Friends and Family

After their near-death experience, Matt and Arcide went back to work without question, their workload effectively doubled. Fortunately, the little demon stayed quiet and unseen for the rest of the day’s work, though by the end he was beginning to wish that he could borrow a little of its strength again.

After managing to work past the built up stone that had nearly killed him, Matt and Arcide uncovered a corpse. The legs of the man had been crushed under the weight of the stone, it was obvious that they’d lived through the impact. Their fingers were bloodied where they had pried at the walls to their suddenly formed prison.

The belly of the man had a small cavity, purpled flesh degrading in small chunks around. Matt and Arcide quickly called out to the guard who hurriedly ran over.

Upon seeing the corpse, the guard held both hands over his chest repeating a prayer for the dead. A little giblet of knowledge that he’d stolen from Lilith’s mind as she observed them from nearby.

He focused as much as he could on anything but the demon, yet even so a cold chill ran down his back.

After his prayers, the guard set them all to work, quickly pouring oil over the body and setting it alight. As the fire still burned, spreading an unpleasant smell into the air, they moved stone bricks. Working around that fire as they waited for it to die down.

As the sun crept down towards the horizon, dark clouds gathered in the sky above, shaking the air with occasional bursts of thunder. A few stray raindrops were falling when the guard called them over.

“That’s it for today, you managed more than I expected from you at least. You’re free to head out for now, the barracks that you’re free to use are over that way,” He pointed along the walls towards a large unmarked building.

“Be sure to meet up at the same place tomorrow morning. Some of you will be split up into different areas for tomorrows labour, so pay close attention when they give you directions.” The man’s words carried through the rain as it grew even heavier, his aversion to the rain seeming to grow.

Feeling the relief of a long day’s end, his aches and pains from the day were now gathering. His entire body ached, especially the broken arm that he’d considered healed. But for now at least, it hadn’t been rebroken. Considering how he should have died today, the weak pains were nothing to complain about.

“We must speak.” The creature forced its way into his head again, speaking with quiet thoughts. “There is a dangerous mind that has been watching you.”

“Lilith?” He thought a little too ‘loudly’, allowing the demon to hear.

“You know this creature?” The demon asked him, its voice filled with disgust and fear.

“She’s a friend.” Matt replied, ignoring the rain falling around him. The thought stunned himself more than it did the demon, when had he began seeing her in the same light as he did his friends. She wasn’t like his childhood friends that much was certainly true, but still it frightened him to think of someone in such terms.

“You should not associate with such creatures.” The creature spoke to him, it’s thoughts gentle.

“Why, you haven’t even met any of them, have you?” He asked it, feeling a faint need to defend the women who’d protected him in this world. “How long have you even been alive for?”

The demon, sensing his emotions chose to quiet, emitting a great fear at his thoughts.

While he was focused in his internal dialogue, Matt failed to notice Arcide catching up with him. The man slapped Matt gently on the back saying more words that were unfamiliar to his mind.

Though it was irritating to be without Lilith’s language skills, he suspected getting caught talking to a demon might just be a worse problem. In the end, he was thankful she wasn’t around to see.

“Well, you owe me. So you are going to find some way to repay that debt.” The creature continued in his mind without interruption.

“I’ll do what I can, but I have other things I’m committed to. So long as it doesn’t conflict, I’m willing to help you.” He paused for a moment, thinking the situation over, “What is it that you need right now?”

“I need someone to host me.”

Matt was shocked at the thought flowing into his mind, pausing to stand still in the now pouring rain. The meaning was left vague as he struggled to pry the thought apart to no avail. The torrential rain ran down his soaked clothes, dripping into puddles that had formed in the blink of an eye.

Arcide wore a concerned expression as he looked over at Matt’s blank face. He was asking something but Matt couldn’t understand even if he had paid some attention to it.

While Matt continued to focus on his inner dialogue, Arcide gently tugged his arm, walking him over to a nearby slanted wall. The remaining roof offering some little shelter from the rain pelting down.

“You want to take someone’s body?” Matt asked in shock, starting to reach for the knife hidden in his clothes.

