Darkness, all around. In my senses, and in my mind. I remember the past, the abusing, the using. Trapped to a stone, bound to serve. I know our pack lives on, for my brother still lives. I had been so blind. My mind coiled in on itself in anger toward my emotions, which had been the cause of my horrible situation now. I had thought I loved a man, but it had been a false emotion, a mere illusion of what love should be. He hired a sorceress, paying her with pleasure of the flesh, to capture me into this accursed stone. He didn't know, however, that when he finally died, I would still remain in the stone, trapped and bound in a cage of darkness. When someone wears the stone around their neck I am bound to them, unable to help but obey their commands. A horrible existence. I cannot do anything against my owner's will. I have been in this darkness for so long, and when I come out, I will only be set into a new horrible event of existence.

Michael looked at the stone on the counter carefully, wondering if it was actually real or not. It looked like it was a sapphire, but it was far too cheap in price, and far too large to actually be a gem. He looked around the pawn shop curiously, wondering if anyone could tell him about the stone. He picked it up gently, noticing the gouges and scratches in the stone's facets. Something had happened with this stone, which only added to his interest. The shop owner looked over to him and brightened when he saw a potential sale.

"Can I help you?" The owner said with forced cheerfulness. He was an older man, with weary eyes and thinning hair. Michael nodded and held up the gem, which hung on an old leather string. The shop owner's smile vanished, and he nodded solemnly.

"That stone's been here for longer than I have. It's cursed, I say. I've only heard bad things about it."

Michael looked carefully down at the stone and scoffed in disbelief. What superstitious nonsense. A stone couldn't be 'cursed'. It was only people's perception that it was the gem's fault for the unfortunate series of events that happen to the owner.
"How much is it?" Michael asked, setting the gem on the counter gently.
"Fifteen bucks." The owner looked at the stone warily, as if it would attack him somehow. Michael looked at him in shock, amazed at his good fortune. He knew it was a real gem, he hadn't gotten a master's degree in geology for nothing, and for such a small price, he was wondering why no one had seen it before now. He quickly took out the money and handed it to the shop owner, and was handed the stone, the owner bringing his hand back from the gem as if it had scalded his palm. Michael started walking out of the store, deep in thought as he looked at the purchase.
"Be careful lad, I'd hate to sell you your death." The owner called after him, watching with uneasiness as Michael walked out of the shop, the bell at the top of the door ringing in salute as he exited.

He looked toward his car with a bright smile, happy to finally be able to go home. He was done with his annual pawn shop raid, going to pawn shops every week to see if they had anything interesting. He had gotten a lot of good deals that way, along with a few priceless antiques. Some things he sold for a profit on EBay, some he kept for his own pleasure and stuck somewhere in his apartment. He opened the door to the small New York apartment and walked in, breathing in the air of artifacts and minerals, from the many salvaged items littering open spaces around his house. He set the gem down on the counter and went through the drill of checking his answering machine, looking through his mail for urgent bills, and went back to pick the gem up, holding it in front of his face by the string. The stone was a pale blue, almost white at the thin ends, and sky blue toward the thick middle, in the shape of a many faced diamond. He walked to his bookshelf in his bedroom, one of the two rooms connected to the entrance/kitchen/living room. Like the other rooms, this room had basic furniture with rocks, minerals and antiques lining the walls, sitting on whatever available shelf space there was. He picked a book out of the bookcase and looked through it, his eyes widening when he realized what the gem was. It was a massive tourmaline. He stepped back a minute in shock, his back running into the wall behind him. My God, he had paid fifteen dollars for something that was worth thousands… He chuckled in amazement and shook his head. But the leather cord that the gem was hanging on caught his interest. Were people actually expected to wear just the gem by itself? Such a massive and expensive piece of jewelry would be set into something or at least inlaid into metal. It was different seeing the gem just hanging with a hole in it from a leather cord. Maybe it was so old, they didn't know how to inlay a gem in metal yet…

