Chapter III
Uncertainty made up their dreams but it was funny how uncertainty was a friend to children like them but the worst nemesis to adults. But because the passage of time was cruel and all things lucky would grow into adulthood, the battles were fought fair and square and the adults won the war and the dreams were chased away to a distant sunrise.
The world now sought growth and change and at no steady pace. No one was going to wait for those too slow to catch up. This was no longer a world for children but a world for the anxious and wary.
But one thing the modern youth, in all their colleges and academies; in all their textbooks and ancient scrolls; could not seem to wrap their heads around was that the world was round and that no matter how fast they ran and pushed the circuits of the earth to exhaustion, they could never sprout wings to fly into a brighter future and would always end up right back where they started, square one.
Sitting still was alright. A journey could wait for its turn in another day.
But had that day come yet?
Was this truly the adventure they had sought or had time done to them the same thing it had done to all the rest of the adults?
What was the catalyst that changed their innocent forms that felt too much and yet felt too little, who slept for too long and yet never truly saw rest?
Clips and sequences. Essences of frames so delicately placed, an yet still falling short of the full picture. Knowledge and evidence tickling the senses, and yet the only half truth possessed ran on a forced belief the way a train, metal found naturally in the veins of the earth are cut from their place and forced to run on an artificial fuel upon a chosen path as that same beautiful earth now bleeds out and will evidently die.
Clips and sequences from times long past passed his eyes, wide and thirsty for the image like those of an innocent child. Though he was an adult now and he had seen enough sin to forevermark his vision jaded, he kept his sight pure.
His heart longed for these sequences and clips and yet never once did he label any of them as good or bad, lying or honest, innocent or vile. That was an adult's way of seeing the world, to demonize the unknown and curse what he didn't know and yet he did not. When he took his own instinctive opinion out of all that surrounded him, all that he perceived and all that was, he soon found that things became alive.
The beauty that consumed his world and being like the gentle touch of a fire was ethereal to his child-like eyes.
His only wish was that that the world would learn to see, hear, feel and touch like he did.
Then, perhaps things would be better.
Unlike most college students, or the general French populous in the current times of war and distaste, Mana Campbell, a young man from the country actually filled his head with thoughts of how to save everyone from the disease that plagued their weary hearts and not to just relieve oppression from one class of society.
He knew that most in the movement that spread amongst the angry masses living on the street like a wildfire had good intentions and just wanted to see poverty lifted from those masses, but Mana had seen what both poverty and wealth did to men of every kind and he had quickly learned that neither killers left survivors, much less reap happiness in this life.
They fought for happiness, but all they would win for their efforts and journeyed through uprisings and turmoils, should they succeed, was wealth; a volatile and addictive disease, a monster capable of locking a man out of heaven.
At the very least in poverty, in misery, in turmoil, there was something to be worked for, something to be gained, hope and dreams that, one day, this wretched earthly existence could improve.
In wealth, it was over. The race was won, the journey done. The end of the path of incomplete ecstasy, so close and yet so far, was a dead end and to proceed would be to lead one's heart into the uncharted wilderness, into pure entropy.
In wealth, the peak of society has already been reached, the mountain climbed and all that was left past the pinnacle was the highest of cliffs leading straight back to square one; A fall from grace to say the least.
The only way things could get better, improve, further evolve into the heaven strived for, is if the ticket to the golden gates of heaven was won and in the mad thirst for purpose, most rushed the journey to the speed of the bullet to the skull.
Then where were the good intentions? Where were was the drive in death?
They vanished, disappearing as though they never were.
The evolution of forms composed of innocent intentions to creatures of hate and greed was completed.
The life cycle ran its course.
It was over and all that wasft were three burning questions;
What on earth? Who on earth? How on earth?
These questions put Mana threw three levels of earth.
What was the purpose for striving for the best this world could offer if the journey left you broken with a revolver in a gloved hand and your valued brains scattered upon the wooden floorboards?
Why couldn't you be content with what you had back then? Why did you have to seek adventure? Why did you have to leave them? Why did you have to change?
What's wrong with you?
What's wrong with me?
What's wrong with this species?
But France, his birthplace and home was long gone now. It could no longer touch him where he had gone away to. He no longer had to fear when the very fabric of reality separated them like leagues of oceans separating foreign lands.
The soil under his bare feet was foreign soil and all that was built upon it was trying its very hardest to be different from the home he knew his entire life.
The first true difference Mana noticed was that, apparently, he couldn't trust people so he found that he had no way of knowing if Fiona was her actual name or just some bizarre title she made up for herself to estranged herself from all those who still dared to care about her.
The woman, the old woman who called herself Fiona, said this place was called the slums, or something. By the name, he had assumed it was the poorest section in this unusual city. What he saw in the area he was now banished to only confirmed it.
Structure-wise, it was quite similar to the rest of the city. The style in which this city was built was quite similar to early gothic styles if the usually darkly coloured limestone were replaced with gold plated structures and red bricks.