“No, I want someone to host me. I’m too weak to survive on my own, at most I can possess a small animal.” The creature paused for a moment fear flowing out of it like a waterfall, “I don’t want to die.”

“Why would you die?” Matt asked the creature, considering the consequences of hosting such a creature.

“You should know why, didn’t you and your friend recently hunt down the others like me?” Fear persistently emanated from the creature. “Do you really think she would give either me or you the time to explain this? Not just them either, most humans would kill me on site. Of the others, most would do even worse.”

“I suppose I see what you’re getting at.” He mumbled in his mind, while Arcide began talking to himself. The man had to be fully aware at how Matt couldn’t understand him, but continued nonetheless.

As he thought of about this pitiful demon, he realized that it might just be worse off than himself. At least he was able to make allies.

For now, if the creature was to be believed, all it was after was a companion. Someone to take care of it and perhaps share some of its body. It was a sympathetic position, if it wasn’t lying.

With some hesitation, he spoke to it, “What can I do?”

“First of all, keep that monster you call a friend away from me.” It demanded, “If it sees me, we’re both dead.”

“I don’t think I can do that, we’re together most of the time. I’m also connected to her mind somehow.” He whispered starting to fear that tether for as long as the demon was close by, “It might be best for you to leave soon.”

The creature grumbled in reply, obviously unsatisfied with how things were.

“You aren’t like the other demons.” Matt eventually said, of the demons he’d met; there was Grikith, a talented manipulator with a terrifying existence, and then there were the violent creatures born in the town. All of them calling for Lilith’s death and trying to kill him themselves.

“You aren’t like the other humans.” It replied, “I suspect that I am different to the others though. The human I was born from was buried under that rubble before he died. He felt fear more than anything when he finally passed, that fear is what birthed me.”

The demon spoke at length about itself, surprising Matt who listened on, intrigued by its mind.

“How do you know all that?” He asked.

“I just do.” It responded, “Ever since I spoke with you, thoughts are moving in strange ways. I have been noticing many things about myself that I’d not noticed before.”

Neither of them knew what to say about that, pressure exuded on Matt’s mind, the only reminder of the demon’s presence during that silence. The demon had obviously been born from the body buried in the rubble, but to think that it would change by coming into contact with him.

Ever since the demon had saved him, he’d been searching for traces of the purple mist that tended to cloud his mind. The kind demons and Knights both tended to use, yet he couldn’t find a trace of it. That was part of the reason he trusted the demon, if only a little.

Arcide had given up speaking for the moment staring out into the thick rain. He held out a hand to the sky catching the water as it flowed from the sky, his face looked distant, the muscles so much more relaxed than ever before. So much so that he almost seemed a different man.

Wind cut through their soaked clothes, bringing goose bumps to his skin. This attack from the forces of nature bringing Arcide back from the distant place which his mind had escaped.

“Will this person take me on?” The creature asked, indicating Arcide with his mind.

“I don’t know, he seems nice though. Are you going to ask?”

“… Will you protect me if he tries to kill me?” The creature asked after a pause.

“I guess,” Matt replied uncertainly.

“Then ask him for me.” The creature demanded.

“I can’t, I don’t know the language.” Matt replied immediately. “Why don’t you ask?”

“I can’t.” It replied with frustration. Arcide starting to realize he was being talked about, looked Matt’s direction curiosity bleeding through his tense gaze.

“Why not? Just talk to him like you’re talking to me.” Matt’s mind replied distractedly.

“I merged, that’s why I can talk to you like this. If I do that to him and he says no, he’ll have me killed!” The creature replied, oozing another burst of fear into Matt’s heart.

“We merged? What does that mean, did I change somehow?” Matt asked, filled with concern.

“No, the one who changed was me. I copied a part of you so that I could understand your mind and talk with you.”

Matt didn’t even try comprehending what that would have taken. “So the reason you merged with me?”

“You were going to die if you refused me.” The creature replied flatly, “I wouldn’t have done anything otherwise.”

Matt felt a little uncomfortable about the selection process this demon used. He let the conversation die, ignoring the grumbles of the creature hanging around the back of his mind.

