I paced through the rundown city, the same one that I always seemed to be in. A city that’s sky was always red, with black clouds and a blinding white moon. Where buildings would crumble and smash into the earth. A city that was never meant to be.
 
Nameless faces passed by around me and faded into the emptiness of this world. The multitude of buildings around me seemed to disappear as I walked. The path seemed to be endless, but I kept hunting down my destination. I stopped and peeked into every alleyway, looking for it, but I just couldn't find it. Finally, I reached the right alley. After taking a deep breath and relaxing myself, I turned to walk into the alley. The buildings around me slowly disintegrated as I walked in, until only one of them remained.
 
I stopped and stood there, raising my arms up into the air. My twin swords, my partners, materialized into the palms of my hands. Just as I had thought, the man appeared again, at the top of the building, the same place he always had. His body and clothes were pitch black, except for his blood red eyes. Besides that he looked just like me. Slowly, he floated down towards me. His red eyes glared into my brown eyes, just looking at him made feel weak and exhausted. Fear locked my body up as I tried to swing at him with my swords, but my body had frozen. The man's feet touched the ground without making a sound. He walked up to me and gently brushed his ice cold hand against my brown face. He unsheathed his two blades which were hanging on his back and lowered one towards my neck. He started to swing, but then I could move again. Quickly, my arm sliced at his head, he dropped his sword, ducked and rolled backwards. He flipped over onto his feet, but I charged again, only to have my attack bounce off of the blade he still held.
 
A never ending cycle of these battles had haunted my past, although they always ended the same way. I had memorized it, but could never overcome the devastating defeat. By now, he would have me trapped against the wall of the building with the one sword he still had at my neck. I would struggle to free myself, but the efforts were always futile. He would raise his hand and the one sword that I knocked away from before would make its way back to him. With one upward strike, he would send my swords hurdling up into the endless sky, never to be seen again. And lastly, he would turn away and stab me, burying his blade into my right rib. His grip on the sword would intensify, as shockwaves of energy from his dark soul would erupt into my body. My bones would shatter as he would finally disappear through the wall of the building that I was trapped against, muttering out the word "pitiful" as he left.
 
He was exactly right. This had been going on for as long as I could remember, yet I still never even scratched him. The next part was probably the part that haunted me the most. I would collapse, grab the red hilt of his blade, and yank it out of my rib, which was now destroyed, but by then it would be too late. A never-ending stream of blood would dribble out of my mouth as I had a coughing fit, and even more of it would poor out of my side. Then finally, I would drown in my pool of blood and tears, which still carried the dead hopes of victory, against someone I knew I could never beat.
 
"Just another dream," I mumbled as I shook my self from my sleep. Painfully dragging myself out of bed, I would throw on my usual outfit and start another useless weekend day. To me, life had started to seem meaningless. Day after day without anything new. Life had turned into a repetition. I moved myself through the motions of my usual mornings. First came changing. That day, like most others, I wore a black hoodie with a gray t-shirt underneath. I also had jeans and my normal pair of gray sneakers. Then, I combed my black mini Afro. And lastly, I would eat breakfast and disappear from the orphanage as soon as I could.
 
I had been in an orphanage for 13 years, the same amount of years that I had been alive. Orphanages had become normal to me, but I never liked any of the ones that I had been put into. I never knew my parents. Some people say that I just showed up at an orphanage one day and the owner had nothing to do but to take me in. My wishes for a family were never answered. I spent years wondering what it would have been like if I had parents, but slowly overcame those non-sensible hopes. Just like the many days before hand, I would sneak into the woods on the outskirts of our town. While underneath those trees, I would always wish for a change. Unfortunately for me, that change happened to be a very sharp sword.
 
What normally would have been my favorite part of the day now seemed meaningless, and I could barely remember it at all. The only memorable part was the end, the part where I made my mistake. Tae Kwon Do class had ended and I was talking to my only two friends, Michael and Richard.
 
Michael, or Mike for short, was the same age as me, five days older, and a little bit taller, about 5' 6". He had short wavy brown hair and moderately tanned skin. His eyes were a light green. That day, he wore a thermal black shirt with a red sword, jeans, and black sneakers. Richard on the other hand was three months younger than me, but the exact same height, 5' 4". He had a pale white skin with freckles and brown eyes. He wore his usual gray t-shirt with jeans and sneakers. Both of them had lived in the same orphanage as me for a few years now, and we had grown really close.
 
"I'll meet you guys back at the orphanage later," I started. "I just want to practice a bit more." I wish that I had never said that, but life's too short to dwell on the past. The two of them left me with their goodbyes, hopped on their bikes and rode away. I ran over to my bag that I had brought and took out my weapons, two black wooden sticks that were perfect cylinders. On each one was a golden dragon, which circled around it as if it were flying through the sky. We used these as practice for wielding two swords. I spent 15 minutes practicing, but those were 15 minutes I wish I never used. After packing my stuff up, I walked out, got on my bike, and rode it back "home." It was about 7:30 when I left, a regular sunset of the first day in March, or so I thought.
 
The sound of that shattering glass still echoes throughout my head. When I finally got a view of the orphanage, I saw Richard and Sid with one person I had never seen before. He looked about a year older than me. His head had only a little black hair on it, besides that, he was bald. His skin was a little darker than mine, but that was all I could make out except his black hoodie. I had no idea what was going on until more of the windows shattered, letting out the flood of those beasts. I had no clue what they were, little minions that might have animals, mythological creatures, and other weird organisms, but were all demonic looking. Each one of them was about two to five feet tall, and they were all as pitch black as the man from my nightmares. They screeched and moaned and made other sounds that I can't even explain as they started moving closer to Mike and Richard.
 
I peddled as fast as I could, while those monsters surrounded my friends and the stranger. Suddenly, he reached into his pockets and pulled two objects, placing one in each hand. I had recognized them, they were sold in different shops around town. They were mini yo sticks. They were just like yo-yos but were six inch long cylinders, one was blue and one was green and both had tornado decorations on them. Both the edges on them were rounded, and each edge had a painted picture of a tornado on it. At the top of them was a retractable elastic string about one and a half yards long, which would send the stick back to you after you stopped moving them.
 
"You're in the middle of a crisis and of all the things to do, you pull out a children's toy," I grumbled. He proved me wrong a second later when he started swirling them around his head. The monsters were jumping and lunging at the three of them, but every time one of them did, it disappeared in a puff of smoky black energy. I finally understood what he was doing. He had created a shield around them, but at a closer look, it was much more. Somehow, he seemed to be controlling the wind around them, using it to cut through the monsters and protect the group.
 
As I finally started to get closer, the wind started to speed up. It had to be that stranger's doing. The tornadoes on his "weapons" started to glow as he increased his swinging speed. The wind was moving so quickly that it became more visible, as it created a dome like barrier around them. I looked at the stranger who started to grin as he stopped swinging his yoyo sticks around. In one motion, he moved them upwards, causing the dome of wind to expand until it covered almost all of the creatures. His grin got bigger as he swung them down, causing the whole dome to vanish, along with him, Richard, Mike, and all but seven of the monsters, which were left for me. I was too late.
 
The monsters noticed my presence now and turned to greet me, but not in a friendly manner. They automatically jumped at me, knocking me off of my bike and sending me tumbling a few feet until I was in front of the door to the orphanage. I took my bag off of my back and tossed it onto the ground after retrieving my two sticks. If some stranger could take on forty of these things by using toys, I could probably kill seven of them with actual weapons.
 
I sprinted towards the seven of the impish looking beasts, which were devouring my bike like it was the only thing they had eaten in years. Shredded pieces of rubber from the tires were flying through the air as the monsters ate it apart leaving only the metal frame of it. One of them disappeared after a simple bash to the head, but it caught the attention of the other six. The monsters rushed at me and one of them jumped at my face. That was when I noticed that these things had claws, sharp claws. I swatted the thing away from me, sending hurdling backwards at it's relatives before bursting into the smoke. The force from it caused one of the other ones to explode too, leaving me with only four opponents left.
 
They approached fast, but it only took a kick to send another one flying into the air and disappearing. Those last three monsters weren't going to let me get through this easy after killing their friends. One of them rushed at me, sinking its claws into my wrists and knocked me backwards. Pain shot through my arm as I swung one of my sticks at the monster and destroyed it. I wasn't sure how much more of this I could actually have taken, but there were only two left. They both charged at me and tackled my backwards. I crashed into a streetlight at the edge of the sidewalk right next to the orphanage. The one in front swiped its claws at me, but I dodged out of the way at the last second. Instead of clawing into my flesh, it went straight into the lights wires, electrocuting it and causing it to explode. The smoke grabbed onto my throat, squeezing all of the air out of my body. I fell to the ground and finally the smoke cleared. Across the street, about 18 feet away, was the last monster. Instead of coming back to attack, it was running in the opposite direction. I knew that I couldn't let that beast get further into town, but I wouldn't be able to catch up to it and kill it. Putting all of my strength into my right arm, I hurled my stick at it. It smacked right into the creature's head, causing it to trip and topple over. Gasping out a final cry of pain, it puffed into smoke. The battle had finally ended.
 
That was when the worst pain struck and I looked down to find that my hoodie had been ripped by one of the monsters claws and that blood was slowly trickling out of it. My jeans had also gotten marked up and my legs were hurting. I guess that in the heat of a battle, you just don't really notice on what you aren't focusing on.
 
Anyways, after gathering my things, I walked into the now heavily damaged orphanage. Wallpaper had fallen off of the walls in various spots of the living room. All of the walls were covered in scratches and dents. The once glossy wood floor was now broken apart and, along with glass from the broken windows, disseminated around the room. I turned down a hallway on the left of the door and found all of the rest of the kids and the owner huddled in the corner of the Kitchen. The cabinets had fallen on the wall and broken pieces of plates and glasses covered the ground. The huge table which had in there was cut in half and knocked onto the ground. Had they been attacked too, I wondered as I walked over to them. They greeted me with a sigh of relief.
 
"Where have you been?" the owner asked, her voice was calm and she seemed to be relieved. "We were so worried about you." Her voice soon lost its calmness and turned into a soft shout. "What were you thinking? Why where you outside when a tornado was tearing through the town! Look at this place! The winds almost destroyed it. You could have died out there and, well, look at yourself. Your all cut and scratched up!"
 
Confusion raced through my brain and started to drown out the sound of her voice. What were they talking about; the weather was beautiful out, not the conditions of a tornado. And how could they not have seen what happened. The monsters had come out of the orphanage and they had been there the whole time. Sid and Richard had escaped from there with the man, how could they not have remembered. It was like there memories had been switched to something different. Suddenly, a question popped into my mind.
 
"What happened to Mike and Richard?" I blurted out. Everyone looked at me as if I was crazy as I spoke.
 
"That tornado must have really shaken you up," the owner started as she stood up from the corner where she was sitting. She started to walk into the other room, towards her office, and I followed. We stopped at her desk that she had in the center of her office and she started searching through the drawers. "You really don't remember what happened today?" she asked as she looked for something. I shook my head no, but she was to focused on looking for, whatever it was, that she didn't know what I answered. "The two of them were adopted this morning."
 
"What!" I screamed. Another wave of confusion slammed into me. What was going on? They were just outside fighting to survive with that stranger, they hadn't been adopted.
 
