The three pairs of defiant eyes elicited a raised eyebrow beneath the horned brow of the Chernobog. He took a step forward and was immediately met with a flurry of punches and kicks as the Gils made their attempt. Unflinching, the Chernobog continued towards Haven before a kick to his groan managed to get a twitch of annoyance from the looming figure and brought him to a halt. He slowly looked between the shell game of clones before deciding his opening move.

“Pity, I wish there were more of you.” He uttered, the disappointment evident before he moved into action. Grabbing a hold of the first Gil, the Chernobog’s large hand wrapped around and ankle and hoisted the man into the air. The sudden jerk ripping his hip out of its socket before the first clone was smashed into the other. The sound of flesh and bone simultaneously breaking echoed through the frozen walls of students whilst spraying them in a warm crimson mist that emanated steam against the icy surface.

Another swing of the first Gil, this time towards the third left standing before he was scooped into the air and sent cantering into the rafters before collapsing in a heap atop the balcony.

Wrapping a hand around both legs of the Gil he held and another around his neck, the Chernobog tossed his arms hapzardly back, ripping the man in half and spraying Haven with the clone's innards.

“Do you have any more insects to throw at me or are we quite done with this game?” The Chernobog asked, “Amma, Ammaranthe, it matters not, Tiamat consumes all.”

“Bigger than you.” A voice broke through the chaos and suffering as the flickering lights illuminated a head adorned in fiery hair. Stepping forward a blade formed around her hand and quickly cut the train from the floor length dress she had been wearing. Tearing a slit in the side, she kicked her heels to the side, a swirling form of liquid metal wrapping itself her opposite hand.

“Pardon?” The gargoyle asked with a sneer.

“Bigger than you, I have felled bigger than you.”

“I find that unlikely.”

“I assumed you would, which is why I wanted your attention on me and not Lucille Calder.”

“No!” The Chernobog roared, turning to pounce on Haven only to be blocked by a purple shield of energy.

“Together!” Alyssa yelled, darting around the shield as Jim came in beside Haven.

“I’ve got Tyler, but I need you to follow me.” He ordered.

“Can you do that?”

It didn’t take long for Lorcán and Aurora to trade the quiet stillness of the Mess Hall for the melodic crashing waves on the shoreline, the latter teleporting the pair in an instant to their shared favorite place.

As soon as she felt the solid tile flooring underneath her dissolve into cool grains of sand, the redhead reached down and slipped off her shoes before they could sink too far downwards, sighing contently as her toes dug into the beach. Free from the restrictive confines of her heels, she let her discarded footwear hang from her fingertips, her other hand still grasping onto the boy by her side as she began to walk along the water, being careful that the skirt of her dress didn’t get caught in the incoming tide.

“I came out here alone a few nights this past week, both when you were in the infirmary and after everything happened.” Aurora revealed, recounting the evenings she had spent sitting on the shore with her thoughts during the witching hour. Next to them, the ocean seemed to glow in the moonlight, shades of white and silver dancing along the surface. “It was weird. Lonely, really. It didn’t feel the same without you.”

“When I was in the infirmary-” Lorcán looked out towards the sea, his eyes following the horizon before a silvery reflection on the water's surface caused his eyes to dart to the North. Glowing antlers saluted him and as quickly as he had noticed the white stag, it was gone again.

Lorcán quickly blinked, shaking his head with a small smile before continuing his thought.

“When I was unconscious, it was you, you were the one watching over me, guiding me through. My thoughts dwelt almost entirely on you.” He explained, before suddenly stopping. His eyes lit up as he noticed a structure in the distance.

“Looks like someone was like planning to continue the dance out here.” He exclaimed, suddenly releasing Aurora’s hand before darting forward. It was a simple setup, a temporary floor between four posts with strings of lights connecting them. Lorcán quickly located the power to the decorative display and watched it illuminate the dark beach.

Noting the Bluetooth speaker nearby, it only took him a few seconds to pair the device with his phone before he held his hand toward Aurora again.

“You did promise to save me a dance.”

A small smile formed on Aurora’s lips as Lorcán spoke, and yet, in combination with her radiant joy she also found herself in disbelief. Through all those days and nights in the infirmary that she sat by his side, he had been thinking of her? Of all the people in his life who he found important, especially his family, she was the one who he cited guiding him through. It was difficult for her to wrap her head around that she held such a prominent place in his heart and mind. Then again, she held that same space for him.

But before she could comment, she followed his gaze and then his path to the structure he spotted not too far from the water’s edge. The lights glowed warmly as they were lit, the same warmth that the redhead felt blooming in her chest, a stark contrast against the cool tones of the night sky and sand. It was becoming a picture perfect evening, especially considering how differently it could have gone given the way the night had started.

“I did, didn’t I,” Aurora playfully recounted, taking his outstretched hand and moving closer. She let her other hand settle on his shoulder, looking up at him with bright blue eyes. “Well it’s a good thing then that I never break a promise.”

Lorcán took hold of her hand and playfully spun Aurora around as the music began to play. He had been sure to select one of her favourites, but still something with a solid enough beat that he could move his feet to it. Playing along with music was one thing, but Lorcán wasn’t exactly known for poise or grace.

“I don’t see how there could possibly be anywhere else I’d want to be right now than here with you, Aurora.” Lorcán smiled, her name feeling almost foreign on his lips. Could he still call her ‘Lady Dude’? Did he need to think of a new nickname? Was actually being romantically involved always going to lead to these moments of overthinking every small action?

Staring in her eyes, Lorcán let go of any doubts as he re-centred himself in the moment, determined to enjoy the now and worry about tomorrow when it came. With his phone on silent, they were free of any distractions or disturbances as the romantic melody spilled out over the empty beach. The twinkling lights above their heads were accented by the moon that reflected off the peaceful crashing waves.

It was a perfect moment and there was nothing that could ruin it.

The redhead agreed, there was nowhere else she’d rather be. She’d dreamed of a moment like this, sharing a tender experience in the setting that they had grown to call their own. Beach aside, she’d said it herself back in the infirmary - the only place she ever wanted to be was where he was.

But hearing her given name as opposed to the nickname she had grown to cherish felt different. The thing was though, things were different now. With both of their feelings out in the open, communicated and sealed with a kiss, this was now a new chapter in their friendship - their relationship.

Was that what this was now? A relationship?

She thought so, at least, that the confession of their love and shared feelings meant that they were now likely together in that manner. But after everything that had happened between them which could have precluded this from even occurring in the first place, she knew better than to assume. The familiar nerves she had felt before quickly made themselves known again, and so Aurora approached the subject gently, deciding that from here on out there would be no more secrets, no more holding things close to her chest.

“Lorcán,” She hesitated, but continued, “I know we still have a lot to figure out, but,” Her hand moved from his shoulder to cup the back of his neck, letting the pads of her fingers glide into his hair. “What happens next? Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know,” He replied, shivers running down his spine as Aurora played with his hair. He could feel more than just the hairs on his arms standing on edge as the pleasure-filled tingles ran through his body.

“But I do know we do it together,” Lorcán added with a smile, “I want to be with you, to know you fully and wholly, and I think you want that with me,” He explained, “I see no reason why this isn’t more. I told you, I wanted it to be more, and I want to continue to explore that and life with you.”

He took hold of her hand, kissing the back of it lightly before locking his ember-like eyes with Aurora’s shimmering sapphires.

“What I’m trying to say is, Aurora Mitchell, I want to be your boyfriend.”