Here, in what appeared to be the center of this region, he saw that it was once that way but, somewhere along the lines, those overly fancy decorations stopped being paid for by whoever was in charge many years ago.
The portal in the bottom of the wretched place that wretched person called a 'Moving House' was no different from the one he saw last night in the top of that cathedral place where he followed that wretched person.
No light filled his vision and he found himself stranded cold and alone in a shadow laden valley of vague concrete structures, rough and cold to the touch.
He was not an animal. He was not nocturnal, so the steadily dimming sunset over the horizon, so similar to the ones he witnessed at home, brought him little comfort.
Perhaps it was childish of him, but since Nea abandoned their home, Mana found that the dark seemed to give him serious anxiety.
Mana knew of things that lurked in the unknown, unseen things, unusual things. They frightened him much in the same way monsters hiding in the dark empty spaces of a room frightened a scared child. Any exposed skin made him feel far more vulnerable than he would like, and yet he began to get paranoid that tiny invisible bugs were crawling all over him under his clothes.
It did him no good to be alone. His very thoughts were weaponized to hurt him.
As soon as that woman called Fiona pushed him through the portal, the second thing he noticed was that there were no electric lights, not a single glass bulb glittering like a star in midday to be seen. This sharply contrasted his original view of the city that was lit up everywhere by many multicolored lights, one might think it was Christmas day. Even France had streetlamps lining the pathways, even the poorest of sects had some electricity, but this haunting place had nothing, neither sign of life or death.
Honestly, it felt haunted, and being someone who had a strong belief in ghosts, that spelled only trouble for his weak, brittle, and already far too troubled heart.
The familiar sound of an electric zap, energy losing its temperature, heat fading, a dimming of the general surroundings and a whispered goodbye from the woman who called herself Fiona indicated the closing of the portal that dropped him off in this awful place and the young man quickly found his overpowering and yet so familiar loneliness turning his insides to ice like it were suddenly the climax of the winter season.
It might as well have been, since mountain falls were much much colder than country winters any day. He had never personally been to anything that could be called a mountain, but he had heard rumors from several reliable sources.
Perhaps it was his sheltered upbringing that caused him to hate any alien environment, but the entire dimly lit and completely abandoned world felt quite wrong. Mana had never realized how used to artificial light or the promise of light when the sun had gone he was until he took his first few steps in this almost dreamlike environment.
His overall opinion, not that it really mattered or that he really enjoyed sharing, was that this almost dreamlike place was chilling in appearance, humbling in nature, confusing in actuality.
One, he had no idea where he was or what he was going to find here. He could easily find death or enslavement if he wasn't careful.
Two, he had no idea where he was or what he was going to find here. This world was unfamiliar to him and he felt like a small child once again.
Three, he had no idea where he was or what he would find here. He had no money, nothing of value on him to trade, no knowledge of the people, no idea if he could find employment, no place to stay, no food, no water, and certainly no where he could hope to go to find any of these very precious things.
Honestly, if it hadn't been such an awful situation, he should brought some kind of gold or precious gems he never had any use for just in case this situation went south on him.
It more or less did go south on him, to say the least. But that did not spam for his determination, because the young man still had no intention of giving up on the goal he had worked fourteen years for.
He was just despairing his lack of options in reaching that goal.
If anything, he had numerous fully functional organs inside his body and thick black hair to act as reasonable sutures, along with a reasonable knowledge of sewing, but he didn't think he could find a clean metal object to cut himself open with.
It wasn't as though he needed his kidney but he didn't know if anyone even considered organs valuable or even sellable here. For all he knew, they could run on photosynthesis like a plant would. Then he would be truly in danger but perhaps not as far as good went. Vegetables were high on vital vitamins, according to his mother.
Yes, it would technically be a form of murder and cannibalism but he didn't even know if these hypothetical plant people had souls he should be concerned about and it was a desperate situation.
Unfortunately, he had never been much of a hunter. He was far too clumsy with weapons of sport and never actually had the heart to make the kill.
Oh well. If it really got really that bad, he could eat his own kidney. He didn't know if that would be beneficial to his health, though. Perhaps it didn't master if it was only a temporary fix to a temporary issue.
But it still didn't improve his mood in the slightest. He still had the bitter taste of indescribable taste, knowing that if he dwelled on the subject, he might drown in those awful feelings.
Irritation ran through the young man in a rather distasteful thrill, something akin to a sugar rush except no pleasant feeling backed it up.
Knowing no one was around, he began to shamelessly stomp his feet against the ground, muttering less than tame curses under his tired breath.
Since he was very young, around seven or so and able to throw childish tantrums, he had held the habit of leaping up gracefully and stomping his feet one after another in a rather rhythmic way very similar to a horse prancing or an Irish, except with far more spirit, much less posture and much much less joy in the action.
At first, those he knew tried to break the habit for him, but as the years went by, their determination faded but his habit stood strong and frequent as ever.
He might never talk about it, but Mana Campbell was forced into adult situations at far too young an age so he was never given the chance to mature out of his childish exoskeleton. This meant for him that the majority of his habits from childhood not only stayed but were sewn with golden thread into his adult being.
