Jake opened his eyes to the now familiar ceiling of Mike’s house, where he had planned to stay for a day but had been staying at ever since he joined a new family. He sat upright on the bed and lazily yawned once, before standing tall and stretching his body. After checking whether the bathroom was in use by knocking twice, he entered and turned on the shower, where he cleaned his body with cold water.

After 10 minutes he felt a new man, and after putting on some casual clothes he exited the house and locked the door behind him, calling the elevator right after. Whenever someone entered a simple greeting followed, and whenever someone exited a simple goodbye was in order.

After waving the security guard, he turned left and began walking towards the train station, where he bought a ticket for one and sat on a near bench to wait for his transportation; 15 minutes later he entered the train, his gaze moving from one side to the other looking for a spot to sit.

Sitting next to the window, he peeked outside while waiting for the train to departure and a short few minutes later it did just that. He watched the tall mountains in the distance slowly inching away from view, the blue sky void of any clouds and the bright green grass that gave life and fed a few cattle running wild.

A seemingly endless hour went by, and he lazily exited the train and began moving his feet. after going up a few hills and walking through an unpaved road for a few more minutes, he stopped in front of a massive silver gate that was half opened.

A small angel stood next to it, its head bowed and its hands together in a prayer; on the other side of the door six rows of cypresses greeted visitors and gave life to the final resting place of the deceased. They were well kept, and the love and care put into each tree were almost palpable.

Jake walked through the silver gate and turned left, passing by four mausoleums; two on each side. He turned right and continued to walk in a straight line, passing by hundreds of graves and finally stopping in front of one in particular. A tombstone with a cross in the middle and a pillar to each side, along with a single jar filled with different flowers in the middle with an inscription that read: ‘Rose Miller, fought to the ends of the earth for her children, her husband and herself. 1976-2001’.

He stood in silence in front of the grave, doing nothing but scratching ever so slightly his thumb with his index finger, a small gesture he had picked up from a long time ago when his father did so to calm himself while speaking at his mother’s funeral. He couldn’t remember what his father was saying at the time and simply stared at this gesture; before he knew it, he had begun copying him.

At the age of eleven, he had lost his mother to cancer and it broke apart his family. She fought against the disease with everything she had, yet nothing seemed to work. He didn’t quite understand why his mother began losing her hair, or why she sometimes had trouble walking. He knew she was sick, but he didn’t grasp the fact that the fire inside of her was running out of fuel.

He was at school when she gave her last breath. The principal went into the classroom and called for him, he said he needed to stay near the front gate, that in a few minutes an auxiliary teacher that was on his break would take him to the hospital, where his father and older brother were. He couldn’t understand why the principal who he barely knew and couldn’t remember ever speaking to was giving him a hug and telling him to ‘be strong’, and contradicting himself by saying it was okay to cry.

Shock. He didn’t cry until two years later when he was doing his homework and all of a sudden, he broke down. Without knowing why, how or what made him break in tears. It just happened; he cried himself to sleep that day. Neither his father or brother were there for him when it happened; one was at his father's side grandparents indefinitely, the other had gone outside to drink.

The following week he moved in with his grandparents from his mother’s side, seeing his father only occasionally since then. He continued to be at the same school, where Mike also studied. He felt more like family than his own, and he would usually have dinner at his place before being dropped off at his grandparents' house. And so he moved on, visiting his mother’s grave every few months since then while doing his best to get good enough grades to get a scholarship down the line.

He couldn’t blame Mike; he wouldn’t. Human life was short and filled with small pebbles that made it even shorter. Medicine had made things better, yet at the dawn of the day it would all come to an end eventually, that’s why he tried to be his best self at all times. He didn’t want to become an emotionless machine, he just wanted to be someone his mother would be proud of.

Jake turned around, walking in a straight line past endless lines of graves, turning left at the end and passing by the mausoleums of some famous people who had died a long time ago then turned right, exiting by the silver gate.

He took the last the train back, this time his shoulders felt a lot more relaxed, and even a small smile could be seen. He opened the door to Mike’s apartment, then went on to knock on his door, which was half-open. Hearing no response, he opened the door slowly, and could see the portal to Ishbula’s place was open; he walked straight into it, this time feeling a lot less sick compared to last time.

After opening his hazy eyes, he found himself in the same patch of darkness that Ishbula-na’ called home, yet he couldn’t see the floating eye anywhere near, only a single massive wooden door behind the place where he always stood guard.

It had a strange symbol on it, which looked like two cubes intertwined with a circle in the middle at an angle, two small rings to pull below this symbol. It felt very heavy when he tried giving it a small push, and when he tapped it, he could feel it was an extremely hard kind of wood, with a feeling to the touch similar to concrete in hardness and temperature, while still soft and almost slippery to the touch, like treated plywood.

Suddenly, the room began to rumble, while the door began to slowly open. Jake backed up and when it was open enough for a person to go through, a bloodied Mike entered the room. He was holding his left shoulder which had blood dripping from it, while his right cheek had four claw marks going from the base of his ear to his lower lip. Jake began running towards him while rummaging desperately through his pocket, from which he took out a purple gem.

“Mike!” he cried, while running towards his friend and holding him from the other side and helping him down. He placed the gem on Mike’s good hand, a worried look on his face. Mike put the gem on his chest and began moving his lips in silence, a few drops of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. His body began to glow slightly, and particles of light began to float from his wounds, leaving behind a healed body. He regained his breath and looked at Jake with a serious face.

“It’s not good,” he said, before pushing the gem onto his chest with a wince once more, while more light particles began to form and float into the sky. He seemed to be on the verge of passing out until he bit his down his lower lip so strongly blood began to seep out until a few light particles formed and left him healed once more.

“Remember the project I was helping Ishbula with? It has backfired us, and now the sixth and fifth ring are trying to hunt him down”

Jake looked completely out of sorts, he didn’t understand much of anything. He never heard what the project was all about, and didn’t understand how or why it would backfire.

“I managed to get rid of the people chasing him, but he will have to stay hidden until things settle down and we find a way to cool things off.”

Mike stood up, before making a hand gesture towards Jake for him to follow him outside and into his room. He walked through the portal with Jake in tow and on the other side they found themselves back in Mike’s room, where the portal closed again behind themselves.

Jake sat down on Mike’s desk, while Mike lied down onto his bed. “Well, what was the project that had you guys turn into a bunch of targets all about,” Jake said, a small frown on his face. Mike laughed slightly, before coughing hard and cleaning the side of his mouth where a small bit of blood had seeped out. Jake looked down and grabbed a gem from the desk, which he threw next to the lying Mike, who took it and healed himself for the third time.

“He wanted to kick the lord of the eight ring out. Remember how I told you he was fairly new? We wanted to put someone else into his post.”

Jake frowned, failing to understand from just that. “And why would that make the fifth and sixth rings try to murder you both?”

Mike laughed again, rubbing the underside of his nose. “Well, the thing is, he wanted to put a human in that post, something that never happened before in the history of the Abyss.”

“A human?” Jake asked in confusion, wondering for what purpose, and more importantly, who.

“Yes, he wanted to make the lord of the eight ring, me.”