Aurora's heart skipped a beat, her lips curling into a smile, blood rushing to her cheeks and staining them rose.

I totally don’t see us as static either, we’re still evolving.

Together, just as they always had, but more than before. No more lingering doubts, no more dancing around what they both wanted. And the way he looked at her—like she was the only thing that mattered—made it feel like the most natural thing in the world.

"Boyfriend," she repeated softly, as if testing the word on her tongue. It felt strange, but wonderfully so; a page turned, a new chapter. “I’d like that,” she whispered, her voice barely above a breath, her thumb brushing lightly against the nape of his neck, her touch gentle. “I’d like that a lot.”

Without thinking twice, the action in itself instinctual, she leaned forward and closed the gap between them. Her lips pressed softly against Lorcán’s, the kiss languid, filled not with urgency but a promise of something lasting. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, strong and sure, and his embrace felt like the safest place in the world.

“I guess that makes me your girlfriend,” She teased gently, the familiar lightness returning to her tone.

“I was hoping so,” Lorcán replied with a giddy grin, “Otherwise this would be real awkward,”

But another thought quickly followed, one that Aurora felt was important to address now while the rest that flurried through her mind they could answer later. “Though, let’s keep this between us for now. I don’t want to tell the rest of the team just yet, if that’s okay. I know they mean well, but sometimes they can be a little too nosy for their own good.” Aurora smirked, “This is still so new, and I think you and I need to get the hang of things first.”

Lorcán nodded enthusiastically.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself, I’ve watched how some of them run into relationships and if anything, it has only ever like shown me what I don’t want.” He replied, “I don’t ever want anything to ever separate us again.”

He placed his lips on her forehead, nuzzling her head under his chin before wrapping his arms around her and staring out at the peaceful ocean behind them.

Tonight had been perfect, and it was only just the beginning.

Many years ago, in the darkest of pits of a netherworld embedded with agony and despair, where no light could reach, and the symphony of the lost and forsaken reigned true, a little girl was left alone, lost and bound, and chained and broken. She no longer cried or screamed or begged; at barely thirteen, she had been peeled apart over and over, sinew and flesh and bone maimed and scarred, wounds so deep they festered as conceptual cesspools wrought with her hate. The depraved that were sheared of their humanity and left as mere tools, as a means to an end, weapons forged under the machinations of immortality and eternal renown of a man who challenged the might of the universe on the whims of madness and horror – thickly drenched in blood, the shedding of innocence found in the hateful eyes of blue that glared through tears and anguish and swore to destroy everything in her path.

She cursed them that day when the needles pierced her skin, when phosphorescent hate took hold of her very heart and pumped it full of sin forged of wrath, the burning, the pain, the glowing fire that wrent through every nerve and summoned the creature within that wailed and roared with the sorrow of loss; for all the wrong done unto her for many years to come. He took her name out of spite the next day. He breathed life anew through flayed bones and blood, marking her as the mother, the creator, the one Made for All, the epitaph of a bestial goddess that took the form of a dragon, a great winged serpent that made the world as it was and would later be fated to destroy it.

On her nape, the first marks to lay, a brand that would forever go unnoticed, even years later, as she stood as the harbinger of ruin, lain with black and red and silver, marked with scars and horrid creatures and eerily beautiful moths adorned with the face of death. A mask reminiscent of a sorrowful beauty, the most devastating with bared teeth and feral smiles as the devourer for all the world to reap and sow.

And though vengeance she swore, there was no denying the acceptance of the price that she had paid, the choices made for all the power in the world to find those in life known as mother and father, keeper and creator, the laments of God and love and hope that she was bitterly denied because the world saw her as she was and forged chaos through her soul of souls when she was born. The unification of all sundered under the might of the sun the day the Earth stood still.

There in the dark she had laid, a cell within a cell, the end to a long hallway strewn with corpses and flickering light that fell in tandem with a shattering heart, every plink of glass and stone as she swore then and there never to yield herself to anyone ever again. She took that weighted fear and sharpened the edges to brutal efficiency; marked her broken soul and spirit with it, carved the name taken from her there, left to wonder, lost and forgotten for many years to come until someone she knew naught yet would receive it and speak it aloud to rebuild her want of love anew. To be known as Beloved, taken from the place of the in-between as the creature, the beast, that would sooner tear apart the very fabrications of reality so that she might never know this pain again - held within a cage of bone cracked and splintered, beholden to the crown that would impale the brow of a raven-haired child with scarred palms held high as a sacrificial lamb.

In the dark, a hand had forged through, a simple offering to the child marred with scars, a beautiful smile that bloomed and held her there. A girl who, too, suffered under the blades and cruelty of life, skin marked and pocketed, likened to chips in mortar and healed over in patches of black. Eyes of a swaying meadow that held hope even in the shadows of their pain, haunted and yet brimming with silver tears as she whispered that she was okay, that she would be alright, and that this would not be her end.

She gave her name that day, her hand then too, as the first person to reach forth and hold her hand as a scared girl rather than a being to be tamed. Palm to palm, ashes to ashes.

Hey, what’s your name?
Tiamat.
No, the one they took from you.

Ammar –

No, someone had said, denied her truth, and whispered into the shadows unbound:
…Ummu-Hubur.

She gave her life that day, too, as the first person she ever killed.
Dust to dust.

”Why…can’t you just…fucking leave us alone?!”

Luce’s desperate defiance was lost on the emotionless monster currently leering over her. It neither possessed sympathy nor empathy. All humanity that its host had once possessed was stripped away entirely leaving only a weapon. Though it lacked the subtlety of its predecessor, the Chernobog was seemingly unstoppable.

“Leave you alone?” The Chernobog replied, almost indignant, “You opted to engage me, I didn’t instigate this bloodshed.” Raising a bloodied claw to its mouth, the creature’s long forked tongue flicked out, either side thirsty licking its finger before satisfying smacking its lips at Luce’s taste.

“I would dare say, this has been fun though.”

“Then why let the fun end?” A blinding explosion caused the Chernobog to shield its eyes, staggering backwards as Cassander rejoined the fray, moving between himself and Luce. The Chernobog roared in retaliation, moving to finish Cassander once and for all before a voice stopped it dead in its tracks.

“Take me and end this.” Haven cried, a tear running a line through the blood on her cheek. “Please, no more suffering.”

“Mother,” The Chernobog replied, kneeling to embrace Haven. Its arms wrapped around her like a pair of anacondas before it moved its massive hands to either side of her face and lifted her tear-filled eyes to face its own.

“It’s too late for that now.” He replied. His hands suddenly fell to Haven’s shoulders, reaching past and taking hold of her wings. A pair of sickening snaps echoed through the tense room. Haven dropped to the floor, her dress quickly turning from green to rust-stained as the Chernobog stood over her, a bloody, tattered wing clutched in either hand. Several feathers fluttered to the floor, sticking to the thick crimson spill beside Haven.

“Father only needs your blood.”

Sobs echoed all around the Chernobog as it stood before the massacre it had unleashed. Those not encased in ice were left maimed and beaten. The stench of blood and piss filled a room that previously had smelled like sex and candy.

“Robert,” Jim roared, appealing to the man instead of the beast, “Robert I need you to stop this.”

“There is no Robert left,” The shell of a man spat, “Only Chernobog. You couldn’t save Robert, anymore than you could save any of those who left. Those who never made it home.” A throaty chuckle followed the sinister tone.