That being said, the first thing he did when things got hard was stomp on the ground, fists and jaw clenched so tightly, he thought he might chip a bone.
"Nue, you dastardly cowardly vile…. !" Mana growled under his breath, talking so quickly he began to take shape intakes of breath at the ends of his sentences, "You son of a….. Really… Really... Really good woman….. !"
He could never use that curse with a clear conscious. Call it clinging to the past if you wanted to.
You would probably be right, anyway.
And with one last stomp on the ground with both feet, his feet stinging with the impact, he turned to the general direction he remembered the portal being and jabbed a finger like that wretched person had stayed to watch him wither away in pain, declared as loudly as he could, "How dare you, honestly… !".
He expected this much. He expected that something strange would happen when he crossed over the dimension but having his efforts and all he had been through reduced to some child's play did nothing but put his blood just below boiling point.
Perhaps it was childish. Perhaps he should have grown a thicker skin. Perhaps he shouldn't have snapped the way he did but fourteen years worth of agony just for the sake of finding the one person he placed above all of his potential may have caused him to be that much more of a brat.
The world could laugh.
His words echoed back several times in a sharp manner, each word a perfect and clear mimic, almost painful to his ears and half exhausted mind. He wrinkled his nose in pain as a hand flew up to clutch his temple.
The storm in his heart was quelled and all was returned to that awful stalemate.
He would have, could have, should have felt something, and yet he didn't. He didn't feel anything but empty. He hung in the balance of an awful disinterested solution, only stable enough to keep him alive even if every second he wanted to die.
Almost painful, but not quite there yet.
Things had been that way for him for a long while; Each feeling so close to something and yet returning to that same numbness of spirit, mind and body in the last seconds before completely forgotten.
Mana sighed in defeat as his anger vanished.
The part he hated more than anything, more than all he lacked and all he would never gain, more than the look in his brother's eyes and the smile on his face, more than what he had become and all that he could have been, more than the memory of his mother or the knowledge of the gap she left, more than his own uselessness and retardation, more than all that was and all that is, was that all this pain and sorrow brought him nothing but an empty stagnant feeling because no matter how much he tried, he could not hate Nea.
He could not, did not and would never truly hate his brother.
It was just that simple, reduced to the smallest equation down to that simple fact in life.
He could not hate Nea because Nea was all he had left in this world of clips and sequences that passed him by before he had a chance to grasp what it all meant.
Sequences and clips gushed into his empty mind like a river flowing to the sea. So vivid, water flowing through the familiar viens created from years of erosion.
Perhaps the only reason God allowed that event from so long ago to happen was because he knew just how angry Mana would become, and how the goal he had treasured for fourteen long years would be forgotten.
Brat.
That's what that uncle of theirs called him.
They were about five when he last visited. He didn't visit for any reason other than to see the children of his sister in law's children. He was not a very kind man since he lost his leg to an infection.
He stayed in their house for a total of two weeks in the guest room upstairs, which was right next to his and Nea's room. It was filled with cobwebs, rats and filth but he never complained which led to Nea and Mana believing he didn't actually sleep in that room and, instead left in the night to fight crime as a gun slinging rogue in the big city.
They didn't really see anybody new often, perhaps every year, so when they came across someone, they would often find themselves being impolitely nosy and prying. They were just silly children so they didn't know better but they often found themselves making their uncle uncomfortable and being, overall, very rude.
Mana confessed, he was probably the most guilty of the crime.
The last time he did anything so childlike was the time the took it too far and he wandered into his uncle's room.
He was just curious but he really should have known better.
His uncle was out with his mother that day, and he just wanted to know what his uncle kept in the large leather bag the size of him in the dusty corner in the room.
There wasn't anything interesting. Just clothing, money and a few very sharp knives Mana knew better not to touch.
The only thing he saw that was significant was a small photographs framed in an oval golden frame of a woman with a beautiful smile holding an equally lovely infant.
It was a small picture and he had always been a very clumsy child, so, surely enough, his butter fingers slipped and dropped it. The picture hit the floor and the glass covering the photograph shattered down the middle.
He was frightened because just then, he heard his mother and uncle come in through the front door.
Mana put it back into the bag and ran back into his room and pretended to study.
He thought everything would have been find after that but that night, their uncle called him and Mana into the living room, sat them both down on the floor and asked them, with the picture in hand, who had been in his room.
Their uncle told them that this was the only picture he had of his deceased wife and child and it was very important to him that he knew who broke it.
He was a frightening man. Mana thought he was justified to be scared, so he thought it would be best to keep quiet.
But as you already learned, he was never good at doing what he knew to be right.
So, fearing some kind of punishment, he simply said in a very quiet voice that Nea had broken the picture.
He regretted it immediately but he wasn't quite sure how to take it back.
Nea denied it fervently as he always did but their uncle didn't believe him, saying that he was a disobedient child all his life and that he should have seen it coming.