"There they are!" the owner exclaimed. She reached into her desk and took out a stack of papers which she placed on top of the desk. They were adoption forms. "The papers are right here if you don't believe me," she said as she started to leave the office and go back to the other kids. "Take a look." She left me alone in her office, with the stack of adoption papers. I flipped through them until I finally found the one that I wanted. In the top left corner were two names, Richard and Michael. I couldn't believe my eyes. They actually had been adopted, by some guy named Billy Jenkins. Tears started building up inside of me and I couldn't think straight. I rushed out of the office, up a flight of stairs, into my bedroom and opened the door leading out to our balcony. That was the place I always went when I wanted answers.
 
"What the heck is going on?" I screamed out into the night sky. I never expected a reply.
 
"Funny how people's minds can be manipulated so easily when someone with a strong soul wants them to." Startled, I turned to my right to see a boy who looked about 16 years old standing on the four foot tall white marble railing that surrounded the balcony. He had pale white skin almost like Richard, but brown eyes like me. His spiky brown hair was pushed back by the wind a he jumped down to greet me. "You seem different though, you must be Kiernan."
 
"How did you get up here?" I stuttered out. This day just kept getting crazier. First, the dreams. Then, the whole monster thing, and a guy that could control wind. I thought that the weird adoption thing would have been the end of it, but the universe seemed to disagree with me. Now a man that I had never even seen before just called out my name and, somehow, got on the balcony. "How do you know my name? What's going on?"
 
"Well, no 'hello, how are you doing, what's your name.' Just questions. Is that how it's going to be?"
 
"No, I'm sorry, I've just been a little shaken up lately," I apologized. For some reason, this person seemed interesting, maybe it was just his mysterious nature, but something about him just seemed right. "Could you please just answer my questions?"
 
"Hmm, you remind me of myself when I was younger," he said to himself. "Anyway, I'm Patrick, one of the main leaders of the Soul Hunters."
 
"What's this Soul Hunter's thing?" I interrupted. Patrick looked at me and smiled for a second.
 
"All of the answers that you seek will be revealed in due time," he stated. He slowed down his speech, almost as if he was thinking about the right way to explain the situation. "The Soul Hunters are my family, but I use that word loosely. We've been watching you for quite some time now. Our leader, Brian, thinks that you could be something special, so he sent me here to talk to you. As for this whole situation, well, that story is too long to tell in the short time that we have."
 
The conversation stopped for a moment. I was just trying to soak all of this in. No one had ever thought that I had ever been something special, just a person in the crowd. Why would this Brian guy want me? It was just all too confusing.
 
"Beautiful, aren't they?" Patrick asked, breaking the silence. He had moved over to the edge of the balcony that I had first seen him at. His eyes were fixated on the sky, so I decided to do the same. "Whenever I look at the stars, it just makes everything clear to me. I know you have a ton of questions; I mean new recruits always do. It's just that there's never enough time to get everything done, you know what I mean?" I understood him exactly. Time always seemed to be moving fast to me, but I never really cared about any of it. But right now, for the first time in a while, life was actually nice. Maybe it was just being there with the stars and Patrick, but I wished that this moment would never end.
 
"You've been out into the woods right?" Patrick started up again. He slowly started moving around, but I didn't pay attention as I was still focused on the stars. "Brian really wants you in the Soul Hunters. If you think that it's what you might want, head into the woods and find the tree that towers above all. At the foot of it, there will be a tunnel that will lead to our headquarters, our castle. Come find us tomorrow, if it's something you want to do."
 
His voice stopped again, and I looked over at him. Once again, he was standing on the railing of the balcony. He waved a goodbye to me and turned towards the end of the balcony. I slowly walked over to him, and he shifted all of his weight to the front of his body, and slowly fell down in a head first dive. I leaned over the edge and gasped. What was he doing? He was going to kill himself! That was when I heard his voice for the last time.
 
"We could help you find your answers." That was it. He was now only a few feet from the ground, and I was sure that he was going to die. I screamed, but to my surprise, the fissure started to grow in the earth, swallowing him up. I stumbled backwards and almost fainted. This day had been way too much for me. I tried to look up at the stars like Patrick had said, but now something distracted me from them, something that was flying past the moon. The moonlight illuminated two birds, a dove and a raven. Except this wasn't an ordinary dove or raven. The black raven had a streak of white feathers on it, while the white dove had a streak of black feathers on it. Just watching the two of them fly together, side by side, calmed me down and I returned to my room and got in my bed. For once in my life, I finally knew what I had to do.

The next morning consisted of my same routine, only this time, after I got in the woods, I wouldn't be coming back. As Patrick had instructed, I made my way through the woods and wandered around, searching for the tree that towered above all. My search led me into an almost empty part of the forest that I used to go to when I got away from the orphanage.
 
The place was barren with patches of dead grass scattered about the ground, although most of it was just dirt. For some reason, the ground which used to be clear was now covered with vines. I the center of the area was a mass of vines, all surrounding a decaying tree. Holes were broken on the trunk of it, which had bark peeling off and rotting away. It must have been about 150 feet tall, and a lot bigger than anything else in the woods. It must have been the tree that towered above all. What was the most strange about it was that I never remembered seeing it there. There was no way that a tree that tall and old could have just magically appeared there, but then again, stranger things had happened.
 
I circled around the tree and found the tunnel which Patrick was talking about. It wasn't really a tunnel, more like a gash in the ground. From what I could see, the sides of it were sharp rocky points which could probably cut deep into a body. There seemed to be no end of it, just a long drop that could last thousands of feet. Just thinking about the fall made me actually want to go back to the orphanage, one of the places I dreaded the most.
 
After finally summoning my courage, I prepared for my jump. I ran and threw myself down in the tunnel, well, at least I tried. As I neared the hole, the vines reached out and grabbed my legs, preventing any of my movement, as if they didn't want me to go any further. Struggling against the vines, I forced myself down into the tunnel, and plummeted downward. It wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, the spikes only gave me minor cuts and tore my already messed up clothing. Out of nowhere, a faint light started glowing beneath, getting brighter as each second passed. I flipped myself over and tried to see what was going on, but the light was blinding me. Suddenly, my body started to burn as the heat of the tunnel increased. I screamed in pain and the lost consciousness.
 
Waking up in a room that I'd never been in before was never a problem for me. It was what always had happened when I switched orphanages. But this situation was different. I had regained my consciousness in a fully metal room. Everything was an ice cold metal that was rusted in some places. Patrick said that the tunnel would take me to a castle. This place seemed pretty far off. Not knowing what to do, I searched around the room for the tunnel, thinking that it could bring me back into the woods. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the tunnel.
 
My search led me into a narrow hallway at the left side of the room. Each step brought more darkness and coldness. At the end of the hall was another room, also made completely of metal. Torches on the wall magically lit themselves as I walked in, which barely surprised me after what had happened the day before. The room was about twice the size of my orphanage, and about fifty six feet tall. There was a ladder, which was beginning to rust, on the side of the wall. It reached all the way up to the ceiling, but seemed difficult to climb. Along the walls were metal platforms, about every seven feet up. On the highest one was a pillar made of light, just about as bright as the one from the tunnel. I figured that it could be my way out.
 
I walked towards the ladder, the frozen air weighing my body down with each step. The ladder numbed my hands as soon as I touched it, causing me to move my hands deeper in my sleeves in order to climb. Every foot that I advanced was replied to with a loud thud from up above. With each thud, the ceiling would shake and small amounts of dirt would drop down. I had to have been under ground. When I had climbed about twelve feet, I heard an unmistakable cry from above. Not a cry of sorrow or happiness, but almost a battle cry.
 
Three of the same types of monsters from the day before were diving down from one of the platforms nine feet above me. Before I even had time to react, they were about three feet away from my head. I let go of the ladder with one of my hands, and reached towards one of my sticks that I had on my back. That morning, during my preparation, I made holders for them out of some old clothing, expecting another battle. I hit one of them, sending it falling to the ground as I took out my stick. One of the remaining two clawed toward my head, but missed by about a foot. That was when I realized that it wasn't aiming for me. Both parts of the already unstable ladder toppled downwards, which also caused me to fall about two feet before landing on one of the platforms.
 
The two partners in crime landed right next to my legs, which gave me an advantage. In one motion, I smashed the two sticks onto both of them, destroying them at contact. Little did I known, the battle was just starting. A weird gurgling sound coming from below caused me to look down at the platform. To my surprise, the metal was deteriorating and was replaced with a multitude of small puddles, all made up of an energy that looked like what became of the monsters when they died. All around the walls and the ceiling the puddles were forming. Monsters slowly emerged from the puddles, crawling out and moving towards me. It would only take a few more seconds until I would be completely surrounded.
 
With nowhere else to go, I ran to the edge of the platform. The ground beneath me was blanketed in the darkness, all except for one little island of the metal that was left in the center. The monsters were rapidly appearing behind, and with nothing else to do, I dove downwards and embraced the darkness. My fear of the monsters was worse than my fear of what could lie in the belly of the beast.

I used to like swimming. Being free underneath the water was always fun. After that experience, I never wanted to swim again. It was like swimming in a sea full of tar. The dark energy was grabbing on to my body and constantly pulling me down. My body was tired of the fighting and running around, and my mind was drained from what had happened the day before. I just felt like giving in and letting myself drown in this place. The terrifying growl which soon echoed from beneath me changed my mind. Piercing blood red eyes filled my body with fear when I looked down. Fighting through the darkness, I slowly made my way up to the metal island, which was now the size of a bathroom stall. I struggled to pull myself up but finally was able to stand after brushing the dark energy off of me.
 
I thought that the city in my dreams was crowded, but it was nothing compared to this. Almost every inch of the room was covered with monsters. With nowhere else to run, I readied myself for a fight for my life.
 
"You actually decided to come," a voice from above said. I looked up to see Patrick in mid air after jumping off of the top platform. He hit the metal hard, shaking the earth and making the ground ripple in waves. His earthquake caused the most of the puddles to instantly disappear, and exposed the earth beneath us, as metal was sent flying everywhere and the monsters were tossed into the air and destroyed. Patrick had saved my life. "Let's kill these things, shall we?"
 
With that, Patrick stomped on the ground, causing a boulder to emerge from the ground in front of him. Another stomp sent a rocky sword handle flying out from the inside of the rock. He leaped into the air, caught it, and landed in the center of a group of monsters. Within a few seconds, the area was filled with bursts of light blue energy, and smoke from dead monsters. I was so distracted by his amazing energy swordplay that I forgot about the monsters on the platform above me. It wasn't until I was scratched on the back of my ankle that I remembered about the threat I still faced. A swipe from one of my sticks sent the monster flying into the destroyed ladder and it burst into a puff of smoke. The war cry of the monsters echoed throughout the room, but one of them sounded really close to me. I looked up to see a new monster, one which I had never seen before. Unlike the others, this one looked like it would pose more of a threat. It was a monkey, about three feet tall, with a head that was almost like a rounded square. It was dark black with blood red eyes just like every other monster. The one thing that set this one apart was its tail. A two foot long tail was clearly visible from behind it, but it was more like a medieval flanged mace. Half of it, the bottom half, was a normal tail, but the rest was all spiky. And the worst part of all; it was only five feet away from my head.
 
I was knocked backwards and dropped my sticks as the ground in front of me broke open, with Patrick erupting out if it. His energy sword sliced the creature clean in half. He helped me up and picked up my two sticks from the ground.
 
