Chapter One

The battlefield was not a place for children, and yet for some reason, they were all he could see. There were adults, of course, but they were scattered leaders shouting commands to everyone else. Everyone else – all of whom were children.

He felt an ache in his heart, something akin to bitterness, even though he knew he was not in the position to judge. Yes, they called him a prodigy, a legend, and he was respected throughout the army, even amongst the adults where he stood with authority next to. But past the status and the respect and everything that made him stand above everyone else, was the tragic truth:

Mathias Køhler was thirteen years old, and he was standing on a battlefield.

It was peaceful at the moment. No gunshots, no battle cries, no screams and deaths and everything that made war so horrifying. It was one of the few moments when the soldiers returned to just being naïve kids and all they needed to worry about was how they were going to win the chess game sitting in front of them, or tic-tac-toe, or hangman, or whatever else they were doing.

And Mathias, not too far away…

"We're going to get caught," Tino whispered, nervously glancing over his shoulder every few seconds in case one of the adults decided to come patrolling by. "This isn't right."

"That's why it's fun," Mathias retorted, also in a whisper. He nudged the other boy sitting next to him where the three boys huddled around three small cups and a suspicious looking bottle. "Right, Berwald?"

Berwald shrugged, nonchalant expression breaking momentarily to offer a reassuring smile to Tino. "It w'n't k'll us," he told him gently.

"That's not what I'm worried about," the smaller blonde grumbled.

Mathias grinned, and nudged Tino. "Come on, it's just one shot anyways. It'd be fun!"

"Until we get caught."

Mathias rolled his eyes and ignored his friend. "It's not like we're doing smoking heroin or anything. It's just a drink. Just one cup. It's not going to kill us." He picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cork with a quiet pop, picking up Berwald's small paper cup and beginning to pour.

"They might." Tino was absolutely miserable with the idea of being caught drinking an alcoholic drink stolen from the wine cabinets that only the adults had licit access to.

Mathias was unimpressed, continuing to fill Tino's cup, then his own. He stuffed the cork back into the mouth of the bottle, placed it gently on the wooden floorboards, and lifted his cup. Berwald and Tino copied him, the latter a bit more reluctantly.

He began, "Once upon a time, a young boy came running through the streets, crying, 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!' He had not lied, and panic began to arise in the streets as many people tried to escape the crumbling dome – to no avail. Others, mesmerized, watched the end of the world as they knew it, wondering how it came to this. But only one person knew, and it was the boy who had delivered the warning, for it was he who had toppled the pillars holding up and guarding the sky, and as it crumbled and fell to the earth, heaven fell with it. And thus, hell was created."

Mathias took a deep breath, then said, "This hell that we live in does not deserve the loyalty we had given it. It has caused us too much pain, too much loss, too much destruction, and we need to end it."

"We're just three teenagers," Tino interrupted, but Mathias was calm.

"Not just three teenagers, Tino. We are three hungry, confused, emotional, slightly dorky – if not nerdy – teenagers." He grinned. "But never forget, we are also one assassin, one bomb expert and sniper, and one awesome genius who can do anything he puts his mind to. We're not helpless, because we were born in paradise, but lived through the Fall and is perfectly cut to bring down hell. And that is what we're going to do."

Tino smiled, only a little bit comforted, while Mathias continued, "Do you know what I want? I don't want to be normal, I don't want power; I don't want to live for nothing, doing nothing, achieving nothing. What I want… is justice." He lowered his head. "I want to go back home to where it was considered 'the hidden paradise', and not to an empty imitation of what it used to be. Simple-minded of me, yes, I know, but we're children and that's how we're supposed to be." He took a heavy breath, lifting his cup even higher. "I want to shatter hell and rebuild the pillars and replace the sky to its rightful place."

Berwald was showing a rare smile, and he was the first to say, "To paradise." And then he downed the contents of his cup.

Tino sighed, but he was smiling as well. His cup was already next to his lips. "To justice."

And Mathias was grinning, raising his paper cup up over his head as he declared in a near shout that caught the attention of half the children and several adults in the room, much to Tino's chagrin. But it didn't matter, because he wasn't just making the promise to them, or to himself. He was making the promise to the earth, to the sky, to everyone in this world who stood on the edge of this gaping abyss.

"To victory!"

So much for victory, Mathias thought bitterly. He was lucky to even be alive. Running, yes, but that was better than dead. There weren't many things worse than death, but he knew that if he got captured, what awaited him would be one of them.

Though his current situation was bad enough as it was.

Winter in Russia was never kind, but he thought he'd be at least a little bit prepared after growing up in northern Europe.

He wasn't.

Wind ripped at him from every side like thin blades burrowing beneath his clothes and skin. Crystals clung to his lashes, his cheeks were numb with frostbite and his nose and ears felt like they were going to drop off any moment.