That was the first time Mana had ever seen Nea look so scared. It was odd. Mana had only ever seen him look strong and far too mature for his age. Perhaps in his childish mind, he thought Nea could somehow take it but now he was proven wrong by the look of fear and betrayal in his eyes.
Mana was kicked out of the room, but his body stopped working so he did not move past the door. Perhaps he was too scared to move so he was a frozen audience to the unfolding punishment his uncle had in store.
Through the glass door, he watched his uncle beat Nea violently with a blunt object.
Somehow he was sure having to watch for the first time his brother cry like a helpless child was far worse a punishment than he thought he would get if he simply pretended to be like the much less retarded people in this world and told the truth.
He was disgusted, shameful and weighed down with guilt.
For the first few months after, it was all that he could think about and it gave him sleeping problems.
To think he, a five year old boy, was capable of committing such an awful action horrified him.
It was a guilt that heavily weighed upon his small mind and heart and he just didn't know what to possibly do to get rid of it. Even with all his imagination in childhood years, he just could never imagine a world, universe or dimension where either Nea or God could forgive him for what he did. Every time he tried to move on from past mistakes, he just saw the raw fear in his brother's eyes and then he found himself right back at square one.
Perhaps it was silly but, even now, he still felt the sting of the guilt and the knowledge of the awful person he was, was currently band would contiNue to be in the days to come.
It was a bitter truth and yet he swallowed all of it.
His anger was all but gone now, the rose gone because its roots were erased.
Perhaps, Mana Campbell thought, perhaps, if Mana was that same awful person, Nea had every right to demean and belittle him and all he had been through.
Perhaps this was God's inescapable judgment. Perhaps, rather than being the unfairness of life, this was good and exactly what he deserved.
Honestly, it may be hard to believe but judgment was far superior to no judgment at all. Leagues better. Millions of leagues better, actually.
Guilt was an infection of the spirit that can only be healed with forgiveness and judgment. When Nea vanished without a trace, Mana lost hope of ever curing that infection. When everyone he knew told him that Nea was gone forever, dead in some ditch somewhere, half eaten by wolves, he thought he might be sick forever and the infection would be left to fester forever till, alas, it killed him.
Things were different no.
In his rage and confusion, he was blinded to the wonderful and glorious fact that all those people that had spoken to him so surely over the past fourteen years were wrong. Nea was not dead. He wasn't even sick. He looked to be quite a healthy and accomplished person.
Warmth filled his heart that had grown so used to cold.
He was happy. He was overjoyed that Nea was healthy, even happy here, wherever here was. He was eating well, enjoying the luxury of a large house, working for himself and no one else, having real live maids he actually liked, and overall living.
That was all that mattered to Mana.
Nea being alive. Perhaps Mana was hated by him but those feelings could never be returned. It was just as simple as addition that he could never truly hate Nea for anything.
So what if he didn't need him. It wasn't as though he was very useful.
Infact, looking back, everything Nea had said was completely true.
His anger had made him temporarily mad, he could not see how truly blessed he was, that every prayer was answered in the most wonderful and vivid way. If it weren't for the obvious reality, he would have thought he was surely dreaming.
With a whispered thank you to heaven, Mana Campbell soon found himself smiling again.
This was anything but a bitter and harsh reality that he faced. Rather, this world was sweet and kind. The coming night no longer frightened him like it should but rather it made his very heart leap for joy. All hate and repulsion he once felt vanished in the blink of an eye. It was soon replaced with a strong, unusual, unyielding, and child-like love.
If this land of magic and mystery, science and superstition, allowed Nea Campbell to live a happy and healthy life, how could it be anything but wonderful, he wondered.
How, indeed. This was certainly a land of wonder.
It was then that, alas, the young man finally found his resolve strong as the steel of a knight's blade and made his decision.
He had done it before, he would do it again. Surely he would not face worse hardships than he already had been through. He would find Nea no matter what it took, be it both his kidneys or one of his lungs. He would find him and try again. Even if he didn't need him for any reason, perhaps Mana could be selfish and locate him anyway.
Because, in the end, he truly was all he had left.
He would find him and he would use whatever tools God gave him in this deserted area to find him. That being said, he summoned all the courage inside him and began to investigate the area to search for those tools.
There was once a well here. It was oddly primitive but judging by the ware and faring in the rope that held the bucket, it was all that the occupants of this area had.
Some of the marks were new, judging by the freshly exposed string and contained heat from the friction. In some ways, that made him hopeful, but in other ways, it frightened him.
He could find that whatever occupants were friendly kind hearted folk and would, perhaps inform him of what was going on in this land. On the other hand, they could be awful beasts, cannibals who feast on human flesh.
Mana felt fear at the idea, even though knowing that the lack of human remains in the area meant that that was unlikely.
The evidence that this well was built by inexperienced hands, however, gave him hope to believe in the latter.
He was placed in a fork in a road, circular clearing that broke off into three shadow laden paths, guarded by tall walls of concrete. The place was filthy, dirt and mold caked to everything but it was almost evenly place, like the place had been sweeper or cleaned recently. In some of the dust, he even saw several scattered shapes of what appeared to be a child's footprint.
