Kris fell down to his knees, panting.

The only things moving in the dark room were his chest...

...and the SOUL.

With a final breath, he rose up once again, towering over the tiny red apparison locked in a cage. It trembled slightly, shining red light twisting on the rusted wires of its prison. Kris was utterly silent as step by step he came closer, drawing a knife from a hidden pocket with no fumbling in his arms or remorse in his face. If the stains on the carpet were anything to go by this was not the first time he had done this.

The brown locks that covered his eyes could not hide their red shimmer.

"I don't want to hurt you" the voice from the trolly was quiet and weak, barely a whisper that was more felt than heard. For a moment Kris's stride halted but doubt was quickly wiped away by something else.

Something cold radiated from the hole in Kris's chest the soul had occupied. The void had no shape or form, but it was there. Nothing had become something.

And right now this nothing felt hatred.

"I didn't mean to do this. I had no choice. I thought you were the vessel..."

Kris picked up the bird cage.

"I didn't want to take what was yours"

"Please"

The knife rose.

"Kris"

A new voice rung out.

"Kris"

The boy and the heart both froze in place, blade stopped mid motion and pleas dying into silence.

Light poured in into the room through the curtains and glass from a source all too familiar. A heart. It was another SOUL, almost identical to the first but ever so slightly...

.. wrong.

While the one in the cage shone brilliant red the new one glowed in the color of sickly blood, dark and menacing beyond words. Despite its dimness the light was painful to look at as if it were malice given form, knives turned into light that stabbed and cut everything they touched.

And unlike the first soul it clearly didn't intend to beg.

It passed through the glass panes as if they were mere air and shot towards Kris like an enraged hornet. Kris barely managed to react by flinging the cage at it and sidestepping as the soul buried itself into the ground with an angry buzz which became a voice once more.

"You caught me off guard the last time. It won't happen again!"

The soul floated up with twitchy motions before striking for the second time.

Kriz remained quiet, replying with his knife instead, cutting and slashing at the red attacker but failing to land a hit. The apparition slowed down and lazily circled him before charging again, purring in disappointment when it missed. It didnt act with rage but rather a cold, sadistic measure of a hunter toying with prey. Seeming failure didn't matter. Kris would fail.

In the corner of the room, the birdcage begun shaking. Slowly and gently the rusted hinges of its door came loose and the brilliant red heart was free once more.

As if it was an advancement. Confused was a light way to put the situation the soul was in. There was supposed to be a vessel, the dream, the mission, but now...

It hovered still in the corner of the room, hiding from the scuffle. Kris had fallen over to his side but just as it seemed the fight would end he turned and pinned the invader down with a large fly swatter he had pulled out from underneath his bed. He tried to follow up with a stab but was a moment too late as the soul pulled away. It's amusement was slowly giving way to frustration but there was clearly only one way this could end end. Kris's breathing was heavy and burdened, the knife in his hands was slipping from sweat. The day had already taxing enough and the blood-red soul clearly sensed it. It would savor the moment.

Kris and his attacker stood perfectly still, waiting for each other's next motion. Tension of the standoff grew until it became unbearable but before anything else could happen, the brilliant soul acted.

It flashed and flooded the room in red light, catching the fighters off guard. The darker soul only now seemed to notice the other existed and along with this realization, something else bloomed within it; recognition and hatred mixed with what might have been fear. It seemed to even forget Kris was even there.

"You..."

But Kris on the other hand did not.

He jumped.

With a wet noise, the knife plunged into the heart.

Everything stopped.

A small red drop ran down the blade and dripped off the handle, followed by another.

And another.

As if a cube of ice the heart melted away into a reddish liquid, forming a stain on the carpet next to the first. Kris dropped the knife and took a step back, almost collapsing onto the ground.

But it was not over.

The puddle was still glowing. Red strands suddenly rose up from it, tendrils that writhed erratically like a sped up video of sprouting plants, growing within moments as large as the boy before it. Kris tried to back off and but was ensnared in its grasp in the flash of an eye. The brilliant soul rushed to him but was swatted aside as a mere annoyance. Like spider and web merged into one the darker soul crawled up Kris's struggling body and rose its tendrils to stab down through the darkness in his chest.

But failed.

The void did not yield.

With a screech of anger it tried again and again, smashing spike and claw against the boy's body as if trying to rip it apart but to no avail. Every strike the darkness blocked, every slash it diverted.

And then it fought back.

A fountain of blackness erupted from Kris's chest, aimed at the center of the bloody red web. Gushes of the void flooded down as liquid coating the ground, drowning it into nothingness.

The darker soul tried to distanglege itself and pull away from the sudden attack as if horrified at the events but darkness did not stop and within moments the two were sinking into a black void, as if falling to some stygian abyss.

And then the brilliant soul was alone.