“Gemini.”

Ars-Maia walked up to the contemplative Constellation, and Gemini glanced at him, his face impassive. The demon was glancing around nervously, occasionally staring into the centre of Ars, where presumably the leaders of the tribe were all secreted away.

“What’s wrong?” Gemini replied. “Do you need my help for something? You seemed worried.”

“Worried…I guess that’s a good word to use, although it seems a bit weak.” Ars-Maia paced around the walls, worried.

“Is it because there’s no one attacking us?” Gemini asked, amused. “Didn’t expect you to get too used to the concept of being attacked. Is there an antsy feeling in your chest now?”

“Nay, what are you saying?” Ars-Maia glared at the lush forest growing at the foot of the city walls. “Tis best that no one attacks us. No, no. I’m worried for another reason altogether.”

Gemini waited quietly. To him, the demon clearly wanted to share something, but he just didn’t know how to approach the topic. It would be a problem if the Constellation were to seem overeager, so the best way to get Ars-Maia to share would be to wait for him to formulate his own words. The demon paced around quietly, walking to and fro while muttering words under his breath. His third eye would blink occasionally, staring at the sky as the the demon continued to speak to himself.

Minutes passed, and Ars-Maia finally came to a stop. “Gemini.”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to hear a story?”

“A story?” Gemini smiled faintly. It looked like this was the approach that the demon was going to take, and if he had to be honest…packaging his words as a story had piqued his interest. “Go on. What’s it about?”

Ars-Maia glanced back, towards the heart of the fortress city, before walking over to the table where he was playing with the Rubik’s cube earlier on. The demon glanced at the empty seat — a clear invitation for Gemini to follow him and listen to his story.

Gemini looked at Ars-Maia, and then sat down on the indicated seat a moment later.

“Thousands of years ago, there was a demon named Rilata, a demon just like any others in the Ars Tribe. She spent her childhood in peace, with the other demons of her generation and played alongside them. At that time, the fortress city of Ars did not exist in its current location, in the sole opening of the Earth-Splitting Mountain Range.” The demon paused to take out a bottle of water, and sipped from it. “The old Ars used to be a sprawling web of villages, where millions of demons lived together in harmony, somewhere closer to the heart of the Grand Land.”

As Ars-Maia continued to speak, the scenery began to change. Gemini could see a faint overlay of a cheerful village, where children ran about, their third eyes glinting in the sun. In front of him, he could see a female demon, who was walking around with what looked like her partner.

“Rilata fell in love with her childhood friend, and they entered a union when they became adults. Lirada, her husband, was never any good at fighting, but as a male, he was honour-bound to represent the Ars Tribe every so often to contest over territory, and fight against men of other tribes,” said Ars-Maia. “Rilata herself was far more skilled in fighting, a genius of her generation, but tradition then dictated that only males would take part in the fighting.”

The scene changed to reflect an open field, where two armies clashed against each other. Demons slashed at demons, and after a long, protracted fight, one army was left standing, victorious. Ars-Maia glanced at the surroundings and and, “It was a long-standing tradition, carried on since time immemorial, and Lirada would usually have to revive after the battles were over. But one day, Lirada never came back. Those who had left with him never came back either — their bodies were never returned.”

“And around that time, the act of hissatsu — utter annihilation of body and spirit — began to be widely known,” said Ars-Maia. “And Lirada was one of the first to have fallen prey to that act. Madness ensued, as tens of tribes embraced hissatsu. In that chaos, the demons of Ars were killed en masse, and the last tenth of the tribe had been cornered. Most of them were children…and none knew how to fight.”

Ars-Maia stopped his narration for a moment, as energy erupted from his body. The translucent projection around Gemini and Ars-Maia solidified, while the surroundings rippled and changed into that of a ruined town, where thousands of children and a small number of adult demons ran around hurriedly as they created a makeshift blockade. “This is a memory from those who saw what happened, on the day the enemies of Ars moved in for the final kill.”

The demon’s words echoed out, and whatever evidence that the Ars of today existed vanished entirely.

Gemini looked around the desolate landscape.

Smoke rose from various places all around the ruined town, black and ominous. Roars that struck at one’s soul resounded from all around the blockade of rubble and ruined structures, reminding Gemini of a wolfpack enjoying the thrill of the hunt as they prepared to make their final move on entrapped prey. Even the sunlight itself had weakened, as rolling clouds of dust and sand blotted out the sun. All around Gemini, children shivered and cried in silence, afraid that their noise would send their eventual killers into a maddened frenzy.

Reddened eyes began to glow in the dark, and a shiver ran across the children present. With that, a wave of shadows walked slowly over to the blockade, their slithering steps accompanied by howls and shrieks. Wood and stone shattered before the horde of shadows, the red glow in their eyes intensifying with every step.

The Constellation shuddered as he looked at these eyes. In the pits of those…eyes, if he could even bear to call them that, were emotions that even he didn’t know how to name. Madness didn’t even cut it. They reminded Gemini of feral, rabid beasts, predators that somehow knew how to relish the hunt and to bask in their prey’s fear.

It was decidedly not an emotion that any living being should have. His chest constricted, as a palpable fear continued to build up within the cornered crowd of what essentially was refugees. The sounds of wood breaking grew louder with every step, and before long, the horde of shadows had trampled through the meagre defences that had been erected.

No one had put up a fight, such was their despair. Screeches, howls and roars blended into a horrifying cacophony as the sun’s light illuminated their features weakly. Bloody faces, fleshy remains around their lips and claws…but even then, none of the surrounded demons made a sound.

A minute ticked by, and the sea of insane, maddened demons began to move in, and children began to cry in earnest. Gemini watched blankly as the insane shadows rushed into the fray — and shielded his eyes as a blinding pillar of white light slammed into the oncoming tide of shadows.