"You might want to try using these," he said as he handed them back to me. I was almost afraid to keep fighting. Patrick had a weapon and could control the earth. He was used to fighting these things, he made it look easy. I, on the other hand, had almost no experience. My only weapons were two sticks, and yet I was fighting against powerful monsters. But I couldn't back down just yet. I needed to finish what I had started. Besides, there were only about twenty of them left, what could go wrong?
 
Patrick sunk back into the ground, popping up again at the other side of the room. He was fighting against ten of those monkey beasts. At that point, I ran over to the bottom portion of the ladder which still remained. I climbed up as fast as I could, and got to the first platform within a few seconds. There was only eight left up here, all of the others were down at the bottom with Patrick. The group of them ran straight at me as soon as I got up to the platform. Instantly, I ducked down to the ground and spun around, sweeping the first two. One of them flew off of the platform and plummeted to the ground, where it was destroyed by Patrick. The other one was knocked up into the air. Using the momentum of my spin, I got back up and smashed the creature with my left stick, killing it on contact. The smoke it released hindered my vision, and I didn't notice that one of the monkey things was lunging at me. Blocking it with my right stick made it stagger backwards, giving me just enough time to hit it before it would strike again. The force of it being destroyed caused two others to fall off of the platform, also destroying them.
 
Only three monsters remained. Of those three was an imp and two monkeys, but they were bigger than the other ones. The imp was the first one to attack; it charged at me and lunged at my face. I swatted it out of the air, smashing it towards the monkeys. It burst into smoke, but it was almost four times the normal amount. For a reason unknown to me, the smoke seemed to be denser, hindering my vision and even messing with my breathing. War cries echoed throughout the room as the two monkeys jumped at me. My shirt was pierced by the spikes on their tails and I was knocked over by their force.
 
The monkeys charged again, one in the front running at me and one behind in the air. I struggled to get off of the ground and tried to brace myself for the impact, but my weak body collapsed. Death was approaching quickly, and I could do nothing but accept it.
Time slowed down at that moment, almost coming to a complete halt. The two monkeys were in front of me, one on the ground and one jumping in the air, both with their tails ready to lash out and hit me. Was my life really going to be ended by a force that I had just learned about, something that days before I would have thought could only be found in a fiction book?
 
The platform beneath me split in half as a tower of craggy rocks sprouted upwards. The monkey in the air was destroyed as they ripped his body apart, but the platforms bearings had been destroyed in the damage. It started to drop to the floor, and I was tackled by the remaining monkey. We both slid off of the platform and hurdled towards the ground. Above me, the monkey screamed and was ripped in half by a flying energy sword, one which had been thrown by Patrick. I managed to flip my body over and see that he was rushing towards me to break my fall. Right before I hit the ground, he dove and grasped me in his arms, sliding on the ground a few feet afterwards. He had saved my life yet again.
 
"Grab onto my back," Patrick said after the adrenaline from the battle had died down. I managed to gather the strength to grab onto his back. He picked me up a little bit, almost as if he were going to give me a piggy back ride. "Hang on tight!" he warned. His feet began to lower as the ground beneath us started to sink. It sprang back up, sending us soaring into the air and towards the pillar of light. We both crashed into it and I began to fell the same intense heat from the tunnel. A few seconds later, I found my self on my knees in a courtyard of a gargantuan castle.
 
I had always admired architecture and this structure had blown my mind. It was made entirely of bricks. Aside from the basic foundation, there were towers scattered about each with intricate designs. In the center of the main part of the castle was huge wooden door and a torch, lit with blue fire, on each side of it. The courtyard was blanketed with a bright green grass. On the sides were some flowers and a few benches and each side had a fountain. There was a lot of open space here, and there were six people standing around and training, each one wielding a weapon.
 
In the middle of the courtyard was a brick pathway that led up to a great wooden door. Upon noticing our presence, everyone in the courtyard stopped what they were doing and walked over. Patrick, who had been standing by my side, went over to join his fellow comrades. One of them walked towards me as I was pushing myself off of the ground. He looked like he was 17, with a somewhat muscular build and a height of 5' 11". His skin was white but had a slight tan. He had green eyes and a light blue faux hawk, which was not his natural hair color.
 
"So, you made it here alive," he started. "That's not such an easy feat. You do have some potential." He walked around me and scanned my body, he was examining me. Finally he stopped and went back to the front of me. "It's just as I thought. You're full of an untapped power, and your confusion is blocking most of it."
 
"He did have a lot of questions last night," Patrick cut in. "At least he's taking this whole thing better than Zach took it." Patrick stopped as one person from the group went over and punched him in the shoulder.
 
"A little training should clear this up," the man boy said again. "I'm Brian by the way, the leader of the Soul Hunters." This whole time I had been completely speechless. I had just been tossed into a completely new world, one which they thought was completely normal. The many thoughts racing around in my head must have weighed my body down, as I collapsed. My legs, which were still weak from the battle earlier on, hardly had enough strength to get myself up off of the ground.
 
"Why don't we talk more in the morning?" Brian asked. "You seem really tired, you need some rest. I'll show you to your room." At that point, Brian turned towards the door and I followed him as he walked. Before we walked through the door, I stopped to look at the torches. Brian noticed this and spoke again.
 
"Those two torches aren't just regular torches," he started. "That blue fire is one of the strongest kinds of fire that there are. It's been said that it can even match up to a dragon's power." I almost started to laugh thinking that it was a joke, but one look at Brian's serious face changed my mind. "Above all, they're magically enchanted so that no matter what happens to them, the flames will never go out." Now finished with his explanation, Brian opened the doors and led me into the castle's main room.
 
The main room of the castle alone was even more impressive than the outside of the castle. On the floor was a giant cloth rug that was mostly red, but had a purple and gold trim on the edges. Hanging down from the ceiling was a crystal chandelier that filled the room with light. Far in front of me was a hallway, which had a staircase that led upstairs. I followed Brian up and we got into a corridor with seven different rooms. Each white wooden door had a golden name plate on it.
 
"This is where you will be sleeping," Brian explained as he motioned to the room straight across from me. I walked up to it, opened the door and said goodnight to Brian. "Get a good rest; we have a lot to do tomorrow." I closed the door and entered my room. It looked like one of those luxury hotel rooms that I had seen in movies we had watched at the orphanage. There was a full bathroom, with a granite floor, sink, and shower. In the main part of it was a full size bed, with covers that had patters of Japanese blossom trees on it. The best part of all was the 40" HD TV and KC Omega video game system. It was a small black box shaped console with a big red Ω on the top. On the side of the bed was a window, which I looked out of as I laid down. The stars were shining brightly and it was a full moon. I was about to close my eyes, when out of the corner of them, I saw the same dove and raven from the day before flying in the sky together. Something about them gave me the feeling that they were following me, which wouldn't have surprised me after what had happened within the past two days.
 
After five minutes, I had finally cleared my mind of these deranged thoughts and slowly drifted off into sleep.

 
I woke with a start at the sound of booming thunder and crackling lightning. My eyes opened to see a bright flash of light fill my room. My eyes darted around the room as the light started to clear, and after almost finishing scanning it, I thought I saw something moving in the corner. I couldn't really make it out because of the bad conditions, but it almost looked like a 15 year old boy. He must've seen me looking at him, as right afterwards, he lifted his hand. As if one cue, another flash of lightning pierced the sky, and the room was filled with a blinding light. I looked in the corner, but the person was no longer there.
 
"It's just a storm," I mumbled, trying to convince myself that nothing had happened as I tried to fall back to sleep. It was probably just because I'm tired, my eyes are playing tricks on me, I thought. For some reason, I had become more easily frightened within the past few days. It had started after my first battle against the monsters, and ever since, I had a slight feeling that they were always around me, just waiting to attack. After shaking these bad thoughts out of my head, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep again.
 
After only another minute, I was startled yet again. But this time it was different. Not only was there the thunder and lightning, but also loud noises coming from underneath me and in the hall. I tried to fall asleep again, but it worked to no avail, as a minute later I was startled again. It was the same exact noises, but it still brought the same level of fear. Still tired from the day before, I promised myself that I would get some rest, and not get frightened by such a feeble storm.
 
A minute later, the thunder boomed again, but this time, like I promised myself, wasn't startled. Then, a few seconds later, there was a loud bang near my door. I hopped out of my bed, now scared out of my mind, and slowly walked to the door. Before my hand could even reach the handle, a series of screams came from the hall, which was followed by the unmistakable war cry of the monsters. Now full of adrenaline and fear from the approaching battle, I opened my door and sprinted down the staircase. I didn't know that what I was about to see would be so terrible.
 
Five dead bodies. That was the easiest, and the only way that I thought I could describe it. I could go into the details of the gruesomeness, the blood that was splattered across the floor and walls, the torn body parts which were scattered across the room, and the destroyed and bloodstained furniture which now lay broken on the ground, but the best way to describe would just be the simple way. My young eyes had never seen such bloodshed, such carnage, such a terrible scene. The thought that these monsters would be able to kill five people, all trained and with weapons, frightened me so much that I almost wanted to run back into my room and hide. But I didn't. For some reason, even though it was against the will of my mind, my legs moved forwards and carried me out of the wooden doors and into the courtyard.
 
After leaving the doors, I noticed that I wasn’t the only survivor. Both Patrick and Brian stood on the path, and both were wielding swords. Sensing the danger of the situation, I pulled out my two sticks and readied myself for battle. That was when I heard the same gurgling noise as I heard the day before. At the far end of the path, the bricks started to slowly melt away, and a puddle of darkness began to form. The puddle expanded, covering up almost half of the path. Then, the beasts started to emerge.
 
Both Patrick and Brian charged towards them, while I stayed back. How would I be any help to them if I was using two stupid wooden sticks? Just before the two of them reached the puddle, a wave of the monsters came flying at them, crushing them both and trapping the two of them underneath. Not only were the monsters bad, but there was still the storm, and it was just as big of a threat. Lightning was flashing in the sky, almost reaching the courtyard, and the wind was so fierce that it ripped apart the grass and almost destroyed the two fountains. I was so distracted by what was happening around me that I didn’t notice the puddle that had formed behind me, until I was clawed in the back. Quickly, I turned around and smashed the impish creature on the head and destroyed it.
 
Another monster's cry came from behind me, and I turned to see two monkeys. They both charged at me and jumped at my face while rapidly swinging their tails. Just before they attacked, I ducked and they flew right over me. An upward strike from one of my sticks launched both of them into the air, where they exploded into smoke. Then, in the pile of monsters in front of me, the pile that Patrick and Brian had been trapped under, a dim light began to shine. The light continued to get brighter and expand. After about six seconds, a blinding flash of light filled the courtyard. The light cleared to reveal hundreds of monsters falling down from the sky. Some of them exploded before even hitting the ground, but some of them never had the time to and there torn bodies were scattered across the courtyard. Emerging from the chaos were Patrick end Brian, but both of them were heavily wounded.
 
The wind ripped through the courtyard once again, but it was more intense this time. It knocked the three of us over, and tore through some of the monsters that hadn't been killed, before it finally slammed into the wooden doors. Both of the torches that were mounted next to the door were knocked off of the wall by the force, and they landed in the grass, setting both sides of the courtyard into a blue blaze. Despite these conditions, the monsters continued to appear, and we continued to fight.
 