“She cried for him, you know? Her lover, her last breath, barely a whimper by the end as Father took the last of her life,” The beast taunted, “‘Andrew!’ It was for ‘Andrew’, ‘Andrew, save me,’.” Each word was emphasized by a mist from the mutant’s cold breath escaping his mouth as if to drive the point home exactly who he was talking about.

“And then without another word, she was gone, soon to be forgotten. Just like you, just like our little Dove.”

Horror and guilt suddenly plagued the winded redhead as she moved a hand to wipe the sweat and blood from her brow. Alyssa hadn’t felt this powerless in a long time as she rested on her blade. She had been too slow to save Luce, too slow to save Haven. She couldn’t afford to hesitate any longer. Locking eyes with Luce, she looked for her approval, but with the pain, Luce’s eyes were fighting to simply stay open.

Her hand moved to the clutch, palmed the smooth stone etched with the Enochian character ‘van’. A parting gift from Ellara, a desperate ploy if they ever needed such. If the Chernobog was near invulnerable to conventional harm, then it was time to send it somewhere unconventional.

“Go to Sheol,”

With a flick of her wrist, Alyssa hurled the disk like stone through the air, the object sticking the Chernobog, transferring the rune to the beast. Pushing herself, Alyssa scrambled to Haven’s fallen form, tackling the girl out of the way as the Chernobog began to glow.

A sphere of energy burst forth from the rune before a vacuum began to consume the creature.

“No!” The Chernobog roared. The scraping of its claws against the floor assaulted the ears of those nearby as it struggled against the inevitable. Its eyes darted to Amma, and in one last desperate move, a hand wrapped around the young woman’s ankle, dragging her off of her feet and along with him.

It wasn’t enough, no matter the melody that hummed away within her heart, no matter the shimmering whisper of golden light that cracked and splintered through obsidian walls, the name spoken from the most profound void of self – it wasn’t enough. Amma screamed and sobbed as final tendrils of her power lifted and spun away from her trembling figure, as some whisked away and found themselves lingering as tendrils of warmth to the rest of her teammates, the last remaining pieces of Ammaranthe as she was and could ever be.

And then they were gone.

Silence fell over the room, just as suddenly as the Chernobog had crashed through the room, it had vanished into the vacuum created by Alyssa. But the damage had been done, and lives had been lost.

Today, Daedalus had won.

Rory didn't remember falling. He didnt quite remember anything that was happening. Dancing, music... a date. Then a monster. Right. Monster. Plan. Amma. But it was so hard to think with all the screaming. Someone was screaming. Someone was hurt. The roof was torn up. He was cold. Everything was cold. No, something was hot. His leg. Who the hell was screaming?

Rory shifted his arms and back, trying to prop himself up to survey his surroundings. As he looked down at the warmth, it was hard to register what he was looking at. Those couldn't be his legs. Legs didn't bend like that.

He tried to move his legs. He watched his muscles attempt to contract. Pain shot through him like a freight train, so much that his chest seized and he couldn't make a sound.

The screaming stopped.

He was the one screaming.

Rory's eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell onto his back, more pain shooting up his spine. He had difficulty processing the complex signals running through his nervous system. He didn't notice the red tendrils licking the ground around him. He didn't notice the steam and dust coming from the melted ice and rotted debris around him.

Blood pumped through his ears, dulling most of the noise. Rory rolled his head to the side, his tear-filled eyes only able to make out faint impressions of shapes. Red hair, a sword. Monster. Fighting. Purple. Wings. Gunshots. Dragon. Red. Reaper. Frost. Wings. Wings. Wings.

Breath caught in his throat as a small shift in weight sent streaks of pain through him. When his breath returned, a shrill cry of pain erupted from his lips.

Haven was standing. What was she doing? She was speaking. What was she saying? Why was she... there was so much blood. The assortment of body parts were nearly unrecognizable. Nearly. As Rory blinked away tears, he had an idea of who it was. He only hoped it was a copy, but it seemed too real for that.

He didn't have time to dwell on much, as his eyes clocked quick movement. Haven. She was moving towards the monster. He couldn't quite hear her words, but he knew what she was saying. Rory reached an arm out in her direction.

"No.... Haven..."

Rory tried to shift his weight around, only to yelp before involuntarily stopping. He could feel his mind growing fuzzy, his vision seeming to grow dimmer. He didn't have much left in the tank. He raised his voice. It was the most he could manage. He could only hope those beautiful ears caught them.

"I need you." Tears continued streaming down his cheeks, snot bubbling out of his nose. "I can't lose you. Not again."

And then, in an instant, he broke. Gripped wings. Blood. Her blood. Haven crumpled to the ground. The wings were still in its hands. Rory reached a hand out, only to feel more pain and for the world to swim around him. His hands scrambled along the ground, searching for purchase to pull himself in Haven's direction.

But he didn't even stay conscious long enough to see the monster and the dragon disappear.

One does not fear the wave until they feel the water hit.

Immanuel’s hands held a tight grip upon the porcelain before him, he felt the weight of the world sink his head beneath the water once again as it had reached its maximum. The music could not have been louder as it drowned out the thoughts in his brain and the rest of the planet at large. But there, within the consistent cacophony of all that exists bombarding his ears, there was something different. A noise that defied the expected nature one would expect from within a dance such as the one he endured in the present. One in which despite his experience he could not zero in on, a noise which encompassed what one would imagine from the likes of a bird but to a magnitude he could tell was much larger than the avian body.

He tried to push the noise away, to drown it out with the rest of the world, maybe the drinks had finally started to intoxicate his mind. Immanuel looked into the mirror once more, and with but a final pat down of his clothes and single buttoning upon his jacket, the man made his way back upon the dance floor. Once again taking in the force of the noise many human bodies can produce as he slithered his way back through the boisterous crowd of partygoers. Although the forefront of his mind was plagued with ever-present exhaustion the party burdened upon his psyche, the back far reaches of his consciousness could not drop the noise he heard while bunkered within the bathroom. It seemed to follow him, even as he made his way onto the fringes of the dance floor it was there, the initial low flapping of wings grew as what he could only interpret as it approaching the A.R.C. from whatever far bounds it took off from. It was too loud to match the likeness of anything he had heard in his time, and as those wings reached their peak above the A.R.C., Immanuel could only wonder, what the hell is that nois–

Before but a thought was given the freedom to fully form, his world had been shaken leaving his legs to stumble as a noise likened to a thunderous clap of lightning struck the building in which he stood. This time he was not the only one to be affected by such a noise, the deafening music had come to a stop along with the loud voices of the senior class as every eye was directed toward the noise. Immanuel's own eyes pinpointed the source as he watched as if the claws of a demon had ripped the metal walls of the building he occupied. His ears heard the pitiful cries of the steel wall screeching and squealing beneath the thing's grasp, this hiss of live wires severed and snapping of electrical currents going off followed in its wake. ”What the fuck!” The words dropped from his mouth almost instinctually in but a whisper. The fleeting moment of silence in the crowd was short-lived bliss as the screams of abject terror filled every facet of his mind and every corner of the A.R.C.

Cleo. Lucas. Fuck!

Immanuel planted his feet firmly upon the ground, his eyes bore witness to whatever satan spawn climbed noisily through the hole it created upon the bounds of the A.R.C. He watched as the thing blew its crackling breath upon the exits he yearned to approach. Although noise from the speakers that blew music but mere moments ago brought him to his knees, the shouting and screaming from all those he had previously witnessed having one of the best nights in their waking lives was a new beast that ravaged his ears.