He knelt down.
A child, he thought with his finger a striking the dust to further examine clues, how interesting.
These marks were new, perhaps three days old. They were not hurried but rather looked as though, by the way the marks were blurred at the edges, that the children were marching one by one.
He stood up and began to scan the ground to trace the vague child footsteps to what appeared to be the middle concrete tunnel.
In any case, it appeared to him that this environment was, at least, favorable to children, so that meant it would be only mildly difficult for someone like him to dwell in.
The doubt that they might just be very short people crept into his mind, a doubt quite determined to ruins his day but he silenced it that the marks were made by small and also underdeveloped feet.
To his knowledge, those Chinese women that got their feet bound as a sign of beauty couldn't walk, much less march, so the only possibility he could think of was children.
Perhaps he had forgotten something else but he would dare to trust his own mind this once simply because it was the only one he could really rely on for any advice at all right now.
And with all these vivid thoughts and sideways justifications swirling around like a swarm of flies inside the recesses of his skull, Mana was quick to realize that he still had yet to budge.
With that thought, he forced his feet into taking steady steps forward.
To say he wasn't completely terrified would be a lie.
Luckily, he was never one to tell a lie.
The pure darkness of the tunnel was hardly a change from the night that had come upon this abandon valley of many shades of grey. His tired eyes did not need to adjust nor did he need to reach his arms out and grope around to know where he was going.
It was a straight path and all he had to do to get through it was walk and yet, for reasons he was not quite sure of, the simple lack of light that his human eyes could perceive had an unusual effect on him physically. He had not been touched, infected or hypnotized by any form of spirit and yet the sure cold seeping into his being the same way water crept upon and dragged a ship with a leak to its destruction at the bottom of the ocean told him otherwise.
It was almost as though the lack of harm caused his muscles to stiffen like clay overtime and his joints to stiffen like they had been overtaken by rust.
His flesh turned to a suffocating leather covering. It almost seemed too easy to remove it.
He felt his bones, the muscles and cartilage that made up hisd given earthly vessel but as a separate entity from his being.
He felt the body he was given control of the same way one feels the clothes they wear but it is not who they are. It's just a shell, it's just a boat on the ocean to keep them afloat even though they are naturally water creatures, it's just a means of communicating and connecting with the world around them: Despite this, it's still not who they are.
What they truly are is a soul; The energy of life given a unique structure.
In the empty space, the suffocating concrete walls around Mana seemed to fade.
He was not moving and yet he was not still.
He screamed and yet he was silent.
He was nothing and yet something at the same time.
In that tunnel, all vanished from sight and Mana felt with the soul inside him.
The sensation was real and yet distant.
It drove him to the edge, being relentlessly taunted by the flavor, sight and smell of a feeling sweeter than sugar that all nature sang in a choir that he could never reach.
Sometimes, he felt like was going mad.
Sometimes he just grew so exhausted of the mundane flat line of a feeling he never felt.
All he wanted was to feel.
All he wanted was to be real.
All he wanted was to be alive again.
But the truly bitter part of it was that he didn't know how much longer he could wait.
Suddenly, a sound flooded Mana's consciousness. The dream faded and the disorientation of scientific laws and self proclaimed truths of the world once again took their throne. His eyes flew open and he found himself standing still as stone, taking in the image of a much larger city street illuminated by the light of a crescent moon.
He had no way of knowing where the other two paths led but this one led his straight to where the road broke off into two separate roads running straight to east to west as far as the eye can see, lining what appeared to be a very average looking city street.
It was almost sickeningly familiar. If it weren't for the alien language the signs and shop names were written in, he would have thought Nea had sent him right back to France somehow. The bitterness faded and he took a step forward.
He became a child again, losing fourteen years in an instant, in this sort of environment where he knew neither how to read or right, where he was, how this world worked, what or who he would find.
It was amusing how easily maturity and its delicate nature could fall away.
The prime difference he noticed from the city streets in France was the excessive use of concrete. No tapering, no patterns, no emblems, no separate use of materials, no sign of love, no difference in height, no specialized width, just an endless stream of various large structures with smooth concrete walls like all the color and feeling had been sapped from the world, leaving behind only empty husks and skeletons of what once was. Perhaps it was cheaper and more efficient as a building material but Mana personally thought bricks or colored limestone showed far more spirit and the care placed into the architecture.
Honestly, he might just despise living in such a dull and miserable. He might just prefer death over being trapped somewhere like this.
It reflected his own heart in a number of ways but he chose not to dwell any longer on that prospect. He wanted to change that fact he knew so well as soon as possible and any further entrapment of the agony he felt day by day would do nothing but hinder his journey.
There was no sign of a carriage making its way across the road and yet despite this, there was a separation between the sidewalk and the road.
Perhaps it was just a remnants from a much richer time, he thought, but that didn't explain the lack of any semblance of ware or water erosion. According to his eyes, the road looked quite new.
But then Mana remembered suddenly and scolded himself. In his observations, he had almost entirely forgotten about the child's footsteps he was following.
