The Shadower

by Punk19

With their just being returned to Moas, Angel and her sons are trying to settle into their new environment; it's not long before they become stressed by some force that continues to shadow and torment them and it's not long before their family adds more stress to what they're feeling. Who is shadowing them and will he stop to allow them to return to their former, new way of living?

19. Chapter 19

"My mother says that you're the father of one named Daosi."

"Yessir."

"I suggest that you do some deep talking to him—he's been threatening my brother whenever he sees him."

The driver's side door of his Tazzari EC was opened; after getting in, then closing the door, he swung the belt across his top half then pushed the key into the ignition. Once his car was started, and once he was on his way to leaving the employee garage, the words that he had heard from the oldest of his employer's biological sons repeated themselves—it was like they were an on-going echo in his head; he had no control or say in not hearing them and that went double for his not being able to stop them from being played back for him. He, in a way, was a slave to them—he was sick in the stomach because of them and he felt great torment by them.

Daosi, his secondborn son, was threatening Young Master Hazaar? Daosi, a grown man, was threatening a boy who was no more than seventeen hundred years old? For him, this accusation was rather difficult to accept and fathom. After being told of what Daosi was doing, he had kept himself busy and away from his son—his mind had been turned all inside out, and his conscience had just been all messed up after hearing what he had.

While working, and keeping himself away from his son, he had tried to come under the belief that Lhaklar had only told him what he had as a way to create trouble, or had twisted what was really going on around so that it'd seem worse than what it really was. That serious look in the youngster's face, and the fact that he had offered to use his wand to extract his memory of the event that he had disclosed to him, was what was keeping him from believing this—a child of any age, while tempted to throw lies from time to time, wouldn't speak lies of threats given to them or to their kin and they wouldn't make offers to show certain memories that they harbored of the events that they were trying to convince to another either. After realizing that his employer's son was telling the truth, and that his son was doing something that he shouldn't be doing, he had grown both cold in the stomach and pissed off—how dare Daosi threaten a child and how dare Daosi threaten a member of their employer's household! He had done a lot for Daosi over the years... the act of his threatening, and causing stress to happen to one of their employer's children, made him feel like all of what he had done for him had been thrown right back into his face.

He was a very understanding, calm, and confident man and he was also a man who was eternally bonded to his employer—he had been working for TazirVile Lajoshu Surfeit for a very long time; he was very loyal to the man, and to his wife... the loyalty that he expressed towards the two was also expressed towards their kids. Even though he hadn't written ES, BV, LS, HS, and LS—double on the latter since Lhaklar and Lazeer both had L-names—on his Loyalty Papers he still showed them untold amounts of loyalty. Up to now, he had figured that his children-turned-co-workers had done the same—from the looks of things, it seemed that Daosi was the only one of his four children that had decided to not do this.

The schedule, for him, was very simple; he could do it with his eyes shut thanks to his having done it for over forty thousand years. Wake up at five, then do whatever routine he was to do before heading out to his car and then driving to work; after punching his ticket in at around 6:30 a.m., he went straight to work. His ticket wasn't punched out until 9 p.m. Due to their working for the same man, Zshon, Daosi, Yhozah, and Mekaia went by this same schedule.

"Think I can bum a ride to work with you, Zshon?" he remembered Daosi asking his brother after he, and his son's three siblings, reached the garage then started the process of getting into the vehicles that they were to take to work that early morning.

"Have an issue with the Fii-at 500-R?" Zshon replied.

"Yeah, think either the carburetor or the fuel pump went out on me."

"Get in, buckle up, and enjoy the ride."

Zshon was two to three car-lengths behind him; Daosi had tried to get Yhozah to "drop" Mekaia for him that evening—Yhozah had given him a smile before saying that he would if Mekaia wasn't already in his car, which meant that Daosi was carpooling with Zshon again. With his leading the way home, he could well twist the wheel, then have the car bar the street of anyone who wanted to use it, then get out and rush back to where his son was.