Why must have God forsaken them?

Immanuel clenched the fist he held at his side into a ball, his cochlear hairs irritated at the sound of grinding enamel upon enamel as teeth grit at his redirection of focus. Immanuel’s mind had shifted away from only hearing in a radius around him to that of seeking the voice of those none other than his teammates. His mind searched and waded through the sea of screeching that passed into his ears for but a hint of their voices. Immanuel’s mind scoured for the loud candor Cleo wore every day, he searched for her benign cadence against the overpowering majority as he forced his way through the crowd, elbowing and shoving his way through the rushing mass of students in a vain attempt to find them using his eyes as well. Immanuel felt the ever-familiar threat upon his mind on the horizon as once again he tried his best to zero in on his teammates' voices. His ears filtered through dozens of shouting voices for that of Lucas’s rough, often confused-sounding cadence. Although his search stood as mighty in its effort the results it provided were less than of use to him.

The terror that filled his ears was too loud and to similar to search for them within. Although he could pick their voices out from betwixt the screams, he could not tell the difference between the bellows. He couldn’t seem to find a solid stream of thought as he pushed his way through to the table in which they had sat, finding naught but a scene surrounded by felled chairs and spilled cups. Immanuel stood trapped in the rushing wave of students attempting to travel away from the thing as he tried to push his way back into the eye of the storm. Immanuel was not going to leave a single one of them behind, even if it meant he had to push near that thing. While his eyes possessed the fortune of God to not lay witness to horrors spurred from the creature born of the womb of a devil, his ears were once again not afforded such a luxury. Utterances spouted from the maw of the creature were akin to esoteric shouts against his mind, as his body pushed against the flow of terrified students. The squelching sound of blood squirting free and the elastic snap of each muscle fiber tearing and snapping off a shattered bone only made his efforts into the crowd harsher and harsher in his advancement. With trembling hands, he made his way through the students, the effort to continue his ultimately futile advance propped up by the fact Lucas and Cleo could be among the ones trapped in the back. His footing while once strong in his stride slightly faltered as he heard the utter massacre ahead. Sound of bone crushing and collapsing beneath the skin, the muscle being ripped from muscle, the fibers snapping lose in exposed stumps where body parts once lay, the ripping of skin tearing as that monster eviscerated the people before it, the mortality beckoning sound of a heart beating out its last drum, and synapses snapping out their last thought as one’s life enters the great unknown marred his ears in a gutter symphony to an audience of but one.

Somewhere within the A.R.C. gunshots rang out, and the echo cast right into his ears as Immanuel felt a tremble in his knees. The same ears rang with a ferocity not yet seen, but yet he pushed on. His head burned with the pain like a bullet had hit him instead of what he assumed it had been aimed at. A fiery cast of embers seared his mind like a youngster had lit off a firework within it. And yet he grit his teeth and continued. Immanuel continued even through the exasperated scream that made his ears ring just a bit louder, he could feel the pain in the scream, and although he did not possess a set of powers like Cleo the sorrow still rang loud in the lamentation of the woman. But finally, even through the shilling sound of screeches ringing throughout the A.R.C., the brutality of whatever the thing was slaying his fellow man, and the ringing that plagued his ears. He caught it. Through the static he caught but a glimpse of Cleo’s voice seeping through the noise. It was low and lasted for but a second in the continuum of time, yet in that moment he caught the grasp that he was trudging in the right direction.

With a newfound pump of adrenaline right into his body, Immanuel pushed his body through the running mass. His hands shoved those preventing his advance in the direction in which they were going before he finally emerged from the mass on the other side. The sight before his eye was one he wished to burn from his memory, the butchery both his senses had experienced left a knot in his stomach more gut-wrenching than any other he had felt. His eyes were cursed with the sight of bloodshed and carnage left in the wake of the thing before him, and before the Gods had the chance to take his soul as well that night the creature was absorbed into a hole that burst forth behind it as well as a girl it had gripped onto in it’s exit.

Immanuel fully took in the scene of abject chaos before noticing that of Cleo off to the side of where he stood. In but a moment he ran to her side and crouched down right beside her, embracing Cleo into a hug as the adrenaline only slightly subsiding from his body now that he knew she was safe, but as for Lucas his mind still ran rampant searching for the boy as he looked around the scene. ”Oh God, Cleo, are you alright?” His words stumbled if only for but a second as he still attempted to portray the facade of strength he wore, the same facade that stopped Immanuel from giving the sign when he had felt overwhelmed before the bathroom, the same one that kept them exactly within this mess. ”Have you seen Lucas? I haven’t seen him… I didn’t hear him…” Immanuel released her from the embrace, stopping his slightly trembling hands. The words from his mouth were but a bit faster than his normal speech, a bit louder than how he usually was.

And as the whole room seemed to be laden with a cover of silence for the rest, the world had never stopped singing within his ears.

Hail? It started light, the way storms so often did, broken propellers and frozen drones eerily reminiscent of the little balls of ice bouncing, sharp and hard, off his skin when he looked up, frowning at a ceiling he couldn’t actually see. Hail was a rarer memory here than it had been back home, and not something you’d expect on a clear night without much wind.

But Lucas wasn’t the only one looking up when something heavier hit the roof. Wasn’t the only one dropping things and covering their ears when hail became thunder vibrating his bones. Wasn’t the only one struggling to breathe as that something forced its way inside, shoulders rounding into a hunched back bending under the weight tearing him wide into shapes he wasn’t meant to hold. Falling fast fragments of thought never finished with the roof pierced, punctured, and torn rending him out of every when into counting the seconds behind each impact of now now now. He staggered into a table and clung to its four-legged stability when the screams started before finding his breath and scrambling underneath it, pressing his face into his knees, curling up against the threat of scattering into pieces across the floor.

His ears were ringing. His head echoed, but fingers played across his back and smoothed fabric across flat wood. Plates slid between friends and glasses played Russian roulette between hands putting them down, picking them up, and coming back empty to lay warm weight into his shoulder as someone leaned in to look at the feathers.

He tried to stay there, holding his breath, terrified of everything just beyond the periphery where cloth curled over the edge obscuring a view he didn’t want to see, but someone jostled the table. Shaking that fragile security out of place in the moment and dropping him back to fast breaths and fear and he couldn’t look, couldn’t move, didn’t want to hear it, but broken glass sprayed light and dark reflections across the back of his eyelids, painting a hole in the sky and the shape that filled it, wings so wide they blocked the light.

It was inside.

There was no muffled quiet beyond his ears. Only shouts. Cracks. Cut-off screams. More thunder rolling through him. The floor shook as he slowly pulled his hands free from squishing his head back together, lowering them past his knees and down, hesitating, bracing before he set them, flat, fingers spread and fell past the dust and hair and seeping chill pressing into his palms, sinking into a thousand streams of instrumental chaos, chords and cacophony, strings and songs and sliding start and stop perfection dragging him deeper beneath the shouts and calls and shrieks and voices in sync in rambling in rivalry in play in panic in the solid shuddering support of bodies in action and inaction settling him between the cracks of every parcelled inch spread out under this disaster. And slowly, determinedly, he waded back up, through the slip and slide flatline rush of everything rearranged to perfection, flat floor raised one step, two step, three, then more, through the parade of industry setting down each weight four by four by four of chairs and tables on even ground and bursts of volume raised or lowered and splashes of light. The slow murmur of preparation building into the excited crescendo of lights on, music blasting, and feet on the floor until everything froze, a glass dropped, the illusion shattered.

