Seth felt the cold bite of the steel bars as he descended the ladder into the underground enclave. His fingers ached with cold as vapour escaped his slow controlled breaths, confirming his suspicions. The Master was the same unnatural creature he had been sent to hunt in foreign lands.

Having reached the audience chamber, Seth turned on his flashlight, peering up at the distance he had descended. He was no hero; not after what he had done to his brothers and sisters. They needed to be purged, just in case he failed.

In the dim light, Seth noticed his gnarled calloused hands. These were not his hands. The dirt under his nails felt like razor blades. The dried blood, like a thin second skin, suffocating the winkles it had claimed. The scars carved into elaborate patterns on his skin burned with power he couldn’t control.

He came here to end the lie, he reminded himself, shifting his focus from the sense that his body wasn’t quite the right fit.

His flashlight flickered into the darkness of the wide chamber. “Fine,” he hissed and tossed his only source of light. He didn’t expect to come out of the fight alive anyway; as long as it died.

“Come out chicken! You think you had as us all fooled! You didn’t think that one day your Champions would come back to hunt your demon ass down!” His roar was that of a man passed his prime, but harboured the strength of a generation.

Nothing.

Was he wrong? Did it escape when it sensed him coming? No. He could feel it. Watching. Hiding.

Kill enough demons and a Hunter was capable of tapping into new talents. Maybe he was a little less human than he had been when he left the Grounds of Ascension. He had most certainly been a different man then.

The darkness shifted, opening up before him as through the world had ripped apart, and lunged at him.

*****

Memories. Sometimes when he was with Astral he felt like he could remember the time before. The important things. Sometimes when he was with her, he felt like he could see the plan laid out in front of him.

He wished he dreamed like normal people. On nights like these, when he was exhausted to the bone or had forgotten his R.E.M. inhibitors, he’d drift into worlds that felt too real. His dreams felt like memories drifting in the either, waiting to be relived; waiting to impart it’s warning. Between the night terrors and leading alternative lives, he found it difficult to keep track of reality. All these memories were too much for a human mind to hold. His dreams would no doubt drive him insane one day.

That man…

That Hunter, had been one of the central characters of his dreams for the past four years. Tonight, he knew that Videl was dead, consumed by the same demon who had created him. His story had reached its conclusion. He knew we would not be dreaming of the unfortunate Videl again.

The memory of dried blood on his hands lingered. As Videl, he had sacrifices human lives without guilt in favour of the mission. The dedication to the eradication of the demons scourge was black and white to a Hunter. To someone like Astral.

Would she? Would she kill the students to prevent the demon from ascending?

What did ascending mean anyway?

Astral!

Seth shot up from his sick bed, his body complaining. He hadn’t felt pain like this since he was a first year who was unaccustomed to the brutality of daily training. She pushed him harder and longer than any game had. Games were often short bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting, searching, hunting, but aimed to keep things easy; efficient.

Astral chose the hard road despite having the tools to make the task easy. As he climbed, she slept, conserving her strength. He hadn’t the energy to confront her then. He didn’t have the energy to confront her now. But he had to, before she ruined everything.

He pulled on his clothes. Curfew would work in his favour, especially if the Gaming Commission took his tip seriously. They’d detain her with questions she couldn’t answer, and hold her as long as possible in the hopes of breaking her. She wouldn’t break. She had nothing to hide.

If he was lucky, she’d spend the night in the barracks closest to the arena. Those barracks were hardly in use these days, a by-gone product of the over militarization of the Academy. There was a time when all the barracks surrounding the arenas would have been full with students. These days, short of the inner and outer residential rings, and the barracks in the military tier, all other former barracks were little more than storage.

She wouldn’t be able to access the educational towers until morning. Unless…

It was a mistake to think she was stupid. After the events of the games, he was confident that it was short-sighted of him to think she didn’t have a backup plan. Had she arranged a way into the building?

He pulled on his boots as he hopped toward the frosted glass door of his room. The dim hall light signalled that curfew was in effect and that students in the wards were prisoners for the night. Bedroom lights dotted the hall toward the male ward exit. He’d have to pass the nurses station and doctors’ offices before reaching the main hall to access the main elevator.

Was the strike against him worth pursuing Astral? Nothing that happened in the ward was private. Trickery among other things were recorded, documented, and reported to administrative staff and parents. He recalled his former Captain warning new recruits against such behaviour, unless they wanted their parents to pay a nasty service bill. He was told the bill was so high that students who pulled such stunts were called back to home to attend a local school. He thought it was a bit extreme, but the Academy had been built around blind obedience.

He was sure that security would catch him leaving the wards, reaching the elevator, using the elevator, then what? His father would receive a bill for ward usage? Good luck finding him.

He walked down the hall as he had a hundred times before, students barely paying him any attention as his shadow floated passed their door.

At the nurses’ station, a woman was slumped in her chair, facing the darkened offices belonging to her superiors. “Excuse me.” Seth knocked on the counter in the hopes of rousing her attention.

She said something unintelligible. Seth stepped behind the counter, maybe she needed help. He noted the vials on her desk with his name printed on the label. He plucked one up, realizing that vials were his sedatives for the night. He shook the nurse. “Wake up! Are you alright?!” No one came to see what had caused the outburst. He tasted fear.

She pushed him away in her clumsy rage, slurring at him to mind his own damn business. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as her high resumed control. He should have felt lucky that his only real obstacle was caught in an alternate reality. Instead, he was afraid. Her prone, limp figure reminded him of the woman husk he had seen in the program.

“Wake up!” He slapped her cheeks, soft at first, until desperation took hold. The smell was awful. It was slow, yet sudden, it strangled as it seeped its way into the air. She grimaced, her lips pulling away from her teeth in a wicked snarl. Her stoner eyes unfocused as the thing inside searched for him.

Her finger nails dug into him, trailing blood as he pulled from her inhuman grip. Her nostrils flared as though the beast within searched for his scent. “She’s here! You need to hurry!” The nurse’s voice struggled to break into the world as though the being behind it hadn’t spoken in centuries. “If she kills me, the demon will rise. Stop her!”

Blood trickled from the nurse’s nostrils and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Her body shook falling from its chair. There was no one in there, not anymore. The light in eyes had gone when the demon took over. Her soul had been too weak to fight it off. Her body insufficient to hold the demon for any longer than a few words.

He didn’t know what to do. CPR? For what? She’s gone. Her soul… her soul devoured, leaving behind a shell…a husk. Oh god! What did they do!

He ran to the elevator.