was something wrong with the blood or something?”

I smile as I slowly get up from the ground. The guard backed up slowly as he placed a hand on the butt of his plasma pistol.

I know I must look crazy right now. I know I look like a strung-out drug addict. But right now, I just don’t care.

“I’mmmm FINE!” I said loudly as I almost fell back against the wall, laughing. “No, I’m more than fine, I feel like,” I lifted my hands towards the sky. “A GOD!!”

The guard just stared at me for a while, possibly regretting volunteering to do this tour in the first place.

The guardsman then looked down and saw the empty blood vials on the ground.  “What blood did you drink to have you acting like this?”

“Ah,” I giggled as I reached down and grabbed both of the empty bottles. “It’s Pazzo’s.”

“Pazzo?” The guardsman said as he pulled out a sheet of paper that had a list of names. “There’s no one in your group named Pazzo.”

“Yes, there is,” I pointed the bottle at his face with a grin. “He should still be at the gate.”

“Still at the gate…” His eyes then went wide, which made me laugh a little bit. “You're talking about that werewolf hell spawn y'all came here with?! That’s his blood, and it has you acting up like this?! Is his blood laced?!” The guardsman yelled in confusion as he backed away even further.

“Absolutely, if his blood has me feeling like this,” I giggled as I began walking out of the alley while twirling around the empty bottles in a perfect circle.

“Where are you going?” Christopher asked while taking a bite out of the pretzel he bought from a food stand.

“I'm about to go get Pazzo and drain him of more of his blood,” I placed the empty bottles in my bag. “Peacefully.”

“Why did you say it like that?” Vinessa asked with a strange look.

“Hey, my brother isn’t your personal blood bank >:[,” Roby typed in anger.

“Nigiel is currently not large enough to be a bank,” Escalate corrected.

“And you still need to go through the necessary escort if you want to stay in this city,” the Guardsman added.

I put my hands up as I took one more step back. “Alright, alright…. but here is my reasoning.”

Everyone went silent as they waited for me to answer, but instead of me answering, I instead blitzed down the sidewalk in the direction of the gate at such speeds that I could never achieve before drinking Pazzo’s blood. The feeling felt so good that I reached toward my neck and let down the hood that was covering my head, letting my hair blow off into the wind.

I giggled at how long it had been since I felt the sun on my head and the fact that it actually feels good now instead of it usually having me almost catch a heat stroke in under 7 minutes.

I managed to make it back to the gate in under a minute, and the blood high I was running on left me as soon as I stopped running.

I began gasping for air as I continued to walk toward the gate. There was a guardsman leaning against the wall, currently playing on his phone and not paying attention.

I simply walked right past him and exited the gate to see if Pazzo was still there, only to find him gone.

No, not just him—every guard who was supposed to be watching him was also gone.

“What the heck?” I said out loud as I turned around and walked to the guard I had just passed. “Hey, minority!

The guard looked over at me with a confused expression. “Huh?”

“Hey, guardsman!”

“That’s not what you just said.”

“Anyways,” I quickly interrupted. “What happened to that guy who was just right there?”

“You mean that scary-looking guy who came with you? Yeah, he decided to walk down into the woods that way.” The guard pointed.

“Why did he do that?” I asked while looking over at the woods he pointed at. “And aren’t you guys supposed to keep him here and keep an eye on him?”

“I mean, we didn’t have any probable cause to keep him here or arrest him, so if he wanted to leave, he could. But we still have two guards on him because he should be coming right back.”

“Alright, I'm about to go and see him.” I sighed as I began walking away. “Thanks.”

“No problem, be careful! Those woods have a strange record of weird monsters and creatures being spotted!”

I headed toward the woods and began walking down a worn pathway. The woods were somehow loud and quiet at the same time, with the sound of millions of small creatures clicking.

 I hate being out in the woods, it feels like something would jump out at me out of nowhere.

I hopped onto a log that was over a small creek, and as soon as I got halfway across, a fish jumped out of the water and smacked me in the face.

I swatted at the fish, and as soon as I did that, my foot slipped, and I ended up falling into the creek.

I angrily got up from the creek and punched the log I was walking on out of anger, and the pain immediately shot up my arm.

“Son of a-” I gritted through my teeth. I got out of the creek and continued to walk down the path while holding my hand, which is now bleeding.

After a couple of minutes walking deep into the woods, I was about to start heading back to the gate. But then I started to hear voices up ahead. I slowly pushed through the bushes and saw the two guards the guardsman at the front gate was talking about. The guard on the right was a ratman sorcier, while the other one was a tall ghoul with pale green skin and a mace on his hip.

I let out a sigh of relief as I pushed through the bushes. The rat man was the first to spot me and immediately warned his partner.

I put my hands up to show that I’m not hostile and continued walking forward. “Hello, sorry to bother you, but do you know where Pazzo went? He was the guy you were following.”

They both pointed left  in unison at a bunch of dug-up dirt. I walked up to it, and a handful of dirt nearly hit me in the face. I looked into the steep hole and saw Pazzo digging and ripping away any roots that are halting his progress. He was focused on the digging that he still doesn’t even notice me hovering near him.

“Pazzo, what are you doing?” I asked. Pazzo stopped what he was doing and looked back at me with a face that may have been confusion, but quickly went right back to calm and collected.

“Im digging,” he answered simply.