It wouldn't be proper to stay out here in the cold. The breath he breathed turned into a pure white mist and the tips of his fingers and nose were turning red. He wasn't in any actual discomfort but if he stayed out any longer, he might catch as cold of some sort and he couldn't have that.
He had a great deal of things to do, after all.
Unfortunately, that area was far more exposed to air, blowing away the dust and dirt till all that was left was an even layer of filth, so it would be hard to track someone in this area.
He searched around, not moving from where his foot were rooted but scanning the area with his eyes, but disappointment began to fill his stomach when, much to his sadness, he couldn't find a single sign of human life.
Mana was about to give up the search with an enraged stomp upon the concrete earth when a sound was made.
The sound of some sort of skin scraping against rough stone in a swift and forced motion.
The only reason why this struck the young man as relevant was simply because he certainly hadn't made that sound, rather it came from several yards directly to his left.
For a brief moment, rather than any sort of fear, hope filled his heart.
In that brief second, he jerked his body around. If he had just waited one more heartbeat, he would have thought the sound was his imagination and he would have missed the form of a fleeing child. If he had missed that, perhaps things would have been different, but he didn't.
Just a single clip, just a single sequence of a small form clothed in blood red only to disappear behind a building. Just a second of color in this world of ashen grey but it was enough.
He saw the child running and, without even thinking, like he had trained for this his entire life, he took off towards it.
A single burst of adrenaline in his veins blasted his heart rate and sent him sprinting at full speed down the street. He wasn't sure what he had planned or what he would do when he caught the person, all he knew was that he had to find the child, whoever it was.
"Hey! Wait!" He cried out as he sprinted down the corner only to find an equally bland but one way dead end road between a rock cliff and a concrete wall, leading straight to who knows where, but right in front of him was the child in red so he ran with all his strength, "Oh, goodness, please wait!"
But the child did not stop, but rather just run all the faster. The child was fast, quite a bit faster than he remembered children being, actually. For a brief second, Mana thought he might lose the child along with any chance of knowing where he was or how this place worked.
His legs began to fail him as exhaustion began to consume his body, despite the fact that his spirit still wished to move forward.
Mana truly lost hope and began to slow his pace, knowing there was no way he could catch the child.
That was, of course, after a soft thump and a rather shrill yelp, he looked up from his position of rest to see that the child had fallen, it's small form sprawled out on the concrete road, flat on its face.
It's wide red cape must have gotten wrapped around its legs and tripped the dear thing, judging by how its darkly skinned arms struggled to push itself back up. It's head was slumped down, speaking words of the pain it was in and messy auburn hair fell down the nape of its neck and it's small but shaking shoulders.
What his thought process was in that moment was a continual stream of declarations of self hatred.
I am so retarded, he thought, I always do this.
He always messed everything up like this and he despised it.
A sudden wave of guilt overtook him as he rushed forward yet again.
His feet were heavy against the ground like gravity had suddenly strengthened and the silence of this world of darkness was beginning to grate upon his ears.
"Oh no!" Mana said frantically as he jogged over to the child's side at a steady pace, kneeling down and reaching a shaking hand out in order to help it up, "Are you alright…. ? I should not have chased you like I had! I am so very sorry… !"
That particular movement had been practiced so many times over in his years that it became instinctive and he hardly even noticed anymore. Mana didn't pay attention to the suspicious situation or what could have happened and he played for it, or at least he would have if he even comprehended feeling anymore.
The first thing he noticed when he reached out his hand was a sharp almost inhuman hiss and his reached out hand being trapped in place. He thought that suspicious and dared to look down.
It took him a solid ten seconds, not that his mind was in any state to properly count passing time, to comprehend what he was seeing.
He found it hard to believe, himself but it appeared to be that the child in front of him was biting him, shimmering white teeth sharp like those of a cat biting into his fingers and piercing the flesh, crimson blood dying the lips red.
Oddly enough, what surprised him the most was the child's face which, though youthful, large purple eyes and pink cheeks, told him easily enough that this child was in fact, a female.
Nonetheless, even though there was no physical pain, he instinctively pulled his hand away and the child, a young girl actually, let go easily enough, scrambling back four or so yards away on all fours like an animal.
Of course, his gaze lingered on the child's eyes crazed with fury but it was stolen shortly after by the large bite mark in his hand and the blood that spilled forth. Stitches would be needed, or at least some kind of balm to aid the healing process and keep away infection.
A resurfacing of a memory reminded him that he had some of a balm his mother had made him for his birthday two or so years ago with that very purpose but that was not the issue. The true issue was his treatment of this girl.
It was a shocking experience and he was not quite sure what to do at first.
Not having expected this from any civilized human being and certainly not a child looking no older than seven or eight, the young man reassured himself that this was an alien civilization so perhaps it was him who had done something very wrong. He had chased the child, after all.
That being said, Mana prepared his apology.
The girl seemed to be trying to scramble back further, but was failing despite the fact that nothing was behind her, her entire body tensing up like a cat. Mana thought it all seemed quite odd, but he steeled himself.