Oh come on, it couldn't be that old. That was thousands of years ago. He looked at a particularly deep gouge on one side of the gem and noticed that it seemed as if the gouge was actually a series of small scratches. He raised an eyebrow in curiosity and took out a magnifying glass, looking at the scratches and gasped in shock. The scratches were writing! Some language he didn't know of, but sure enough, they were writing. He looked at the stone again, as if looking at it for the first time. This was no piece of jewelry. An amulet or a talisman of some sort, probably. He wished with all his heart he knew what the writing meant, and sighed in disbelief. It was amazing that he had found a gem in a pawn shop, none the less a priceless ancient artifact. He looked down at the gem and smiled, wondering how heavy it was if someone put it around their neck. Amulets and Talismans were usually small so they wouldn't attract attention form other people, or else to the convenience of the wearer. He held up the string and put the cord around his neck, immediately getting the sense of foreboding. The lights of his room flickered for a moment, and a long tendril of smoke came from the gem, which was now completely clear. Michael watched, dumbfounded, as the mist condensed and a woman stood in front of him, her head bowed, and her arms straight at her sides. She was about a foot shorter than him, though he was tall compared to most men. She had deep brown hair, and a leather jerkin and pants on. The clothes were splattered with blood, and torn in a few faces to reveal pale skin. Michael looked at her in shock, his jaw dropped. No way. His mind screamed with a thousand arguments against what had just happened. Women did not just appear. None the less appear from a stone. He looked at her in amazement, noticing several daggers strapped to her hips on a strong leather belt. Oh dear. She wasn't going to attack him, was she? He didn't like the look of those daggers, with their serrated edges and barbed tips. She looked up at him, steel-blue eyes filled with hatred and fear. She said nothing, but just looked at him as if waiting for him to challenge her.

Michael raised his eyebrows curiously, his amazement seeping into confusion and anger. Why did she hate him so much? She had only just seen him after appearing from mist. His mind still screamed against that, his academic teachings saying that physics didn't work like that, nothing worked like that. Yet here she was. Perhaps she was only an illusion though. His mind blanked out as she bowed to him, falling to one knee on the ground.
"Good day, master. I am at your service." She said, her voice soft, and without emotion.

"Wait- what?" He looked down at her in horror. She looked up at him, her eyes showing confusion through her hatred.
"You are my master. You summoned me from the crystal. I will do as you wish. Did you not summon me to kill an enemy of yours?"

"Kill? No, no, I don't want you to kill anyone. Stand up for God's sake." He said, motioning for her to stand up. "Who are you? How did you come from this thing?" He held up the crystal, which still hung around his neck.

"I was trapped in the crystal. How I got there is my own business. You do not want me to kill anyone? Alright then, you've made your wish clear." She said, and untied the leather belt around her waist, the daggers falling to the ground. She stepped toward him, her bare feet gentle on the ground.
"Wait- no. Don't come any closer." He held out a hand, his mind only guessing at what she was hinting at. Oh god, what had he gotten himself into?! "No, I don't want you to… do that. Just tell me who you are. How did you get into this thing? It's impossible."
"I assure you, it's entirely possible. I have been trapped in the crystal for thousands of years. If you do not want me to pleasure you, and you do not want me to kill anyone, what did you summon me for? What is your command?"
"I don't want you to do anything. Just, wait a minute. Thousands of years? That's not possible, no one can live for thousands of years unless you're-"
"Immortal, yes." She interrupted, starting to get impatient. "I am a shape shifter. Command me to do something so that I may go back into the crystal and get this over with." She said, her voice low.

"I don't want you to do anything, alright? You're your own person, do what you want." He said, looking from the crystal, to her. "Are you an illusion or something? There's no way you can fit into this stone."
"I am no illusion. I am as real as you are."

"Right, how can I be sure?" He raised an eyebrow skeptically. The woman sighed and walked forward again, poking him on the chest.
"There, see? I'm real. I can touch you, and you can touch me. I am material, as you are. Now what is your wish? I want to get this existence over with." She sighed in exasperation.

Michael looked down at her hand in shock. Yeah, she was real alright. Her hand was solid, and warm. He looked at her, realizing that this was indeed a real person, stuck for thousands of years inside a gem. How he didn't know; how it was possible, he didn't know either. He sure did want to find out though. She interested him, and his curious mind wanted to know everything about her.

"What's your name?" He asked, shocking her.

"My name?" She thought for a minute. "Why would you want to know my name?"
"Because I want to get to know you. Why are you so against me? I've done nothing to you."
"Every time I come from that gem, my owner wants me to do something. Don't say 'I won't command you to do something', because that would be a lie. The temptation would be too great."

"I'm not going to." He said, gritting his teeth together in frustration. She was so against him, she wasn't even giving him a chance to try to prove himself otherwise.

