My initial reaction was panic. Not for myself, despite the fact that I was now who knows where and couldn't see even an inch in front of myself, but for Vashyron. I had heard gunshots from inside the building. All I could do was hope that the bullets weren't aimed at him.

Feeling around on the ground in front of myself, I found my gun, which had fallen out of the holster when I fell. It was only a small relief, as I still couldn't see a thing, but at least I could try and protect myself if whoever it was came back.

I knew that I had to stay calm. There were three lives at stake here, including my own, and although Vashyron was unbelievably skilled with a gun, with me gone, there was a chance he might focus on that instead of protecting himself.

However, my mind was drawn away from that as I heard a quiet shuffling sound coming from somewhere else in the room. I froze in my tracks. My eyes were slowly getting used to the dark, but it was still near impossible to see where I was. I could just about make out what looked like a shelving unit on my left, and to my right, a small desk, but everything ahead of me was just darkness.

I decided to move slowly towards the desk, staying on the ground and trying to make as little noise as possible. If anything, I could use it as protection against gunfire. All of the men I had seen were armed, after all, and if something happened to Vashyron, they would come after me next.

At my movement, whoever or whatever was in the room with me made another noise. With my luck it would be some type of gremlin, and most breeds can see well in the dark. I hid myself behind the desk, keeping my gun close to my body and resting my finger over the trigger. If it was a gremlin, then it was as good as dead, night vision or not. I didn't plan on being killed by something as stupid as that.

But my finger moved quickly away from the trigger when I heard someone crying. It sounded like a young girl.

That must be her.

She was somewhere in this room with me; quite close, in fact. This was my chance to get her to safety. Vashyron could look after himself. Saying that, I still couldn't shake the bad feeling in the back of my mind; but this girl was unarmed and unable to protect herself. If she couldn't, then I would.

"Hello?"

At the sound of my voice the crying stopped, but she made no reply, and there was nothing but silence.

That's right. She's scared. Of course she won't trust me right away.

"It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to rescue you."

There was another brief silence, before I heard shuffling again, and I saw a small, brown-haired girl peek out from behind a large crate. She didn't look any older than eight or nine.

In an attempt to reassure her, I tucked my gun carefully back into the holster, crawling out from my own hiding place and holding up my hands to show that I wasn't holding a weapon.

"See? I won't hurt you. I promise. You can come out."

Maybe it was because of the gesture, or maybe it was due to the fact that she saw what I looked like and decided I wasn't a threat, but she came out from behind the crate, and before I knew it she was clinging onto me.

"...C...can I...go home now?"

Her voice was quiet and weak, as if she had been crying a lot, and the desperation behind it was quite heartbreaking.

I hesitated to actually touch her; in this state I didn't want to accidentally do anything that she might see as a threat, but she was holding onto me so tightly, her small, delicate hands bunched up in the back of my jacket, that I didn't know what else to do, so I wrapped my arms around her gently.

"Yeah. It's okay. I'm gonna take you back to your family."

At this she moved away to look me in the eye, and I saw pure joy on her face. She was a genuinely pretty girl, but her skin and hair were caked with dirt, her clothes not much better. The sad thing was that she probably looked like this before she was kidnapped.

"You really mean it?"

I nodded, trying my best to smile, and she clung to me again briefly, catching me off guard and nearly knocking me over, before she moved away, looking at the gun on my hip.

"Are you a hunter?"

"Yeah...I am."

I stopped her as she was about to speak again, realizing that we were just wasting time here, and us sitting here talking wasn't going to get her to safety, or help Vashyron, wherever he was.

"Do you know how to get out of here?" I asked, hoping that maybe she had seen something during the time she was here.

She thought about it for a while, before nodding, pointing somewhere into the darkness.

"There's a door over there that leads into the warehouse, but there's a man with a gun behind it. I saw him when they brought me in here."

"Right. Maybe we can get out that way."

She was nodding along and watching me intently. It wasn't exactly strange. I was probably the first friendly person she had seen in a few days. It was just unusual having someone depend on me. After all, her life was in my hands.

After checking the door I had been thrown through, it was clear that it wasn't an option. It was locked from the outside, and way too heavy to break down. That meant that our only choice was to go through the guarded door at the other side. It was going to be tough, and if I did something wrong then there was a chance they would kill us both, but time was ticking by, and I needed to get this girl out of here.

