“Yes, I found a werewolf who was feral and fought her to calm her down near a Tear,” Nigiel explained with a straight face.

“Wha-” I shook my head. “How-… There are so many questions that need to be answered.” I then looked Nigiel and let out a sad sigh. “Well, it seems as though they didn’t waste any time putting that restraint on you.”

The restraint I was talking about was a special muzzle that went over Nigiels skull like mouth. It’s a special restraint that I only use on werewolves to track if they’re about to go feral. You could tell that the restraint is very old because the module of it dates back 190 years, but it seems as though they never had to use it until now.

Nigiel pressed his gloved hand against his face to feel the restraint. “Yeah, they told me to wear this so I could enter, and if I’m about to eat something, I could take it off, but I would need to put it back on within 30 minutes to reset the timer.” He then pulled on the restraint slightly. “But hey, at least I look less evil with it on.”

I nodded, but quickly decided to change the subject. “And why do you have a bandage on your hand?”

Sebrisha paused for a moment as she looked down at the bandaged hand. “Um… wasp sting.” She settled with.

“Wasp sting?” I stared down at her with my eyebrows raised.

“Yep… Wasp sting,” she put her hand behind her back. “Came out of nowhere,” she added.

We stared at each other for a moment until I let out an irritated sigh and moved on from that. “Alright, so while you two were gone, Christopher bought two rooms for us. So how it’s going to work is that me, you, and Escalate are going to be sharing a room,” I pointed at Sebrisha. “While Nigiel is going to be sharing a room with Christopher and Roby… any questions?”

“Yes, what’s my room number?” Nigiel asked while looking over at the people behind the front desk, who were staring at him.

“213, so it should be on the second floor,” I answered while pointing at the elevator.

And with that, we made our way to our rooms, even though it was a short distance. People couldn’t help but stare at Nigiel and Sebrisha as they walked by. And honestly, I can’t blame them, these two do stick out like a sore thumb on polished gold hands.

We finally made it to our rooms. Escalate, open the door for me and Sebrisha while Nigiel was still knocking on his room door. As soon as we made it inside, Sebrisha jumped onto the bed near the window and just lay there like a corpse.

“Um… are you not going to take a shower?” I asked while reaching down and taking my shoes off.

“I’ll take one later, but right now my feet hurt from all the walking I’ve been doing.” Sebrisha said while not bothering to bring her head up from the pillow.

I didn’t bother arguing with her and took this opportunity to take a shower first. I grabbed a towel and some spare clothes I bought from the nearby shop and took a very long and well-deserved shower. After I was done and the air was thick with a steam, I put on a black T-shirt and some sweatpants. I dried the snakes on my head, then opened the bathroom door, and was met with Escalate and Sebrisha watching T.V.

I shrugged as I finally lay across my bed. After a while of us just watching the T.V., I finally asked the burning question. “So what happened to you two out there?”

“Huh? You mean in the cave or outside the gate?” Sebrisha responded without bothering to look in my direction.

“Outside the gate, Nigiel said he had found a werewolf.”

“Yes,” Sebrisha sighed. “He did. And honestly, that’s the least surprising thing he found out there.”

I turned in shock. “What do you mean least surprising thing? What else did you two find.”

“Pazzo found a strange tear that was buried in the middle of the swamp.”

“First of all, what do you mean by buried? Tears aren't able to form underground. And what do you mean a strange Tear, what was different about it?” I asked as I slid underneath my blanket.

“The Tear was golden instead of blue. It was 3 times bigger than a normal Tear, and we could see through it,” Sebrisha explained in a straight tone.

“W-What?”

“And through the Tear we saw a flower bud of Eden in the center,” she quickly added.

“What!”

“And the werewolf that Pazzo fought, whose name is Mouse.”

“M-…. Mouse? Why is her name Mouse?” I asked while trying to compress the information I had just gathered.

“I think it’s due to how she only talks in whispers, it’s really annoying,” Sebrisha sighed. She then got up from her bed and started digging inside a dresser. “They want Pazzo to go back and talk to her because she only seems comfortable talking to him, and because they don’t want to risk interacting with her and causing her to go feral again.” She slung some clothes over her shoulder and started heading toward the shower.

“Makes sense,” I muttered as she closed the door. After I heard the shower running, I then turned to Escalate, who was still watching T.V. “Hey Escalate.”

“Listening,” Escalate said while still having his red eye’s trained on the T.V.

“Why do you carry that ladder with you everywhere?” I asked as I laid my head down on the pillow.

“When I was put inside a burning pit in a junkyard, another one of my related modules used this ladder to fish me out of it with this ladder,” Escalate answered as he placed a hand on his ladder, which rested right beside him.

