My eyes slowly opened shortly after the scenes had stopped. I was in my room, laying in my bed, and two people were standing next to it. I recognized one of them, Patrick, but I hadn't really seen the other person before. Like Patrick, his hair was spiky, but it was shorter and black instead of brown. He was the same height as me, and looked about the same age.

"How do you feel?" Patrick asked me, noticing that I had woken up. My mind, deep in thought, completely ignored his question. The last thing that I could really remember was being punched in the chest by Brian when I was in the training room, and some of the last scene. I tried to pull myself out of bed, but my body was weak, and my chest was burning, in the exact same spot that Brian had punched.

"You need rest," the other kid said when he saw me struggling to get up. He was right, my body was weak and it needed to rest, but I just had to figure out what was going on. Despite all of the pain, I managed to get out of bed and push through the two of them. My pace quickened with every step as I walked out of my room and towards the staircase.

"Good to see you're feeling better," Patrick called after me, in a slightly sarcastic tone. I just kept walking, not taking the time to say anything to anyone. The only thing that I could think about was getting my answers. Just like what I had seen in the vision I had about the stranger, I wandered through the halls, examining every brick on every wall. What was he looking for, and why did he want it so badly?

My body's pain disappeared as my mind became obsessed with trying to find it. I kept thinking back to what I had seen, trying to find a clue of where it could have been hidden, or what it was. But I couldn't find anything at all. I searched almost every hallway that I could find, but still, there was absolutely nothing. Whatever it was must have been important if Brian had to change its position, and get into fight over it.

After a while, I still hadn't found any idea of anything. What was the point of searching for something when I wouldn't even know if I had found it, I began to think. I had no idea what it was, and even if I did see but had passed it, I wouldn't have even known. The only people that would have known were the stranger, who I had no idea who or where he was, and Brian. Someone else might have known, but those were the two best answers that I could come up with.

My mind was racing as I tried to find my way back to the last place that I had seen Brian, the training room. The questions just kept increasing, almost making my mind explode. After 10 minutes, I found my way back to the training room, but it was empty. I just stood there and looked around, and voices began to echo in my mind. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't in my mind, it was coming from the locked room.

"We're almost done with it," I heard Brian's voice say. "If we can hold out for a bit longer, then..." The rest of his sentence was soft and muffled, and I couldn't here any of it. The conversation continued, but I still could hardly make any of it out. After about three minutes, a voice that I hadn't heard before spoke.

"But what if he does?" they angrily asked.

"He won't," Brian's voice calmly responded.

"How can you be so sure?" the other voice said again, with just as much anger as the first time. The metal door wing open and an angry 16 year old emerged. His long black hair swayed as he stormed towards the door. He looked back at me, his brown eyes full of anger, and then turned to leave. Brian sighed from inside of the room before he came out and greeted me.

"It's good to see you," he started. "It's been about three days if I'm remembering correctly." I'd been sleeping for three days! This only filled my head with more questions, almost making me cringe from the overload.

"I need answers," I responded to him. "I had this dream about a man looking for something in this castle. You were in it too, you fought him." Instead of the "you're crazy" look that I thought he would give me, he sighed in relief and spoke.

"So, you've had a vision already, very interesting. I guess I should tell you from the beginning." He stopped for a moment, thinking about what to say and how to explain. My mind was rejoicing, I was finally going to get the answers that I wanted.

"This group was founded upon one basic idea," he began. His voice was a low drone, almost hypnotic. It was like he was giving a lecture at a school, and I was struggling to stay with him.

"We came together in order to make our souls pure. You see, the soul is our main life force, and without it, we would never exist. Not only does it keep us alive, but it holds everything about who we are. Our personalities, looks, strengths, weakness, and about everything else is stored in our souls."

I was having trouble trying to keep up with what he was saying, and not only because of his voice. I had never been good at learning a bunch of new information at one time, and my mind would always travel to something different.

"Now, there are three types of souls, the pures, the hybrids, and the corrupted. The pures are exactly what the name says they are, a soul that is completely pure, whether it be light or darkness. We, the Soul Hunters, strive to turn our souls into souls of pure light, so that we can better ourselves. Then there are the souls that we have now, the hybrids. The hybrid souls are a mixture between light and darkness, but mostly towards the side of the light. And lastly, there are the corrupted. These are the souls that are completely swallowed by darkness, and left with only a small amount of dim light. These are the souls that you have been fighting, those monsters. By killing these, and ridding the world of their darkness, we hope to become souls of pure light."

He stopped there as a boy entered the room and I turned to look at him. His hair was short and a majesty silver color. He was the same height as me, but he seemed to be a bit older. I looked up at his pale white face, and noticed that his eyes were completely blocked by a white blindfold.

"Oh, it's time for your mission," Brian said and walked over to the other boy. "This is Aden, he'll be your partner for today. Your job is to venture to the southern polar region, there has been a mass of corrupted that have been appearing there." Brain lifted his right arm up and a small ball of light formed on his palm. He thrust it forward, and the ball turned into a pillar. He then looked at the to of us and motioned us forward.

"I still have questions though," I tried to tell him, but he didn't respond. Standing there wouldn't get me anywhere, so I jumped into the pillar of light. My body burned as the light wrapped around it, covering every inch of it. The intense heat was soon replaced by freeing cold air. I opened my eyes and was standing next to Aden on an endless land of ice and snow.

"So you're Kiernan," Aden said as he looked in my direction, his blindfold still blocking his eyes. He smiled a little bit and spoke again.