"What's your name?" I asked her as I came back to where she was sitting and helped her up from the floor.

"Alyssa."

"That's a pretty name," I smiled, "I'm Zephyr. Now, Alyssa, I want you to hide as well as you can, okay? I'm going to open the door, and I don't want you to get hurt, so you have to make sure nobody can see you."

She nodded quickly.

"Nobody will find me," she whispered, "I promise."

"I'll come back for you when it's safe, okay?"

"Okay. Be careful, Zephyr. Those men are bad people."

She went and hid herself inside a crate near the back wall, which was empty, and I pushed the shelving unit in front of it for extra protection, before heading over to the door, taking my gun back out of the holster. It was becoming much easier for me to see in the dark now my eyes were used to it, which meant that whoever was behind the door would have a disadvantage. If I was lucky, they wouldn't see me until it was too late.

Leaning back against the wall, I ran my free hand across the door, feeling for the handle and wrapping my fingers around it loosely. If what Alyssa had said was correct, and there was a man behind this door, then hopefully he was the only one.

I took a deep breath, glancing over to where Alyssa was hidden briefly, before turning the handle and spinning to kick the door open. There was a man standing behind it, and my sudden outburst shocked him into a brief state of confusion, giving me time to pull him into the room; into the darkness.

I saw him reach for his own weapon, but he clearly couldn't see very well in the dark and he was clumsy, giving me time to raise the butt of my gun and bring it down hard onto his head, knocking him out cold. If I could avoid killing anyone, then that's what I was going to do. I had caused enough bloodshed already.

After checking outside the door for anyone else and then dragging the unconscious man behind a stack of shelves to hide him, I decided it was safe for Alyssa to come out, and went to get her. The first words to come out of her mouth when she climbed out of the crate were 'did you kill him?', but I assured her that I hadn't. I couldn't help but notice that she looked slightly disappointed at this.

Maybe she wanted me to kill him.

I felt quite saddened by the fact that this innocent little girl would want something so horrible, even after what they had done to her.

After checking outside the door again, I led her out of the room, and she shielded her eyes from the sudden bright light.

How long had she been in there?

In the dark.

I kept her behind me as we crossed a number of small rooms, each nothing but recreational areas for the people who used to work here, but we didn't see anyone else. There was no longer the sound of gunfire, either, which was worrying.

I got her to wait for me as we reached the door to the main warehouse, pressing my ear against it briefly. There was no sound. No voices. Nothing. Either Vashyron had taken care of them or...

"Are you okay, Zephyr?"

I turned to see Alyssa watching me with concern from where she was crouching behind a chair, her large, brown eyes following my every movement. I didn't really know what she meant, but I nodded, placing my finger against my lips.

"You look worried," she continued, now whispering, "We are going to be okay, aren't we?"

"Yeah," I whispered back, "We are."

I motioned for her to get back behind the chair, before opening the door slowly, keeping my back against it and my gun raised, finger hovering over the trigger. There was still no sound, which led me to believe that the thugs were no longer there, and I felt my heart lurch painfully in my chest, swallowing heavily to try and push the horrible feeling back.

Opening the door fully, I stepped out from behind it, pointing my gun into the warehouse, and finding Vashyron pointing a gun back at me, before he quickly lowered it.

"Zephyr?"

I lowered my own gun and holstered it, glancing around the room, which was littered with the bodies of the thugs I had seen earlier, each with scarily accurate bullet wounds their chests and heads. Vashyron himself didn't seem very badly injured, but there was a noticeable blood stain on his jacket over the left side of his abdomen.

Before I could ask about it he came over, holstering his own gun on the way, and I saw him glancing across my body.

"Are you hurt? What happened? You suddenly disappeared."

"One of them found me, but I managed to escape, and I found the girl. She's okay."

"You found her? Nice job. Let's get her back to her parents before any more of these guys show up."

He seemed to be avoiding letting me ask about his injury, so I decided to leave it until after the mission was over, and we took Alyssa back to the small town where her family lived. Vashyron was right; I had never seen this town before, despite living quite close to it for most of my life. It was right on the edge of Basel, and the only inhabited place anywhere near it was Crank Town.

Alyssa's family lived in a small cottage near the centre, which had only one floor, but seemed quite comfortable. It made me glad to see that she lived in a nice place, at least. After an emotional reunion with her parents, grandparents and older sister, Alyssa insisted on showing me a collection of things her father had brought back for her from his various travels. Apparently he was a hunter too. Most of them were tiny, precious stones brought back from mines, but there were also pieces of intricate looking machinery I'd never seen before, photographs, and even some grubby looking dolls.