At least that was until the number of them became too much. After about two minutes, the three of us were trapped in the center of the path with about seventy monsters, and counting, surrounding us. Brian and Patrick silently looked at each other, and after Brian slightly nodded, Patrick sunk into the ground. Five seconds later, he popped back up at the end of the path and by the wooden door. He rose out of the ground and created a mini mountain. Then, he raised his arms and slammed them down, sending the mountain back down into the ground. Brian and I were separated as the ground rippled and bricks and monsters were launched into the air. The courtyard was filled with the evil smoke from the killed enemies, so much so that none of us could see each other.
 
That was when the lightning crackled again, and it was followed by an agonizing scream of pain. I looked around as the smoke slowly cleared and found Patrick lying down in a small crater in the path. His back had been pierced by the lightning, and blood was gushing out of the hole that it had left. A group of monsters which had appeared in the smoke attacked Patrick, covered his body and tore him apart. Lost in the chaos of this event, I never saw the monkey that was trying to attack my head. I turned around as soon as I heard it, but it was too late at that point. Its tail smashed into the left side of my jaw and knocked me down onto the ground. Then it continued to attack my face until I was able to knock it backwards.
 
Not having given up, the monkey jumped towards me again, ready to smash my face with its tail. In another flash of light, Brain instantly appeared in front of me, and jabbed his sword right through the monster's chest. Instead of exploding into smoke, the energy that the monster was made of melted around the sword and reformed itself behind Brian. This time, it was in the shape of a human and about five feet tall. The only things that really stood out about it were its ten claws which it had in place of fingers, and each one was about six inches long. Before even being able to turn around, Brian's body was pierced in the back by all ten of them. Finally, he let out a short gasp of pain as his body was ripped apart and both halves were thrown into the fire.
 
My body was frozen as the monster walked up to me. I couldn't even pick myself up off of the ground or try to fight any of the advancing creatures. At this point, all that I could do was wait as they loomed over me, mocking my failures. As the monsters jumped on top of me and readied to tear me apart, all that I could focus on was one sound. Almost as if the monster from my usual nightmares was standing next to me, the word pitiful, as if spoken in his voice, echoed throughout the air.

The pain of the monster's claws was almost too much to bear. My eyes were forced closed and my body tumbled over and continued to roll until crashing onto the ground. Wait a second... I thought as I opened my eyes and moved my hands around my room's white tile floor. I looked at myself for a few seconds and noticed that my arms and legs were slightly bleeding. It was probably from that fall off of the bed, I continued to think. That whole incident beforehand had to have been a dream if I was still alive. Those monsters would have killed me, and there was no way that I would've gotten back to my room. But it felt so real, like it was actually happening and that I was actually in the courtyard. My lack of sleep must have been playing tricks on me, I thought yet again, now trying to keep my sanity. I pulled myself off of the ground and got back into my bed, thinking that if I could fall back to sleep I would be able to just forget about what had happened. Needless to say, I didn't get a good sleep that night.
 
I woke around 5:00 AM after yet another dream of myself battling the pitch black man. Thoughts continued to race through my head that whole morning. Who was this man? Why was I fighting him? What was my connection to him? Why did he look like me? Patrick said that the Soul Hunters would help me find my answers, but ever since I had gotten there, only more questions had stepped forward.
 
After finally giving up on trying to fall asleep at 7:00, I went down to the main room of the castle to talk to Brian. Much to my surprise, he was waiting there for me.
 
"There you are," he greeted as soon as I walked down the stairs. "My prediction was fifteen minutes off, but never mind about that. You're here now, and that's all that matters." At that point I had reached the bottom of the stairs and waited next to Brian as he softly spoke to himself.
 
"Follow me," he commanded after about a minute. Instead of heading out into the courtyard, Brian led me through a hallway at the right of the door. As we neared the end of it, I noticed that the walls were covered in pictures. I stopped and tried to get a glimpse at one of them, but Brian pulled me along. At the end of the hallway was another room, one which was almost half the size of the main room.
 
"Look around and familiarize yourself with this place," Brian instructed. "This is where you are going to be spending a lot of your time for the next few days." I did exactly what he told me to do, but it didn't take very long. The room was so similar to my Tae Kwon Do classroom, it had almost identical blue mats which blanketed the ground and the walls were the same pale shade of beige. At the far right of the room was a group of rubber training dummies, each one was my size, and five red punching bags. Mounted on the wall that was directly across from the door was a long sword. The blade was a shimmering silver, but parts of it were a sky blue color, the same color as the hilt. My eyes then moved to the left of the room, which was completely empty. The only two things that were there were a large metal door, one identical to a garage, and then another smaller door, like one at the front of a house, at the left side of it. That door had a huge lock on it for some reason, and not wanting to step into any dangerous territory, I didn't go near it or ask about it.
 
"I think I'm familiar with this place now," I told Brian. He nodded silently and slowly walked over to the door that was locked. As he approached the door, he extended his right arm. A flash of light surrounded his palm and wrist and he slammed it into the lock. When the light disappeared, the lock hit the ground with a hard thud.
 
"I have some work to do right now," Brian started as he turned back to face me once again. "So, now would be a good time for your initiation." Initiation!? I started to think. I never knew anything about an initiation! I thought that if I just came here I was in!
 
"You see," Brian continued, now talking the same way that Patrick did when he first told me about the Soul Hunters. "Even though we've been watching you, we need to make sure that you are a good choice for this group. We can't just have anyone running around recklessly and taking out the corrupted." Brian started to talk to himself again, and my thoughts started to flare back up.
 
"So," he started once again. The sudden start snapped my mind right out of its train of thought. "Your mission, if you would like to call it that, will be to obtain the Aquamarine of Purification. All that you need to do is go through the cave, find it, and bring it back safely."
That sounds easy enough, I began to think again, and yet again, Brian interrupted. "But, if you should fail to do so, your memory of ever being here, or meeting any one of us, will be erased. You will be sent back to your orphanage, and never remember that any of this had happened."
 
With that closing remark, Brian lifted his left arm towards me and turned back towards the door. Within a matter of seconds, a white circle of light appeared in front of me. As the metal door slammed shut, I realized what it was. This was the same thing that was in the tunnel, and the same thing that made up the pillar of light that brought me here. It was a portal, and according to my mission, it would take me to a cave.
 
I readied myself to go in it, hoping that I would be conscious when I came out, but my mind jumped back to the previous events. Brian said that if I failed, I would lose my memory of all of this and have to go back, my mind began again. They couldn't erase my memory though, could they? My mind then jumped back to the day that I first met Patrick, and the way that everyone in the orphanage said that there was a tornado. Patrick said that people's minds could be manipulated, and if the Soul Hunters were able to do that, they could probably erase my memory easily.

Finally forcing the thoughts out of my head, I ran into the portal. The heat from the light overwhelmed my body once again, but this time, I was able hold onto my consciousness. When the temporary blinds from the light faded, I surveyed the area. This place wasn't new to me, it was a great canyon that was just outside the woods of my town.
 
"My mission is to find something in a cave," I spoke softly to myself as I wondered throughout the canyon. Sure enough, after walking for about two minutes, I came across a giant gap in the right side of the canyon. The inside of the cave was nothing like the rest of the canyon was. Unlike the rest which was red, dry, and sandy, this area was a dark grey rock. As I wandered around, I noticed that it wasn't dry either, it was moist and even had water that dripped down from the ceiling.
 
I wandered around the cave for about seven minutes before finding anything interesting. It was a strange fork in the road, two tunnels that both looked as if they were carved out by something. The one on the left was dark, but the pathway was illuminated by the hundreds of crystals that were embedded in the rocky walls it had. The one on the right was lighter and seemed to have a light source further on. This tunnel had no crystals at all, and it seemed to be wider that the other one. My mind flipped back through school work, specifically geology. Aquamarine was a gemstone, so it would have made sense to go down the tunnel to the left, one full of other crystals. That was what I started to do, but as soon as I stepped foot in it, something inside me told me to go back. I don't know whether it was just a gut feeling or that it was just the nature of mysterious nature of Brian, who seemed like he would try to trick me, but it was a feeling that I had never felt before.
 
In the end, I decided to go through the tunnel on the right. It started off fine at first, just a simple walk through, but as soon as I got halfway through the tunnel, the whole situation changed.
 
The small group of creatures snuck up behind me in the darkness of the tunnel, moving without being noticed or even making a sound. I turned around as soon as the leader’s claw had ripped through the back of my shirt. As soon as I saw that I was being followed, I jumped backwards, pulled my sticks out of their holders, and prepared to fight. One of the creatures was different than anyone that I had seen. It was black with red eyes, just like all the others, but it slightly resembled a human and was bout 4’ 9”. Well, except for its claws that it had instead of fingers, each one being six inches long.
 
It charged at me, swing rapidly at the air and towards my face. After ducking under its attack, I managed to knock its legs off of the ground using my right stick. As I got back up, I started to attack, but stopped as a familiar image flashed into my mind. It was a picture of the dream I had the night before, but more importantly, Brian’s death. That monster was one of  the same ones that had killed Brian. My distracted state was proven to be my downfall as the monster’s claws cut at my chest. I tried to smash it with my stick, but it pushed itself off of the ground and rolled out of the way. It continued rolling and curled itself up into a ball, just like an armadillo. That creature was a bowling ball, and I was the only remaining pin.
 
It sped up as it turned around and charged at me, and not knowing what else to do, I continued to sprint towards the end of the tunnel. The beast was too fast, and by the time that I had reached the end of the tunnel, it was only about a yard and a half behind me. My mind began to race again as I continued to run and stall for time. This new area looked almost the same as the rest of the cave, except that the ceiling was partially open and that it was completely circular, all surrounding a pillar of stone in the center of the room. The monster was about a yard away after I circled the room three times, but I still didn’t find anything. Tripping over the rock ramp around that circled up the walls was the only thing that I had happened besides the monster getting closer.
 
“That’s it!” I exclaimed, even though I was the only one in the area. After putting my sticks back in their holder, I ran to the side of the room and leaped into the air. My arms instantly extended and I tried to hold on. The wall trembled in fear as the monster slammed into it and left a crater where it hit. That’s my chance! my mind screamed. I managed to pull myself up onto the ramp and jumped back down. Using the momentum of the fall, I smashed my heel into the middle of the monster’s back. Smoke filled the room right afterwards, I had slayed the beast.
 
Now finally rid of the monster, I searched the room for the Aquamarine of Purification. I searched for ten minutes and found nothing. I worked my way back through the cave and looked around in other tunnels, but still couldn’t find it. Finally, I found my way back to through to the tunnel with the ramp, which was now glowing light blue. I ran around the ramp all the way up to the ceiling and found the gem sitting on top of the pillar. The stone was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. It was shining with a bright blue light that finally gave me hope. Now finished with my mission, I reached out to the stone and grasped it in my hand, eventhough it was the exac same size as it. Not even a second after, the glow from it intensified, and it released a sphere of light that swallowed me up.
 
“Ten minutes off,” I heard. The voice was faint, as if I wasn’t really where the other person was, but after about ten seconds, the light from the gem cleared. I was standing in the middle of the training room with Brian directly across from me. I couldn't really find the words that I wanted, so I just held out the Aquamarine to him.

"So you've almost finished it," Brian stated.

"Almost?" I shot back to him. I cold've died in that cave, and he says that I almost finished it!