Instead of taking the normal way home, which was shorter and a lot more smoother than the other roads that were known to exist between his employer's mansion and his house, he was taking the long way. Due to the storm that was going on, it was quite dark out—power for the area had been lost, which meant that the poles, that were on either side of the road, were out and would be out for a while. The storm that was blowing through had been said to be a "small" one; in the next week to two weeks, another "gully washer", as his employer liked to call them large, ocean storms, was expected to come in. If he didn't confront his son on what he was doing in regards to Young Master Hazaar, would he continue as he was with him, and would they have a job after the youngster who was being threatened finally spilled the beans on what was going on between the two of them, or would he come to his good senses in stopping before anything came out of what he was doing?

"With the way Daosi is, he might just continue as-is until something's said." he thought as he continued to drive down the dark and wet street that'd take him and his four children home. "Unless prompted, or scolded to do so, he very rarely apologizes for anything. And he is one who doesn't put full thought in on things before doing them... goes double on what all comes from his mouth too."

He had just driven down a section of road that was nearly overwhelmed with rainwater when he decided to stop his vehicle. His left hand was placed on the lower part of the wheel; with his other hand being placed on the wheel's side, at the three o'clock area, he jerked the wheel to the side then listened as tires squealed. Water flew all over the place as his car was worked into the position that he wanted it to be in.

His car, while being small, did the trick in blocking the road of the ones that were currently using it; Zshon's car came close to going into the ditch while Yhozah's fought to gain traction on the road before stopping. With the road blocked, and with his seatbelt now being removed from his body, he opened the door then lunged in the direction of Zshon's vehicle—Zshon had long since gotten out, and so had Yhozah; Daosi was slowly removing himself from the vehicle that he was tagging a ride in while Mekaia was staying in the one that she was in.

In a way, he didn't care if they witnessed what was about to happen; as he saw it, his job, along with theirs, was in jeopardy—and all because of his son's stupid action of threatening one of the children of their employer's! As he saw it, they needed to see what was to happen between he and his son—it might just prevent them from doing as Daosi had in threatening a child.

After reaching Zshon's vehicle, then getting to within arm's reach of his secondborn son, he flashed his arm out; the sky was lit a bright violet color right when his fist collided with Daosi's jaw.

"Papa," Daosi said while shaking his head, and giving his jaw a rub. "What—"

"If you wish to have a job, and a roof over your head, you best quit threatening our employer's offspring!" Eldass yelled. He grabbed his son by the lapels of the jacket of his light blue tuxedo; while his son's eyes grew wide by his words, he yanked him towards him. He, and his son, stared eye to eye to one another for a while before anything else was said between them. "I don't have a single problem in throwing your ass out on the street, or denouncing you as my son, if I hear that your threats are continuing to be given."

"Papa, I haven't—" Daosi started to say.

"I needn't hear your attempts to pull the wool over my eyes when I have our employer's son offering to show me his memories of the events where you've threatened his brother." Eldass said angrily. After saying this, he threw his son towards the vehicle that he had recently been riding in. He backed away from his son after throwing him. "What were you thinking, or intending to do anyways, Daosi? Was you planning to beat Young Master Hazaar's bottom-end, or put him to the hospital, or in a grave? Do you think that our employer's just going to turn a blind eye to you hurting his son? You're a grown, fucking, man! Hazaar is a mid-teenage boy!"

Zshon and Yhozah watched the events that unfolded between their father, who was madder than a Hornet, and their brother, who looked about ready to drop a load in his shorts, in silent disbelief. The two of them were more than a little shocked over hearing what their father was saying—Daosi, a man who was more than sixty thousand years old, had been caught as threatening one of their employer's children and he had also been caught as putting their careers in jeopardy? Say it wasn't so!

Of their siblings, Daosi was the one who harbored a more disagreeable attitude and temper; their mother, much like they, had been surprised to hear that their father had gotten Daosi a job in working for his employer—they had figured that it'd not last long, and that he'd be fired, or given a rather polite boot from his contract, within two to three months. They had been quite surprised in seeing Daosi as continuing on with his job and in Master Tazir keeping him on as his employee. Of the four of them, it was Daosi who was gotten on the most for the things that he had either done or said while being in their employer's house and he had also been given more than a couple of wrist cuffings too; in all, he had come close to being let go of his job six times over the years—either their brother did some shaping up to not get that dreaded pink slip or their employer had calmed down and then thought of his employee's actions before writing and then giving out that slip of paper. They, and Mekaia, had grown rather nervous after learning that Daosi had pledged his loyalty to their employer—thanks to his loyalty pledging, his act of threatening one of their employer's children had put them and their lives and careers under threat... if he got fired from the job now they were doomed, point blank.