“Huh. What happened to him?”

Escalate went silent as he looked down at the ladder. He then turned the T.V off and layed down on the floor with his ladder over his body.

I sighed as I beat myself for asking such a sensitive question. Then I proceeded to turn away from him and close my eyes so sleep can finally take me.

 

I woke up to the sound of a machine gun being fired. I quickly rolled out of bed and reached underneath my pillow, grabbing my pistol.

I scanned around the room to spot who was firing, only to regain my senses and notice that I was still in my room. I looked around the room for the source of the noise and found out that it was none other than Sebrisha’s snoring, with her body spiraled all around her bed.

I swore under my breath as I mustered all the strength to not strangle her, and then I laid back down on my now messed-up mattress and carefully placed the pistol back under the pillow.

I tried to go back to sleep for what seemed to have been an hour, but I simply couldn’t due to her snoring.

I finally got up and began weighing my options. I then sighed through my nose and decided to get up, grab my stuff, and leave the room before I committed a felony.

I then walked about 5 steps down the hallway and turned toward a door that has a noticeable dent in the middle of it. I took a breath and was about to knock on the door, but before I could make contact, the door flew open, and a shadow with red eyes looked down at me.

I almost reached for my pistol until my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw that Nigiel was the one standing in front of me.

“You couldn’t sleep because of her, could you?”  Nigiel asked.

“Nope,” I sighed.

Nigiel then grunted as he scratched the muzzle that’s still on his face. “And you want to switch rooms with me?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Please.” I quickly added.

Nigiel then scratched his neck as he turned around. “Alright, just let me grab Roby real quick.” I entered the room right behind him and began dropping bag at the doorway. The first thing I noticed once I looked up was the bandages all around both of Nigiel’s arms that he seemed to have been covering up with the jacket he always wore. I also noticed the end of a scar that was barely showing from the sleeve of his shirt.

I wanted to ask him what that was about, but I quickly bit my tongue after remembering what just happened with Escalate.

Nigiel walked over and grabbed Roby who was currently in the form of a block, then proceeded to walk back toward’s the doorway.

I scratched the back of my head as he made his way toward the door, and before he touched the door, I finally spoke up. “Hey Nigiel,” I said quickly.

Nigiel turned and dispite him not having eye brows, I could just feel him raising one.

“Before you go to that Tear tomorrow, I want you to come get me so I can come with. Okay?”  I finally asked.

“Alright,” Nigiel responded as he opened the door and left the room.

I let out a sigh of relief as I the shoes off my feet and sloppily placed them near the door next to my bag. I then walked towards the bed and was shocked to see that it seemed to have been unbothered, as if Nigiel didn’t sleep in it at all.

“Yo,” a voice said to the left of me. I looked over and saw that Christopher was still awake.

“Why are you still awake?” I asked as I slipped into the bed.

“Would it sound cool if I said I’m too handsome to sleep?” Christopher said with an exhausted chuckle.

“No, it would just make you sound stupid,” I sighed while instantly feeling tired as soon as my body hit the matress.

“Yeah, well the real reason is because that kid doesn’t sleep, like at all. All he did all night was just sit there, staring off into a wall.” Christopher shivered.

“Jesus.”

“I know, the scariest shit in the world. And when I asked him when he was going to fall asleep, guess what he said.”

“What?”

“I already slept this week,” Christopher said in disbelief.

I bursted out laughing at the sure insanity I just heard. “This week? That is not healthy on any fronts.”

Christopher then sighed. “But yeah, beside’s that I was kinda feeling guilty about asking about his bandages though.”

I quickly stopped laughing. “Oh, what did you say?”

“I said what happened to your arms? And he responded with, I would like to know that to.”

The room went silent after that as we both just looked at each other across the room. I then looked away from him and noticed a short bow with a bundle of arrows resting against a dresser.

“What’s up with the bow?” I asked while sitting up slightly.

Christopher looked over. “Oh, that’s mine. I bought that from a random merchant.”

“Why? I didn’t take you for the fighting type?”

“Oh, I’m not, it’s just…” He then paused for a moment. “I just had a conversation with an old man, and he told me something that has my mind spiraling, so now I'm deciding to do something at least a little exciting.”

I opened my mouth to object, but what came out instead was a yawn, along with my eye’s suddenly growing heavy. “Alright,” I yawned. “Just don’t do anything too exciting.”

“Why?” Christopher yawned. “Afraid you’ll lose such a handsome face?”

I didn’t bother responding to that as sleep finally took me, and I didn’t fight against it.