"I'm sorry. Did I frighten you?" He whispered, his hand stretched out like he were trying to ease the fears of a feral cat and beckon it forward.
"No!"
That was not the response he expected. If he hadn't seen her speak, he wouldn't have believed the brunette child had responded to him with actually human words.
In one quick motion, he saw her slam her palms against the ground and pushed herself to a standing position.
"You don' frighten' me," She screamed almost mockingly at him, stray drops of saliva flying everywhere, with a foul swoop of her hand, which held some very sharp claws, "And yer 'alf baked mind games nevr' will!"
Mind games? Somehow that was the least of his worries.
Odd accent, he thought with a raised brow.
She was much taller than he thought she would be. Her baby face confused him so perhaps she was nine or ten. Her limbs were slender but strong, her movements swift and tanned skin not without a few scars and bruises. The marks were like medals of honour, speaking stories and legends of how much more experienced this ten year old was in combat than he, a college student from the country, would probably ever be.
In a kneeling position, already, Mana suddenly and quickly found his concern turning to intimidation as the girl towered over him at full night, as she was clearly no normal girl and could probably break him in half if she wanted to.
Perhaps he really had made a mistake and perhaps it was just really stupid for him to follows her.
But Mana, a young man of one and twenty, could only lower his head in shame with a whispered 'Oh no' like he had actually intended to get this kind of reaction from her.
It was only then that he noticed he had kept his hand outstretched the entirety of the time and immediately retracted it.
But the girl was not done yet.
"Oi! Now don' go playin' all girly like on me! Ya can't even preten' ta be anythin' but rotten' even if ya tried!" She screamed with just as much if not more intensity, looking more and more like his mother when she was fit of fury than he would like, "Wha' you come ou' ere for, ay?! Come ta' silence may, ay?! Come ta take ol' Robin's life so she won' spill all tose nasty secrets, 'ave ya?! Ay?!"
Mana suddenly came to the realization that the courage he had amassed at the beginning of this journey through this town of shadows was fading. He couldn't have that, even if this was one of the longest conversations he had held in the last fourteen years.
A deep breath.
A remembrance that the people around him were nothing to be afraid of.
"I-I am truly," He muttered at last, eyes downcast in fear, "Truly sorry if I have offended you in some way, b-but I am afraid I don't know what you're talking about…"
"No idea?! No idea?!?" She bawled her small girl fists and took a step forward, which was far more threatening than it should have been, her baby face screwed up with anger and confusion, "Don' give me tat! Don' ya dare give me tat! Ya expect may ta believe prison med ya go soft on us all?! It'll take alo' more ta get ta rotten outa ya, Earl!"
A second passed and yet Mana recognized the name in one eighth of that time.
A change. A simple change brought upon by a single word he had grown familiar with.
Earl, he thought, was that not the name Nea used so many times? Could these words have been intended for him, instead?
His dim brown eyes grew wide and golden in the moment of shock. He grew still and yet significantly more animated.
In a moment, he shot straight up to full height, finding himself towering over the girl.
She staggered backwards momentarily.
"Listen," He stated, "Um- Robin, was it?"
The surprise on the face of the girl called Robin was evident, but it only proved him correct, so he did not see the need to let her reply.
"I am, by birth anyways," He contiNued to say with one arm behind his back and a polite bow of his body like he had been trained to do when greeting a lady of any sort, and lingered in that position for a minute before sitting up straight again, "Mana Campbell. Up until yesterday night, I lived in another dimension in a wretched land known as France and I have never seen you before in all my life."
A heavy silence ensued as her face began to screw up in confusion.
He frowned. He would have to do more than that to convince her. He had heard from many that he and Nea were identical in appearance. He never personally saw the resemblance but he was sure she might, if she ever made his acquaintance.
He could tell by her expression that she hadn't believed him for a second so Mana didn't need the added effect of a kick in the shins to believe her.
The pain wasn't felt but she was quite strong so the force of her leg colliding with his caused his knees to buckle.
"Don' mess wit may!"
"It's true, honest!" Was his half baked reply.
And yet she still didn't believe him.
He was quick to assume that this little girl was someone his brother was acquainted with and had obviously made angry in some very grave manner. He wasn't sure why a twenty one year old was making friends with a ten year old or what he could have possible done to make her this angry, but those first few facts he could be relatively sure of.
Mana was just about to do his best to apologize on his brother's behalf in hopes that she might stop yelling at him when the small child suddenly exploded with words yet again.
"I don' care ya rotten dastard!" Robin cried in rage, "Now call af yer dogs bef're I kick ya again!"
"What... ?" He replied, not really wanting to get kicked again by this oddly vicious girl, "What dogs? What are you-?"
Her little hand shot straight up, pointing to the right as she looked him straight in the eyes with that very intense gaze of hers.
It was only then that Mana realized something. Though it was faint, under the folds of her red robe, he could she that Robin was shaking. Perhaps she was just a little girl, after all.