He followed the outward ripple of surging, tumbling feet to a line of cold so deep it had to be ice. Found the weight of words as heavy as the one uttering them into a sudden still quiet that flickered in and out of reach with each explosive attempt to deny the demands. Lucas couldn’t see what was happening, but he felt it in every tense shift of steps forward or back, the low murmurs and the claws dragging across his skin, the movement of the crowd, the crumpling of warm bodies pooling blood over his fingers, the short shrieks and broken sobs and the knees digging into his spine. There were voices he knew and some he didn’t, words and names and sudden cracks in his head that made his breath hitch in and fall out on a whimper, but he didn’t stop chasing the next second as well as he could.

He knew these sensations. People were fighting.
People were dying. He knew those, too.

He couldn’t look. Didn’t want to watch, but he needed to know. Needed to listen through the disaster if he couldn’t do anything else. Until he found one pair of hands that didn’t whisk away as he reached for them, pressed flat on the edge of a scream where poison-bright worms of light writhed into the empty spaces of his mind, devouring the echoes of that long wail and his thoughts with them before he pulled back. The hands alone he might not have recognised, but the power, he did. A sparkling mist of light and feeling narrowed into focus. He’d felt that before. And he hummed as he finally found something he could do. His hands could not reach hers; he couldn’t pull her down to join him safe beneath the floor, but she was trying to do something, trying to reach something, and that Lucas could help with. So, he did. With an odd, incongruent glee that wrapped around her. Found.

He sank into older memories of quiet where it was easier to move. Where it was easier to focus. To reach inside and out. Where nothing pushed back when they moved forward until they were in the eye of the storm surrounding the figure she wanted to reach. He felt her grasp solidify as his own frayed under that renewed barrage of erasure, lights prickling in the back of his mind, broken screams still ringing in his ears as red and silver flashed behind his eyelids. It felt like forever before he pushed through and past and time moved on as the storm lifted and so did she, her feet whisked away with the same rush of wind that dragged at the giant and Lucas winced more at the claws gouging long furrows through him than he did at the final roar of a beast denied.

He waited then, holding his breath in the sudden quiet as the wind vanished, as the screaming faded, as cool air slowly wafted into the empty space, seeking the warmth of those hands, feeling the bodies pressed together, listening to the gasps and choked sobs and broken exclamations hoping to hear the voice that was missing. His fingers curling hard against the floor until he found them, small against the whole, still where he’d felt them last, and Manny’s voice, too.

“Lucas, yeah, okay. I’m here.” He breathed the words… Rocking into his relief, one hand and then the other lifting to muffle the world again. He was safe. She was safe. They were safe, right? It was finished? The screaming wouldn’t stop.

If the scene following the Trial looked bad, then Jim was out of adjectives to describe the scene unfolding in the A.R.C. As the ice was thawed, the death toll rose and those with life threatening injuries grew to numbers that exceeded the facilities available on the campus grounds. Of the nearly hundred members of the graduating class, thirty percent were deceased and nearly all of the remaining seventy were injured in some capacity.

Not even during Hyperion’s reign of terror had P.R.C.U. seen such devastation. It was all Jim could do to keep moving, helping with the injured and keeping the living from going catatonic looking at the dead. Perhaps that’s why Jim didn’t realize that Torres had drawn her last breath in his arm. Perhaps that’s why Jim didn’t realize the sun was coming up when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

He certainly didn’t realize the handcuffs were on his wrists until he was escorted into the helicopter landed in the middle of campus, watching as his world grew smaller and smaller before it was gone.

Kneeling beside a small gravestone, Miguel Ramos kissed the rose in his hand and placed it at the foot of the tomb stone. His head hung low, a whispered prayer coming from between his lips before he stood and stepped away.

“I’m sorry,” He stated, “I couldn’t be there,” His voice cracked.

“Effective immediately, Pacific Royal Collegiate & University along with its facilities are closed.” The voice boomed over the gathered student body. What used to fill the stadium had severely diminished in the last few months, and the senior class that was set to graduate this year further so following the Chernobog’s attack.

Immediately following the attack, Jim O’Neil had been removed from his position as Chancellor, with the Director of H.E.L.P., Winter Caspian momentarily stepping in to assume the role for the last week before the Alexandria Foundation had petitioned for P.R.C.U.'s immediate closure. Those in power were more than happy to help, especially the effort’s spearhead who was none other than Senator Garcia de León still mourning the loss of his daughter.

“Students will of course be offered a position at the Alexandria Foundation, and arrangements will be made to transport their belongings at their earliest convenience. Students who decline this offer will be responsible for finding their own arrangements. “ The speaker continued, his voice void of empathy, his body language clearly disgusted even having stepped foot on these ‘cursed’ grounds.

“I suggest you all decide quickly, this campus is now seized by the Canadian Government and a notice of seven days has been issued to residents to clear out. After this time, any lingering students will be seen as trespassing and will be subject to enforcement by local authorities.”

A murmur moved through the student body, anger rose in the din of voices before the speaker continued.

“Former Chancellor James O’Neil has been found guilty on numerous accounts of criminal neglect in his operation of this school and will be facing imprisonment due to lives lost under his command. A formal investigation has been launched into the senior staff as well, and there is an ongoing class action lawsuit launched by the parents of students who lost their lives during the event known as the ahem,” He paused, clearing his throat with a subtle roll of his eyes.

“The ‘Chernobog Attack.’” Allowing the words a moment to sink in, he turned his page over and continued to read. “These factors have left the government with no choice but to intervene in what has now been dubbed a misguided social experiment. The Alexandria Foundation has also been denied control of the campus and its land due to being unable to produce a deed. With the deed signed by Dr. Jonas Lehrer absent, Dundas Islands and its subsidiaries revert back to the possession of the Canadian Government.”

“And what about the Alumni village and the homes there?” Aiden Roth’s voice could be heard above the angry voices.

“The Alumni Village will be evaluated for property and real estate value, taxes and land holder fees will be assessed and assigned to those who reside there. It will be absorbed as part of British Columbia and subjected to both provincial and municipal laws.”

“This is our home.”

“You can’t make us leave!”

“These students should be safe to finish their education here.”

“If these students were ‘safe’, none of this would be happening.” The speaker replied, slamming his hands down on the pedestal to bring about order to the assembly. “The issue is that Pacific Royal Collegiate & University is the largest gathering of Hyperhumans in the world in a known and static location. It draws attention of the worst kind to the young and vulnerable.”

“Yeah and the Alexandria Foundation doesn’t have that problem,” Another yelled sarcastically.

“The Alexandria Foundation has made promising improvements to their security and management in the past year that has the full support-”

“Bribed!”

“Full unbiased support of this council.” The speaker added. “There are consequences, and unfortunately this soil has seen a lot of spilled blood. It is the opinion of the council that even one named death should have been enough to close this school, now I am looking at a list that exceeds a single page, with more unconfirmed.” He shook his head.

“Change is difficult to accept, but this is for the better. The world is improving, you do not need the safety of this island.”

At that comment, the crowd exploded. Security swarmed to the representative as they escorted him from the stadium and left the student body to unpack the news.

