“What the hell?”

Toucan was the newest to the criminal underworld, which was why they gave him the easiest job. One where he didn’t need to be violent, or act tough. All he needed to do was stand at the entrance of the store and keep guard. Sure, he’d failed and let some scrawny kid in, but that shouldn’t mean much.

Or really, the question was more so:

“Where the hell did he go?” Golf-ball asked quietly, focused entirely on the empty black space by the store’s entrance. It seemed like just a second ago, Toucan was standing there just a few seconds ago, but now he was gone. “Did he run away?”

Nobody noticed Golf-ball asking these questions, and nobody noticed the disappearance of the youngest member of the robber group. Rather, the entire focus was on Gorilla, the large man, screaming and slamming his fists down over and over on the old woman they were holding hostage. It was an unrelenting torrent of blows, hammering her bones and organs into paste. He was letting out guttural screams, like some sort of demonic beast, and his companions couldn’t do anything but watch. Even Ern, who was used to violence and debauchery, felt a chill run down his spine at the display. For the first time since entering the store, the thought crossed his mind that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.

“Relax you fucker,” Anime said, kicking over a stand of magazines. When Gorilla didn’t respond, Anime sucked in a deep breath and kicked the man in the back. “Calm down, that’s enough!”

“Enough!?”

“She’s fucking dead dude.”

That gave Gorilla a moment of pause from his assault. He turned to look at Anime for a second, then returned to gaze at Barbara’s limp body. Mangled in ways that made it almost indistinguishable. Returning to sanity had a sobering effect on Gorilla, who held still for a minute, before dropping the old woman and pushing away from her. His hands were shaking.

While he did that, Anime turned to the rest of his group.

“What the hell are you idiots doing out here? How the fuck did this end up turning into such a huge mess in only five fucking minutes?”

“It was that fucker,” Fish said, pointing at Gorilla. “And the piece of shit cashier. He tried to hide a knife on him, then was trying to cut himself out. I taught him a lesson, but that god damn monkey fuck over there was just beating people for no reason. But I mean, getting rid of that old lady was good, right?”

“Sure, totally reasonable,” Anime said, not a hint of emotion in his voice. He went to pick up his gun and the bag full of valuables while continuing to address the group. “Whatever. We’re done here. So let’s get the fuck outta dodge before anyone notices. What are you spacing out for?”

Anime asked the last question to Golf-ball, who was still pondering the disappearance of Toucan. There was something strange about the scene that he just couldn’t place. What was it? The young thug couldn’t have gotten far, since it was just a few seconds that Golf-ball looked away from him. So what happened? Did he sprint away when Gorilla started the barrage? It was possible that the sheer violence of the act caused Toucan to lose his marbles, but it still seemed strange. From where Toucan was standing, he wouldn’t have been able to see the struggle easily...Golf-ball was so lost in these thoughts that he didn’t even hear what his comrades were saying. It was a shock to him when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped.

“Focus up,” Anime said. He sniffed. “Let’s get out of here before the cops show up.”

It took a little bit for Golf-ball to remember what was going on, but he quickly nodded in agreement. Fish went to grab Gorilla and yanked him up, but the large man just crumpled back down to his knees. His eyes were glued to the beaten and bloody body before him.

Nobody was paying attention to the store door when it opened, the welcome bells ringing for the second time.

The new intruder removed his sunglasses.

Everything about him screamed predator. Markus was not exceptionally tall, but he was well built. His teeth were sharp, and he smiled wide to show them off. His eyes, black sclera, with red irises and white pupils were alien to the men, and the nonchalance of his entrance was different from the boy’s from before. He was wearing baggy clothes and hunched over, but his arms were spread wide, as though about to embrace an old friend.

Oh, and he was entirely covered in wet blood.

That helped make him more intimidating.

“Hola amigos,” Markus said, the door slowly swinging shut behind him. “You can call me Mozart, and imma be your shepherd to the afterlife tonight. If you have any questions or concerns about your life and death or whatever, you can address them to Saint Petey up at those pearly gates, or whatever place you believe people go floating to when they kick the can. I’m on a bit of a time crunch here, but I can’t help my better nature, so if there are any requests for how you want me to kill you or display your body after death, lemme know. I like obliging people whenever I can, since I’m a crowd-pleaser, so this is my way of giving back, ya dig?”