“Well, obviously, Sherlock. I mean, why are you digging?”

“Hmm, do you know what a Tear is?”

“Yeah, a doorway to a pocket dimension that was created by someone with high primordial energy of creation.”

“Hm, do you know what a flower bud of Eden is?”

“It’s a…” I then gave him a confused look. “Who doesn’t?”

“Yeah,” Pazzo scratched his head. “That was a stupid question. Anyway, I’ve been smelling both of these things ever since I got here, and I tracked it to this area.”

“Why are you tracking it in the first place?”

“Because,” he then paused for a moment. “I was sick of waiting at the gate and doing nothing.”

Silence then filled the air with only the thing to be heard—the bugs and the guardsmen who were in the middle of a conversation.

I scratched the back of my head, and a sharp jolt of pain hit me in the hand I hit the log with. I looked down at it and saw that I was somehow bleeding through the white glove on my right hand.

“Are you ok?” Pazzo asked.

I slowly put my hand behind my back. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I smell blood.”

“I drank 2 bottles of  your blood before coming here.”

“I know what blood smells like, and that certainly isn’t mine.” Pazzo then eyed my arm. “Why do you have your hand behind your back?”

“Just cause,” I shrugged.

Pazzo stared at me for a moment, then proceeded to dust off his hands. “Just cause?”

“Yep,” I shook my head. “Just cause.”

We then stared at each other for a while, then Pazzo sighed through his nose as he climbed out of the hole he made. “Did you hurt your hand?”

“No,” I said stubbornly as I took a step back. I don’t know why I’m being stubborn about telling him the truth.

Am I embarrassed?

“Can you show me?” Pazzo asked, “Please.”

I paused for a moment after he said that. Something about how he whispered the word please made me feel some type of way.

I slowly brought my hand from behind my back and showed him the white gloves with blood bleeding through the fabric. Pazzo then gently placed his hand underneath his palm and slowly pulled the glove off, as if I were some fragile piece of glass that could break at any second.

I shivered at the gentleness of his touch as he finally pulled the glove off my hand, revealing my blood-soaked knuckles.

Jesus, how hard did I punch that log? 

Pazzo then reached behind his back and pulled out a small medical pack, then began gently wiping away the blood with a wet patch. Then he wiped the cuts with alcohol wipes and finally wrapped my hand with a small bandage, and he did this so gently that it was shocking.

After he was done, he slightly turned my hand around and examined the rest of my hand for a while.

He then let out a sigh. “Alright, all done.” He then handed back the glove. “You might want to wash it before you put it back on.”

I hesitantly reached for the glove while trying to find the words that seemed to be caught in my throat. “Thanks.”

We then stared at each other for a moment as the glove slipped from his fingers into my hand. Pazzo then returned his attention back toward the hole while I cleared my throat and put the glove into my bag.

“The smell is getting stronger.” Pazzo said while crouching back down into the hole. “One more foot of digging should do the trick.”

“Wait,” I interrupted as I pulled out a red mixture from my bag.

“What is that?” Pazzo asked as he moved out of the way.

“It’s a medium blast mixture that explodes when fresh air hits it.” I thoroughly explained. “The time it takes is 15 seconds, so get ready.” I then buried the bottle in the dirt and slowly began to twist the top off. After I got the top loosened up enough, I looked back and saw Pazzo giving me a thumbs-up as he was crouched down behind a decaying log with his coffin and scythe in hand. I then looked to the right and saw both of the guardsmen further back behind a tree, and one of them had his phone out recording.

I let out a nervous breath, then yanked off the top and immediately ran over toward Pazzo. I vaulted over the tree stump and got behind Pazzo’s Coffin just for extra insurance.

BOOOOOOOOM

The explosion was a lot bigger than what I was expecting, and the sound made my ears ring.

“Was it supposed to be that big?” Pazzo growled as he grasped his ears.

“Yeah,” I lied while slowly looking over the coffin. Once I looked over, I was in awe of what I was seeing.

Pazzo was right about the tear, but what he failed to sniff out was how big it was. A normal tear would be an average height of about 5 feet, 6 feet max. And the color of it would either be blue or green, depending on who created it, but the key thing would be that you would be unable to see through.

This was not your usual tear, this tear was 3 times bigger than the average, and not only that, but this one is gold yellow.

I squinted my eyes to make sure it wasn’t playing tricks on me. I wiped some of the dirt off the eye protection on my mask to make sure I was seeing correctly.

But I was seeing it correctly, and that was a problem.

“Holy sh-” One of the guardsmen swore as he pulled out his phone and took a picture, while the other quickly stopped recording and began making a call.

“HEY! Do you remember that freak we went with to make sure he didn’t try anything suspicious? Well, he was right!” The Guardsman shouted into the phone. “ I need some guys down here to come look at this. Heck, send Iron Jaw down here just for extra insurance and our research team—”

“HEY!!,” Pazzo barked so loudly that it almost made me jump out of my skin. The Guardsman shut immediately at Pazzo’s warning as he slowly began to rise to his feet and put on his coffin. “Something’s coming out.” He said with his scythe at the ready.

A body then quickly formed in front of the tear, and before any of us could react, the body began walking through the Tear. And once it was through, a chill ran through my spine as I reached into the bag and grabbed a random mixture.

“It’s a feral,” Pazzo whispered as he stood in front of me while slowly putting away his weapon.