The rain pelted their shoulders as Daosi brushed his hand across his face; while glaring at the man who was half responsible for his creation, he said that he was in no way loyal to their employer's sons and that he wasn't sorry for his given threats or for his causing one, or more, of their employer's children stress. This confiding caused a fuse to break in their father; Papa, his light blue eyes ablaze with his fury, and his body quivering with the rage that was coursing through it, lunged at the man then started pummeling him. Mekaia, who was just now leaving the vehicle that she had taken to ride both to and from work that day, held her hands to her face as their father's fists rained on their brother—due to how loud her father had been when he had grabbed Daosi, she had heard what was going on and she was as shocked as they were about what was going on. Even though she, and they, were shocked over what they had just learned, and were equally shocked over their father's abuse of their brother, they didn't shout or step in to rescue their brother from their father's fury. In their eyes, they saw the assault given to their brother as being rightly given—their father was teaching his son, who was a grown man, a lesson, and a good one at that.

The wind started howling; thunder rumbled either in the distance or a bit too close to their comfort zones; and lightning bedazzled the evening sky as their father taught Daosi his lesson. All it took was five minutes before he finally stepped back from the mess of a man that he had just created—half of Daosi's face was wet with his yellow-colored blood, and his knuckles were a little on the wrecked side, but their father looked relatively unscathed by the return blows that he had received. After their father backed off from their fallen brother, he turned then went back to his car; they, on cue, did the same in going to theirs.

Papa righted his car then drove off. Zshon started his car then followed while Yhozah, who was more than a little unnerved by what he had just witnessed, and heard, was slow in doing so. Mekaia, once the vehicle that she had taken to ride in that evening was started and then driven down the street, looked out the vehicle's back window. Daosi hadn't been in Zshon's car when they shoved off, which meant that they had left him behind. She had just returned herself to looking through the vehicle's front window when her brother's cellular went off; with little hesitation at all, she reached down to retrieve and then answer it. An inner voice told her that it was her father who was calling so she didn't bother in checking to see what the number that was calling was; she just opened the phone then placed it by her ear.

"Who is it that's behind me? Is it you and Yhozah or Zshon?" her father, who didn't sound a bit happy, asked.

"It's Zshon, papa."

"Did you see him as picking Daosi up?"

"No—it was just he who got into his car."

"Good," her father sounded pleased. "Daosi needs some time to himself to figure out what he's going to do in his life."

"He'll be fine, I'm sure. Might be sick when he gets home but he'll be fine."

"If he gets sick then that's a good thing—something with which to keep him home." there was silence on the phone's other end for a total of two minutes before her father spoke again. "Tomorrow, in the morning, I've got plans to see Master Tazir—he has a right to know what's going on between Daosi and his son. Daosi's to expect a sort of slip to be given to him for his activities with Hazaar."

"Do you thing he's going to be fired, papa?" Mekaia asked.

"That or he'll shape up or quit." there was a long pause before he said anything further. "And, if he does get fired, or decides to quit, he's to both move out and change his name. I've worked too damn hard to get us this far... I'm not having any child of mine destroy all that I've worked for."

"We—that's me, Yhozah, and Zshon—understand and respect you, papa."

They drove home, then they ate supper, then they went to bed; their father kept their mother up for a while—they guessed that he told her all of what he had heard of Daosi's activities with Young Master Hazaar and they guessed that he was also readying her for what was to happen tomorrow. It wasn't until after midnight that the two went to bed.

Mekaia, who slept rather lightly that night, was able to hear the door open and then shut at around three in the morning; Daosi, the brother who could possibly be close to shaming their family, stayed downstairs for a few minutes before wandering up to his room. When she got up a few hours later, she saw nor heard a thing of him—the house was eerily quiet, which gave her the creeps and which caused her concern for that day to increase. She, Zshon, and Yhozah ate their breakfast; their father, on the other hand, refused to take anything into himself. After breakfast was consumed, they left to make the trip to work.

