AN: Hi, the name's Kirin-cchi, but you can call me Kirin, or Kirin-chan! This Seeker story is set way in the future. I suppose I just want to explain the sectors to you before we begin. Basically, you get put in a Sector dependent on you lineage- a pure-blooded Grecian is in Sector 3, a pure blooded Englishman is in Sector 14, something like that. Sector 5 is the largest, as it contains within it mixed lineage people. You become a Seeker at 17, after being assigned a specialty in your Seeker Division Examination. That's all you really need to know- oh, wait. Only people of a certain heritage can have a certain Titan. eg a Grecian can have Caladrius, and an Irishman can use Gaibolg. Mixed heritage can only use titans from their parent's lines- so an English/Grecian mix could use both Caladrius and Gaibolg. Simple, right?

"ANERRHIPHTHO KYBOS- The Die has Been Cast"

Screaming and roaring and noise, noise, noise- louder. From behind me? No- below me. The ground begins to split, and groan and buck like a wild horse, and the screaming rises in pitch. I can feel my throat creak- I'm screaming too. Noise and pressure, building like a wave. Suddenly, there is pain- unimaginable pain, and I can't see. I can't move. I can't do anything.

Darkness and screaming, screaming and darkness. They seem entwined now, never to be parted.

So many people were wrong.

The world did not end with ice, or fire.

It ended with darkness.

It began with darkness.

There was a voice, among the pain, that called to me. It sounded so soft and caring that I couldn't help but respond, and drag myself through layers of agony to its source.

I opened my eyes.

The sky was green as mown grass, dotted with stars of brown and gold. It took me a moment to realise that this wasn't the sky, but a pair of emerald eyes, staring down at me. They belonged to a young woman who squeaked with delight as she saw me regain consciousness.

The noise made me wince, and she pulled away, giving me a view of my accommodation, and my helper.

The room was sparse and white, clinical to the extreme, with nothing more than the bed I was tucked into, and a chair, which the woman- no, a girl, around my age- rocked in gleefully, hands pressed to her mouth to muffle happy squealing.

She was as vibrant as the room was bland- her hair was every strand of the rainbow, and those eyes, which had seemed so luminously green a moment before now looked azure blue in the light streaming through the window. Her face was daubed with glitter of different shades- pink over her eyes, and red on her lips. Her nails, though bitten and frayed, were each a small rainbow themselves, mirroring her hair.

Her clothes were equally strange, an old purple velvet waistcoat over a baggy, black, band tee. There was a kilt, short and sweet and strewn with shiny metal skulls, and a pair of holey skinny jeans, which ended in huge, black, stomper boots, painted with white swirling designs.

All in all, I didn't think I'd ever seen such a strange, fascinating person. I was so occupied with drinking in her unique-ness that I forgot the pain, which until then had been a blaring focus in my head.

She stared back, noticing my interest, and smiled hugely.

"Hi! Welcome back!" She held out the hand, her right one, which was covering in inky doodles, for me to shake, and I took it gingerly. She had a strong grip, and a rough palm, and, although I hardly shook her hand, she continued to smile at me with full wattage.

"My name's Amitola Irissa- but you can call me Amit, like the crocodile!" She used her hands to make a crocodile's jaws, her face screwing up as she made little 'om-nom-nom'ing noises in time with her 'jaws' clamping open and shut.

She must have noticed my confusion, because she stopped, and looked up, her ever-changing eyes big and wide. "Oh, sorry- I forgot, again." She smacked her forehead lightly. "Shiriki is always saying I need to tone it down a bit!" She smiled, eyes scrunching into little cresent moons, before popping open again, her mouth a small 'o'.
"I need to tell him you're awake! He needs to talk to you- I remember him saying: Amit, get me as soon as she wakes up!" She paused, staring at me cautiously. "Obviously, he called you 'she' because we didn't know your name. Officially, you're Jane Doe- but I have a bet going that you're not actually called Jane, right?"

The information overload took me a few seconds to process, but I got that she was asking my name. It was the Jane Doe that worried me. 'Officially' I was Jane Doe. Had I been in an accident? With a sudden flood, I remembered the feel of the ground surging beneath my feet, and the screams.

The girl- Amitola, I reminded myself- looked at me sympathetically. "Yeah, I get it. You must be worried, right?" She sighed, patting my hand gently. "You wake up in a strange place, with a crazy person for a bed sitter, and all I do is act like a complete nutter."

I made a non-commital noise at the back of my throat, and realised it was dry and croaky. From screaming, I remembered again. Screaming for so long and so hard that I forgot how to do anything else.