He wondered how long he had been struggling in the cruel Siberian desert. There was nothing in sight other than a yard of frozen, snow-packed dirt all around him before everything else was lost in the white flurry of a mild blizzard. Once in a while he would stumble across a thin, sickly tree that did nothing to announced life to him.

His feet ached after hours of walking, though his toes were stiff and numb, no doubt frostbitten as well. The idea of losing his toes or fingers – or ears or nose, for that matter – terrified him, but there was nothing he could do when his unfeeling feet stumbled over a rock and brought him to his knees.

The legendary Viking, brought down by nothing and no one but one little stone! How cruel of fate, how humiliating.

He found that he could no longer stand. His legs were too stiff, and his arms too weak. He tried to hoist himself up, but his limbs buckled and he felt the air knocked out from his lungs as he slammed onto the frozen snow. He was going to die here, on the ground, in the middle of goddamn Russia. He was going to be buried by the snow and ice, and if he was lucky, somebody would find his body a thousand years later, mummified by the ice and snow, and he'd become a historical tool. That was just another way to get famous, though not one he preferred.

And he couldn't afford one thousand years. Tino and Berwald promised to wait, but one thousand years was stretching it. One year was the official deal. If he didn't make it to the New World in one year, he was considered a dead man.

Though it seemed like he'd be long dead before that.

Now that he had stopped moving, the coldness was beginning to seep in. His mind felt befuddled, his brain was a mere dead lump of muscle, his thoughts seemed to be waddling through syrup. What little was left of his energy reserve was sucked away from him, and he felt completely, utterly exposed to the cruelty of Mother Nature. He should file a case for child abuse: was fifteen years too old?

His eyelids were just about to flutter close when he caught sight of something bouncing in the distance. Or bobbing, more like, a little fuzzy pinpoint of warm yellow hovering in the white blankness. Was he starting to hallucinate as well? Does hypothermia do that?

After a while of watching the little spot bounce and grow larger, he decided that yes, it probably did. The fuzzy yellow sphere looked suspiciously like light, and light meant people and there couldn't possibly be anyone in the middle of a Siberian blizzard. Mathias couldn't be that lucky. Or unlucky, depending on whom the person was.

He was seriously feeling drowsy now: only the bobbing yellow light kept his eyes focused and barely open. It was a hallucination, but if it was keeping him alive for a bit longer, he didn't mind.

Then he heard a crack of ice breaking under boots, felt the tremors on the ground with each footstep. The yellow light was hovering over him now, trapped in a little cage – a lamp? Somebody was saying something, but it was a mishmash of words he wouldn't understand and couldn't hear. Firm hands grabbed his shoulder, and he felt himself being shifted onto his back, air entering his lungs more easily now that his bodyweight pressure wasn't on his ribs.

Except he couldn't resist the lure of sleep any longer; his eyes struggled to stay open, but he was fighting a losing battle, as he had always been. Against life, against death, it had always been a losing battle. He was never destined to win.

A single tear escaped from the corner of his eye, and it froze immediately.

The last thing he saw was the sweet face of a woman framed by thick gray fur, short blonde hair peeking out from the hood, lips moving as she desperately called something to him, pale blue eyes brimming with tears of worry.

And then blackness, and warmth, and life.

"Hello, my name is Mathias Køhler, and I'm looking for somebody. Can you help me?" He tried his most charming smile, praying that it would work.

It did.

"Of course, dear; I'll see what I can do. Who are you looking for?"

"Well-" The smile slipped off, his brows furrowing as he struggled to remember. Two people. He was supposed to meet up with- "I… I don't remember…"

"That's too bad. Do tell when you remember."

Maybe it was only one person. That's right. It's strange to be meeting two people when he's alone. If he was one person, he should be meeting up with one person… right?

Something didn't feel right. One half of his mind was nodding in agreement, while the other was screaming and cursing and raging because he couldn't-

"Excuse me, sir, where are we?"

"This is Boston, silly boy. Did you arrive here drunk?"

He didn't know, but something felt wrong, as it had always been since he left the-

Where?

Boston… was that in the New World?

…What was the New World?

He could feel a headache seeping in, but he gritted his teeth against it. He had things to do, places to go, people to find.

What? Where? Who?

Who?

He felt his knees buckle, and he leaned against a nearby wall by the street for support. He had to… He had to win, had to find, had to create, had to-

Run.

His muscles tensed, but his heels dug into the concrete sidewalk, back pressing against the brick wall. His eyes snapped up to the road, and he watched, strangely mesmerized, as a gleaming white truck rolled leisurely down the street. It was a well-kept vehicle, almost fashionable despite its bulk. The windows were tinted dark, the walls smooth and clean save for three letters printed in thick black ink:

UDW

Mathias watched with wide, curious eyes as it turned and disappeared around the corner. He found himself pushing away from the wall, his weary feet leading him to the intersection. But when he peeked cautiously around the, the truck was gone.