The chore of getting into Yhozah's Jagul—a yellow vehicle that drove on two wheels, that were located in the center of the vehicle's undercarriage, and that had two doors on it—was a slow and numb one; she and her brother said nothing while leaving the garage and then starting down the road. Zshon, who led the way to work for nearly ten minutes, suddenly found himself as being passed by—their father sped by him then nearly disappeared afterwards. Due to the fear that she felt, it felt like it took hours before they pulled into the employee garage and then went to punch their cards in.

Their father was nearly twelve minutes arrived to the mansion so he had beat them to both the garage and to the punch-in machine; his swift drive to their employer's house had good purpose in it—he wanted to explain what was going on, and he also wanted to tell their employer why their brother wasn't at work; they guessed that he was going to do some kissing up to their employer as a way to keep both his and their jobs after explaining them two things.

"Damn you, Daosi! Not only has your actions towards Young Master Hazaar put our jobs and lives in jeopardy but it's also put our standing in Goblin Society at risk." she cursed after sliding her work card into the machine. After putting her card back into the slot, that was in the box that was beside the machine, she went into the house then grabbed a feather duster; she had a feeling that she was going to be very tense that day.

The time that the machine had on its record claimed that Eldass punched his ticket in at 6:19 a.m., which was nearly twelve minutes before his usual punch-in time; even though the man arrived before schedule, he wasn't able to see or speak with him—due to the night that he had experienced, he had overslept by over an hour. Angel had, for the fourth night in a row, slept upstairs, so he had been without her company, which was most of the reason to why he hadn't been able to sleep any. The rest of his reason in not being able to sleep revolved around the phone call that he had gotten just before supper was served—his grandfather had gotten his invite at around lunchtime but, due to paperwork, and an issue that was needed to be squared away on one of his conquered realms, he hadn't been able to pack and then swing over for his stay. A promise had been made for him to swing by for his visit the next day, which had made him feel a wee bit nervous.

In comparison to his father, his grandfather was a different man in regards to temperament; while he was sure that he'd be calmer and less confrontational, and more respectful of his wife and children, he was still concerned that he might say something in regards to how the boys were being raised or in how they went by life. Angel, who had been mostly quiet during the mid-day and then evening hours of yesterday, hadn't said much on his grandfather's impending arrival—she had just taken what he had said to her in before giving her head a quick nod; he hoped that she wasn't too nervous about the expected arrival and he also hoped that she wasn't getting but so stressed out over what was going on in the house.

He woke up at 7:25 that morning; even though he was seen by several of his staff, and had done some piddling in either the house's smaller kitchen, or in his office, he saw nor heard a thing of Eldass—which was a good thing because, if he had known about what was to be told to him that morning, he would of probably stayed in bed or made up some excuses to be as busy as could be. At the time that he was putting the stack of school records, that his father had combed through and then either gotten blisteringly mad or half-so content with yesterday afternoon, into one of his office files he received a visitor. His wife, looking just as lovely as ever, knocked on the door then came in after he turned then said his usual of whoever it was that was on the door's other side to enter if it was important or leave if it wasn't. He dropped what he was doing right when she came in.

"My love, you look radiant this morning." TazirVile said after dropping the school files on the cabinet's top.

"Should I not say that to you as well?" Angel asked. "What're you up to at this hour in the morning?"

"Nothing more than a little office maintenance." TazirVile replied.

"Sleep well?"

"Not as well as I should of. The few things that give me cause for concern, and the few dreams that I experienced during the periods when I did fall asleep, was what kept me up."

"Bedding all down at washing deck, I suppose." Angel said. She winked at him.

"Expecting to be down at "washing deck" to retrieve them in a few short hours." TazirVile confirmed what she had said.

"Poor thing... I do think I have abandoned you." Angel said. "You should put me away for that."

"I shall punish you one of these days for forcing me to bed alone." TazirVile said. "An all day type of thing is what I have in mind to do with you."

"Oh my—why not do a half-day with me then give me the night off?" Angel went over to one of the chairs that were placed before her husband's desk; once before the chair, she sat in it.

"Oh now, you'll be getting off much too easy then." TazirVile said. He strode over to his wife then he leaned down to give her a kiss. "Mmmm, I do believe that spark for me is still present in you."