"Look at that closely," he started. I did what he said, and something about it was different this time. This time, it wasn't glowing anymore, and I could see through it. Embedded deep inside of it was a rolled up and wrinkled piece of paper.

"Read it," Brian said once he saw that I noticed it. The first thought that came into my mind was to smash it into the ground, and since my instincts had been good so far, that was exactly what I did. I simply dropped it onto the ground, but it shattered like a small plate that was dropped off of a skyscraper. What remained of a once beautiful gem was now a pile of broken stone and a torn piece of paper. I picked it up and looked at it, and Brian motioned for me to read it. My eyes scanned the paper and then I started.

"I pledge my loyalty to the Soul Hunters
I pledge to purify my soul
To search for my true power
And to take out any obstacle in my way."

I paused for a second as I looked at the next line, but continued to read it anyway.

"I pledge to help my new family
To work with others
And treat them with respect
I pledge my loyalty to the Soul Hunters
And if I should choose to betray or defy them
Then I choose to be killed
And my soul be condemned to the Abolished Realm."

As I finished, my mind began to wander again. I didn't have any idea about what this Abolished Realm was, but I didn't think that I would ever want to find out.

"Well, you've passed the mission and said the pledge," Brian started and interrupted my thoughts again. I looked back at him and he seemed to be in deep thought. "There's still something else though."

As soon as he said that, he ran forward at me and kicked at my head. Instinctively, I ducked to the ground and tried to attack him, but he jumped over it. He started to attack once again, and I pulled out my two sticks just before he reached me.

"Let's be fair," he stated right before attacking. "No weapons for either of us!" With that, he swung his arm upwards and knocked my sticks across the room. Then, he followed up with a side kick to my chest, which knocked me off balance and sent me stumbling backwards. Brian wasn't giving me any mercy, as he charged again right after that. He roundhouse kicked at my head, but I ducked just in time. Knowing that I needed to knock him off guard in order to do any damage, I tried to sweep him using my right leg. Instead of flipping over onto the ground, he planted his hands down and backflipped in mid air. As soon as I got up, he reached out his left arm and softly mumbled some words under his breath. Before I could even react to what was going on, five tentacle like strands of light, one from each of his fingers, shot out of his hand. They flew right at me, and as soon as they made contact, he pulled me back towards him. I flew right towards him, and he pulled his right arm back. His palm was covered in light. He punched right into my chest as soon as I got within range, and the light just added to the damage. My chest felt as if it was on fire, and I rocketed backwards, slamming into the wall right underneath the sword, just before losing consciousness.

It was as if my mind had left my body and drowned itself in a sea of memories. The memories constricted my brain and forced themselves into it. First, a memory of me when I had first came to my most recent orphanage, the first time that I had met Richard and Mike. That bright memory was pushed away by one of my darkest ones, the day that Mike and Richard had vanished with the stranger. But this time, it was different. Part of this memory wasn't mine.

My mind followed the three of them as they escaped in the wind, quickly changing the scenery to the woods. As the tornado died down, all of them were thrown backwards by the wind. The force of the wind was enough to kill some of the monsters, and some of them died from crashing into trees. At that point, there were only a few monsters left, but they hadn't given up on the fight. All of the remaining monsters charged on Richard, Mike, and the stranger, who were all standing in the center of the chaos.

A huge gust if wind killed most of the rest of the monsters, but it changed the scene yet again. This time, it was in the courtyard of the castle. Wearing the same black outfit that he had worn on the day I first saw him, the stranger was standing there and holding his weapons. He slowly lifted his right arm up, and then pulled it back. Wind shot out of his fist as he punched it forwards, and the wooden doors flew backwards. Quickly, he jumped backwards and swung his right mini yo stick forwards. The courtyard filled up with smoke as the monster who had attacked him exploded. War cries echoed throughout the air, as more monsters jumped at him from their smoke cover.

"A trap," he grumbled in anger as he kicked at one of the monsters. He raised his arms up and slammed them into the ground, sending wind everywhere. The smoke cleared because of this, and he saw that the courtyard was filled with monsters. His eyes quickly shifted around the area, looking for another entrance. Luckily for him, he spotted one of the castles towers on the right side of the main room. He grinned as he leaped into the air towards it. Instantly, the wind picked up, and lifted him through the air.

He soared above the courtyard and crashed through the tower's stained glass window. After brushing some of the broken glass off of him, he broke into a sprint down the staircase. As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he started to roam the hallways. His head kept turning, check every inch of the gray brick walls, and looking behind to make sure that nobody was watching him. Then, his eyes lit up, as if he were a toddler eating their first piece of candy. He turned down another hallway and stopped directly in the middle of it. His eyes quickly darted around it, he was looking for something.

"I knew you would come here," a voice from behind said. The stranger turned around and he pulled out his weapons once again. Upon seeing who was behind him, he started to lower his weapons, as if it wasn't worth fighting.

"Where is it?" his angry voice asked. Brian started to laugh as a response to that, but he stopped shortly afterwards.

"I've moved it," he stated before breaking into laughter once again. "Did you really think that you would be able to find it? You should've known better than to come here." The stranger's anger began to overflow and he readied his weapons once again.

"I'll just have to force it out of you!" With that scream, he ran forwards and blasted Brian, who was off guard, in the face with a gust of wind. Before he could get a chance to strike again, the stranger was knocked back by a sidekick in his chest. Brian lifted his right hand up, and it was instantly covered in a familiar light. With a few seconds, the fist of light turned into a beam, and then into a sword. It was the same sword as the one that I had seen in the training room, but it looked more powerful when he was holding it. The stranger charged yet again, swinging his weapons at Brian's head, but he easily blocked them with his sword. Now, Brian went on the attack.

Brian sprinted towards the other man and leaped into the air. A roundhouse kick at the strangers head caused him to fall backwards onto the ground. Determined to end this battle, Brian landed back on the ground and slammed his sword right at the other man's head. At the last second, he managed to force himself forward by using the wind, and slid right underneath Brian's legs. Then, he used the wind to push his body back up, and like his opponent had done in the past, sidekick him in the chest. The other man thrust his arm forward, sending a huge arm made of wind with it. It's giant hand smashed into Brian, wrapped around him, and continued moving until it smashed into the brick wall. Almost all of his air was squeezed out of him as the tight grip continued to intensify.

"Where is it!" he screamed, all of his anger now exploding out of his body. The hand continued to crush Brian, cracking some of his bones and almost completely suffocating him. He dropped his sword as his arm started to bleed by the cuts of the wind. But through all of this, for some reason, Brian started to smile. His chest started to glow with light, slowly beginning to cover his whole body. The stranger began to struggle just to keep the wind together. That was when the light instantly disappeared, and Brian's eyes closed. A smile appeared on the other man's face and he started to loosen his grip, but that choice proved to be fatal.

Instantly afterwards, all of the light that had been glowing from Brian, all of his power, erupted at once from the center of his chest. The energy ripped the wind apart and continued towards the other man, who was almost entirely ripped apart by the attack. It continued to move, easily breaking through the brick wall and lighting up the dark night sky. After about fifteen seconds, the light finally died away. Both Brian and the other man were on the ground, but Brian was in a far better condition. Brian's clothes were only slightly ripped, his muscles weak, and his energy almost completely drained. The stranger's clothes were almost completely torn apart, and his blood had stained the tatters still remained. His bones and muscles, which were throbbing in pain, had also been heavily damaged, and he hardly even had the energy to breath.

"Did you really think that you could defeat me," Brian panted as he dragged himself off of the ground. He had finally been able to catch his breath once again, but he was struggling with standing. The other man, who was still lying on the ground, managed to look up at Brian. Despite all of his pain and his lost energy, he managed a slight grin.

"I've found two of them," he responded. Brian looked back at him full of anger and disgust, which only made the other man smile even more. Using Brian's anger as a distraction, he slowly moved his arm and focused on his hand. Brian limped over to him and conjured up his sword once again.

"You've caused me enough trouble!" He slashed his sword down towards the stranger's head, but all that it hit was a wall of wind. Even though it only had a little bit of power, it still knocked Brian backwards a bit. It only took a few seconds for the wind to clear away, but when it did, the man was no longer there. Brian grumbled in anger and almost collapsed as he walked back through the hallway. That was when my mind went blank.

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.

The next morning consisted of my same routine, only this time, after I got in the woods, I wouldn't be coming back. As Patrick had instructed, I made my way through the woods and wandered around, searching for the tree that towered above all. My search led me into an almost empty part of the forest that I used to go to when I got away from the orphanage.

The place was barren with patches of dead grass scattered about the ground, although most of it was just dirt. For some reason, the ground which used to be clear was now covered with vines. I the center of the area was a mass of vines, all surrounding a decaying tree. Holes were broken on the trunk of it, which had bark peeling off and rotting away. It must have been about 150 feet tall, and a lot bigger than anything else in the woods. It must have been the tree that towered above all. What was the most strange about it was that I never remembered seeing it there. There was no way that a tree that tall and old could have just magically appeared there, but then again, stranger things had happened.

I circled around the tree and found the tunnel which Patrick was talking about. It wasn't really a tunnel, more like a gash in the ground. From what I could see, the sides of it were sharp rocky points which could probably cut deep into a body. There seemed to be no end of it, just a long drop that could last thousands of feet. Just thinking about the fall made me actually want to go back to the orphanage, one of the places I dreaded the most.

After finally summoning my courage, I prepared for my jump. I ran and threw myself down in the tunnel, well, at least I tried. As I neared the hole, the vines reached out and grabbed my legs, preventing any of my movement, as if they didn't want me to go any further. Struggling against the vines, I forced myself down into the tunnel, and plummeted downward. It wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be, the spikes only gave me minor cuts and tore my already messed up clothing. Out of nowhere, a faint light started glowing beneath, getting brighter as each second passed. I flipped myself over and tried to see what was going on, but the light was blinding me. Suddenly, my body started to burn as the heat of the tunnel increased. I screamed in pain and the lost consciousness.

Waking up in a room that I'd never been in before was never a problem for me. It was what always had happened when I switched orphanages. But this situation was different. I had regained my consciousness in a fully metal room. Everything was an ice cold metal that was rusted in some places. Patrick said that the tunnel would take me to a castle. This place seemed pretty far off. Not knowing what to do, I searched around the room for the tunnel, thinking that it could bring me back into the woods. Unfortunately, there was no sign of the tunnel.

My search led me into a narrow hallway at the left side of the room. Each step brought more darkness and coldness. At the end of the hall was another room, also made completely of metal. Torches on the wall magically lit themselves as I walked in, which barely surprised me after what had happened the day before. The room was about twice the size of my orphanage, and about fifty six feet tall. There was a ladder, which was beginning to rust, on the side of the wall. It reached all the way up to the ceiling, but seemed difficult to climb. Along the walls were metal platforms, about every seven feet up. On the highest one was a pillar made of light, just about as bright as the one from the tunnel. I figured that it could be my way out.

I walked towards the ladder, the frozen air weighing my body down with each step. The ladder numbed my hands as soon as I touched it, causing me to move my hands deeper in my sleeves in order to climb. Every foot that I advanced was replied to with a loud thud from up above. With each thud, the ceiling would shake and small amounts of dirt would drop down. I had to have been under ground. When I had climbed about twelve feet, I heard an unmistakable cry from above. Not a cry of sorrow or happiness, but almost a battle cry.