Upon returning to their dorms, students would quickly find notices to vacate the premises. Eviction was plastered all over their dorms. A sense of utter hopelessness filled what was lift of the dwindling student body while recruiters from the Foundation set up stations in every hallway, tempting passersby to the rival school.

“Find your identity today with the Alexandria Foundation’s Institute!” They called, displaying the Institute's flotilla style school. Pictures of the Foundation Force were interspersed as ‘inspiration’ and examples of the school’s elite alumni.

“You could be the next Hyperman or Miragal!” The video cheerfully exclaimed.

“Let's hope you’re not the next Triton,” A murmur replied drawing a sharp glance from the recruiter. Hushed agreement filled the hallway as students came and went, some immediately leaving, returning to homes they had waiting, while others paced back and forth on cell phones, before reluctantly signing for the Foundation with nowhere else left to go.

And slowly, P.R.C.U. became a ghost town.

“Y’all sure keep strange company,” Jim proclaimed as the door opened to reveal Summer Carlyle first followed by none other than Yoshi Nakamura. The interrogation room was small, further emphasized by the pounding wall of sea outside the glass looking out into the depths of the Atlantic.

“Miss Carlyle has her uses.” Nakamura replied before motioning towards her handcuffs, “But I assure you she is still very much a prisoner here.”

The black eye covering one half of Jim’s face throbbing as blood from his split lip pooled against his lower teeth.

“I take it this is the hard way then?” He replied.

“Unfortunately so,” Nakamura responded before taking a seat beside Summer.

“Now where is the deed to Pacific Royal Collegiate and University?”

“Go to hell.”

“Miss Carlyle?” Nakamure asked as Summer’s eyes began to glow, “Proceed.”

Even Jim’s resolve was not enough to stop the scream that followed.

In the Northern Forest beneath a pile of leaves laid a body undiscovered by neither the Hunter nor the concerned family. The student had wandered too far, mistaken for having left the island and so one came further looking for them. A discarded mask and shredded black robes lay on the ground beside her, a bag spilled open to reveal a student card before the body suddenly jerked upright. Limbs previously caught in rigour mortis snapped and popped as new life poured through the empty vessel.

Blackened eyes looked around the dark woods as she shielded her new face from sunlight before standing. The smells, the sounds, the sights, the vessel was weak and required sustenance, or else it would burn out too quickly.

Rolling their head, several cracks could be heard from the neck of their new body, before they looked around eagerly licking their canines, a single utterance escaping from between pursed lips.

“I wonder if mundanes are still just as delicious.”

The week had flown by and what was left of both Blackjack and Eclipse sat gathered on the beach, watching the ebb and flow of the tide while the flickering flames of the campfire danced about in the darkness. This was the end of their time at Pacific Royal and the mood was heavy, Drinks and snacks alike sat untouched as each member of the group stared at their feet, counting the grains of sand that laid between them.

Just a month ago, Blackjack had been a full team of twelve. But now, even with the last three members of Eclipse joining them they were only eleven. Pallyx had been revealed to be an imposter, Calliope was dead, Mei was gone and no one had seen or heard from Katja since the dance.

Worst of all, Amma had been dragged into the abyss, gone, presumably dead or worse, going down with whatever the hell it was that had attacked them. They had no answers, they had no resolutions. This Daedalus wasn’t caught and instead it had been Jim who had been taken away in cuffs.

A decision laid before each of them, go home or go to the Foundation’s Institute. It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly but also it wasn’t a decision that was easy to make for those among them who didn’t have a home to return to. No matter, they couldn’t stay on the Island, not without being able to afford a house within the Alumni Village.

For sale signs had already been posted in front of the homes of those who couldn’t find work, while mainlanders had already been visiting hoping for cheap real-estate on the ‘island of freaks’. The campus had already begun to be blocked off, with temporary fences erected along the main pathways while the A.R.C. sat in the same dilapidated condition that the Chernobog left it in.

After tonight the dorms would be sealed and in the morning the ferry would leave one last time. It was sobering and depressing and the heavy mood hung like a weight over the group. A stifled sob echoed out over the beach while gloomy music played gently in the background, barely audible above the waves.

Tear filled eyes desperately searched one another waiting for someone to be the first to break the trepid silence.

When Scylla Fluerane had returned to the Gulo Dorms after an unsuccessful convincing of her peers to attend The Foundation with her (for where else could a bastard child such as she return to when all record had been shorn and torn and lent to fire by her father), she had been met with objection and garish yellow tape spun and crisscrossed over the grounds, a smattering of security personal in place that had effectively turned her and many others away, their belongings scattered and haphazardly obtained with a pending investigation over obliterated windows and the entryway shattered from what she could glimpse by pressing inward, struggling, pleading to at least walk through the halls one last time. Six years on the island that she called home destroyed and left for naught, oppression felt in tangible waves as she clutched a flier betwixt her trembling fists and fought against the encroaching loneliness that threatened to take her under.

How did she do it? She pondered, that hated blue-eyed woman who once looked upon Scylla and scoffed, laughed, and tore into her friends when they attempted to befriend her with hateful words curled into French notations. The waspish woman that laughed bitterly into the encroaching dawn when she had been introduced to the dorm, something feral and edged in brutality that garbed her as unworthy to don the Wolverine of their house, that shield undeserving for her graces when she had strutted about the campus in mocking ochre embellishments against those tattoos and scars. That same woman assigned to such an infamous team that the campus was often swept up with, various inquiries regarding what exactly happened left unspoken, and prying eyes and proposed theories hushed or ignored. Scylla wondered how someone so involved could be so alone; every morning and evening met with silence in the last year she had attended, and every passing month more profound until the day she first saw her with such a sad smile.

Stories circulated, and implications sired among them, the transfer student, the looming Foundation heralded on lithesome shoulders and sheared through eyes that Scylla could still feel from when she last spoke to her, their weight so keenly felt, after the trials when she simply asked her if she was okay. (Ryan had designated her to assist in gathering some of her belongings, and had also been tasked with gathering sentiments for families who lost a beloved child in the most recent attack) The haunted look, the despair that feathered around her as horrid shadows of malcontent. Such madness loomed behind blue eyes as a glowing hellfire of demented retribution: she had heard the stories, everyone had in some shape or form of grandeur, but she had seen the truth lain bare that day and the following days with whispers abound. Uttered occurrences of her involvement with her teammates, descension from the most critically acclaimed blackening of her name that some cursed:

I heard she slept with Lorcán Roth and Gil Galahad.
I heard she stepped out right before the Trials late at night; who’s to say she wasn’t a part of that too?
I heard she attacked the hospital staff, and they had to chain her to the bed.
I heard she attacked some of her own teammates!
I heard that the gargoyle came for her and –

Chernobog!

Good riddance! Ever since she came here, everything has gone wrong!

I heard she stole –

I heard she killed –

They say that –

They say she was dragged into Hell.

-Maybe that’s where she belongs.

The rumors and stories had been vicious, but Scylla had seen her on the dancefloor, the way she danced so carefree, wild- so unbothered, and just as she was in that moment: a girl who was simply enjoying life as it was given and taken under moonlight. She had seen her in the arms of Gil (and who didn’t notice him! A celebrity in their midst.), and though she had left early, trapped with some others in caves of frigid ice mere seconds later - she rubbed against the still healing cuts and bruises on her arms - she had seen and felt the crimson waves of wrath and ruin.

She had heard the screams.

No one deserved such a fate.

