Snow was confused at the different people who were present before her. They were all strangers, but a nagging familiarity that she couldn’t get rid of in her heart. 

“Snow, are you joking?” The man with messy hair and a beautiful face filled with concern asked with a half worried chuckled. He gripped her fingers even tighter, which made her flinch. 

Snow wasn’t sure who this man was. 

“No, who are you, and why are you holding my hand?” Snow tried to pull her hand out of Dairen’s grasp. She didn’t like how he was gripping her harder than before. 

“Snow. It’s me, Dairen.” Daiiren halted. He did not let go and seemed to want to pull her into his arms closer. 

The familiarity and the constant throbbing of her headache made her mind frazzled. Her heartbeat tightened, causing the muscles on her chest to contract. 

“I don’t know any, Dairen.” Snow pulled back. She leaned backward. Her hand came up to rub her forehead at her throbbing headache. She tried to relieve the pain that made her want to hurl. 

“The curse went into effect.” The small girl, who looked a bit childish, said in concern. Her big eyes blinked a few times. She then waved her right hand in front of her, but it shakily moved, unable to do anything but swing to her side. “I can’t use my magic in my right arm or move it well anymore.” She poke it a few times in a hurried voice. 

“You are?” Snow was wondering what they were all talking about. Curses? From her memory, she didn’t remember getting cursed by anything. 

“Red. The guy who held your hand is your lover named Dairen. The sparkling looking guy next to him is Mike, the blind guy is Rodney, and finally, the driver of this helicopter is Mr. Rogers.”

“Lover?” Snow was confused. 

“We are-” 

Red covered his mouth. Dairen started to peel her hand off his lips, wondering why she stopped him from telling the truth. Instead, she smiled at him to play along. 

Trying to get her thoughts straight, the only thing that Snow could remember was that she was at her apartment, and two words, Gold Phoenix guild and the Dragon Express, lingered in her mind. It was as if everything about her life for the past two and a half years were blank.

What was more surprising was that she had a lover. She couldn’t quite figure out how this had even happened. But then again, the people who were in front of her were quite good looking. Mike had a halo-like effect around him, while Dairen was darker with a hint of mystery that surrounded him. 

“Did she really forget?” Red was shocked. She looked at Dairen and then Mike.

“I think so; something isn’t right.” Mike looked over toward Dairen than at Snow. Dairen’s shoulder was slumped, unable to say anything, but when Snow’s gaze rested on him, his demeanor quickly changed to a soft expression. “We need to break this curse.” With an adamant voice, he balled his fist. 

“How badly are you guys affected?” Red asked the others. She looked upon them one by one, waiting for their answer. 

At that moment, Snow heard a soft whispering in her head. She tilted, looking for the source, but so far, she wasn’t able to find anything. 

What was worse was that the voices seemed to get louder in her mind. She flinched, and her eyebrows furrowed. A throbbing headache was twisting its blade in her mind. 

“I can’t use any of my top electric spells,” Mike said, baffled, he shuddered at the thought of being unable to use his most powerful spells. “I don’t think that’s all. I have to do a couple of trials to make sure….wait...it says here I’ll turn into a girl at night?!”

Rodney burst out laughing when he heard Mike’s curse. 

“It seems that karma has finally caught up to you.” Rodney snorted, holding his laughter as best as he could.

“That’s not funny. I like girls. It doesn’t mean I want to be a girl!” 

“You’ll get used to it.” Rodney chuckled, wiping his tears. He eventually settled down and was back to being serious. “I, on the other hand, lucked out, and I’m only blind. I don’t see anything else that was taken from me.” 

“What about you, Dairen?”

Dairen didn’t answer. He was quietly watching the group. “I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” 

“Mr. Rogers?” Red called out.

A very handsome man, who was piloting the helicopter shouted with an amused expression. “It seems I have lost my urge to drink blood. This is quite interesting.” 

“You’re a human?!”

“Something like that.” Mr. Rogers didn’t seem to be offended by his sudden change. 

“Holy crap!” Red shouted, flabbergasted at the sudden predicament that Mr. Rogers was in. 