In the silence of their conversation, the wind picked up again. The cold gust cutting right through Matt’s thick wet clothes. He was beginning to understand why so many people were dying out here of a night, though the rain was so thick that he could almost believe they were the only two people left in the city. Not wanting to join the ranks of frozen dead, he looked over at the barracks, which was hidden by the rain, a glint of desire sparking in his eyes.

To get there he’d have to brave the chill rain pounding down at the earth around them, and the powerful gusts of wind guiding them. Not to mention the deepening puddles and uncertain terrain. The thought of it left Matt cuddled up under his meagre roofing.

Disguised by the pounding of rain and whistling of the wind, Matt could hear a faint chirping from the broken ceiling above. The sound briefly preceding a thumping as a drenched reptile fell between Matt and Arcide. The creature was the same species of flighted lizard he’d seen countless times before.

A krliker, Lilith had called them once before.

“A stunted drake?” Arcide named it as he looked down at the creature, “It doesn’t look very well off.” As he said, the creature that had fallen between them looked to be on the brink of death.

The krliker was shaking from the cold, one of the its wings had been torn apart, the only flesh remaining, a short and broken arm. The scales on its face had been similarly burnt away and a few of the spikes lining its spine seemed to be missing.

“Poor thing won’t live long at this rate.” Arcide pointed out, trying to soothe the small lizard with a gentle voice and a few calming pets.

It was a protracted moment before Matt realized what was wrong.

He could understand Arcide’s words.

“PRoTecT Me!” The fear demon shouted in a panic, Lilith’s approaching presence sending it into a fearful panic. Unfortunately for both of them she was getting closer quickly.

Matt’s hand was frozen over the small, dying krliker. A dark purple mist seemed to form from within Matts wrist, trailing down to the dying creature, while he was still frozen in panic.

In a few brief moments, the mist disappeared alongside the mind pressing on him from behind. It had all happened so quickly that in this dark shadow it would have been difficult to notice. Even so, Arcide couldn’t miss the sudden changes enveloping the small creature.

As the mist was absorbed into the creature’s flesh, changes overwhelmed it. The missing muscle and bone was replaced in an instant with darker appendages.

A wing made from the fabric of midnight, specked with stray holes. Fresh spikes grew along it’s spine where they were missing, all of them curved backwards. The flesh of its face was soon repaired with a twisted visage that only barely matched the remaining face that had survived.

Lilith marching closer with a ridiculous speed sent his heart into a fit. The demonically possessed krliker racing around behind Arcide, hiding from the approaching Knight with the haste of a creature under the shadow of its predator. The man himself could only stare in shock as Lilith’s silhouette cut a path through the tumultuous rain.

Lilith’s figure stood above them, her demonic armour reflecting a twisted world as she looked down at them with pity filling her eyes. “Let’s go.” She said to him, ignoring Arcide and the terrified creature hiding behind the man.

“Ah, Goodbye,” Matt called out to Arcide as he fled from the scene, working hard to supress the thoughts of demons so that they wouldn’t slip through.

A sigh of relief left his lips as he left behind the problems of the day, half of which were going to get him killed one way or another. Though the cold wind and rain offered only another threat to his life.

Lilith, as if reading his mind, threw back a thick cloak at him. It was dark brown and stained from use, but was able to repel the rain and stood strong against the wind that tried to cut through it.

Even with the tempestuous winds blowing around them, Lilith was wearing nothing other than her armour. He understood that she was no longer fully human, and that her body temperature was normally quite high. Even so, it seemed strange for her to have her skin open to the chilling winds and icy rain.

“You don’t need to be so afraid of me,” She said without looking at him.

“Ah, okay.” He replied uncertainly to her sudden request.

“I’m not a monster.” She whispered so low that he would have missed it without their tether.

Matt didn’t know what to say, instead keeping quiet for their long walk out of the city. The rain covering them from the eyes of any who might see them.

“We shouldn’t walk too close together,” She said to him, looking around for anyone paying too close attention.

Matt responded with a nod, lagging behind from Lilith as she walked him through the main thoroughfare of the city. All around were people seeking some kind of shelter, their eyes were scanning the dark spaces around them with paranoia.