"Let's finish this up quickly," he said as he started to walk forward. It felt weird to follow a man who couldn't see where he was going, but I walked with him anyway. We walked for about a minute before we reached an area full of glaciers, most of which were huge. Unlike the rest of the area, this ice was cracked and there was water around us.

"This seems like the spot," he said and stopped moving. He reached his right arm backwards to a sheath that he had on his back. Following his lead, I reached for my two sticks. Not a moment later, a war cry came from behind the huge glacier. Aden rushed forwards as five of the monkey like corrupted jumped off of the top of it. I ran in beside him, with my two sticks in hand, and prepared for battle.

The monkeys crashed down in front of us, which knocked me backwards and sent ice and water flying into the air. I stumbled over the cracked ice and fell over, scraping my arm against the rough surface. Aden was unfazed by the attack, instead of falling like me, he pulled out a longsword and sliced two of them in half. Smoke filled the air, which only added to my struggle of getting back up on the ice. I still couldn't get up, whenever I would get close, I would just slip and fall over again.

More smoke filled the area as Aden took out two more of the monkeys, while I still just sat there watching. A hand reached out to me after I slipped another time, and I reached out to it. Aden pulled me up and turned back around, swinging his sword upwards and cutting the last monkey in half. I was amazed by him, he couldn't even tell where anything was, yet he had just destroyed five of the corrupted.

Another battle cry rang out, this time right in front of the two of us. As the smoke cleared away, I looked at the ground, only to see that it was slowly melting away and being replaced by the puddles of darkness.

"Get back!" Aden ordered. I did as I was commanded and moved backwards. The corrupted were slowly emerging from their homes, ready to guard their territory. Aden ran forwards, slicing through the corrupted that had made it out, and made it too the center of the puddle. He screamed as he stabbed his sword right into the center of it. The ice around us cracked, and the puddles dispersed, leaving no trace of the monsters. I walked back towards Aden and out my sticks, which I hadn't used at all, back into their holders.

"There's just one last thing to do," Aden told me and reached into the right pocket of his black denim jeans. He pulled out rectangular piece of metal with a glowing red circle in the middle of it and threw it down onto the ground. The circle turned green as soon as it touched the ice, and Aden sighed a sigh of relief.

"Mission complete," he said in a slightly enthusiastic tone. He then reached into his other pocket and pulled out a ball of metal, one almost the size of his hand. The ball burst open as he lightly tossed it in front of him, transforming into a pillar of light. He motioned for me to go in it as he stepped towards it. We both walked into it together, and our bodies were wrapped in the light once again. A few seconds later, we were standing in the training room once again.

"Well done you two," I heard Brian's voice say. My eyes were still closed because of the light, but I opened them as soon as he spoke. Aden walked off out of the room as soon as Brian had spoke, leaving just me and him there.

"You never got to answer my last question," I told him.

"And what would that be?"

"Who was the man that I saw in my dream, or vision as you called it?" I asked him. "Who was the person that took my friends?" Brian looked uneasy, but he spoke calmly.

"His name is Chris, and he has been an enemy of ours for a long time. I'm not sure why he wants your friends though, but I'm going to find out soon. In the meantime, just worry about purifying your soul, and completing your missions."

He turned around back to the locked door and pulled out a key from his pocket. After unlocking the door, he turned back to me.

"You'll get your answers soon enough." The door closed and locked behind him, leaving me alone in the training room. 

The rest of the day wasn't much at all. It was about 5:30 when I had gotten back, and I had dinner shortly afterwards. Like always, I was instructed to go to sleep early, so that I'd have enough energy for my mission the next day. I went to my room and flipped through channels on my TV since I wasn't really tired yet. There wasn't anything interesting, so I just laid down on my bed and tried to think about everything that was going on. That didn't last very long at all, as a knock on my door stopped my chain of thoughts.

"Hey Kiernan," I heard the person at the door say. I dragged myself out of bed and went over to open the door. Standing there was the spiky black haired boy from earlier, the one who was with Patrick.

"Mind if I come in?" he asked.

"Not at all," I responded. He walked in the room and looked around before sitting on the edge of my bed. I went and sat down next to him.

"My name's Zach," he said, breaking an awkward moment of silence. "I just thought that I'd come by and see how you were doing."

"I'm getting better," I said. "Thanks for being there when I was knocked out."

"The same thing happened to me when I got marked. I was out for a week."

"Marked?" I asked.

"Yeah, what Brian did to you in the training room. He calls it the Marking Ceremony and does it to everyone when they first get here. It's something that leaves an imprint inside of your soul, that way we can always know where we all are, it gives out a signal if you're ever in danger."

"So it's like a tracking device?" I asked him.

"I guess you could put it that way," he said in reply. There was another moment of akward silence where the two of us just sat there together, not saying anything at all. I yawned after a few seconds.

"Well, it looks like you're tired," Zach said immediately afterwards. "I guess I should go, I need to get some rest too." He stood up as he said that and walked over to the door.

"See you around!" he said as a goodbye as he opened the door and left. For some reason, I was beginning to get tired now and flopped down on my bed. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw so ethnic moving out of my window. I sat up and loomed out at it, and once again, it was the dove and the raven. My mind began to fill with questions again, the biggest one being "why did I always see them?" But I tried to block the thoughts out as I turned out the lights and laid back down in my bed. I closed my eyes, and after a few minutes,I drifted off into sleep.