"It's never gone away," Angel said, she then added, "same as the urge that I get to lay hand across your rump before we head to dreamland—I remember all too well the little spanking that I gave you on the night before I left with the boys."

Same old flirting; same old teasing; she was his same old wife—he felt great relief from knowing this. While no sex had happened between them during the time where she had given him her nightly company they had indulged in a few of their old intimate fetishes before going to sleep—instead of jumping right into the thick of having sex with her, and in possibly making another kid with her, he wanted her to be fully settle in the house and he also wanted all of what was stressing her out to drop to a much more manageable level.

The boys, while looking to of become unsettled again, hadn't reverted to their old ways in being nervous or fearful of him. Bile was talking to him, and was acting more loosely around him; Lhaklar, though still throwing them challenges at him from time to time, was also talking and giving him the respect that he thought he should get; Hazaar, while still being a little nervous of him, and though still preferring to keep him at a small distance from him, wasn't acting like he was a full-on threat to him; and Lazeer... well, this son of his was both like Hazaar and Bile, but way funnier acting than them. Eshal, while still looking to be a little fearful of her brothers, was calmer around them and it did look like she was getting along with them much better than earlier that month. With his father, and his family, being in the house, and pulling their crap, he had figured that everyone would return to what they had been after they had been returned to the mansion—he was relieved to know that that hadn't happened.

No relapses had happened. No attempts on his end to regain what his family had cruelly taken from him had been in need of doing. And no full-on fighting was going on. He was hopeful that everything, and everyone, would calm down in the next few days.

With the mood between he and his wife being noted, he leaned in to give her another kiss; his lips had just been placed on hers when Eldass walked into his office. He looked up after hearing the man's throat being cleared, then sighed at having his moment with his wife being robbed, then went to sit behind his desk. He beckoned for the Goblin to come and expel what he wanted to see him about after sitting in his chair.

"I apologize for disturbing you and your wife, sir, but I have something of great importance that I wish to speak with you about." Eldass said after reaching his desk.

"Take a seat, Eldass." TazirVile said. With the Goblin seated, he turned to address his wife. "This'll only take a minute, My Love."

"Take your time," Angel said.

While she didn't want to think about it, she had a feeling about what was about to happen between her husband and his employee. Such a nice, pleasant morning was, she believed, about to be given a bit of darkness; when her feeling turned out to be true, she wasn't but so surprised about it.

Eldass didn't dawdle on telling her husband what he had heard yesterday afternoon; he spoke of Lhaklar's confiding in him about what his son was doing to Hazaar, and he spoke of Lhaklar's motion in lifting his wand and then asking if he wanted to see his memory of Daosi causing Hazaar stress, then he spoke of how he had handled the situation after learning about it. Eldass, the man who was the longest employed in her husband's staff, spilled all of what he knew on the subject of Daosi's threatening actions towards Hazaar then he simply sat and waited—in a lot of ways, he looked like a child who was waiting to be reprimanded for what he or she had been caught doing or what he or she had been squealed on.

Angel looked at her husband after it was all said and in the open; the look of shock, that was present on his face, was almost immediately overtaken by pure anger. While she understood why he was angry she couldn't help but feel a little fear for the man who had just confided in him—Lhaklar, after speaking of what was going on between Hazaar and Daosi, had done a spell to make a copy of his memory from where Daosi threatened his brother; after making a copy of it, he had placed it in the sink of Bile's bedroom's bathroom. A trip to the house's smaller kitchen had been made, then a pickle jar had been retrieved and then brought up; that jar had been cleaned and then dried well before that copied memory was put in it. The jar, from what she had been told, had been half-full of pickles at the time—her son claimed to of eaten one of the pickles; the other pickles had been put into another jar, which had been put in the fridge almost immediately after being opened.

This liquefied memory had been given to her right after the jar's cap was placed on it; her son claimed that he wanted her to be the one to unveil it if the man who was half responsible for his and his brothers' creation didn't believe what was "eventually" told to him. While her children had grown calmer around their father they hadn't started trusting him yet—this crushed her as much as it probably crushed them; it would probably also crush Tazir if he knew that they didn't trust him as well as he thought they did.