Three of the same types of monsters from the day before were diving down from one of the platforms nine feet above me. Before I even had time to react, they were about three feet away from my head. I let go of the ladder with one of my hands, and reached towards one of my sticks that I had on my back. That morning, during my preparation, I made holders for them out of some old clothing, expecting another battle. I hit one of them, sending it falling to the ground as I took out my stick. One of the remaining two clawed toward my head, but missed by about a foot. That was when I realized that it wasn't aiming for me. Both parts of the already unstable ladder toppled downwards, which also caused me to fall about two feet before landing on one of the platforms.

The two partners in crime landed right next to my legs, which gave me an advantage. In one motion, I smashed the two sticks onto both of them, destroying them at contact. Little did I known, the battle was just starting. A weird gurgling sound coming from below caused me to look down at the platform. To my surprise, the metal was deteriorating and was replaced with a multitude of small puddles, all made up of an energy that looked like what became of the monsters when they died. All around the walls and the ceiling the puddles were forming. Monsters slowly emerged from the puddles, crawling out and moving towards me. It would only take a few more seconds until I would be completely surrounded.

With nowhere else to go, I ran to the edge of the platform. The ground beneath me was blanketed in the darkness, all except for one little island of the metal that was left in the center. The monsters were rapidly appearing behind, and with nothing else to do, I dove downwards and embraced the darkness. My fear of the monsters was worse than my fear of what could lie in the belly of the beast.

I used to like swimming. Being free underneath the water was always fun. After that experience, I never wanted to swim again. It was like swimming in a sea full of tar. The dark energy was grabbing on to my body and constantly pulling me down. My body was tired of the fighting and running around, and my mind was drained from what had happened the day before. I just felt like giving in and letting myself drown in this place. The terrifying growl which soon echoed from beneath me changed my mind. Piercing blood red eyes filled my body with fear when I looked down. Fighting through the darkness, I slowly made my way up to the metal island, which was now the size of a bathroom stall. I struggled to pull myself up but finally was able to stand after brushing the dark energy off of me.

I thought that the city in my dreams was crowded, but it was nothing compared to this. Almost every inch of the room was covered with monsters. With nowhere else to run, I readied myself for a fight for my life.

"You actually decided to come," a voice from above said. I looked up to see Patrick in mid air after jumping off of the top platform. He hit the metal hard, shaking the earth and making the ground ripple in waves. His earthquake caused the most of the puddles to instantly disappear, and exposed the earth beneath us, as metal was sent flying everywhere and the monsters were tossed into the air and destroyed. Patrick had saved my life. "Let's kill these things, shall we?"

With that, Patrick stomped on the ground, causing a boulder to emerge from the ground in front of him. Another stomp sent a rocky sword handle flying out from the inside of the rock. He leaped into the air, caught it, and landed in the center of a group of monsters. Within a few seconds, the area was filled with bursts of light blue energy, and smoke from dead monsters. I was so distracted by his amazing energy swordplay, that I forgot about the monsters on the platform above me. It wasn't until I was scratched on the back of my ankle that I remembered about the threat I still faced. A swipe from one of my sticks sent the monster flying into the destroyed ladder and it burst into a puff of smoke. The war cry of the monsters echoed throughout the room, but one of them sounded really close to me. I looked up to see a new monster, one which I had never seen before. Unlike the others, this one looked like it would pose more of a threat. It was a monkey, about three feet tall, with a head that was almost like a rounded square. It was dark black with blood red eyes just like every other monster. The one thing that set this one apart was its tail. A two foot long tail was clearly visible from behind it, but it was more like a medieval flanged mace. Half of it, the bottom half, was a normal tail, but the rest was all spiky. And the worst part of all, it was only five feet away from my head.

I was knocked backwards and dropped my sticks as the ground in front of me broke open, with Patrick erupting out if it. His energy sword sliced the creature clean in half. He helped me up and picked up my two sticks from the ground.

"You might want to try using these," he said as he handed them back to me. I was almost afraid to keep fighting. Patrick had a weapon and could control the earth. He was used to fighting these things, he made it look easy. Me, on the other hand, had almost no experience. My only weapons were two sticks, and yet I was fighting against powerful monsters. But I couldn't back down just yet. I needed to finish what I had started. Besides, there were only about twenty of them left, what could go wrong?

Patrick sunk back into the ground, popping up again at the other side of the room. He was fighting against ten of those monkey beasts. At that point, I ran over to the bottom portion of the ladder which still remained. I climbed up as fast as I could, and got to the first platform within a few seconds. There was only eight left up here, all of the others were down at the bottom with Patrick. The group of them ran straight at me as soon as I got up to the platform. Instantly, I ducked down to the ground and spun around, sweeping the first two. One of them flew off of the platform and plummeted to the ground, where it was destroyed by Patrick. The other one was knocked up into the air. Using the momentum of my spin, I got back up and smashed the creature with my left stick, killing it on contact. The smoke it released hindered my vision, and I didn't notice that one of the monkey things was lunging at me. Blocking it with my right stick made it stagger backwards, giving me just enough time to hit it before it would strike again. The force of it being destroyed caused two others to fall off of the platform, also destroying them.

Only three monsters remained. Of those three was an imp and two monkeys, but they were bigger than the other ones. The imp was the first one to attack, it charged at me and lunged at my face. I swatted it out of the air, smashing it towards the monkeys. It bursted into smoke, but it was almost four times the normal amount. For a reason unknown to me, the smoke seemed to be more dense, hindering my vision and even messing with my breathing. War cries echoed throughout the room as the two monkeys jumped at me. My shirt was pierced by the spikes on their tails and I was knocked over by their force.

The monkeys charged again, one in the front running at me and one behind in the air. I struggled to get off of the ground and tried to brace myself for the impact, but my weak body collapsed. Death was approaching quickly, and I could do nothing but accept it.
Time slowed down at that moment, almost coming to a complete halt. The two monkeys were in front of me, one on the ground and one jumping in the air, both with their tails ready to lash out and hit me. Was my life really going to be ended by a force that I had just learned about, something that days before I would have thought could only be found in a fiction book.

The platform beneath me split in half as a tower of craggy rocks sprouted upwards. The monkey in the air was destroyed as they ripped his body apart, but the platforms bearings had been destroyed in the damage. It started to drop to the floor, and I was tackled by the remaining monkey. We both slid off of the platform and hurdled towards the ground. Above me, the monkey screamed and was ripped in half by a flying energy sword, one which had been thrown by Patrick. I managed to flip my body over and see that he was rushing towards me to break my fall. Right before I hit the ground, he dove and grasped me in his arms, sliding on the ground a few feet afterwards. He had saved my life yet again.

"Grab onto my back," Patrick said after the adrenaline from the battle had died down. I managed to gather the strength to grab onto his back. He picked me up a little bit, almost as if he were going to give me a piggy back ride. "Hang on tight!" he warned. His feet began to lower as the ground beneath us started to sink. It sprang back up, sending us soaring into the air and towards the pillar of light. We both crashed into it and I began to fell the same intense heat from the tunnel. A few seconds later, I found my self on my knees in a courtyard of a gargantuan castle.

I had always admired architecture and this structure had blown my mind. It was made entirely of bricks. Aside from the basic foundation, there were towers scattered about each with intricate designs. In the center of the main part of the castle was huge wooden door and a torch on each side of it. The courtyard was blanketed with a bright green grass. On the sides were some flowers and a few benches and each side had a fountain. There was a lot of open space here, and there were six people standing around and training, each one wielding a weapon.

In the middle of the courtyard was a brick pathway that led up to the door. Upon noticing our presence, everyone in the courtyard stopped what they were doing and walked over. Patrick, who had been standing by my side, went over to join his fellow comrades. One of them walked towards me as I was pushing myself off of the ground. He looked like he was 17, with a somewhat muscular build and a height of 5' 11". His skin was white but had a slight tan. He had green eyes and a light blue faux hawk, which was not his natural hair color.

"So, you made it here alive," he started. "That's not such an easy feat. You do have some potential." He walked around me and scanned my body, he was examining me. Finally he stopped and went back to the front of me. "Just as I thought. You're full of an untapped potential, and your confusion is blocking most of it."

"He did have a lot of questions last night," Patrick cut in. "At least he's taking this whole thing better than Zach took it." Patrick stopped as one person from the group went over and punched him in the shoulder.

"A little training should clear this up," the man boy said again. "I'm Brian by the way, the leader of the Soul Hunters." This whole time I had been completely speechless. I had just been tossed into a completely new world, one which they thought was completely normal. The many thoughts racing around in my head must have weighed my body down, as I collapsed. My legs, which were still weak from the battle earlier on, hardly had enough strength to get myself up off of the ground.

"Why don't we talk more in the morning?" Brian asked. "You seem really tired, you need some rest. I'll show you to your room." At that point, Brian turned towards the door and I followed him as he walked. The main room of the castle alone was even more impressive than the outside of he castle. On the floor was a giant cloth rug that was mostly red, but had a purple and gold trim on the edges. Hanging down from the ceiling was a crystal chandelier that filled the room with light. Far in front of me was a hallway, which had a staircase that led upstairs. I followed Brian up and we got into a corridor with seven different rooms. Each white wooden door had a golden name plate on it.

"This is where you will be sleeping," Brian explained as he motioned to the room straight across from me. I walked up to it, opened the door and said goodnight to Brian. "Get a good rest, we have a lot to do tomorrow." I closed the door and entered my room. It looked like one of those luxury hotel rooms that I had seen in movies we had watched at the orphanage. There was a full bathroom, with a granite floor, sink, and shower. In the main part of it was a full size bed, with covers that had patters of Japanese blossom trees on it. The best part of all was the 40" HD tv and KC Omega video game system. It was a small black box shaped console with a big red Ω on the top. On the side of the bed was a window, which I looked out of as I laid down. The stars were shining brightly and it was a full moon. I was about to close my eyes, when out of the corner of them, I saw the same dove and raven from the day before flying in the sky together. Something about them gave me the feeling that they were following me, which wouldn't have surprised me after what had happened within the past two days.

After five minutes, I had finally cleared my mind of these deranged thoughts and slowly drifted off into sleep.

I woke with a start at the sound of booming thunder and crackling lightning. My eyes opened to see a bright flash of light fill my room. My eyes darted around the room as the light started to clear, and after almost finishing scanning it, I thought I saw something moving in the corner. I couldn't really make it out because of the bad conditions, but it almost looked like a 16 year old boy. He must've seen me looking at him, as right afterwards, he lifted his hand. As if one cue, another flash of lightning pierced the sky, and the room was filled with a blinding light. I looked in the corner, but the person was no longer there.

"It's just a storm," I mumbled, trying to convince myself that nothing had happened as I tried to fall back to sleep. It was probably just because I'm tired, my eyes are playing tricks on me, I thought. For some reason, I had become more easily frightened within the past few days. It had started after my first battle against the monsters, and ever since, I had a slight feeling that they were always around me, just waiting to attack. After shaking these bad thoughts out of my head, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep again.

After only another minute, I was startled yet again. But this time it was different. Not only was there the thunder and lightning, but also loud noises coming from underneath me and in the hall. I tried to fall asleep again, but it worked to no avail, as a minute later I was startled again. It was the same exact noises, but it still brought the same level of fear. Still tired from the day before, I promised myself that I would get some rest, and not get frightened by such a feeble storm.