In the final afternoon that she would spend on the island, Scylla and a few others had been permitted to look through the Gulo Dorms one last time to gather possessions that may have been left behind, and what greeted them was an eerily carved path of destruction through the commons and then above, a clear and designated path of something that reached the third floor, and there she stood with a gasp, palm against the heated breath that she fought to control as she looked upon the remains of Amma Cahors' dorm, eyes rounded out in shock.

The door had been left as nothing but splinters and massive spires of wood lain as spikes littering the carpeted floor. A scrawling of various slurs and profanity had been marked into the walls, scrawled in ink both black and red, lines gouged into the paint to lay blame as a memorial of a cursed wrong and death. People needed someone to blame, and what better method than that girl who walked through life as the harbinger of rage and darkness, as an in-between creature of this woeful life adorned with her agony of fate undone? Scylla fought around the terrible shudder that worked through her nerves; the gruesome defilement of her room was an omen to be sure.

The world is never fair for the different, for the misunderstood. For simply being not-as-we-should.

“That’s fucked,” someone whispered, voice lowered as if afraid to speak aloud, the yawning pit of the shadows that lurked yonder torn and smashed remains seeming to writhe despite the filtering of sunlight through shades torn askew.

“Why would they do such a thing?” Scylla breathed, arms folded around her middle as she stood in the ruined doorway. “She’s dead; can she not rest in peace?”

“People are scared, Scy. Sometimes, it’s easier to take it out on… Well. It’s just easier.”

“They never found a body,” someone else muttered, and Scylla shuddered at the mere though of it. Maybe she was really dragged off to Hell with that thing?

“It doesn’t matter,” Stephen Anderson proclaimed, a Gulo senior who found the sentiment in wandering these halls one last time a balm to the uncertainty of the future ahead. “This is still our House, and someone, many probably, broke in and decided to do something so hateful.”

“It’s not really our House any –”

“Then leave!” Stephen snapped, “Enough is going on here that I doubt anyone would notice you gone anyway.”

“Steph, I didn’t mean–”

Scylla allowed their arguing to fade off, stepping into the destroyed room on whispered steps; the immediate entry suddenly hushed and stilled, as if stepping into Amma Cahors' old room was detached from the reality in which they floundered. Everything within had been shattered or toppled over: drawers ripped open, bedding torn and shredded, a vase of dead flowers thrown and cracked into glittering splinters. All of her possessions had been taken, nothing left in memory of the raven-haired woman and the walls here too defiled and marked, crude illustrations of what appeared as a scaled beast on one side, blackened lines viciously drawn on the other, pools of red left to stain the carpet, still wet and gleaming under the hazed rays of the sun. She shook with the wrongness of it all, the barbarism, the –

Something shifted in the darkest corner.

A writhing and coiling swatch of darkness, of shadows, something black that festered and oozed as a void of nothingness that all manner of light could not penetrate nor touch as it lay there winking in and out of existence, to and fro, as if struggling to remain as it was with sobbing wet edges that bled into reality.

“Scy –”

“Do you see that?”

“What -” Stephen came up beside her, stilling at the pulsating mass, shuddering under the weight of the unseen, a sickly sound of boiling manifest, a squelch of liquid matter that writhed and rose, a gaping maw of a fiendish appetite that yawned forth and suddenly wailed with its appetence. A screeching horror that sounded like the symphony of the lost and the forsaken, eerily reminiscent of the screaming they had heard just a few nights before. Scylla immediately fell to her knees, palms held against the assault on her very senses, ears ringing, bleeding, torn asunder as the shattering cries continued, tumbling over one after the other as a cacophony of deafening hate and ruin. It sluiced forward, crawled, webs of ink peeling forth on membrane-like creation that thinned and snapped and bled, and Scylla looked upon it with desperate fear until hands grasped her shoulders and hauled her back, every inch gained only so much and paling in comparison for the thing that writhed and tried to reach her, inches away from her sneaker-clad foot as she scrambled back and back and back, palms slid and slick with red as she slipped and fell, once, twice.

And then there, a wink of gold, a spark of crimson, something small left alone and forgotten just underneath a shattered bed.

“Scylla!”

She lunged for it, clutching it preciously within her grasp before she scrambled back and ran. The alienated knell of decay and rot was hot and heavy on her heels as they rushed outside the dorms, the world eerily silent and beholden to what they had just witnessed that failed to follow them out into the sun, unable to form it into words or reason as Scylla held out her trembling hand. Her palm cradled around twisted bronze and golds, a malformed design, an all-seeing globe, and the precious red jewel set there.

The only possession known to remain of Amma Cahors–her mother’s ring.

The pen saddled midst the creases of his digits waned ‘neath forced vested onto it as Immanuel scratched in a script but nearly only he could see as legible in the leather bound book before him. The book was one where years traveling in the possession filled trash bags from hell-hole to hell-hole and under the stress of writing upon non-solid surfaces had shown prominently upon distressed leather. Streaks of discolored patches lined across the binding of the notebook akin to scars across one's skin, and cracks ripped across the spine where haphazardly covered with a strip of tape through Immanuel’s hasty repairs in the past. The thick pages laced with the memories of bygone days, pages parted with the plastic squares of photos from days past, and the old crumpled papers of forlorn poems wrought with the remnants of a distrust enveloped soul of a self that partially remained in the man who sat today upon the shores of the island.

Not a word had been spoken, not a thought had been whispered from the lips upon his face as his eyes stood in a trance with the words of slightly smudged ink upon the old pages. From the moment the Eclipse made their appearance upon dreary shores for but their last hours upon the island, Immanuel had sought the lonely solace he had placed into the book from its years in his possession. Past the unsteadiness and the scribble of signs barely registered as handwriting was all that his mind had stored behind the lock-down he had equipped in the depths of his consciousness. The words flew freely from ball-point as if they were spoken from his own lips. A literary manifestation of all those thoughts he had held from all but himself, the feelings he had shut out the others from watching him go through. The pages within such a book abound the tears many a foster parents had shut down with being an action unbefitting of a man.

As his pen slid across the page so did that of his thought slide from the fringes of his mind, even as his ears stood blasted with the force of the fire crackling before him, soft grinding of the sand beneath the shifting bodies of all those around, and even choked cries of the remaining populace, the sounds of the week prior had never left his mind. Upon the forefront of all that was thought by the mind of Immanuel Blaylock was the ever-constant reminder of the poor soul whose body was ripped asunder by the likes of the monster that had been but the fine straw that brought the school to ruin. Through all the noise his mind harped upon and that threatened his mind liken to a predator on the prowl, was that of the tearing of flesh. Was that of one’s tendons being stretched to the maximum and snapped like a rubber band between one's parting fingers. Was that of the squirting of blood sputtering out of veins once hidden beneath the safe haven of skin. Was that the squishing and splattering of viscera upon the floor. Although all these sounds plagued and ravaged his mind like no other sound that he had recognized entered his ear, the unforgettable sound of the heart's droning drum beating out its final symphony of life, the fadeout of what one was and would ever be in but a single moment. But a sound left a brand upon his brain matter, hot and fresh despite the time that had flown by in but a blink.