He vaguely remembered his first time walking into these walls with Lilith. When the sun had disappeared from the horizon they all ran for shelter, lighting up their lamps and torches as if a ward from the darkness.

Some of those he walked past were making sad attempts at lighting torches, or holding up lamps that could barely even shine a small light through the darkness of the storm. The sun had long since been lost behind the clouds, it’d be difficult to tell if it’d completely fallen past the horizon.

Those looking for shelter found some safety in the fallen sections of wall but soon found themselves kneeling in freezing puddles. The water invading every part of them as they attempted to find some warmth. The sight of all this suffering made him realize how much of a gift the barracks was for him and the other labourers.

They were being offered a protection that even the citizens themselves were lacking. This worked only to reinforce his disgust in this place where human lives were treated so lowly.

Passing by the gates, he could barely even make out the guards as they lowered the hoods on their jackets to hide from the rain. Their lack of attentiveness, concerning to the enemy soldier walking through their gates.

Thunder rolled long the atmosphere, and the only light remaining in the sky was from the occasional burst of lightning cutting apart the dark sky. Ahead he could glimpse, through the flashes of light, the white peaked tents belonging to the Sasahara Knights.

Walking amidst the small tents, Matt noticed how none of them seemed to have anyone inside. They were all flapping gently in response to the powerful gusts. Ahead the largest tent awaited them, glowing from the inside with the warm colours of fire.

As soon as he entered the tent, the warm air from inside overwhelmed him, as if inviting him in. The fire, sitting in a small metal dish, exuded heat and light but wasn’t alone. Matt could feel the warmth radiating from each of the bodies within, their increased body temperature flooding the room with above normal temperatures.

All their faces turned his and Lilith’s direction as they walked in, the faces of those waiting painted in curiosity. Wanting to hear the results of the day, they chattered disquietly amongst themselves.

“Not just that, they want to hear about your world.” Lilith intervened on his thoughts, but he paid it little mind.

Myra was the first to welcome him back, walking up to him and taking his chilled hand in her own as she led him over to where they had food resting on the table. “How was your first day as a spy?” She asked him straight out as he sat at the table.

Before they had time to settle Lilith had already disappeared to another room of the tent, seemingly lacking the same interest that was overwhelming the others. Before him sat a small feast much like the first he’d come across here, a meal that made his brief lunch of bread and water earlier in the day, feel even less satisfying. The sight of it had his stomach grumbling in excitement.

Between bites of various fruits Matt described his day, the stolen language skills offering him a headache in payment. “I spent the day moving the debris around, no one seemed too suspicious of me.” He forced another mouthful of the sweet fruit into his mouth.

Myra, who’d chosen to sit by his side, cut in as he ate, “Did you find out anything interesting?” Her voice was filled with hope.

“Not really, they said something about splitting us up for tomorrows work. I was working hard, so hopefully they take me somewhere where I can find out something.” His words were a little hesitant, even with the situation as it was, he couldn’t completely understand why they sent him in.

Myra tried to disguise her disappointment as they continued to talk about the various worthless topics that came to mind thereafter. When there was a topic that he couldn’t quite understand, Myra offered some insight, teaching him more and more about their culture.

“I don’t understand why it is that we’re rebuilding the walls. The guard leading us mentioned it briefly, but I still don’t get it. They can’t stop my people and the longer we spend building the wall, the more people die from the cold and rain.”

The others seemed to nod at his thoughts, having come to the same conclusion themselves. Surprisingly it was Ophiella sitting across from him that was the one to speak up. “We… I mean the people here, they are very prideful about war. Seeing the walls fallen like that, even for me, is terrifying.”

She sighed looking down at her hands, trying to accept what it was she’d become. “It’s like their spirits are broken.” She murmured, “I guess they want to rebuild the walls, hoping to patch up that damage.”

Matt thought about her words for a while, trying to imagine what it was like for these people. What it would be like for his home to be broken and shattered, an impossibility that was hard to imagine.

“All the while they’re terrified, wondering when the metal monsters will return to kill them all.” She finished, tightening her demonic hand into a fist, rejecting the helplessness that she herself spoke of.

“I think we can all understand that,” Cassielle said, looking over at Matt.