A minute later, the thunder boomed again, but this time, like I promised myself, wasn't startled. Then, a few seconds later, there was a loud bang near my door. I hopped out of my bed, now scared out of my mind, and slowly walked to the door. Before my hand could even reach the handle, a series of screams came from the hall, which was followed by the unmistakeable war cry of the monsters. Now full of adrenaline and fear from the approaching battle, I opened my door and sprinted down the staircase. I didn't know that what I was about to see would be so terrible.

Five dead bodies. That was the easiest, and the only way that I thought I could describe it. I could go into the details of the gruesomeness, the blood that was splattered across the floor and walls, the torn body parts which were scattered across the room, and the destroyed and bloodstained furniture which now lay broken on the ground, but the best way to describe would just be the simple way. My young eyes had never seen such bloodshed, such carnage, such a terrible scene. The thought that these monsters would be able to kill five people, all trained and with weapons, frightened me so much that I almost wanted to run back into my room and hide. But I didn't. For some reason, even though it was against the will of my mind, my legs moved forwards and carried me out of the wooden doors and into the courtyard.

After leaving the doors, I noticed that I wasn’t the only survivor. Both Patrick and Brian stood on the path, and both were wielding swords. Sensing the danger of the situation, I pulled out my two sticks and readied myself for battle. That was when I heard the same gurgling noise as I heard the day before. At the far end of the path, the bricks started to slowly melt away, and a puddle of darkness began to form. The puddle expanded, covering up almost half of the path. Then, the beasts started to emerge.

Both Patrick and Brian charged towards them, while I stayed back. How would I be any help to them if I was using two stupid wooden sticks? Just before the two of them reached the puddle, a wave of the monsters came flying at them, crushing them both and trapping them underneath. Not only were the monsters bad, but there was still the storm, and it was just as big of a threat. Lightning was flashing in the sky, almost reaching the courtyard, and the wind was so fierce that it ripped apart the grass and almost destroyed the two fountains. I was so distracted by what was happening around me that I didn’t notice the puddle that had formed behind me, until I was clawed in the back. Quickly, I turned around and smashed the impish creature on the head and destroyed it.

Another monster's cry came from behind me, and I turned to see two monkeys. They both charged at me and jumped at my face while rapidly swinging their tails. Just before they attacked, I ducked and they flew right over me. An upward strike from one of my sticks launched both of them into the air, where they exploded into smoke. Then, in the pile of monsters in front of me, the pile that Patrick and Brian had been trapped under, a dim light began to shine. The light continued to get brighter and expand. After about six seconds, a blinding flash of light filled the courtyard. The light cleared to reveal hundreds of monsters falling down from the sky. Some of them exploded before even hitting the ground, but some of them never had the time to and there torn bodies were scattered across the courtyard. Emerging from the chaos were Patrick end Brian, but both of them were heavily wounded.

The wind ripped through the courtyard once again, but it was more intense this time. It knocked the three of us over, and tore through some of the monsters that hadn't been killed, before it finally slammed into the wooden doors. Both of the torches that were mounted next to the door were knocked off of the wall by the force, and they landed in the grass, setting both sides of the courtyard into a blue blaze. Despite these conditions, the monsters continued to appear, and we continued to fight.

At least that was until the number of them became too much. After about two minutes, the three of us were trapped in the center of the path with about seventy monsters, and counting, surrounding us. Brian and Patrick silently looked at each other, and after Brian slightly nodded, Patrick sunk into the ground. Five seconds later, he popped back up at the end of the path and by the wooden door. He rose out of the ground and created a mini mountain. Then, he raised his arms and slammed them down, sending the mountain back down into the ground. Brian and I were separated as the ground rippled and bricks and monsters were launched into the air. The courtyard was filled with the evil smoke from the killed enemies, so much so that none of us could see each other.

That was when the lightning crackled again, and it was followed by an agonizing scream of pain. I looked around as the smoke slowly cleared and found Patrick laying down in a small crater in the path. His back had been pierced by the lightning, and blood was gushing out of the hole that it had left. A group of monsters which had appeared in the smoke attacked Patrick, covered his body and tore him apart. Lost in the chaos of this event, I never saw the monkey that was trying to attack my head. I turned around as soon as I heard it, but it was too late at that point. Its tail smashed into the left side of my jaw and knocked me down onto the ground. Then it continued to attack my face until I was able to knock it backwards.

Not having given up, the monkey jumped towards me again, ready to smash my face with its tail. In another flash of light, Brain instantly appeared in front of me, and jabbed his sword right through the monster's chest. Instead of exploding into smoke, the energy that the monster was made of melted around the sword and reformed itself behind Brian. This time, it was in the shape of a human and about five feet tall. The one things that really stood out about it were its ten claws which it had in place of fingers, and each one was about six inches long. Before even being able to turn around, Brian's body was pierced in the back by all ten of them. Finally, he let out a short gasp of pain as his body was ripped apart and both halves were thrown into the fire.

My body was frozen as the monster walked up to me. I couldn't even pick myself up off of the ground or try to fight any of the advancing creatures. At this point, all that I could do was wait as they loomed over me, mocking my failures. As the monsters jumped on top of and readied to tear me apart, all that I could focus on was one sound. Almost as if the monster from my from my usual nightmares was standing next to me, the word pitiful, as if spoken in his voice, echoed throughout the air.

The pain of the monster's claws was almost too much to bear. My eyes were forced closed and my body tumbled over and continued to roll until crashing onto the ground. Wait a second... I thought as I opened my eyes and moved my hands around my room's white tile floor. I looked at myself for a few seconds and noticed that my arms and legs were slightly bleeding. It was probably from that fall off of the bed, I continued to think. That whole incident beforehand had to have been a dream if I was still alive. Those monsters would have killed me, and there was no way that I would've gotten back to my room. But it felt so real, like it was actually happening and that I was actually in the courtyard. My lack of sleep must have been playing tricks on me, I thought yet again, now trying to keep my sanity. I pulled myself off of the ground and got back into my bed, thinking that if I could fall back to sleep I would be able to just forget about what had happened. Needless to say, I didn't get a good sleep that night.
 
I woke around 5:00 AM after yet another dream of myself battling the pitch black man. Thoughts continued to race through my head that whole morning. Who was this man? Why was I fighting him? What was my connection to him? Why did he look like me? Patrick said that the Soul Hunters would help me find my answers, but ever since I had gotten there, only more questions had stepped forward.
 
After finally giving up on trying to fall asleep at 7:00, I went down to the main room of the castle to talk to Brian. Much to my surprise, he was waiting there for me.
 
"There you are," he greeted as soon as I walked down the stairs. "My prediction was fifteen minutes off, but never mind about that. You're here now, and that's all that matters." At that point I had reached the bottom of the stairs and waited next to Brian as he softly spoke to himself.
 
"Follow me," he commanded after about a minute. Instead of heading out into the courtyard, Brian led me through a hallway at the right of the door. As we neared the end of it, I noticed that the walls were covered in pictures. I stopped and tried to get a glimpse at one of them, but Brian pulled me along. At the end of the hallway was another room, one which was almost half the size of the main room.
 
"Look around and familiarize yourself with this place," Brian instructed. "This is where you are going to be spending a lot of your time for the next few days." I did exactly what he told me to do, but it didn't take very long. The room was so similar to my Tae Kwon Do classroom, it had almost identical blue mats which blanketed the ground and the walls were the same pale shade of beige. At the far right of the room was a group of rubber training dummies, each one was my size, and five red punching bags. Mounted on the wall that was directly across from the door was a long sword. The blade was a shimmering silver, but parts of it were a sky blue color, the same color as the hilt. My eyes then moved to the left of the room, which was completely empty. The only two things that were there were a large metal door, one identical to a garage, and then another smaller door, like one at the front of a house, at the left side of it. That door had a huge lock on it for some reason, and not wanting to step into any dangerous territory, I didn't go near it or ask about it.
 
"I think I'm familiar with this place now," I told Brian. He nodded silently and slowly walked over to the door that was locked. As he approached the door, he extended his right arm. A flash of light surrounded his palm and wrist and he slammed it into the lock. When the light disappeared, the lock hit the ground with a hard thud.
 
"I have some work to do right now," Brian started as he turned back to face me once again. "So, now would be a good time for your initiation." Initiation!? I started to think. I never knew anything about an initiation! I thought that if I just came here I was in!
 
"You see," Brian continued, now talking the same way that Patrick did when he first told me about the Soul Hunters. "Even though we've been watching you, we need to make sure that you are a good choice for this group. We can't just have anyone running around recklessly and taking out the corrupted." Brian started to talk to himself again, and my thoughts started to flare back up.
 
"So," he started once again. The sudden start snapped my mind right out of its train of thought. "Your mission, if you would like to call it that, will be to obtain the Aquamarine of Purification. All that you need to do is go through the cave, find it, and bring it back safely."
That sounds easy enough, I began to think again, and yet again, Brian interrupted. "But, if you should fail to do so, your memory of ever being here, or meeting any one of us, will be erased. You will be sent back to your orphanage, and never remember that any of this had happened."
 
With that closing remark, Brian lifted his left arm towards me and turned back towards the door. Within a matter of seconds, a white circle of light appeared in front of me. As the metal door slammed shut, I realized what it was. This was the same thing that was in the tunnel, and the same thing that made up the pillar of light that brought me here. It was a portal, and according to my mission, it would take me to a cave.
 
I readied myself to go in it, hoping that I would be conscious when I came out, but my mind jumped back to the previous events. Brian said that if I failed, I would lose my memory of all of this and have to go back, my mind began again. They couldn't erase my memory though, could they? My mind then jumped back to the day that I first met Patrick, and the way that everyone in the orphanage said that there was a tornado. Patrick said that people's minds could be manipulated, and if the Soul Hunters were able to do that, they could probably erase my memory easily.

Finally forcing the thoughts out of my head, I ran into the portal. The heat from the light overwhelmed my body once again, but this time, I was able hold onto my consciousness. When the temporary blinds from the light faded, I surveyed the area. This place wasn't new to me, it was a great canyon that was just outside the woods of my town.
 
"My mission is to find something in a cave," I spoke softly to myself as I wondered throughout the canyon. Sure enough, after walking for about two minutes, I came across a giant gap in the right side of the canyon. The inside of the cave was nothing like the rest of the canyon was. Unlike the rest which was red, dry, and sandy, this area was a dark grey rock. As I wandered around, I noticed that it wasn't dry either, it was moist and even had water that dripped down from the ceiling.
 
I wandered around the cave for about seven minutes before finding anything interesting. It was a strange fork in the road, two tunnels that both looked as if they were carved out by something. The one on the left was dark, but the pathway was illuminated by the hundreds of crystals that were embedded in the rocky walls it had. The one on the right was lighter and seemed to have a light source further on. This tunnel had no crystals at all, and it seemed to be wider that the other one. My mind flipped back through school work, specifically geology. Aquamarine was a gemstone, so it would have made sense to go down the tunnel to the left, one full of other crystals. That was what I started to do, but as soon as I stepped foot in it, something inside me told me to go back. I don't know whether it was just a gut feeling or that it was just the nature of mysterious nature of Brian, who seemed like he would try to trick me, but it was a feeling that I had never felt before.
 
In the end, I decided to go through the tunnel on the right. It started off fine at first, just a simple walk through, but as soon as I got halfway through the tunnel, the whole situation changed.
 
