• The faints screams of pain that reached his ears sounded vaguely like Aurelia’s voice and he turned, sprinting towards its direction. Frustrated when the sound rebelliously refused to get louder. Coming towards a certain steel coloured building, he stopped, as the screams became more heart rendering. Pausing, he pulled out his familiar blade and let the colours flow out. When the black matter had fully solidified, he sliced down the thick metal with it easily. Watching as the two halves fell away, revealing the empty interior of the place.
    Alert for guards, he rushed in, towards the door leading towards the stairway, mad in his knowledge of the dark happenings. The spiral stairway seemed to continue onwards forever, but by the time he reached the top, he wasn’t even panting. He had met no trouble on the way in, but the ear piercing pain tore into his soul and he cringed, trying to get his ears to bear with the hurt it brought.
    The guards racing to meet him were no match for his quick blade as it cleaved a pathway for him through the stunned, light dosed bodies he left in his wake. Quickly progressing, he entered the room at last, after a huge streak of light decorated the heavy wood and split it.
    The scene that met him was terrible. In the middle of the crimson filled room, was a chair, a leather chair that had a girl seated in it. A girl who was half a demon, the source of the terrible howls and heart wrenching screams that was his compass and the problem his ears was giving him. The two men positioned on either side of the chair seemed unaffected by the sight. Instead, amused and pleased.
    Damned sadists.
    Letting his weapon fall into position naturally in front of him, he charged at them, stunning the absorbed evil doers instantly. Uncaring as they toppled to the carpeted ground and he focused all his attention onto the writhing, wailing figure before him.
    Placing his hands firmly on the shaking shoulders, he forced what now became of Aurelia to look at him. Praying that whatever remained human in her would listen to him.
    “Listen! I may not know what is going on, or why are you like this, but I do know, that you can’t remain in this state. Come on! Isola and Janiquil, they need you! Here! With them! Not in your beast state, but with you, in your human form. You need to fight it! Think about Isola and Janiquil! They were heartbroken when you disappeared. Janiquil looked as if she was going to cry when we were searching for you. We didn’t even dare break the news to Isola. She would be crying for ages. Think about her and about your best friend, can you bear to let them suffer?”
    All throughout his triad of rants, the half human half beast known as Aurelia struggled to remain eye contact, struggled to keep from letting howl after howl rolling out of her burning throat. Her buried humanity cringed away from the pain and when the stream of words tried to reach it, receded from the scorching touch.
    The beast howled and put out a paw to scratch him, but he grabbed it, refusing to let go of the dark blue swirls that threatened to rip his skin away from flesh and bones. Purposely ignoring the fact that his fingers were screaming in agony, he gripped the beast’s second arm and forced her to look into his eyes. Shielding away from the fact that there didn’t seem to be any humanity left in the endless white.
    “Come back to us Aurelia. There’s too many left behind for you to leave.” He hugged the beast close and whispered into her ears. Repeating the words that flowed out of his mouth in a smooth flow, praying that someone in the high heavens would assist the creature he clutched to him as if it were life itself. Gradually, the struggles ceased and he could feel the burning sensation slowly recede.
    The angry blue became gentler and faded away slowly, replaced by Aurelia’s natural skin tone and her talons withdrew themselves, becoming the neat nails that she was in habit of keeping. Her eyelids fluttered to a shut and she went limp in his arms, exhaustion breaking the dam of her remaining consciousness.
    Justin breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the girl go limp, bending down, he slotted the blade handle back into his pocket before he carried Aurelia in a kind of damsel in distress pose.
    Lifting her with ease, Justin slowly retraced the route he had taken in his frenzied search for Aurelia to return her to her home. By the time he made it back to the crossroads, Janiquil was already waiting there, apparently upset. Beside her stood an unfamiliar figure, correction, two unfamiliar figures. A boy and a girl. At first, nothing seemed to be amiss, but, when he got closer, he realized they were twins.