The air was still. We could’ve heard a pin drop from miles away. I just stood there, my hands up and my head down. I feared if anyone said anything I may fall over and die, I was so terrified by what had just happened. Sure, there was a rush of adrenaline fueling me when I did it, but now I felt hollow, like I had just to give up taking some life saving drug. I just stood there, deeply analyzing each fiber of the rugged green Vans adorned upon my feet. The once bright green had been dulled by the extensive use over time. The laces were heavily frayed from years of twisting and playing with them. The foxing was covered in all manner of mud and filth. Right now I felt about as bad as they looked.

The silence was cut by a low hissing sound coming from behind me. I quickly jolted up to see what it was. To my surprise, the large beast collapsed behind us had begun disintegrating into fine grey powder. It was slowly making it’s way down the beast, spreading like an infection. Even though I knew it had been terrorizing the city and destroying tons of buildings, killing plenty of people, I still felt somewhat bad for the beast, it’s death looked so excruciating. At the same time I was so happy that I had been the one to stop it, it was such a good feeling to know I had probably saved lives, although, by the looks of the group behind me, I’m sure they would have had it. I had gotten in the way and almost gotten myself killed in the process, the second I turned down, they were going to start yelling at me or something, I just knew it.

Before I could however, The boy leapt over me to the withering husk behind me with something shiny in his hand. Once he had landed I could see it more clearly, he had a simple glass mason jar in his hand. What he was going to do with it, I had no idea, but I didn’t have to wait long as he reached his hand into the air and tipped the jar upside down. The dark dust began collecting inside the jar taking a strange form, almost like a liquid, but strangely enough it went up and stayed inside of the jar instead of falling back out and spilling everywhere. He looked back at me and smiled “Come on, you can never waste some perfectly good essence of Ser” Once the jar had finally filled he stepped down off of the decaying corpse and walked back to his group.

I turned around and prepared myself for the inevitable shouting. Instead I was rushed by the golden eyed girl. She aggressively grabbed my hand saying “I need to check this out” Until now I hadn’t actually realized how much it hurt, then I looked down and realized that wasn’t even the half of it. Oozing from my hands was massive quantities of odd looking blood. I mean sure, I had seen my blood before, but now it looked odd, there was a hefty portion of green mixed in with the deep red liquid. Not only was it the green that was offputting, it was the fact that the green bits were glowing, quite vibrantly in fact. There were cuts all over from where my hand had hit the wolf’s fur, even though it had parted it still couldn’t completely avoid it.

“What the hell is wrong with my blood” I exclaimed, frantically trying to figure out what was happening. The girl looked up at me “Nothing, silly, that’s perfectly normal for us.” The word “us” hung in my head. What us was she referring to, her group? Or Something different? Before I could voice my thoughts, she held her hand out and one of the strange ornate circles appeared over my hand, there was a flash of warm golden light and when I looked down, my hand was completely healed. The girl smile widely at me “There you go, all better. Try not to punch anymore Ser Wolves without proper hand protection, doctor’s orders” I stared at the girl, completely mystified “Umm… yeah, I’ll keep that one in mind”

The girl got closer to my face, scrutinizing me “Are you sure you’re alright?”

However, I was unable to respond as the girl with the wings pushed me to the ground “Alright, enough of this crap, your hand is fixed, now I want answers! How in the hell did you hit that thing and barely even hurt your hand?” I just shrugged, saying “I really don’t know, my brain went a bit fuzzy and then all of the sudden I was standing on top of that thing. The only thing really notable that I remember was the fur parting around my fist allowing me to hit it, the same thing happened when I put my hand in that weird dary fire” The girl backed up slightly, she didn’t seem scared, but she didn’t want to be near me “Oh, you said it parted, like it was trying to make sure you were uninjured?” I jumped up excitedly “That’s exactly what is was like!”

Each of them looked at me with a slight look of disgust and then backed up a little further “Why are you here? Are you here to kill us, I doubt we’re that much.” This comment baffled me “I have no idea what you’re talking about…” I cocked my head sideways, giving a bit of an odd look. The girl with the wings took a hesitant step forward “Every apprentice has at least some amount of money on their head” I mirrored the girl taking another step forward, I was curious now, what was she talking about? “Apprentice? What do you mean? Like a blacksmith's apprentice?” 

The girl gave me a look of worry and then looked back at her other group members who gave her the same look.“Are you serious?” her tone was deathly serious, any fear had been replaced by concern. “Why would I not be? I’m serious, what is an apprentice?” They were looking at me as though I was crazy, but I really had no idea what they were talking about.