Frowning, he retreated a few steps. Maybe he forgot again and the truck had gone the other way. He didn't remember, but that wasn't a first. Forgetfulness was a hungry black hole gobbling up images and words and too many things and everything so that he felt like he was about to burst from emptiness.

Turning around, Mathias sped down the other way, where the truck must have gone. He skidded around a corner, eyes searching for- "Oof!"

Mathias blinked, confused. What had he been doing? He heard somebody groan, and looked down to find someone fallen onto the ground and clutching his abdomen. It was a boy possibly a year younger than him, with hair the color of silvery gold and soft, almost feminine features. His eyes were a deep, dark blue, the color of peaceful seas, but etched across his face was pain. He must have been the person who had none-too-softly slammed into him just now.

He stared for another second, taking in the slender limbs and milky skin, the cross-shaped pin holding back soft, silky strands. The word 'beautiful' crossed his mind, and it brought forth a wave of excitement. It was like fate: it was difficult to believe that someone so beautiful had just knocked into him-

He had just-

And then, the panic rolled in because where were his manners the most beautiful boy he had ever seen in the short five seconds of his life that he remembered had just slammed into him and was now in pain and was he really just staring at him like an idiot?

"Oh God, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed. "I was running and you appeared out of nowhere and I couldn't stop and I'm so sorry and you can't die! Are you dead? Please don't die! I don't know what I'll do if you died!" Because beautiful people simply did not deserve to die!

But then the boy looked up at him with the most disdainful expression, and Mathias felt his smile droop a bit. What was it? Did he smell? Was his hair gel not working? Were his clothes too ugly? Oh, this was bad. But Mathias wasn't about to give up:

"Thank God, you're not dead!" That was meant to be a compliment, but it sounded a bit off. Now to be a gentleman… "Can you stand? I'll help you! Where are you going? I'll help you! Are you okay? I'll help you!"

The boy flinched, that judging expression not yet leaving, and Mathias suddenly realized why: he hadn't introduced himself yet!

He grabbed the beautiful boy's hand, pulling him graciously to his feet, and shook it enthusiastically with his best smile, sure that this would help them reach better terms. "By the way, very nice to meet you. My name is Mathias!"

The boy's face was blank now, porcelain skin smooth, dark eyes shrouded and mysterious, small, pale lips tilted ever so slightly downwards. He flicked a few stray strands of his pale golden hair out of his face, then answered softly, almost shyly, "My name is-"

"Why did you save my life?"

She was beautiful, untouchable, and there was such kindness and sadness in her pale eyes. "What else was I supposed to do?" Her hands were surprisingly calloused, like his, but they were also gentle and careful. "And it's not like I regret it."

"…does this symbol mean?"

"-the fallen, the dead, the abandoned… abandoned by heaven."

"Who are they?"

"They're here for me, but I promise they won't hurt you… and I'm sorry."

He was wrong. They didn't care about their own; all they cared was that he stood there, determined, with a willing shield of flesh, and death was something that could sweep away everything but him.

"IRINA!"

She did not scream, but tears of pain and betrayal slid down her cheeks, and he felt the backlash of the gun when he ended her suffering. One bullet in the head, merciful compared to the dozens drilled into her flesh. And all he could see was blood – her blood, her torn flesh, her blue lips, her lifeless eyes, washed pale with tears.

She had not screamed, but someone else was roaring and wanted him dead because-

"You killed my sister!"

His hands were bound but his lips were not, and he was raging against them, against himself, against the world. "And she was my-"

"-Lukas." He must've made an expression of confusion, because the beautiful boy huffed, and repeated, "My name is Lukas."

"Lukas." He tasted the word in his mouth, and found it sweet and luring. "Nice to meet-"

"MATHIAS!"

Stolen kisses between shared breaths, blood rippling on the floor with corpses piled sky high but it didn't matter because the dead was gone and all that existed now and then was the two of them, the panting, lustful gasps, and breathless whisper of his name beside his ear, bodies fitting snugly and warmly in the cold, dead world-

"-What did you do to him?!"

His skin was still warm but his lips were blue, golden strands of hair dry and brittle, skin drained of color into a pale wax doll, heart convulsing and dying and blood flowing to a stop that seemed to flick a switch and he wasn't breathing. All the while he found himself screaming, shaking the body that was no more than a beautiful corpse and he was screaming, weeping, he couldn't think as painful, truthful words overrode his senses because-

Dead.

He was dead.

He was dead and death was nothing to a killer but another blown out candle but it was him and he was-

"LUKAS!"

-dead.

Hi! The actual plot starts next chapter. This is more of a foreshadowing of a dozen chapters and a book ahead. Hehe.

Thank you for reading! Please review!