After half an hour of walking, Res called a stop and assembled everyone.

“We will rest as we have discussed. Let’s create two shifts. One team will wait here while the other group will find a cozy place to stay fifty meters from here. The guards will warn the sleeping team when the border arrives. The sleeping team will have one member awake to warn them if any stalkers come close to them. Would it be all right if Serafina sleeps first? She needs it the most and I volunteer for the first guard shift at the border.”

Serafina tried to protest, but one could see that she did it out of habit. Adrian stepped forward. “I am not tired as well.”

“All right, the shifts will be around half an hour.”

Res and Adrian sat down on a large log back to back and began their shift. The others created some space within the underbrush to sleep in. The chirping of insects provided such a pleasant background that he had to slap himself. Lazily, he tracked the occasional movement of stalkers in the trees and asked: “How is he?”

“Who?”

“Your ghost.”

“Ahhh…”

Silence. Adrian added: “He is violent.”

“Is he a mass murderer and rapist?”

He turned, surprised. “How did you know that?”

“My ghost told me. Why did you start a bond with such a ghost?”

He turned away to hide his face. “Not that important.”

“Ahhh … ”

Silence. Finally, Adrian added once again. “It wasn’t voluntary.”

“The organization forced you?”

“No and yes. They first go around giving young street boys food and showing off powers. They call that ‘Casting the Net’. Then they invite the boys to an audit to have the amazing chance to become a ‘Guardia Reale’. They are like your elite palace guard. They put the boy into a room with a magic relic that inserts ghosts into humans. If the boy beats the ghost, he gets to live, else he dies.”

Res mulled over the information. “How does it feel to live in the same body as a mass murder?”

Adrian laughed mirthfully. “How does it feel? Luckily, I received a spell to cut off most communication, but he can still influence my emotions.”

Res remembered back to what he had to endure when Jason had messed with his feelings. It had led to something he wouldn’t change in hindsight, but it had been horrifying. “I understand you.“

Somehow, it felt safe talking to Adrian. Adrian turned in shock. “He actually manipulated you?”

“We worked it out.”

Adrian was still staring at him with comically wide eyes. “How can you still …”

Res cheekily interjected: “Remember the ball game only an hour ago?”

Adrian chuckled softly. “I suppose you are right.”

Again, Res enjoyed the companionable silence hanging over the place. “Bro, the only thing we need now is a grill and a six-pack of beer.”

Res chuckled at the image and asked Adrian: “Let’s suppose we win this thing. Let’s suppose you or I turn king, what will you do?”

”I don’t want to be king.”

“Me neither. If I become King, the first thing I will do is to instantiate a loyal figurehead.”

Both chuckled and then returned to silence. Res continued: “Have you looked around at the technology here?”

“This feels so surreal. I have thought about whether there are even more civilizations like this and there have to be. We are like ants compared to them.”

“We are. They can heal every wound; they can live anywhere. I had the chance to look outside. You know what? They live in glass pipes on the damn moon.”

Adrian laughed nervously. “The odd thing is: I actually believe you.”

“I have a dream. I want to make Trianon such a place. That might sound foolish, but imagine a world where no one has to hunger or fear death.”

Adrian was silent for several minutes. “This is good. You are good. Do you know that it infuriates me how good you are? You barely have any training, yet you kick ass. You aren’t that good looking and yet you have a gorgeous princess fawning after you. Despite all that, I can’t hate you and it doesn’t infuriate me, but instead, it makes me contemplative.”

“Bro, tell him I said that I will guarantee him getting laid by the woman of his dream within the month.”

Res told Adrian, who chuckled. “Actually, I don’t want to be influenced by such a thing, but that sounds like a sweet deal. Promise?”

Res grinned nervously. “He always brings me into situations like this, but I promise to help you.”

Adrian’s expression lit up: “I didn’t expect less of you.”

The rest of the watch went by with their blabbering about philosophy, living with a ghost and Adrian’s great fascination – Woman. To keep their members on track with a mission, the order forbid relationships of all kinds. He could get a glimpse at the order’s principles warring with basic human desires like love and friendship within Adrian.