He nodded, understanding the terror of the inevitable better than most here. The System would always catch up with his actions, always tear apart what was most precious.

“Have you found out anything about the rift?” He asked the gathered Knights, hoping for some good news.

“Not much, metal krlikers have been seen all throughout the forest. We’ve yet to locate any other forces, and unfortunately the rift your speaking of.” Cassielle replied, her words heavy with disappointment.

In the end, there was no good news or bad news. The impending threat weighing heavily upon them.

Myra was constantly forcing food onto his plate just as she had before. Her cheerful attitude something that helped to calm this tense atmosphere, she was happily bickering with Ophiella opposite them.

As he finished off his second dish, he looked around the table at all the cheerful faces gathered. Smiling, laughing, they were jovially spending their time together, as friends, as a family.

Myra forced more food onto his empty plate as tears worked their way down his cheeks. He wiped them clean and blinked away the tears still forming. Ophiella noticed him from across the table but pretended not to see anything.

This was the first time in a long time that Matt felt himself surrounded by so many positive emotions. For so many years, all he could feel was the distance between himself and others. At best was the calculating coldness of his fellow soldiers, even in their most cheerful moments.

The warmth around him filling up a part of his heart that he’d forgotten existed.

He actually felt happy.

It wasn’t as if the void in his heart had been filled, but for the first time since it had formed he could smile without lying to everyone around him. He could laugh and enjoy the company of others who felt the same way.

It felt as if he had a family again.

He let himself feel happy, as he enjoyed the long meal.

Myra was caught up in conversation with the person sitting beside her, “Remember that time when she juggled for the kids, I remember making it to a count of twenty!”

“Well she was with the travelling stage in her previous life.” The woman replied, “Her juggling was nothing compared to her acrobatics though, do you remember how she used to jump around. I could never manage to keep up with her.”

“… I miss her jokes.” Myra replied, a sudden seriousness to her voice.

“You always complained about her jokes! If I recall last time, you said ‘I’d prefer to hear a demon screeching in my ear than to hear another one of your jokes.’” She laughed a little at the recollection.

“Alright, alright. I miss hating those awful jokes.” Myra said, chugging down her drink, “And I definitely miss when drinking this actually did something.” She sighed dropping her empty cup to the table.

Their conversation died as serious expressions overtook their faces.

Nearby, Ophiella was being interrogated by Cassielle, “So does it hurt at all?”

Ophiella nervously raised her demonic hand, “Not really, it feels strange though. Like it’s mine, but not mine.”

“Can I touch it,” she asked carefully, reaching out a hand nervously.

“I- sure.” Ophiella replied, trying to keep her focus on the food in front of her.

“It’s coarse,” the older woman mumbled, lifting up the girls sleeve to look at where it was connected to human flesh. “It seems to have corrupted some of your remaining shoulder to anchor itself.” Indeed as she said, the dark colours had seeped up her arm with small threads invading past the shoulder.

“Is… Is that bad?” She asked, hurriedly turning to face Cassielle.

“I don’t know for sure, the only time I’ve seen something like this is demonic possessions but you seem to be in control of all your faculties. I suppose so long as you remain in control, the corruption should remain as it is.” She had an intrigued look on her face, filled with curiosity rather than the concern one might expect.

Myra took the chance to support Ophiella as best she could, “You’ll be fine, you made it through initiation so you have the strength to face this. I’ll always be beside you if you need a shoulder to lean on, so if you’re feeling bad don’t be afraid to talk.”

“Okay, thanks.” She replied, more calm than she was before.

“Don’t mention it, we need to support each other sometimes. None of us can afford to let a bad day get the better of us.” She smiled enthusiastically, already leaving behind the heavy aura that she’d been so caught by earlier.

Ophiella spoke up while still picking at her food, “What was your previous life like?” As she spoke, Lilith took a seat near Cassielle a few positions away from Matt. Her choice of seating seemed intentional as she avoided the space to his right.

“Me?” She paused for the blink of an eye, “Were you ever taught about the war in Kilkreth, the one that happened a decade ago?”

“Not really.”