The entrance of Markus was met with mixed emotions from the group of people inside the convenience store. Anime was finally at the end of his patience, while Fish was close to losing it himself. Gorilla didn’t understand what was going on, but Golf-ball was horrified as he came to the conclusion that the blood coating Markus belonged to Toucan. The old woman was unconscious, and the cashier was zoning in and out of lucidity. Caitlyn was ignoring Markus entirely and paying attention to the shadowy glow that now surrounded Ern, while the boy in question was smiling like he just won the lottery.

“Anything?” Markus asked. “Anything at all?”

Ern was about to speak up when Anime interrupted him, raising his pistol. He pulled the trigger while speaking.

“I’ve had enough of this.”

Things did not go as planned for him.

***

There are creatures that exist beyond the scope of humanity.

Beasts that live in incredible ways, that cling to the shadows and go bump in the night.

Terrifying beings that ignored natural laws, choosing instead to exist in their own supernatural ways. That cannot be tethered down to human understanding, or possibly any kind of understanding at all.

These beings, as Ern had learned about them from his late parents, were simply called phantasms. Non-human entities that existed beyond the veil. Supernatural creatures that you would see in fantasy stories or old legends.

As a magus, the general rule was to avoid them when you could. With enough time to prepare, and a healthy knowledge of the phantasms weakness, you could exploit or kill them. If it really came down to a fight, humanity could vanquish those who hid beyond the veil. But it wasn’t easy. There were sacrifices, or requirements to do so. Rarely were the rewards worth the costs, and it was almost always better for a person to simply appease or make deals with those phantasms than fight them.

But since his parents died and Ern took over their work, he was quick to learn that was mostly untrue. The strongest phantasms were beyond the scope of human interaction, sure, but they were uncommon. The general phantasm you met on the street was no stronger than a regular person, and sometimes weaker.

That did not include Markus.

Markus was a being that stood far above man, with a massive difference in power between. To him, humans were nothing more than playthings, and Markus was considered pretty weak in his own cliques.

A member of the hematophage family, Markus was a vampire.

***

The bullet, after being fired from the chamber, did not penetrate Markus’s hoodie sweatshirt. It wasn’t that Anime missed, nor that Markus dodged, even though he easily could’ve. There was a restriction in place that prevented the harm from being done.

So instead, the shot that should have hit Markus square in the chest and killed him, ended up striking Anime instead. The bullet exploded into the man’s body, ripping his ribs apart and popping his lung before continuing on and blasting a hole in the man’s back. The bullet shattered the glass from a case behind Anime as he was tossed backways into it, blood splattering across the floor as he landed.

Instant death.

“Huh, what the heck man?” Markus asked, frowning. “Why’d ya’ just go and shoot me like that? Didn’t I tell you I was gonna kill you, not that you were gonna kill yourself? You’re not supposed to fight back, you’re just supposed to die.”

Fish made the same mistake, not learning from the death of his friend as he unloaded his gun into Markus. For every bullet that should have penetrated Markus’s skin, the damage was instead reflected onto the shooter’s body, but at a far more powerful level. The shots exploded into Fish, blowing a hole in his leg and shoulder. He fell to the ground gasping out in silent pain, unable to suck breath into his lungs as he began to bleed. His body started spasming as Markus stood over it, a thin black string-sized tendril emerging from the vampire’s fingernail to suck up the blood like a mosquito. The casual and relaxed nature Markus displayed made the contrast between the inhuman movements of the dying person just that much more terrifying. Gorilla wet his pants.

“I’ll take it you didn’t make those guns yourself,” Markus said. He looked directly at Golf-ball, and winked. “But whatever. Not like it would’ve mattered much anyway. Now come on, decide how you want to die. Beheading? Impalement? Castration?”

“Can I choose none of the above?”

“No, that’s not really an option…” Markus said, then stopped. He recognized the voice, and walked right by Golf-ball to see Ern sitting down on the ground. “Woah, Little Erny! What’s up dude?”

“Eh, not much,” Ern said. “I came to get some dinner and ended up becoming a hostage instead. Wild.”

“By these guys?”

“Yep. Come on, they have guns. You may be bulletproof, but I’m just a simple flesh and blood human. If I’d get shot I’d die.”

“That’s true huh? Guess I’ve spent so long being immortal I forgot.”