When they switched with a muddled Serafina and Akeem, they were chatting away like they had known each other for years.

The others had found a spot in a thicket that was only accessible via one narrow entrance and hid them pretty well. Res was pleasantly surprised when Xenia offered to watch their position. As soon as his head touched the ground, he fell into a shallow sleep. Something didn’t feel right though with him.

“Bro, red alert, red alert! We are being assaulted!” Jason’s cry was deafening in his mind. He tried to open his eyes or sit up, but his body wouldn’t react.

“What is going on?”

“Somehow, we got poisoned. We won’t die, but the poison will last until another … Wait, I thought we were hit by snake poison which would … Polyhydroxy acids? … Why would those be … This is a fucking crème!”

Res kept his sense of hearing and touch. Yet, he felt nothing out of the ordinary when he tried to identify attackers. That was until he felt the sudden barrage of lust from right next to him. A hand caressed his face and someone nibbled at his ear. Xenia’s breathy voice filled him with longing.

“Don’t be hard on me in the future for that. The Gamemaster offered me such an enticing crème, which I couldn’t decline. You will see the error of your ways after I have made you into a true man.”

Fear filled him and he tried to wriggle free from his invisible bonds, but he lay stock-still like a dead fish. “She can’t do that to me, she wouldn’t.”

Her soft hand tousled his hair and began its slow descent. She bottomed open his shirt and ran her hand over his torso. It narrowly missed his private part but honed in on its ultimate target. She was confused at first when she didn’t feel the bump she had expected. “You want to see more, don’t you?”

She bottomed off her shirt to reveal her two perfect breasts. The moonlight extenuated their natural curve and Xenia felt the spike in attraction. Their feelings of lust were feeding off each other and building up to an incredible crescendo. Xenia bit her lip and began to rub between her knees. When the lust had built up to intolerable levels, she released it in a muffled cry of pure desire. She was sweating now and started ripping off his clothes. He had to watch as she raked her fingernails over his chest and continued to undress him. With a jerk, she tried to tear off his pants. Rage bubbled up in Res as he felt violated like never before.

“How dare she?”

If the crème would wear off now, he would grab her throat and squeeze until her neck would crack. He tried to pull aether into his body and push his fist into Xenia’s lustful face, but his body wouldn’t budge. For some reason, his arousal had translated over to only one part of his body. Xenia giggled in glee when she noticed.

By now even Jason was frothing with rage. In a low voice, he whispered: “Bro … This is fucking rape … Yet, that isn’t even the fucking problem. If we can’t stop her, Layana will be lost forever to me. I will kill her for this.”

Res’s mind was descending into madness as his temper took on the temperature of a volcano. Jason’s comment made his blood boil, and he screamed madly at Xenia in his mind. His finger twitched and, with all the power he could muster, he reached toward her. Xenia laughed and pushed his hand aside as if he were a child. “You are angry, huh? No worries, let me reduce your stress.”

His breathing quickened to unnatural levels as Xenia positioned herself above him. His heart was hammering faster and faster as he raged in his head. “Hello? Is everything all right? Are you sleeping badly or is anyone hurt?”

Serafina’s soft voice sounded like music to his ears. “Why is someone in there breathing so fast?”

Immediately, he breathed in erratic patterns, but Xenia clamped her hand over his mouth. “It is nothing. I have nightmares about this place.”

Serafina paused for several moments and tried to spot Xenia in the dark. “I may have been a little angry towards you, but you can still talk to me.”

“It is nothing.”

Res heard Serafina standing up and dismay overcame him. He curled his consciousness up into a ball and whispered to Jason: “We tried.”

A white liquid shot out of Res’s head glinted in the moonlight and fell back into his body again. Serafina paused and asked. “What was that, Xenia?”

Xenia herself had looked in shock at the ball of liquid and some of that shock was still held in her voice. “Nothing. Just a … medallion.”

Serafina harrumphed and walked into the cover of the shrub. When she saw Xenia sitting half-naked over Res, she froze. Xenia seemed to remember what Serafina had done to her after she had tried to make her look bad in front of Res. With an unsure smile, she backed off from Res.