“Well, it was bad, really bad. It’s the worst war in recent history, not many people survived it.” She was swallowing back her emotions, as she pushed on, “I don’t remember much of my parents, but apparently they were important figures in the war effort. With my town not far from the battle lines they were trying hard to supress the war, to keep it from getting out of control.

“So for most of my childhood, I was taking care of my two little brothers on my own. There was the maid who came and went but she wasn’t much help when things were getting difficult. We were rather well off, you see, we had plenty of money and we made a life out of it.

“We were lucky…” her words relayed an awful truth, “There were many others worse off, women, kids and even the wounded were living in the streets.

“To make things worse, every time I went down to the markets there was less food, and more people begging. Kids stealing… People used to pay it no mind when an Ukri or two go missing, but everyone was starving at the time.

“Day by day it was getting worse, eventually it got so bad that they had some of the kids up in stocks every time I went down to the markets.”

“What did you do?” Ophiella asked, absorbed in the story.

“By then I was barely leaving the house anymore. Too afraid of what might be coming, by this point I’d given up hope that my parents might be coming back. I only went to town to get food, it was too depressing and dangerous to leave the house otherwise.

“Finally, it was a familiar face in those bloodied stocks, someone I’d considered my closest friend at the time. I could see the tearstains on her cheeks but she’d already lost the strength to cry by then. She was so thin that I could make out every bone in her body clearly.

“I gave away every piece of gold on me to get her out, then brought her back home. We had plenty of room free at my house and didn’t need to be worried about how many mouths we had to feed. After that I just couldn’t look away anymore.

“I slowly gathered together all the homeless kids in town, turning my home into an orphanage. Things were starting to get happier, making friends, and the gloomy feeling of the empty house disappeared overnight.”

“But if the food was running out, how could you get enough to feed them all.” Cassielle asked, getting caught up in the story herself.

“We had plenty of problems, but together we managed to find a way to make it work.” She downed another drink as her story neared an ending.

“So why did you leave then?”

There was a silence spreading around the table in response to her question, everyone but himself and Ophiella seemed to know something more.

“Remember how I said there was a war going on? I can’t even remember why they were fighting but it was one of the worst wars this century. For the first time in decades, the two sides refused to clean up demon’s land. If anyone moved forwards, the other side tried to kill them.

“By the way, demon’s land is the land between the two armies. This is where the corpses fall, and if not purified, birth demons.

“I don’t know what went through their minds, but eventually they birthed the largest demon infestation since the age of legends.” Myra looked down at her hands, blinking away tears before they formed.

“Both armies were annihilated in a single night, a few runners were able to make it to nearby villages before they were overwhelmed by the demon tide. The demon’s growing in number as they slaughtered entire towns, to us they were unstoppable.

“I can still remember the bells ringing in the night, only a few moments before the screaming started. After that… I can’t remember anything clearly. Blood, pain, suffering.” She blinked away tears as she pushed forwards with her story.

“When that long night ended, I was resting my head on Cassielle’s lap. My house was gone. My family was gone. The entire town was gone. I knew, I knew that I was the only one, I couldn’t remember anything clearly but I knew that no one else could have survived it.

“To this day, I still wonder why they didn’t kill me. Why I was the one spared.

“After that, I died.” Her story came to an abrupt end, filling the table with silence. Sometime during her storytelling the other women had disappeared, heading out to rest for the night while leaving the five of them alone.

Ophiella lifted up her demonic arm, inspecting it again for the umpteenth time. “Why did so many demons appear?”

“You understand why we burn the dead when they die on the battlefield?” Cassielle turned to her to cover for Myra’s silence.

“Because demons come out of them.”

“Yes, demons are born from their dying emotions and wishes, their dying sentiments. Some consider them the personification of the dying man’s wish. This is because they are born from the hatred of the dying for his murder.

“Without proper direction, the demons are born with a hatred of all living things, and in many cases of each other as well. The only reason we were able to stop that infestation was because they killed so many of their own.

“There were too many even for us to face with frontal force, instead we repelled their attacks. We kept them from killing anyone else, forcing them to fight each other instead. When their numbers dwindled, we moved in and cleaned them out. A little too late for some.”