“It’s alright. I get to experience something interesting.” Mr. Rogers drove the helicopter down to the pads, gently. The whirling of the blades eventually stopped, allowing them to hear a bit better. 

“You still got nothing?” Mike asked, looking over toward Dairen. 

Dairen opened and closed his mouth. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. “I lost a couple of skills….that isn’t too bad. A few minor things like creating new undead...” 

“You can’t create more undead?”

Before Dairen could answer, the helicopter shifted, causing Snow to slide across the chair and into Dairen’s shoulder. 

A static electricity ran up and down her arms and into the core of her heart. Both of them flinched. She snapped her head towards Dairen with her eyes wide. 

A Swarm of dark thoughts exploded into her mind. A painful headache pounded in her head, and the twisting feeling in her heart looking at Darien made it even worse. What was happening?

Help meeeeee. A disembodied soul of the dead called her in pain. 

Kill him! Another shouted

No!

Stop! Save me!

The voices continued on and on, pouring into her mind like a waterfall. 

Snow had her hand in between her hand, looking down at her feet. When was this going to end? She didn’t know, but she wished it to stop. The whispering in her ears was getting stronger and stronger to the point where her mind was a mixture of dark voices, and her will to fight to quell it down. 

Snow pulled away from Dairen. She was the first one to jump off, power walking toward the door that led downstairs. 

All around her, dark silhouettes ran toward her. Surrounding her, yelling at her, and telling her to resurrect them so they could live once again. The constant chatter was overwhelming. She didn’t understand why these dark spirits were coming to her in droves. 

Snow reached out. Pushing through the waves of shadows, trying to swallow her whole. She was trying not to pay attention to the swirling bodies of shadows that meant her more mental harm. 

“Snow?” Dairen called out to her, trying to follow behind her. 

Snow could feel the huge waves of shadows running behind her. Her feet scampered to stay ahead. 

Snow didn’t stop. Her feet pushed her to a jog; eventually, she was fluttering down the stairs and straight to the elevator. 

The pounding in her head and the twisting in her heart was getting worse and worse. The screams of the people behind her were like a cackling hyena, scrambling her mind. 

With a beep, the elevator door closed with Dairen’s voice calling her name. 

She needed to run. 

Run to get her mind quieted and intact. Pacing back and forth, the elevator hit the first floor. The moment she heard the elevator beep, the door opened, and she walked out. 

“Priestess?” Someone called out to her on the side.

Snow didn’t stop. The whirling headache was getting terrible to the point she needed peace. 

“Priestess?! You’re back?!” A woman called out in excitement. 

A huge wave of cackling bodies of shadows were stumbling towards her in a hurry. In alarm, Snow bolted. 

She rushed out of the building. She ran and ran and ran until her feet pounded. The city blurred, mixing in with the constant chatter of the people’s voices that sounded like demonic laughter until she could not run anymore. 

Hidden in between two buildings, her hand rested on the wall. She leaned forward, taking deep breaths to steady her heart. The dizzying effect of the constant drumming of the voices in her head made her swoon, tethering back and forth. Her stomach heaved as she coughed a few times heavily. She wiped her mouth.

What was going on? Why couldn’t she beat this?!

Frustrated, angry, she knew that she lost a large portion of her memory, but she did not know what it was. 

Dizzy, her hand on her head, she stumbled. 

Her body crashed for a moment onto the wall. With great effort, she pushed herself away from the wall. Her eyes slightly dazed, she half stumbled her way toward the children’s park and made her way to a park bench. 

With a plop, she sat down. 

The voice lingered, making her leaned forward with her hand between her hands. It took a moment for the voices to settle down.

Suddenly, a shuffling of footsteps could be heard from behind. A shadow overshadowed Snow, looking at her from above. 

“Go away.” Snow snarled, getting tired of the constant shadows that were hounding her. 

But the shadow didn’t move. 

“I said, go-” 

Suddenly, A male’s voice spoke out from above. “Snow?” The shadows that had surrounded her disappeared, leaving behind a solemn silence that she wanted.