A tear rolled down Res’s eyes as he looked at the heartbroken face of Serafina. She didn’t pay any mind to Xenia and instead stooped down to pull his clothes back in place. With a broken voice, she asked: “Why?”

Res wanted to talk, he wanted to tell her about everything, but he could only stare into her eyes and move his arm. Serafina broke out into tears as she looked at his irresponsive face in the moonlight. With a cry of anguish, she let his head drop onto the floor and ran out of the hiding spot. Adrian had awakened by now and he was looking around stupefied. When he saw Res’s head bleeding from being dropped on a root, he tore away a part of his shirt and applied a make-shift bandage.

The pain that radiated Res’s body at the moment wasn’t physical pain though. His mind’s eye replayed the moment when Serafina dropped him, lost hope in him, lost hope in them. The emptiness in him caught on fire when Xenia approached with a sly smile. She even had the balls to give him a wink of all things. Adrian tested his reaction time by feinting punching him in the face, but Res didn’t flinch. Adrian checked for a pulse which revealed a green paste spread on his throat.

Adrian grunted confused and wiped the substance off Res’s throat with a flick. Res could feel his limbs tingling and coming back to life while Adrian had seized up next to him. Slowly, his aether control returned, and he pushed himself towards Adrian. With the help of Jason, they removed the paste from him too. When he had done his duty, he turned around with a deadly calm look in his eyes. Xenia shifted nervously when she saw his expression and shrugged her shoulders: “I am sorry?”

She couldn’t have chosen a sentence that would make him more infuriated. Slowly, he began to hover towards her while bloodlust permeated off of him. “You still think this is a game?”

Xenia chuckled and took an involuntary step backward. “I don’t think it is a game. I know that you haven’t seen my full potential.”

Res laughed so loudly that even the stalkers above them shifted uneasily. His whole being was an incarnation of revenge. “I have seen your full potential. Your full potential for evil. You are a petty child in the body of a young woman. If there is something you can’t get, you pull it out of the dead hands of the owner.”

Xenia shivered at the killing intent of him and called out. “Akeem! Help! HEL … ”

Her cries were cut off when Res grabbed Xenia by the throat, hardened his skin, and pulled her off the ground. She wriggled around like a freshly caught fish and Res enjoyed her squabbling. It was satisfying to watch the person who had nearly ruined your life choking out her life. A panicked shout resounded through their clearing: “Res, stop!”

When Res turned, he saw the still tear-streaked Serafina running towards them. Res didn’t let go. With a dead voice, he said: “She is ruining our relationship, and I have given her enough chances. Do you know what she did? She drugged me and attempted to rape me. That would be like holding your hand into the fire after being burnt for five times. Only to find out whether it will burn again you.”

Serafina entered the hideout and begged. “Please, don’t. Do it for me.”

Xenia was now only weakly struggling. Now even Jason added: “Come on, you proved your point. Killing women isn’t cool. It is not like killing men is cool, but … ”

Serafina pounded on him ineffectually as he sacrificed his aether allowance to end this once and for all. With a last jerk, she stopped struggling and only hang in his grasp. Serafina grabbed his arm and looked him in the eyes. “Res, that isn’t you.”

As if it was a magic phrase, memories of him sitting on some stairs in the middle of Trianon surfaced in his mind. He had asked himself the same question: ‘Who am I?’. Memories of being sucked into the black whirlpool, of starting a rebellion – That entity.

“Is that who I am? Do I want to be that man?”

He let Xenia drop to the floor with red claw marks on her throat. When she didn’t breathe, Res stooped down to reanimate her. Several moments later, she gulped in deep breaths of air while holding her throat. A muted call came from the entrance to their hiding spot. “Guys, come out. No hasty movements.”

Without hesitation, Serafina threw Xenia over her shoulder and they all scurried outside. What awaited them was close to a nightmare. Hundreds upon hundreds of stalkers were on the ground and above them. Some bared their teeth while some released bone-chilling shrieks when they saw the group. In the distance, a wall of stalkers approached. They were packed so tight that they climbed over each other to continue their relentless and silent march.

“The border.”, Adrian whispered.