They remained quiet for a moment, breathing in the warm air.

Matt broke that silence, his curiosity burning, “So demons are born from the powerful emotions of a dying person? What if they feel something other than anger or fear?”

“It has long been thought that demons are born from the unclean emotions; anger, fear, jealously, and lust. Though mostly of the former. Angels are born from the orderly emotions; love, pride, and joy.”

“Angels?” The thought of winged messengers of god didn’t exactly come to mind in his translation.

Lilith took the initiative, “Creatures that live on the same plane of existence that demons do. They will often help people in need and are a large part of many religions found in northern lands.” Her words spoken matter-of-factly sounded as though they came directly out of a text book.

“In truth, most of what we know about angels and demons isn’t backed by hard evidence and is based around ancient superstitions. Most attempts to research the nature of angels and demons fails outright as their existence cannot be explained through the natural laws.”

Myra seemed to have perked up a little as she replied, “Thanks professor, but I think our ‘ancient superstitions’ are doing just fine. Otherwise, you could always ask the demon what it thinks.” Her last words were drenched in sarcasm.

“I just don’t think we understand all there is yet.” She looked across to Ophiella to highlight their ignorance, making the girl squirm.

“Well the Sasahara Knights have been making contracts with demons for hundreds of years, but we never really tried to research anything. We are warriors after all, not scholars.” Cassielle poked at the remaining food on her plate, her face more relaxed than usual.

“How long have the Knights existed for?” Ophiella pried.

“The stories differ on the exact number, but at least four hundred years. Though we weren’t always like we are today.”

“How was it different?” Matt asked.

“When they started out, there were many things that they didn’t know. So many died of the corruption, possessed by the demons, they went wild and killed even those who survived the process. It was a long time before we realized how to perform these rituals, many deaths too.

“Worse still was the sins of men. The very existence of the Sasahara Knights was put to threat. Thousands dead, and in the end no male Knight remained standing. Never again would a man be Knighted, for the sake of our very existence.”

Before Matt could ask why, Ophiella cut in, “So in all that time, there was no one like me?” her demonic hand was formed into a fist and her eyes were locked on the table in front of her.

“No, you are the first to bear such thorough demonic corruption.” Cassielle replied to her, “It’s a miracle that you survived intact.”

Another silence filled the table, Myra reached a hand across the gap to grip onto Ophiella’s human hand. She relaxed a little at the human contact.

“Your world really doesn’t have demons or angels?” Lilith suddenly asked, turning to Matt.

“No, there were fairy tales of things like that but they weren’t real.” His reply seemed to surprise most of the people at the table.

“If demons didn’t exist… what kind of world was that?”

“Apparently in the old world, it was bad. Wars that left billions dead for no real purpose. Corruption that left food rotting in stores while millions starved. It took the destruction of the planet for the new world to be born.

“Where I lived was something like an oasis in the lifeless deserts that the world had become. Even then, it was far from perfect.”

They listened on silently, eyes filled with so many questions that their mouths could not spill a single word.

Their conversations lasted for a long while until finally they decided it was time to split up for the night.

Lilith led him from the huge tent into the open night air. The rain had since passed leaving behind a moist scent in the air, and thousands of small puddles reflecting the bright stars above. Looking up into the sky, he was struck by the endless beauty of it.

The night sky was divided by a massive line of bright stars, all shining in slightly different shades. Above that dash of starlight some kind of astral body floated overhead, shining down on them in shifting shades of blue.

“What do you call that?” He asked, not needing to point at the beautiful blue ‘moon’ above.

Lilith paused, staring up at the sky shining almost as bright as day, “Seri, it’s nice to see her shining so brightly even after all this.”

“Seri.” He repeated, gazing up into the heavens.

“According to some legends it’s where our souls travel after our bodies die.” She sighed, “At least for those humans that didn’t sell their souls.” Her pale skin caught the light of Seri in such a way that she seemed to glow in the darkness.

She gazed down at her own hands, forming fists before walking away. “We’ll camp out here from now on, I want to leave the room to those who need it.” Matt nodded in reply, caught by how the blue light from above reflected in shades of red where it touched her armour.