Upon the new page he had flipped to after filling the previous one with his rambling stream of thought, all Immanuel could jot down for the week of his life lost to catatonia and auto-pilot was, I should’ve used the symbol earlier. Past the words that assaulted his mind flashed the wide-eyed face of Cleo, whose hands had shaken widely as she signed the symbol across her chest as a desperate sign to leave. The loss in her quiet tone, heard above all others as she stood before her in that moment, spread across his mind and tightened the knot he had held within his gut. The image of that of Lucas’s flashed from the archives of his memory, the look upon his compatriots' face was on that, in a much similar vein to that of Cleo’s, was stuck to him. He could only imagine the newfound memories attached to such a place that Lucas had replayed out within the expanse of his mind all over again. Immanuel was supposed to be the one who led them through this final school year, the one that kept the three together through the tribulations of each other member dropping out like flies. But in the end, all that Immanuel caused for the two he considered his closest friends and final groupmates, was a night which shall never leave their minds for as long as they continue to walk upon this plane of existence.

Before the words within his mind had the chance to fully form a sentence upon the paper, the cheap plastic pen held finally snapped in beneath the pressure he forced upon it. With a crack, the pen lay upon the sand surface beside him three distinct pieces which he scooped within an empty pocket laden on the side of the bookback sat beside him. From the nether regions of his pants pocket, Immanuel revealed a set of string photos from the photo booth a week prior. The plastic was crumpled and folded in its structure but the joy upon their faces still stood evident through the marring. Immanuel dropped the strip within the page of the notebook in which his writing was ended before shutting the book and rebinding the locking strap for its last time upon Dundas Island.

As he stuffed the book away within the space of his back, Immanuel turned back those he had spent his time at what once was this school alongside. People of memory he shan't forget. And in but a whisper he uttered,

”I think… I think I miss my home.”

There was a break in the clouds, as strong winds carried them away from the island and towards the mainland. A seagull brazenly flew against the wind, struggling with each beat of its wings against the power of mother nature. It had been doing this for a while now, peering down into the ocean to spot any possible prize waiting to be claimed. A security drone, set on an automated patrol path, nearly collided with the animal. The drone paid no mind to the gull, which evaded the bothersome machine at the last possible moment before turning its attention back to its hunt.

Observing the bird like that, one would almost be jealous of it. How simple its life must be. No need to worry about terrorists, conflicting loyalties or homicidal freaks. The only thing on your mind being base needs. And, apparently, the occasional mechanized interloper.

Gazing up at the struggling animal was Katja. She stood waist deep in the water, immovable like a wave breaker as the waves crashed into her. She had been standing here for what could have been hours or only a handful of minutes, she honestly didn’t know. Nor did she care. Nor did it alarm her that her clothes were drenched by the sea water, possibly ruined forever. It was because she wore her school uniform. It’s not like she was going to need it anymore anyway.

She had bandages wrapped around her fists, stained red from wounds incurred earlier in the day. Over time they had absorbed the salty sea water, resulting in an ever present burning sensation in her hands. Katja tried focusing on that pain, trying to find some distraction, any distraction from the turmoil that was waging inside her.

If only she had been there, Katja thought.

It would have been different if she had been there.

Katja had been in bed when she got the news. She had been feeling sick for a while. Whether it was due to an actual illness or her mental state she did not dare to say. Though if she had to wager, it was probably the latter. The whole business with Haven had left her rattled. She was sure some, like Harper or Rory, were going to want to ask questions about how she had known Haven’s location. To be fair, it had been a guess, she had nothing to do with Haven’s kidnapping. But that she knew of a former Children of Hyperion hideout would have raised red flags for even the most dense individual.

So, with her constant worrying about not just being exposed, but rejected by those she cherished the most, Katja chose self isolation. And honestly, she wasn’t looking forward to the dance regardless, so it worked out as a nice excuse.

That was until news of the attack reached her.

All of the self pity, the doubt and the concerns melted away like snow before the sun. Instead she felt like she had to get out there to see if everyone was alright, if she could lend a hand. But more news started to trickle in before she had even been able to get dressed. Dark tidings of chaos and carnage. Many of her class had seemingly lost their lives, but one name was repeated in particular. The name of one of the most gossiped about students in all of PRCU. The one they feared. The one they scorned. The one they envied.

The one she had befriended. The one she still felt for.

Amma.

Everything after that was a blur to her. The only things she managed to recall was because her dorm served as a constant reminder. She must have fallen into an uncontrollable rage as she had torn down everything in her own room. Her fellow roommates had quickly evacuated the dorm, trying to avoid any potential harm.

The only clear memory Katja still had was of her staring at herself in the mirror. She recalled exactly how she looked. Her hair was a tangled mess, tears were streaming down her face, her breathing irregular and heavy. What she saw in that reflection disgusted her. There, looking back at her, stood a weakling. One who supposedly prided herself on her strength and her sense of camaraderie. What a pitiful sight she was now. What Katja was looking at was nothing more than a coward. A coward and a liar. She could not bear the sight of herself, feeling her rage surge back again. And before she knew it she punched the mirror. Once. Twice. Thrice. Cutting open her fists on the razor sharp shards that were left. All to get rid of the sickening image.

If only she had been stronger. If only she had been there.

Katja was brought back to the present by the pricking feeling of tears welling up in the corner of her eyes. This had been happening a lot lately, a feeling that had felt alien to her only mere weeks before. Now, she was becoming used to it far too quickly for her liking. Even so, she did not fight it. If anyone considered it a sign of weakness, then so be it, she had already proven herself to be a weakling. But if there ever was a time to let the tears flow, now was the time. For Amma.

A sad smile formed on the large girl’s lips as she recalled that first day back after summer break. It was on this very beach that Amma had been the first of Blackjack that Katja reunited with. A soft chuckle escaped her lips as she recalled the bearhug she gave the raven haired girl. She remembered being enamored by that awesome power of hers and how much it stung to be hit by those tendrils of raw destructive power the day after. The irony wasn’t lost on Katja that Amma seemed to constantly be the reason for tears to stream down her cheeks, as she laughed a soft, mirthless laugh.

Katja lowered her eyes, looking out into the horizon. Another wave hit the girl, unyielding to the force of nature. She thought back to the conversation she’d had with Amma back in the gardens around the medical ward. She embraced herself, placing her hands down on those very shoulders Amma had permanently marked.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep to my end of the deal, Am.”

She spoke in a soft, hushed voice. The sound only barely carried over the waves of the turbulent Pacific Ocean. She kept her eyes fixed on that far off horizon. Its vastness stretched on, seemingly endless. As if it were the edge of the world.

“Wherever you are, I’ll make it up to you.” She spoke louder now, no longer a faint shaky voice but one filled with determination. Katja lowered her arms, the waves gently touching her injured hands again. She turned around, breaking her gaze over the horizon only at the last moment before making her way back up the beach.

“I’ll make sure you won’t be lonely for long.” She continued, seemingly to herself as her feet walked on dry land once more. Her kilt, drenched in the ocean’s water, clung to her legs as it dripped profusely. Katja barely noticed it. If anything, it’d mask the tiny droplets that fell from up higher. Those that had been streaming down her cheeks for a while now.

A light in the corner of her eye then caught her attention. A campfire blazed fiercely at almost the exact same spot as it did at the start of the year. And surrounding it were faces that Katja had been avoiding for far too long. Fate was here to seemingly force her hand. Enough running. Enough cowardice. It was time to rejoin Blackjack, whatever that might entail down the line.

But as Katja set her first tentative steps towards that familiar flame, she looked up to the sky one more time and uttered her final promise to her departed friend.

“We’ll meet each other in the afterlife soon, Am. And whether it’s HELP, the Foundation or God Himself, I’ll drag all those bastards responsible down with me!”