"Papa said that this one is special," she said proudly, holding up a small, round, white stone, "It's called a pearl, and you can only find them in the sea, outside Basel."

She began rolling it between her fingers, watching it slightly dreamily, and I couldn't help staring at it myself, transfixed with the way it seemed to shine. It didn't look like any other stone or gem I'd ever seen.

"It's beautiful."

Her eyes lit up, and I felt her watching me, before she held my hand in her own, dropping it into my palm.

"I want you to have it, Zephyr."

She pressed my fingers around it before I could protest, smiling.

"You saved me, and I want to say thank you. Please, keep it. It helps when you feel sad."

"It does?"

"Yeah. Whenever I felt sad, looking at this pearl would make me happy. It makes me think about what's outside Basel. There's a big, exciting world, and one day...we'll be able to go and see it."

Without saying another word, she leaned over and kissed my cheek, before collecting all of the other trinkets back into the small box she kept them in, and leaving.

I spent a long while staring at the pearl after she was gone, and thinking about what it signified.

On the way back home, my chest felt strangely light.

It felt nice.

"So, someone's a hit with the ladies," Vashyron chuckled from beside me as we entered the lift back up to level four, nudging me with his elbow, and I couldn't help but laugh, too, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Well, who could blame her? You look like a prince out of a fairytale, and you just saved her life."

"A prince?" I scoffed, tucking my hands into my trouser pockets. It wasn't snowing anymore, but it had left a chill in the air.

"A slightly grumpy, teenage prince, but yeah," he nodded, chuckling.

It was then that I noticed a slight strain in his voice, and my eyes were drawn back to the blood on his jacket.

"V...Vashyron are you okay? Did you get shot?!"

He waved off my concern, but looking at him now I could see that his face was ever so slightly pale.

"The bullet barely grazed me."

"Barely grazed you?! You're bleeding!"

"I've had worse."

"You should go to a doctor!"

"Don't be ridiculous. I can take care of this myself. Zephyr, calm down, it's just a scratch, okay?"

I continued to interrogate him after the lift stopped and we began walking back home to Ebel City, but he was having none of it, and he brushed off every one of my concerns.

"At least let me help," I begged as we reached the front door and he unlocked it, going inside ahead of me.

"Fine. But you'll see that it isn't so bad."

When I got inside with him and closed the door, I forced him to remove his jacket, only to find even more blood on his shirt.

"Sit down." I ordered, pointing to the couch, and he reluctantly did as he was told, sighing audibly.

"Zephyr, I already told you, the bullet just grazed me. It didn't go in."

I decided not to reply, perching myself next to him on the edge of the couch and lifting the side of his shirt where the blood was. It wasn't as bad as it looked from the blood, but there was a perfectly straight, red line across his waist where the skin had been grazed by a bullet. The wound was open, and was still bleeding a little.

"See? It's not that bad."

"Alright, I'll admit that it isn't as bad as I thought, but it still looks painful."

"Well, yeah, it is, but I know how to deal with stuff like this. I used to be in the army."

"Let me help."

"Okay."

With Vashyron's instruction, I managed to stop the bleeding and clean the wound, before bandaging it up neatly. The whole time I was trying to pay attention to the fact that he was injured, and not that I was touching his bare torso.

"Well...your jacket and shirt are ruined." I said once I was finished, looking at the pile of bloody clothes next to me on the couch, and he sighed, nodding.

"Whatever. At least I have more."

Later on, Vashyron went to take a shower and I went back up to my old room. We decided to switch back, considering the fact that he was now injured and I was fine.

I opened the door to find my room much tidier than it had first been. There were no longer any boxes cluttering it up, and the furniture had been moved around so there was more space. It looked a lot more like a bedroom now, rather than a storage space. I couldn't help but feel happy about it, considering the fact that this place was so strange to me at first. Now, it felt like my home, and this felt like my room.

After changing into some warmer, drier clothes, I flopped down onto the bed; holding up the pearl Alyssa had given me between my fingers and rolling it around to make it catch the light, just like she had done.

I thought about what she said, about the world outside Basel, about the sea, about the fact that one day we would be able to go out there and see it for ourselves.

And I smiled.