They each walked up in front of me forming a bit of an imposing semicircle. Each of the pulled a pin from their shoe and pricked their finger exposing a small bit of blood. “Do you see anything similar about all of our blood?” Lilith said to me displaying each of their fingers prominently. I looked at them and sure enough, all of them had glowing bits to them like mine did. “Yeah, they each have little glowing parts to them, why is that?” She looked at me as though I had just told her I didn’t know what water was. “Avien, do you know what essence is?” I looked at her, puzzled “No… should I?” The look she gave me was such a mix of emotions I thought she might pass out. She looked concerned for me, frustrated at my lack of knowledge, and so many other things it was hard to tell which she meant.

Suddenly the brown haired girl chimed in “Maybe the healing beams from earlier messed with his memory!” She bolted back to me again, this time her left eye had the same golden cross in the center as mine did. She eyed me up and down several times surveying each detail multiple times over to make sure everything was as accurate as possible. She stopped and sadly said “Everything is fine, you seem completely healthy” The other girl looked over and said “Well, I guess we should bring him back to camp, he can’t survive on his own out here, not after that kind of stunt. Come on...” The group of three began walking away, presuming I was coming with them.

“Excuse me! I am not going anywhere with a bunch of people I just met!” The girl turned on her heel so quickly I thought she might spark her shoes. “I’m sorry, did you not hear me? If you stay out here you will die!” I glared angrily back at her “I did hear you, but you didn’t explain to me why I was in danger, what’s so bad about me staying here now? I’ve survived on my own for 9 years!” She returned my glare with that same inferno-like ferocity from before “That thing you killed isn’t the only one and trust me there are plenty monsters worse than that. If you stay here, they will find you and they will kill you! Luck can only get you so far before it gets you dead!”

I stamped my foot, I was too angry to think clearly right now, I ran… as fast as my legs would go. Off in the distance I could hear someone shout “Damn it! WE have to find him!” This was followed by the flapping of wings. They were going to try and bring me back with them by any means necessary. I ducked into a building, but it immediately exploded, the bricks each flying as far away from me as possible, leaving me standing on panel of wood in the ground. I jumped off the panel and continued running, but was quickly cut off by the strange winged girl. “Do you want to die, cause if you do we can just leave you here!” I said nothing and bolted right past her trying to pick up my pace, I ducked into an alley and leaned against the cold brick wall, catching my breath.

Before I could go anywhere though, the same brown ornate circles appeared on my hands and feet encasing them in stone and stopping me where I was. The trio descended down the narrow passageway onto me, circling me. “You know, if you had just come with us, this would have been a lot easier for you.” The boy with the strange glove was smirking, clearly enjoying this more than his compatriots. “Alright Carri, do your thing, I really don’t want to hear him whining on the way there. I tried to protest, but before I could there was another flash of golden light that clouded my vision and render me unconscious. This time, I was unfortunately greeted by the oh so familiar flash of purple lightning and high pitched cackle.

Out of the darkness a purple spotlight appeared, illuminating a purple piano. There was a man sitting at the piano, as expected, he was dressed in very similar clothing to me, though the color was completely different. He had spiky purple hair the protruded out at the sides forming a pair of wing looking spikes, it draped down past his collar. He was adorned in a dark purple arm jacket with dark grey trim around the zipper as opposed to the green and gold color of mine. He had very dark grey cargo pants lined with dozens of pockets, all of which had been left open. The usually worn out green vans were replaced with much more intact purple ones, they clearly didn’t get much use.

Instead of the eloquent playing of the brilliant white man, it sounded like a fish was just flopping all over the keyboard mashing the keys over and over again. The sound was horrendous, but somehow even in the chaos of incoherence it managed to sound ominous. As I drew closer, the sound grew more chaotic and ear piercing. By the time I had reached the piano I had to cover my ears to block out the deafening sound.

Instead of tapping on his shoulder to get his attention I decided a bit more aggressive method, one that would certainly make me feel better. There was a deafening shout as my fist collided with his side, sending him flying out of the chair and smashing his face firmly into the inky black ground. “Well someone seems a bit upset” Sylak said as he picked himself up and held his side from the pain. I angrily shouted back “Oh really? You think I’m annoyed, I wonder why that could be, maybe because nothing makes any goddamn sense!” He cheekily smirked back at me “My my, I think someone needs to take a nap!” He rushed me and punched me in the stomach, forcing me to cough up a small amount of blood. “You think I’m here cause I want to be!” I said glaring angrily back him.

He slowly walked over to me and placed his foot firmly on my chest “Oh I know you don’t wanna be here, Avien” The name cut the air like a knife. “Well, I’m glad we have a mutual understanding Sylak” I got up forcing him to remove his foot from my chest. As I came eye to eye with the evil man in front of me I realized something peculiar “What’s with your eye?” I said pointing to his left eye, a dark cross had formed in it, similar to the one that had been in my eye. “I have no idea what you’re on about..” he said scowling at me as he spoke. “Well, I’m sure it doesn’t matter…” The air was silent and still. Before I could do anything Sylak quickly shoved me into the piano, I tried to shout as the world was engulfed in shadows. The last thing I saw was the smiling face of the purple haired demon living in my right eye, Sylak.