After a pause, Markus stuck out his tongue to show he was being sarcastic. He pushed Golf-Ball aside to get closer to Ern, giving the robber a perfect opportunity to sprint out of the store. But the man didn’t take it. The primal fear installed into his body by Markus’s appearance kept him still.

“So, how’ve you been?”

“Not bad, can’t complain,” Ern said. “Other than being held hostage, you know.”

“Yeah, haha. I’m sure that’s not normal. Oh, I was actually wondering, what’s with this?” As he asked, Markus bent over Ern and pushed his finger against Ern’s shirt. Even though Ern couldn’t see what Markus was touching, he knew what he was talking about.

“Haha, I was wondering if you’d notice,” Ern said, smiling. He reached out a hand to Markus, who grabbed it and pulled the boy up to his feet. “Just like, thirty minutes ago, I completed a ritual to summon and bind a familiar. His name is Bezret. Although, wanna know something funny? I accidentally messed the ritual up. Here, come on little guy, show yourself.”

Ern extended his palm.

After a few seconds, a small orb of shadows and darkness formed in the center of it, gaining weight and sitting on Ern’s hand. In the center of the small, snake-like creature was a yellow eye, slitted and staring right at Markus.

“I am Bezret.”

“Oh wow, you weren’t wrong,” Markus said, reaching out to brush his finger against the shade’s head. “This thing is tiny. Kinda cute, actually.”

“I am not cute. I am very scary.”

“Hmm. That just makes you seem cuter, though.”

“Grr.”

As though finding this the perfect time to act, since everyone seemed distracted, Gorilla got up and dashed to the door. He grabbed onto a stand of magazines and tossed it backwards, hoping to propel himself forward.

But it didn’t matter.

No human could match Markus’s speed.

A thin black line separated Gorilla’s legs from his body, right at the knee. A clean cut, as though done by a laser. The man toppled to the ground and screamed, grabbing at his bloody stumps before Markus scoffed.

“Sorry, give me one second,” he said to Ern, before walking passed Golf-ball (who had yet to move) over to Gorilla. Markus put his foot on top of Gorilla’s head. The robber was sobbing openly now, weakly using one hand to try and move the boot and the other to hold his damaged legs. “Come on, dude. Can’t you tell this isn’t the time to try running?”

Gorilla didn’t get a chance to respond. Markus kicked him hard enough to snap his neck backwards.

“Dang,” Ern said. He looked at Golf-ball and shrugged. “What did these guys do to make you mad?”

Markus didn’t answer immediately, letting black thread drip from his fingers over the pool of blood at his feet. As though attracted like magnets, Gorilla’s red blood started slowly flowing to the thread, and began to get sucked up. Not all of it was drained as Markus finished, and he returned to Ern. It looked like he was mulling something over in his head, and he put a hand on Ern’s shoulder. Bezret hopped off of Ern’s hand and scurried around on the floor, away from the two of them and further back in the store.

“Ern.”

“Mar...ah, I suppose I should call you Mozart while you’re in the field, huh?”

“I’d prefer it, you know the rules. Codenames while in action.”

“Yep.”

Markus sighed.

“Ern, I hate having to tell you this,” he said. “But I’m not here for pleasure. It’s a job.”

“And the job is...?”

“Well, to put it simply, I was told to come to this convenience store, around this time, and kill everyone inside.”

***

Caitlyn was distracted.

Perhaps the blow to the head had been more severe than she initially assumed. That thought passed through her head. But even though she was acutely aware that her mind wasn’t working correctly, she couldn’t focus. Gunshot. Screams. Violence. Blood. Horror. Then more gunshots. This was a scene of nightmare. Any normal person would be terrified, and any normal person would be trying to think of a way to survive.

Yet Caitlyn was entirely focused on the strange dark entity that had wrapped itself around Ern’s body. The newcomer, Mozart, or whatever his name was, walked over and touched it, then the shadows coalesced into a thin snake.

It talked.

Or at least it seemed like it talked. The way it moved was unnatural: while it wiggled like a normal snake would, the image it gave off was closer to the shadow of a serpent. The slight delay in its movements. The way it crossed over itself. Caitlyn simply could not get it out of her head.

Ha.

Was it a hallucination?

That was early.