He didn't respond at first, still mildly afraid that she would kick him again. It never truly hurt him but the anticipation of the impact was enough to drive him out of his mind.
Finally giving into whatever sight she presented to him at his right, he dared to turn his head.
Unbeknownst to him, her words mildly frightened him, thinking that upon turning his head, he would see something that wasn't there before, something terrifying that even the eye could not fully comprehend.
Mana stood yet again to his feet.
The moment was actually quite disappointing. Nothing lay in that narrow alleyway but the same path laiden with shadows he had walked upon a few minutes previous.
"What is it you wish to show me Robin?"
"Look. Look harder." She said to him in a harsh whisper riding upon her rapid breaths, "Tey are tere… Tey are watchin'…."
He did as she said and yet he still saw nothing only hideous smooth concrete walls building a hideous maze through a hideous city without life or love.
He really did try to look at whatever creatures she saw in these alleys and yet he still came up with nothing. He may not have been the brightest of people but he could at least trust his eyes.
He felt a small hand reach up and grip the silk fabric of his robe. This girl was genuinely scared of these things she called 'His dogs'. There was no way she was lying.
"Can't… Ya hear tem…….?"
"I hear nothing..."
"Drool…. Drippin'….. Growlin'….. Tongues…..Lickin'…. Teet grindin'..."
He tried, he really did. He would have hallucinated if it helped him to understand the girl.
Somehow, it was odd. His eyes told him one thing but this girl told him another and she was native here, so surely Mana was in the wrong, as he always was, being retarded and all.
"Can't ya…. Smell…. Tem?"
Surely what she was saying was true, surely there were disgusting and vicious beasts hiding in the shadows. An all too familiar chill ran down his spine, the ringing of nonexistent bells in his ears. It was the familiar feeling, the fear and knowledge that all the stories were true and the monsters were coming to get you.
Goosebumps covered his bare limbs.
It was, more precisely, the knowledge that no one was coming to save you.
For a second, and just a mere second, his mind painted the faintest of pictures just beyond those concrete walls of hideous bulbous creatures with the bodies of beasts, crouched down on their arms and legs, revolting green mucus like drool falling from their sharp animalistic teeth, but with faces of men, giving them mouths to sing choruses; "You're so retard!" They sang, "You're so retarded!" They laughed as they circled him like a pack of wolves, ready to strike at any moment.
For a second, he saw these things, but then that moment ended because Robin, the little girl huddled up against his side, proceeded to speak again.
"Tey are 'ter…" She whispered with her nose pressed up against his side, "Tey 'ave come to take me' kidneys…. I just know it…"
And with those words, those hideous creations of his mind vanished and the illusion was shattered.
The fear dissipated as quickly as it came and he quickly found himself feeling safe here.
He now found himself completely and utterly one hundred percent certain that this girl had come in contact with his brother who was becoming increasingly more recognizable as that very person from his memories.
Mana found it laughable that it had been about fifteen years since and he still fell for the same trick twice. A grin found its way onto his lips as he remembered exactly what happened. It felt like only yesterday when he was six with mother trying to coax him out of his hiding place in the attic. He truly believed with all his heart what Nea told him, that at night the neighbors dogs would snarl out of their cages at night and steal the kidneys of young boys when they stole cookies past bedtime.
He was so scared, no different from now.
He had been caught by circumstance doing the exact same thing he was doing when he was five, but as it would happen, Nea was the same. He was telling the same jokes and playing the same pranks and what would have been a sign of concern for others was nothing but comfort for him.
It had been many years, but perhaps he wasn't so different. Perhaps he could see him again, and not stare into the lifeless eyes of what he had become.
And with that smile on his face, he proceeded to feel something real.
Mana stepped forward.
The momentary look on the girl's face was almost enduring but he kept walking.
There was nothing in the dark corners. He knew that, and yet he continued to wear a wary expression for the sake of the act.
He came to a sudden halt and, without further ado, lifted up his open hand and proceeded to recite the spell his mother taught him to rid the area of imaginary monsters.
"Monsters," He declared in a loud voice, still quite out of breath and exhausted from the energy expended the last couple of days, "Stay back and leave this place... ! You do not belong here... ! Stay and haunt this harmless girl and you will face the consequences…. …. !".
His words echoed back at him, but this time, the only pain he experienced was from embarrassment at how silly those words were.
But there wasn't a moment to lose. Apparently, according to his mother, the spell wouldn't last long.
As swiftly as he could, he spun around and dashed too Robin, immediately taking her hand and pulling her in the direction away from the dead end and out of the alley, running as fast as he could, which wasn't actually all that fast but he did his best.
"Quick!" He shouted, the only thing he could do to keep from laughing, "That spell won't last long... !"
"Wat?! Did it even work?!"
"I can't quite say, Robin! I'm not the Earl…. , after all... !"
"Yes ya ar! Why else do ya 'ave 'is face fer?!"
"Not quite sure, mademoiselle... ! Coming from the same embryo might of had something to do with it, though…. !"
"Wat?!".
And so they ran, far far away, to a warm place safe from the night