The small group of creatures snuck up behind me in the darkness of the tunnel, moving without being noticed or even making a sound. I turned around as soon as the leader’s claw had ripped through the back of my shirt. As soon as I saw that I was being followed, I jumped backwards, pulled my sticks out of their holders, and prepared to fight. One of the creatures was different than anyone that I had seen. It was black with red eyes, just like all the others, but it slightly resembled a human and was bout 4’ 9”. Well, except for its claws that it had instead of fingers, each one being six inches long.
 
It charged at me, swing rapidly at the air and towards my face. After ducking under its attack, I managed to knock its legs off of the ground using my right stick. As I got back up, I started to attack, but stopped as a familiar image flashed into my mind. It was a picture of the dream I had the night before, but more importantly, Brian’s death. That monster was one of  the same ones that had killed Brian. My distracted state was proven to be my downfall as the monster’s claws cut at my chest. I tried to smash it with my stick, but it pushed itself off of the ground and rolled out of the way. It continued rolling and curled itself up into a ball, just like an armadillo. That creature was a bowling ball, and I was the only remaining pin.
 
It sped up as it turned around and charged at me, and not knowing what else to do, I continued to sprint towards the end of the tunnel. The beast was too fast, and by the time that I had reached the end of the tunnel, it was only about a yard and a half behind me. My mind began to race again as I continued to run and stall for time. This new area looked almost the same as the rest of the cave, except that the ceiling was partially open and that it was completely circular, all surrounding a pillar of stone in the center of the room. The monster was about a yard away after I circled the room three times, but I still didn’t find anything. Tripping over the rock ramp around that circled up the walls was the only thing that I had happened besides the monster getting closer.
 
“That’s it!” I exclaimed, even though I was the only one in the area. After putting my sticks back in their holder, I ran to the side of the room and leaped into the air. My arms instantly extended and I tried to hold on. The wall trembled in fear as the monster slammed into it and left a crater where it hit. That’s my chance! my mind screamed. I managed to pull myself up onto the ramp and jumped back down. Using the momentum of the fall, I smashed my heel into the middle of the monster’s back. Smoke filled the room right afterwards, I had slayed the beast.
 
Now finally rid of the monster, I searched the room for the Aquamarine of Purification. I searched for ten minutes and found nothing. I worked my way back through the cave and looked around in other tunnels, but still couldn’t find it. Finally, I found my way back to through to the tunnel with the ramp, which was now glowing light blue. I ran around the ramp all the way up to the ceiling and found the gem sitting on top of the pillar. The stone was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen. It was shining with a bright blue light that finally gave me hope. Now finished with my mission, I reached out to the stone and grasped it in my hand, eventhough it was the exac same size as it. Not even a second after, the glow from it intensified, and it released a sphere of light that swallowed me up.
 
“Ten minutes off,” I heard. The voice was faint, as if I wasn’t really where the other person was, but after about ten seconds, the light from the gem cleared. I was standing in the middle of the training room with Brian directly across from me. I couldn't really find the words that I wanted, so I just held out the Aquamarine to him.

"So you've almost finished it," Brian stated.

"Almost?" I shot back to him. I cold've died in that cave, and he says that I almost finished it!

"Look at that closely," he started. I did what he said, and something about it was different this time. This time, it wasn't glowing anymore, and I could see through it. Embedded deep inside of it was a rolled up and wrinkled piece of paper.

"Read it," Brian said once he saw that I noticed it. The first thought that came into my mind was to smash it into the ground, and since my instincts had been good so far, that was exactly what I did. I simply dropped it onto the ground, but it shattered like a small plate that was dropped off of a skyscraper. What remained of a once beautiful gem was now a pile of broken stone and a torn piece of paper. I picked it up and looked at it, and Brian motioned for me to read it. My eyes scanned the paper and then I started.

"I pledge my loyalty to the Soul Hunters
I pledge to purify my soul
To search for my true power
And to take out any obstacle in my way."

I paused for a second as I looked at the next line, but continued to read it anyway.

"I pledge to help my new family
To work with others
And treat them with respect
I pledge my loyalty to the Soul Hunters
And if I should choose to betray or defy them
Then I choose to be killed
And my soul be condemned to the Abolished Realm."

As I finished, my mind began to wander again. I didn't have any idea about what this Abolished Realm was, but I didn't think that I would ever want to find out.

"Well, you've passed the mission and said the pledge," Brian started and interrupted my thoughts again. I looked back at him and he seemed to be in deep thought. "There's still something else though."

As soon as he said that, he ran forward at me and kicked at my head. Instinctively, I ducked to the ground and tried to attack him, but he jumped over it. He started to attack once again, and I pulled out my two sticks just before he reached me.

"Let's be fair," he stated right before attacking. "No weapons for either of us!" With that, he swung his arm upwards and knocked my sticks across the room. Then, he followed up with a side kick to my chest, which knocked me off balance and sent me stumbling backwards. Brian wasn't giving me any mercy, as he charged again right after that. He roundhouse kicked at my head, but I ducked just in time. Knowing that I needed to knock him off guard in order to do any damage, I tried to sweep him using my right leg. Instead of flipping over onto the ground, he planted his hands down and backflipped in mid air. As soon as I got up, he reached out his left arm and softly mumbled some words under his breath. Before I could even react to what was going on, five tentacle like strands of light, one from each of his fingers, shot out of his hand. They flew right at me, and as soon as they made contact, he pulled me back towards him. I flew right towards him, and he pulled his right arm back. His palm was covered in light. He punched right into my chest as soon as I got within range, and the light just added to the damage. My chest felt as if it was on fire, and I rocketed backwards, slamming into the wall right underneath the sword, just before losing consciousness.

It was as if my mind had left my body and drowned itself in a sea of memories. The memories constricted my brain and forced themselves into it. First, a memory of me when I had first came to my most recent orphanage, the first time that I had met Richard and Mike. That bright memory was pushed away by one of my darkest ones, the day that Mike and Richard had vanished with the stranger. But this time, it was different. Part of this memory wasn't mine.

My mind followed the three of them as they escaped in the wind, quickly changing the scenery to the woods. As the tornado died down, all of them were thrown backwards by the wind. The force of the wind was enough to kill some of the monsters, and some of them died from crashing into trees. At that point, there were only a few monsters left, but they hadn't given up on the fight. All of the remaining monsters charged on Richard, Mike, and the stranger, who were all standing in the center of the chaos.

A huge gust if wind killed most of the rest of the monsters, but it changed the scene yet again. This time, it was in the courtyard of the castle. Wearing the same black outfit that he had worn on the day I first saw him, the stranger was standing there and holding his weapons. He slowly lifted his right arm up, and then pulled it back. Wind shot out of his fist as he punched it forwards, and the wooden doors flew backwards. Quickly, he jumped backwards and swung his right mini yo stick forwards. The courtyard filled up with smoke as the monster who had attacked him exploded. War cries echoed throughout the air, as more monsters jumped at him from their smoke cover.

"A trap," he grumbled in anger as he kicked at one of the monsters. He raised his arms up and slammed them into the ground, sending wind everywhere. The smoke cleared because of this, and he saw that the courtyard was filled with monsters. His eyes quickly shifted around the area, looking for another entrance. Luckily for him, he spotted one of the castles towers on the right side of the main room. He grinned as he leaped into the air towards it. Instantly, the wind picked up, and lifted him through the air.

He soared above the courtyard and crashed through the tower's stained glass window. After brushing some of the broken glass off of him, he broke into a sprint down the staircase. As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he started to roam the hallways. His head kept turning, check every inch of the gray brick walls, and looking behind to make sure that nobody was watching him. Then, his eyes lit up, as if he were a toddler eating their first piece of candy. He turned down another hallway and stopped directly in the middle of it. His eyes quickly darted around it, he was looking for something.

"I knew you would come here," a voice from behind said. The stranger turned around and he pulled out his weapons once again. Upon seeing who was behind him, he started to lower his weapons, as if it wasn't worth fighting.

"Where is it?" his angry voice asked. Brian started to laugh as a response to that, but he stopped shortly afterwards.

"I've moved it," he stated before breaking into laughter once again. "Did you really think that you would be able to find it? You should've known better than to come here." The stranger's anger began to overflow and he readied his weapons once again.

"I'll just have to force it out of you!" With that scream, he ran forwards and blasted Brian, who was off guard, in the face with a gust of wind. Before he could get a chance to strike again, the stranger was knocked back by a sidekick in his chest. Brian lifted his right hand up, and it was instantly covered in a familiar light. With a few seconds, the fist of light turned into a beam, and then into a sword. It was the same sword as the one that I had seen in the training room, but it looked more powerful when he was holding it. The stranger charged yet again, swinging his weapons at Brian's head, but he easily blocked them with his sword. Now, Brian went on the attack.

Brian sprinted towards the other man and leaped into the air. A roundhouse kick at the strangers head caused him to fall backwards onto the ground. Determined to end this battle, Brian landed back on the ground and slammed his sword right at the other man's head. At the last second, he managed to force himself forward by using the wind, and slid right underneath Brian's legs. Then, he used the wind to push his body back up, and like his opponent had done in the past, sidekick him in the chest. The other man thrust his arm forward, sending a huge arm made of wind with it. It's giant hand smashed into Brian, wrapped around him, and continued moving until it smashed into the brick wall. Almost all of his air was squeezed out of him as the tight grip continued to intensify.

"Where is it!" he screamed, all of his anger now exploding out of his body. The hand continued to crush Brian, cracking some of his bones and almost completely suffocating him. He dropped his sword as his arm started to bleed by the cuts of the wind. But through all of this, for some reason, Brian started to smile. His chest started to glow with light, slowly beginning to cover his whole body. The stranger began to struggle just to keep the wind together. That was when the light instantly disappeared, and Brian's eyes closed. A smile appeared on the other man's face and he started to loosen his grip, but that choice proved to be fatal.

Instantly afterwards, all of the light that had been glowing from Brian, all of his power, erupted at once from the center of his chest. The energy ripped the wind apart and continued towards the other man, who was almost entirely ripped apart by the attack. It continued to move, easily breaking through the brick wall and lighting up the dark night sky. After about fifteen seconds, the light finally died away. Both Brian and the other man were on the ground, but Brian was in a far better condition. Brian's clothes were only slightly ripped, his muscles weak, and his energy almost completely drained. The stranger's clothes were almost completely torn apart, and his blood had stained the tatters still remained. His bones and muscles, which were throbbing in pain, had also been heavily damaged, and he hardly even had the energy to breath.

"Did you really think that you could defeat me," Brian panted as he dragged himself off of the ground. He had finally been able to catch his breath once again, but he was struggling with standing. The other man, who was still lying on the ground, managed to look up at Brian. Despite all of his pain and his lost energy, he managed a slight grin.

"I've found two of them," he responded. Brian looked back at him full of anger and disgust, which only made the other man smile even more. Using Brian's anger as a distraction, he slowly moved his arm and focused on his hand. Brian limped over to him and conjured up his sword once again.

"You've caused me enough trouble!" He slashed his sword down towards the stranger's head, but all that it hit was a wall of wind. Even though it only had a little bit of power, it still knocked Brian backwards a bit. It only took a few seconds for the wind to clear away, but when it did, the man was no longer there. Brian grumbled in anger and almost collapsed as he walked back through the hallway. That was when my mind went blank.