There was a glass of water on the floor next to Amit's chair, and she gave it to me as my gaze floated over it. "Here. Shiriki said you'd need to drink, anyway!" I sat up, and gulped down the tepid stuff eagerly, thirst quenched as soon as it had risen. I tested my voice carefully. "I'm called Elysia." Amitola paused slightly, staring at me. "Do you have a last name, Elysia?" I winced at the use of my full name- I hate it, but it was my family's choice- and nodded. "Stathos. Elysia Stathos." Amitola hesitated slightly. "Stathos- I can't place that, sorry…" After a second, I realised what she meant, and answered accordingly. "It's Greek." That sent her smiling and bouncing in her seat again. "That's two Greek names for two- you must be from Sector 3!" I nodded slowly, and then remembered what she'd said before- Amitola Irissa. Irissa was Greek too, but the way she'd spoken made it sound like we weren't in Sector 3 anymore.

"Uh- where are we?" I asked cautiously. Some people were touchy about their Sector, and I couldn't see how offending Amitola would be productive. "Oh, Sector 5, course- mother's Native American, father's Greek, the usual story. Mom got to pick our first names- but, ah, Shiriki has a different dad, so his name's different to mine. Technically he should be in Sector 7, but when I was born, he was allowed to stay with me here in 5, rather than split us up."

I nodded to myself. It made sense- Whilst Sector 3 was Greek, and Sector 7 was Native American, Sector 5 was reserved for those without a dominant heritage, and it was common for the Council to shove brothers and sisters together in here, even if one of them had a Pure heritage.

"You talk too much, Ami." A deep voice rumbled from the doorway, and we both looked round. An older teen, with sandy blond hair, and broad shoulders, filled the opening. His deep brown eyes surveyed me carefully, and he seemed satisfied with what he saw, until I shifted, and his eyes were drawn to my side.

I looked down, and felt queasy- the cloth there was a dull crimson. I hate the sight, and the smell, and the taste of blood. Even my own, that I hadn't even noticed till now, made me feel immensely sick. Amitola noticed, and looked to the boy guiltily. "Oh dear."

The boy came fully into the room, his eyes more concerned than calculating now, and he dug into his pocket quickly. "Really, Ami, for such a competent nursemaid, you really do make some big messes." Amitola nodded pacifyingly, stepping back to give the boy space. "Sorry, Shiriki. I was going to come get you, honest I was, but then we started talking and-" Shiriki, her brother, smirked. "You mean you started talking, Amit." He glanced at me apologetically, still searching for something in his pockets.

"Sorry about this. Amitola here told me she'd fixed everything before, but obviously she missed that gash on your side." I nodded quietly, feeling bile rise in my throat, until I saw what he was holding.

It was an Amulet. I'd seen one before- who hadn't, with the soldiers and their Bulregards marching up and down the Sector borders- but never this close. It was beautiful.

The crystal was a pure white, and the silver mesh made it look delicate and fanciful, as if the wind would catch it and toss it into the air any second.

Shiriki began to glow with the same white light. "Give me your aid, Caladrius!" The glow separated from his skin, and became a white bird, small enough to comfortably fit on his shoulder, where it cooed with the same concern and care that it's Seeker's eyes held.

"Amit's been careless again, as you can see. I need you to heal her side for me, right?" The white bird- the Caladrius, a Greek healing bird, I remembered- hopped from his shoulder to my bed, where it stared at me quizzically, almost in recognition. The moment passed and it placed its beak gently on my side, before flying out the window in a blaze of white light.

Shiriki nodded to himself. "He'll be back before too long, healed and happy- your side should be fine now." I glanced down at the previously bloody bandage, and felt a shiver flow through me. I'd never seen a Titan's power up close before, but now, miraculously, my side was clean and healed as if it'd never been hurt.

Shiriki sat on the end of my bed, smiling slightly at my awe-filled gape. "Obviously under 17, then, if a simple Healing transfer leaves you speechless." His eyes narrowed.

"Now, what's your name, and what were you doing in the Sector Security Base when it collapsed three days ago?"

My stomach sank.

I couldn't remember.

Shiriki glared down at me as I stuttered my way towards an inane, condemning answer. His brown eyes, so soft and concerned only a moment before, had hardened into a harsh muddy colour, and their intensity near blinded me to look at.

I swept a hand through my hair, and blinked suddenly. I hadn't noticed before, but there was something very wrong with me.

I had never looked typically Greek- something to do with my mother's history way back before the Sectors came into being- and I had always been viciously vain about my looks. I was born with long, golden hair, and dusty tanned skin that always kept its sun-kissed shade.

A scream rose in my throat as I saw my hair fanned over my fingers in the corner of my eye, and it bubbled up as a whimper when I tried to contain it.

My hair was black- like a coal in a fireplace, only deeper and more extreme, and it fell in delicate, yet heavy spikes down to my chin- a felt a chill at nape of my neck that was strange to me, and when my hand strayed to the back of my head, I found that the hair there was cut like a boys, the new hairstyle a bob, short at the front, and long at the front, where midnight shards kissed my jawline. My skin was pale, like something from the depths of a cave, something without the knowledge of sunlight.

I wasn't me.

Wild-eyed, I turned to Shiriki- the Seeker, the only one here with the ability to use Powers. My voice didn't sound like mine now either, it was cracked with confusion and fear and something darker. Amitola drew back from me like I might turn on her, like I was wild and not to be backed into a corner.