Her mother was institutionalized ten years ago. Seeing things in the dark and raving about them. Transforming from a kind woman to a lunatic. But it wasn’t just so simple. Upon learning this, Caitlyn’s father talked with the doctors and did some digging. Turns out it was a hereditary issue, shared by all the women in Caitlyn’s family. Her mother, her mother’s mother, and so on, all devolved into mania by their early twenties or thirties. Soon after, they would kill themselves. There were very few things that frightened Caitlyn, but losing her mind was one of them. Actually, it was practically the only thing that did. The sobering thought that one day, while everything seemed normal to her, the world around would change and she’d lose touch…

There was nothing more horrifying.

But she should’ve at least had some time before then, right? She wasn’t even close to her twenties…

Could it be due to stress? Was this situation aggravating it? Whatever unconfirmed and recluse brain malfunction she had?

The shadow slithered towards her. Close enough that its jaundiced eye was face to face with Caitlyn. She felt like she could smell it: ash.

What’s more...she felt like she wanted to eat it.

The thought nearly made her vomit. As though the fugue state was banished entirely, Caitlyn suddenly realized where she was and what was happening, and she gasped and pushed herself back, slipping on her blood and banging the back of her head against the glass door that kept the refrigerated drinks cool.

It was real. It had to be. She was so close that she could almost touch it. And she really wanted to. But her body was revolting. Kicking against it, though the tiny snake was able to deftly avoid the strikes. Closer and closer it got, but still never touching her body.

Losing control of her mind completely, Caitlyn grabbed it.

***

Ern was about to say something when he heard a scream in his mind. One of pain, and to Ern, it was as though someone were shouting directly into his eardrums. He clutched his head for a second and staggered, almost falling, but Markus kept him up, using both hands to steady his friend.

“You okay?”

But Ern didn’t answer. There was only one reason that would happen.

“Bezret!”

In an unusual display of energy, Ern turned around and called out for his familiar. It was quite shocking to see the small snake being held down by the hostage girl. She was pressing the snake down on the ground with one hand, and using the other to pry Bezret’s eyeball out. Ern was frozen for a second in disbelief. Earlier, before talking with the robbers, Ern had told Bezret to secretly search the store for any sources of Od. The results were negligible. That girl was just a normal person.

And while it wasn’t common, normal people could see phantasms. Even semi-imaginary or intangible ones like shades.

But touching one was impossible for a human. The only reason Ern could even partially feel Bezret’s weight was because of the various markings that had been bestowed upon him by the familiar ritual. Did Bezret make a mistake and not notice her?

Either way, Ern needed to stop this.

Now Ern is a pretty thin guy. He’s underweight and short, and even though he’s sixteen years old, he looks barely a day over thirteen. And his enemy, this strange girl, was likely bigger and stronger than him. That was an easy call to make. However, even if she was his superior in physical strength, by tackling her at full force from behind when she wasn’t paying attention, Ern was able to knock her off Bezret and free his familiar. Instantly, the snake darted away and evaporated into smoke, wafting back to Ern to sink into his skin.

Before she could do or say anything, Ern jumped off. If he had one good physical trait, it was his speed.

In his mind, he was prepared for her to strike him, so he clenched his eyes shut and braced himself for the strike, but it never came. When he opened his eyes, the girl was simply staring at him silently. She didn’t even move from the position where he’d knocked her down.

“So, uh…” Markus interrupted. “Is everything okay down there? Ahaha…” He felt awkward. It was his job to kill everybody here, and it was starting to take a little too long.

“Yeah, everything is good,” Ern said. Possibilities were racing through his mind. Who was this person?

Markus grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey, Ern,” he started. “Why’d you come here tonight?”

It was a simple, innocent question.

“I already told you,” Ern replied. “I came here to get food.”

“Then this is just a random coincidence?”

“So it seems.”

“Hmm.” Markus crossed his arms and frowned. “Well, like what ‘I’ said, I’m here for a job, and that involves killing everyone here. Now, I’m pretty sure that technically includes you too.”

“That’s a problem.”

“Right…”

Ern looked down at the girl. The gears in his brain were slowly being put to use, and an idea was forming.

“By the Boss? He’s the one who wanted you to come here?”

“Yep.”

“And did he tell you why he wanted you to kill everyone? A hint, perhaps?” Ern asked. He held his hand out as Bezret came forth, wrapping around his fingers. The yellow eye was smaller, and seemed wary of the girl.

