"Lady, where the hell am I going?"
Nero spoke on the phone when he looked at the surrounding, he had drove for the last one hour and he hadn't seen a single soul, human nor demon. The voice of the woman on the phone said back to him:
"A ghost town."
"Yeah, that much I can tell." Nero snickered when he see the road had run down badly. "I intended to say that this shitty place has nothing but shit, but there was not even a shit in here."
"No animal or anything right?"
"Yeah."
"Nero, naturally in an abandoned town, you were supposed to see some kind of animal." Lady said. "Rat, dog or hyena, something must be there right."
Then Nero paid a close attention, he realized that Lady got a point. There was no living creature here, not even a rat run through the road a bird that fly on the sky. It was not like a ghost town, but more like a dead town.
"So what is this business that you said again?"
"An old acquaintance of mine asked me if I could ask you to do him a job, said that there was something; quoted exactly what he said "unnatural about this town" and asked for you, specifically to investigate it."
"Why didn't he just come to me?"
"He is not good with strange people, and really, really hates to go out." Lady said. "But he is rich, trustworthy and he paid handsomely for me just to get you to do the job. You saw the check I gave you, it only a half of what will be paid for you when you done taking some picture for him. Your business lately hadn't going that well lately and a good fortune like this is hard to deny."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
Nero sighed, the money was good. Like too well for just going to some town and took some picture. But he needed some cash to support him and Kyrie so Nero had to bite it. This place was odd; Nero thought when he stopped his car in front of a ruined trailer. The man who gave this job gave some information about what he wanted to investigate at, like this run down golden trailer.
Nero saw the golden paint peeling on the car and opened the door, dust blown into his face making him cough lightly when he waved the air. Nero saw inside the van, now this was officially weird.
Inside the van, instead of being dusty and filthy as he thought it should be, it was spotless and perfect like it was new. Nero touched the small wooden coffee table that was spotless, the small bed with flower blanket and a small crib next to it. There was somebody live in this trailer, but he was not sure where that person was. He looked around, judging by the feminine touch; he guessed that this was a girl, a very young girl when he saw a lot of flower decorating around.
Nero searched around the trailer and found a picture in a closet, he saw a baby wrapped in black blanket. Behind the picture, there was a small note:
"Nero, two weeks old."
Nero eyes widened when he saw the picture. Before he could think anything else, he felt the ground shaken as if there was an earthquake.
"Shit."
Nero said when he ran to leave the trailer, as the door opened, a blinding light engulfed making he closed his eyes shut. When Nero opened his eyes, he couldn't believe in his own eyes when he saw himself was standing in an opened green grass field.
"What the..."
Nero said when he fell the tall grass lightly touched his hand when he spun around looking. There was nothing around here, no trailer, not his truck or any building. Nero would have thought this was a dream if it was not the fact that he was still holding the baby picture on his hand.
Suddenly, he heard a noise of growling and the distinguish of rotten smell of demon, he saw a pack of Empusa started to walk to him.
"Well, couldn't say I didn't see this coming."
Nero said when he shove the picture deep in his pocket, he draw out his Blue Rose and started shooting at them. The Empusa were simple, he could easily handle them when he lost one arm, there was no problem when he got two arms back. Even though there was too much of them, Nero thought when he kept seeing them coming, just like they were just appearing out of thin air. Drawing back his Blue Rose, Nero pulled out his Red Queen when he saw a massive mantis-looking like creature crawling to him. What the hell was this place; Nero thought when he swing sword at the Empusa Queen, it looked like it just appeared from nowhere.
As Nero slayed down the Empusa Queen, slightly out of breath as he stood alone waited for anything to attack him. Nero flung his sword as he heard small footstep, but stopped at midway when he saw a young girl in black blazer and short pants stood there. Still keeping his sword up, Nero asked:
"Who are you?"
"I am Rose the Magician, pleasure to meet you." The girl said when she smiled at him and slightly bowed down in stylish with her hand on her top black hat.
"What is this place?" Nero asked when he carefully looked at her. Higher demon could take human form, she could just be a disguised demon.
"We call it The Trap."
"What?"
Nero said when the girl moved away from his sword with a graceful move that could make a cat jealous as she walked to the corpse of Repusa.
"You killed them yourself." The girl said when she poked at the dead demon. "That was impressive. When I first got here, I got torn apart by them."
"What?"
Suddenly, the girl looked up to the sky like and then quickly moved back from the body. A white flash of light bloom making Nero slightly hissed as his eyes watered. When he adjusted his eyesight, he saw the bodies were gone and the mess of the battle field was completely gone. No blood, no fallen grass, no gun shot or sword mark. Like there was nothing happened.
"Where the hell am I?" Nero asked in disbelieve when he saw his cloth was slightly tainted by blood now completely clean.
"Someone used to offer to call this place the Asylum, but in the end it worse than the Asylum." Rose sighed when she walked away. "At least you can escape from an Asylum."
Nero watched as the girl walked further away from him, he gritted his teeth lightly when he ran after her.
"Hey, what is this place?"
"I told you, we call it The Trap." Rose said. "It was a place when you got in, you can't get out. Like a Trap."
"Like hell." Nero said. "I am getting out of here."
"Sure, you will." Rose said when she smiled at him softly. "I will help you."
"You will?"
"I will help you get out of here." Rose said again. "But first, we need to go to the Camp. In there you could have a more thoroughly explain, and a safe place to stay."
Nero looked at the girl as she silently hummed a small tune before he followed her, he decided that for now he would trusted her temporarily.