"If you want to know my name so badly, command it from me. I will not tell you otherwise." She said, her eyes glinting.
Michael's anger flared, and he sighed deeply to let himself cool down. What an annoying woman. She was as stubborn as a mule. "I'm not going to command your name from you."
"It's very simple. All you have to do is say 'I command thee…" And she held out her palm to show that he had to follow it with a command.
"I'm not saying it. I'm not ordering you around, you're obviously real. That makes you a human, and a human has their own mind to decide what to do. If you're really hoping I'm going to order you to do something, too bad, because I'm not."

She looked at him in shock, and blinked a few times, her eyes darting around the room as if trying to find an answer to why he was acting this way.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked, her voice gentle as she looked back up at him.
"Because I'm not cruel. Haven't you met anyone nice before?"
"No. I can't say I have." She said, and looked down uneasily. She sighed and turned around, wrapping her arms around her. Michael saw through a tear on the back of her shirt, what looked like writing on her back. His mind getting the better of him, he reached forward and spread the tear a little wider, hissing in pity as he saw writing etched into her spine, running along her back. She looked over her shoulder at him, and flushed slightly. Michael realized what he was doing and took a large step backwards, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed as well. "I'm sorry." He said, still looking at her back. "How did you get those? They're the same writing that's on the crystal."
"Yes, they were given to me when I was bound to the crystal. Can you not read them?" She looked at him curiously.
"No, I can't. I don't know that language."
"Are you sure? It's only Norse runes. Everyone knows them."
"Not anymore." He shook his head. She looked at him in confusion and glanced around the room for the first time, seeing many strange objects around her.
"What year is it?"
"2007." He looked up at her as her face turned horrified.
"500 years. I've been in there for over 500 years." She said quietly, and looked around her at the different objects in the room again. She looked in particular to the computer, telephone, lights, television and electronics. "You can make light with no candles?" She pointed to the bulb shining above her head.
"Yeah, we've had that for about 200 years now. Boy, you're behind the times, aren't you?" He smiled.

She looked at him for a minute, her face straight, but a slight smile appeared on her face. "That's what happens when you're stuck in a rock for centuries."

Michael's smile widened. Finally she was showing a little of herself. She didn't seem so bad when you got past the unexplainable hatred. Though being a slave for millennia to the sleaze bags that she was used to, he would probably hate everyone too.

"My name is Seka. Seka of the pack Hourana." she said, looking at him, her eyes softer than before.

He smiled and nodded in satisfaction. "My name is Michael. Michael Sangos."

Seka nodded and smiled again. She walked around the room, running a hand along some of the technology in curiosity.
"I should teach you about some of these things. But first we need to get you some better clothes." He said, blushing a little as she bent down in her jerkin, her front showing through the top of the baggy shirt. She stood up and nodded, looking down at herself and cringing, seeing her blood splattered clothes.
"Usually the people I was serving didn't really see me as a person, but as an object in their command. I haven't gotten a new shirt since I was trapped in that thing."

"Well then it's about time you did. Follow me, I'll get you a new shirt. You can wear those pants, and we'll go out shopping for some new clothes."

Michael walked into his bedroom, Seka following him with soft footsteps. It was if she was a predator of some kind, following behind him.
"You said you were a shape shifter, right?" He looked over his shoulder at her. She nodded, and looked around his room, her eyes widening in wonder when she saw a large geode sitting on the table beside the bookshelf. Michael took out a smaller t-shirt than what he usually wore, and handed it to Seka, who looked at it curiously. She nodded and started taking her top off, making Michael turn around quickly so he wouldn't see anything. She looked at him for a minute in confusion but shrugged and finished taking the jerkin off, putting the t-shirt on. He looked at her to make sure she was done and turned back around, his face still slightly pink.
"Right then." He cleared his throat. "Later we'll get some clothes for you that actually fit."

Seka nodded softly and looked up at him, starting to wander around the room again. "Everything's so different..." She said, running a slender finger along the frame of Michael's alarm clock, the red numbers blaring up at her.

Michael smiled and nodded. "Did you want anything else? Food, bath, sleep?"
Her eyes widened when Michael mentioned food, and looked at him eagerly. He laughed and pointed down the hallway. "You can take a bath while I cook the meal."
Seka nodded and looked down the hall as Michael walked out of the room