“Didn’t tell me a thing. Just to slaughter everyone. And I should be doing that, don’t want to let the barrier collapse. And get caught by the police. But it really seems weird that he’d want me to kill you, ya’ know?”

“Probably shouldn’t let that happen,” Ern said. “Here, what about this: don’t kill me right now, and let me talk with the Boss. You can bring me to him, and I won’t try any funny business. Then, when we’re talking to him, he can say for sure whether or not I’m supposed to die. Like, if that was his intent, you can just kill me on the spot. Because it doesn’t really make sense to kill me. Plus, you don’t want to either, right?”

“Not really.”

“I wish you were a little more committed to not wanting to kill me, but I’ll take it,” Ern said, nodding. “In that case, what do you think? Agree?”

“Hmm.”

***

Markus had to think about it. Normally, thinking wasn’t part of his job, and he could get by solely on instinct, so this was like trying to flex a weak muscle. On one hand, when Alfonse, the Boss, told you to do something, you did it without asking questions. But on the other hand, it could’ve just been a coincidence that Ern was here right now. Killing him would mean killing one of Alfonse’s allies, and that seemed like it’d probably be a bad thing. But then on the other other hand, Alfonse was always coming up with those tricky plans, so this might’ve been something he considered. The fact Ern was able to come up with a plan so quickly also bothered Markus, and the whole thing with the little shadow snake seemed fishy as well.

Aghhh!

It was too confusing!

To let his anger out, Markus smacked Golf-ball in the back of the head, cracking the man’s skull. It was an instant death. Markus let the thread fall from his fingernails to absorb the man’s blood, then started tapping his toe. What to do, what to do?

Killing people helped him think. Now that the only possible runners were dealt with, Markus could go to town on the helpless folk. He started with the cashier, who was unconscious and tied up. Markus decided to drain his blood like a normal vampire might, and placed his hand upon the man’s heart. Slowly, blood began to flow towards the center, then coagulated in the still beating organ. Markus slipped his hand through the skin and bones to touch the heart, and pressed a singer finger inside. From there, he was able to suck out enough to kill the man. But still, even after doing that, there was no clarity to be found. In fact, Markus spent more time thinking about how much he liked blood than what he should do with Ern! For shame!

Well, there was always the old lady and the girl. It seemed that Ern was talking to the younger one while Markus thought, so he decided to go to the granny. There was little life left in her mangled form, but that just made it taste better. He lifted her off the ground, shook her, then lapped the blood up with his mouth. Supposedly that was what the older hematophages did, but Markus had never met any. Nowadays, it was just the savages and the fresh blooded, but it still had some appeal.

Okay, yeah, he didn’t figure anything out. That was fine though.

Markus decided he’d just do whatever Ern suggested. Worse came to worst, he would just accept some punishment, and that’d be it.

With a smile on his face, Markus called out: “Ern, alright, I think I came up with an idea!”

***

During the time Markus spent thinking and killing, before Markus came to a conclusion, Ern let his curiosity out. Might as well, since he could be dying in a few minutes.

“Bezret, become my eyes,” Ern said, lifting the familiar up to his glasses. “You can help me with spiritsight, right?”

‘Yes, master.’

Spiritsight was a technique most practiced magi knew. A simple technique, with many different applications, depending on the root of a person’s soul. For Ern, using spiritsight degraded his vision permanently. It was due to overuse of it as a child that he was required to wear glasses, and any further use could permanently blind him. But by using Bezret as a proxy, he could mitigate that damage, and only go blind for a few minutes. That was a far better trade off. At least, that was assuming everything went right.

The shadows entered his eyes, stitching themselves to the retina. It didn’t feel horrible; the sensation was like putting on very comfortable contacts that moved on their own. With Bezret resting on his eyes, Ern no longer needed to blink, and he channeled his Od towards his eyes, activating his spiritsight.

The root of Ern’s soul was passed down to him through his father’s bloodline, and compounded with his mother’s. The ability to read and determine the energy of another’s soul. Normally, it didn’t amount to much good, but it did have some basic uses. It let Ern determine whether someone was a phantasm or not, on the most basic level. After that, the only use was checking for leakage. A skill basically only useful against curses and spirits, Ern could learn things about them. Weaknesses, attachments, or patterns. Great for doing exorcisms, which is what his parents specialized in before their deaths.