"What have you done to me?!"

My voice rang with hysteria, rising several octaves, shrill and almost disbelieving at my own situation. How could I not be? I had changed beyond recognition of myself, and it scared me that I wasn't even in my own skin, at a time when my memory failed me.

Shiriki's concern was back in an instant, although mistrust lingered in the depths of his narrowed desert eyes. I started as his broad hands, coarse like sandpaper, took one of my trembling own- the one that had been self-consciously digging into this stranger's skin.

"Calm down now-" He paused, and his sand-coloured eyes darted to his sister's emerald gaze. "Elysia." Amitola supplied helpfully. "She said her name was Elysia Stathos- Greek, both of them. She's a Sector 3."

Something tensed in Shiriki's posture, and the hands around one of mine tightened to a point where any harder and I would wince- my bones felt like they were creaking in his grip. "Elysia Stathos…?"

I nodded quickly, as if the one question I could answer was my salvation. "Yes- that's me. House 172, Row 93, Middle District- Sector 3, just like your sister said." I reeled off my address with a giddy ease, as everything flooded back into me now my panic was subsiding.

"I've got a brother, Adelmaro- he's seven- and my parents are Nikolas and Demetria Stathos. They're both teachers at the Middle District Pre-Seeker Division Institute – it's where I go as well. I've been studying for my Seeker Division Examinations, which are this summer, and I'm really worried because I'm really bad at the Huntik History essays and-" I cut off with a yelp as Shiriki squeezed my hand enough to make my knuckles buckle against one another. Amit made a noise of protest, but I couldn't take my eyes from his gaze as it bore into my own.

The look he gave me was confused, a mixture of contempt, disgust and a sort of wonder, a cautious hope that I'd never seen in anyone before, ever.

"Elysia…do you know what date it is?"

A sat frozen like a statue as the implications of his question set in, but I gave him a weak smile nevertheless and trilled out the answer like a caged bird. "Sure, that's easy enough- it's the 6th of July. My SDEs are next week…" My answer faded into silence at his pitying gaze, and his sorrowful, downturned mouth.

"Today's date is the 24th of October."

My gaze pleaded with his for some spark of hilarity- a practical joke that wasn't funny, or a black sense of humour- anything other than this horrible, aching truth. I felt a weird sort of flutter under my ribs as my heart skipped several beats, seeming to stop altogether.

"O-october 24th?"

Shiriki nodded solemnly, his eyes never leaving mine, whilst Amitola caught on to the insinuations of the conversation and slapped a hand to her mouth, horror in her jade eyes.

"How didn't I notice! She's the girl, Shiri- the one they've been looking for."

Shiriki looked mournfully over at Amitola, and nodded to her. "I know, Amit. I expect it's probably the hair that put you off. They showed her with blonde hair on the TV" He looked back at me, carefully extracting his hands from mine- which now, in a reverse of before, were clinging to his like they were an anchor, and I was a little tiny boat on the ocean that raged like a wounded beast- extracting himself like I was a fragile creature, not to be broken, or contaminated with the likes of him.

"I-I don't understand. What do you mean they've been looking for me?" Amit's hands took the place of her brother's as he stood abruptly and leant against the door-frame, almost sullenly. "Elysia- can I call you Elysia?-you've been missing for almost five months. It was all over the news- they thought you'd been kidnapped by some anti-Sectorialist or something. I remember your parents being on the television…" She trailed off as her eyes softened. "They were really worried, asking for information, and now, here you turn up, practically unscathed, in the Sector Security Base…only it collapsed, but now you're fine, and you can go home!"

I'm sure most people would be thrilled to hear those words, and maybe it was because it only felt like yesterday since I'd been in the chaos of House 172, with Adelmaro, and my mom and dad, but I felt a certain sort of dread coil in my belly like a snake.

Shiriki grabbed Amitola's wrist, and pulled her out of her chair, towards the door. "We need to get Figaro. He'll get in charge with the Sector Guards, and get her home." It stung to have those dull, dusty eyes turned at me, when only moments before they'd been full of care and compassion, a healer's eyes.

They conducted a harsh, whispered conversation just outside of the door, in words I couldn't hear. Shiriki slammed the door shut after a few moments, his voice raising to an almost audible tone. It bounced open on the latch, allowing me to hear the last few words.

Through the gap I could see as Amit yanked her wrist free, forest eyes wide. "But, if she was in the Sector Base, what does it mean?"

Shiriki's eyes met mine through the gap in the door, and I knew he was aware I was listening as he sent Amitola away to get others, and turned on a sharp heel down the corridor, throwing a cursory statement back over his shoulder, menace ringing in what could have been so innocent.

"It either means that she was trying to go home or that they'd found her."

And so that's it! Have a question? Leave a review! Liked it? Leave a review! Want some more- you know what to do! Leave a review!

Oh, by the way- for any of you who are not sesquipedalians (users of long words, tee hee) Lygophobia is a fear of darkness, and Lygophilic means to love darkness.

Thanks and bye until next time!