At first, everything was black.

But Ern knew this was normal. He did not panic. Slowly, bright blue dots started to appear in his vision. Very quickly one dot grew to a massive size, just a bit to Ern’s right. This was Markus. A little further on, a blue box appeared. The barrier keeping the convenience store segregated from reality. That still confused Ern: if Markus wasn’t the one who put this up, who was it? Was someone else from the Parci clan here on backup? But if so, why haven’t they shown themselves? And if it was someone inside, who was doing the robbery...well, none of them seemed the type. Plus, if they’d been killed, the barrier would normally be dispelled. Quite a strange situation. Of course, that wasn’t what Ern really cared about.

His attention focused on the new bloom of blue flames at his feet.

He felt surprise from his familiar.

Oh? This wasn’t what Bezret saw earlier, when observing the store. Then…

An awakening?

Was this event traumatic enough for her to suddenly develop supernatural powers? Or perhaps it was coming into contact with Bezret, or possibly Markus that did the job. Either way, something in her only activated a few minutes ago. That was what bothered Bezret.

What bothered Ern was the quality of this soul.

It was absolutely terrible. Filled with nothing but holes and weakness. A pit of darkness and waste that never seemed to end, just collapsing in on itself endlessly. An eternity. There was something else, deeper, that Ern almost wanted to peer into, but before he could, he heard Markus shout:

“Ern, alright, I think I came up with an idea!”

***

Caitlyn was trapped within her own mind. Whatever that thing was...she touched it. There was some form to it. Not a hallucination...probably? But couldn’t that just be her mind controlling her? Making her think she held it, that there was substance to an illusion? There was no way of proving it. No way of determining the truth. It couldn’t be real, so it must have been fake. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw blood. This was a nightmare. But even still, she felt cogent enough to wallow in sadness.

What did this look like to other people? Was she just sitting down on the ground, spacing out? How much of tonight had been real? Did she even get hit on the head? Were there even robbers in the store? Did she even leave her house? Where was she?

Of course, it all seemed real. Hazy and faded, but real. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a convincing hallucination. This was chaos, how could anyone live through this? Slowly, Caitlyn was beginning to feel less horror at the dissociation and more pity. Was this what her mother went through all those years? What would it be like spending every day like this? Not being able to tell the difference between reality and the illusions. Suddenly, death felt like a preferable alternative. It would make this a lot easier.

Aaahhhhh…

But she couldn’t.

This was real life. This was reality. Everything that was happening was real. As much as Caitlyn tried, her mind wouldn’t shatter. Even if none of this made sense, her brain was putting together the pieces as rationally as possible.

There was some kind of small shadowy snake. It seemed to be friends with the kid from her school, Ern. And Ern seemed to also be friends with the strange black man who killed all the robbers with some hidden weapon. This was an impossible scenario, and any normal person would just think they were going crazy. Surely Caitlyn did to...but she wasn’t. This was reality. But a nonsensical one.

Ern was looking at her, the snake sliding through his eyes. How strange? It was slithering in and out of his face as though it were a ghost. Oh, it probably was a ghost. Was this like Ghost Whisperer or something? Caitlyn never watched television, but when she was a kid, she seemed to remember her parents liking a show by that name. Some lady could see ghosts. Was that what was happening here?

No, it seemed like Ern knew it was there. He rubbed against it as he stared at her.

What was he looking at?

Caitlyn felt bothered. People rarely paid attention to her, and she liked that. That was the best way to live.

“Ern, alright, I think I came up with an idea!”

***

“Yeah?” Ern said, letting Bezret fall from his face. As expected, he couldn’t see much, with his vision going completely white. “What is it?”

“I’ll take you to the Boss, like you suggested,” Markus started. “But to make sure you don’t do anything bad or tricky, I’ll slice off your arms and legs. Remove them totally, so you can’t move by yourself. Obviously I won’t kill ya’ or anything, I’ll make sure to leave a clean cut. Fill you up full of blood, if you need it. You can regrow limbs, right?”

“I…”

Well, he technically could.

“It’d be a lot of trouble,” Ern finally decided, rubbing his face. “Are you sure there’s a need for that? I promise I won’t do anything dumb.”

“Ha. A promise from you ain’t worth much, bub,” Markus said. “Don’t worry! We can just ask Ares to make a few for you, temporarily. Then you can figure it out at your own pace. Aren’t you friends with a doctor?”

“...doctor’s don’t normally replace limbs...but...if this is the only way…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Markus said, smiling wide. “I promise, it’ll probably only hurt a lot, but now that much. I mean, it’s just your arms and legs, right?”

“Right. Oh, wait, I just thought of something. Could you tie them up instead?”

“Nope.”

“You just want to cut my arms and legs off, don’t you?”

“Well,” Markus started. “I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of it, but there’s more. You got that little shadow shade dude now, so I don’t want ya’ doing anything shady. Get it? Shade...shady? Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?”

“Slim Shady?”

“...you’re joking?”

“Sorry buddy,” Ern said. “I don’t listen to old people music.”

“But...that’s…”

Markus didn’t know what to say, so he just sighed, then let bloody threads slide out from his fingers, draping down like thin razor wires from a puppeteer’s paddle. As he lifted a hand to reach out for Ern, he saw the teen take a slow step back, smiling weakly.

“What are you doing?”

“Actually,” Ern said. “Before you do that, I was wondering if I could ask for one more thing…”

***

--Fifteen minutes later--

Two more weeks until the full moon and Daniel was still without a stable job.

Seattle was supposed to be a new start for the man, after the incident at Odessa, however, things really hadn’t been working in his favor. A friend of a friend worked pretty hard to get Daniel some work up in Washington, but all of the calls Daniel made to the recruiter ended up just being pointless. He had absolutely no skills and no previous work history, plus he couldn’t complete a background check, so any job that paid well was off the table. It didn’t help that Daniel was missing any education above middle school.

To make ends meet, he had been doing different minimum wage and odd jobs around the city, trying to scrounge up cash while he bummed away near homeless shelters. Shuffling through the streets, picking up fliers and ads at bus stops for work, he’d done all sorts of things: cleaning, moving, testing out strange drugs and filling out surveys. It was a complicated life.

The most recent struggle he found himself in was a courier job. On the tin, it was quite simple. Ride your bike (which he found in a dumpster) to a location, pick up a package, then ride it to another spot and drop it off. Not the safest work he’d ever done, since he was most likely delivering drugs, but it was nice for some quick and easy cash. Morals were something Daniel didn’t quite have; when you’re barely surviving in the world, the line between right and wrong begins to fade.

But when his bike tire popped during the last delivery, he decided that wouldn’t work anymore.

That was the reason why he ended up just walking around aimlessly, with only about forty dollars to his name. Going over simple calculations to figure out what that cash could be used for. It was during this random walk when he saw something that did strike his moral compass. Something that gave him pause and feel alarm.

A dangerous looking man, whistling an exotic tune as he walked down the street, one arm hoisting an unconscious girl over his shoulder and the other...some sort of quadrapelegic boy? The scene was so ludicrous Daniel needed to do a double take, and even after that, he rubbed his eyes violently to make sure it wasn’t a delusion. No, that was definitely real. This was...probably a crime? Well, probably. In most places, kidnapping was illegal. Daniel was pretty sure of that.

But could he have been misguided?

Neither of the kids seemed to be struggling, and the man didn’t seem particularly worried about his surroundings. That made it seem pretty normal. Was it possible that this muscular man was actually just a nice guy who was helping out these kids? Perhaps they were all at a party and got tired, so he decided to help carry them home. Yeah, that was likely. It actually sort of made sense. If that was the case, then everything was fine.

Daniel was certainly not intelligent, nor was he wise or capable. What he did have was the rare ability to recognize his own failings, his own stupidity, granting him the candor to judge his own thoughts and overthink everything.

Despite Daniel’s fear that something horrible was happening in front of him, he allowed himself to become ignorant of it, questioning his own suspicions in a way to block out all the evils of the world. It was easy to forget terrible things in the city, wasn’t it? A small event like this was nothing compared to the many happening to the hundreds of thousands on these streets. That’s why he came here, to escape the terrors of small towns. To become just another bystander.

He looked up at the dark clouds, which were currently giving a reprieve from the rain.

Dang.

Daniel decided it was better to be safe than sorry, and dashed around, trying to find the closest payphone possible. It wasn’t easy, but when he did, he rang up the emergency hotline as quickly as possible.