With the way things looked, that jarred memory might not be used for anything—if it wasn't poured down the drain then it'd probably take up space on a bookcase somewhere. Her very livid husband looked to of believed every word of what Eldass had told him; it looked like Eldass was in for an earful, which caused her to worry about him. Before her husband could speak to the Goblin, she leaned forward to say something to him around the area of what he had just been told about.

"Taz, before you make any judgements, or let your anger get the better of you, let me suggest that you don't fully accuse Eldass for anything." this was no more said before her throat closed on her; TazirVile's head was slow in turning towards her... them eyes of his, while being solid silver, harbored more than enough anger to cause her to want to bite her tongue. Over the years that she had been with him, and living under his roof, she had learned that them eyes of his did show emotions—they weren't just a large, silver oval hidden behind a pair of goggled glasses; if one looked at them correctly, they would see that they did harbor emotion. "Eldass isn't the one that you should be mad at, Honey. It's his son who you should be channeling that anger at."

"Angel, please leave me to my employee." TazirVile said. The look in his eyes to the side, even his voice was heavy with the emotion that he was feeling! "We have a few things to chat about on his son."

She did so with a heavy conscience; at the time of her removal from the chair that she had taken to sit in, her eyes and Eldass's locked—the man, while being courageous in telling his employer what was going on between his son and Hazaar, was scared half to death. She thought that he had a good damn reason to be scared—if Tazir's anger was great enough to cause the pink slips to fly then Mr. Zultoa's life, along with those that belonged to his family, was over. All that they had worked for—the house that they lived in, whatever cars that they owned, and the status that they had in their society—was in jeopardy because of Daosi's careless action of threatening her son. Daosi had really created a mess; thanks to his causing her son stress, and to his carrying the Zultoa name, he had caused a lot to happen with both her family and with his. The man, who carried such a high responsibility over protecting his surname, might well of caused both himself, his three siblings, and his father to be fired.

She remembered asking Eldass why he, and his co-workers, were so concerned over what everyone in their society saw and thought of them once; along with being given the scoop on why they were so concerned about what others in their society thought of them she had also been given a little history on the Goblin race.

Goblin society had started on a planet that was no longer in existence in the Universe; it had started as being unruly, with one Goblin killing another without worry, and with one Goblin taking another's spouse, or child, without concerning themselves about what they were causing their abducted person's families to go through in worrying about what was going on with their stolen kinfolk. They had also been prone to stealing certain goods and, when the chance was noticed, money. It had taken around fifty to a hundred thousand years before the extensive crime-doing was put to a halt; a man by the name of Vulutamin Wyiaf, after having his wife and unborn child stolen from him, had banded together with nineteen other men and women who had also grown tired of their kind's ways. The twenty people had created a council, then had made a bunch of laws and codes that their species was to adhere to, then had created a force that would enforce the laws and codes that they had created. In all, it had taken two millennia before the Goblin Code was accepted; countless banishings, jailings, battles, and riots had happened in that time, and an estimated two to three million had succumbed to their kind's refusal to take on the Code that had been placed on them.

After being born, a Goblin was photographed; details such as the name given to them, their lineage, their fingerprints, and any and all birthmarks and/or scars were taken down and then placed in a file, which would be kept in "headquarters". When a child grew to the age where they were able to go to school, they took an oath to always adhere to the Code. Goblins could be as rude and as nasty as they wanted to but they had to remain level-headed around their employers at all times. Goblins could choose to not speak to anyone in their employer's family, or even to their employer, but they couldn't harm the ones that they worked for, or the family of their employer's, by hand; in contrast to the ones that they didn't work for, they could lay hand on them as much as they wanted to—but, again, they couldn't do but so much harm to that person. They could break skin, or cause skin to turn colors, or break bones, but they couldn't kill or cause one to be permanently crippled. They could look at certain stuff owned by the people that they abused but they couldn't touch or destroy it. They could defend themselves as much as they wanted to but they couldn't cause the one that they were fighting to be hospitalized forever or to be placed in a coffin.

Each and every person born into Goblin society was carefully watched by their council; if Eldass, and his four children, were canned from the job it was a sure bet that they'd be shunned by their society. They'd lose everything, and they'd no be able to hold a job for very long, and they'd be spoken bad of by the ones that were in their society.

To her, it seemed a bit extreme for a counsel to be so strict after one who was loyal to their employer either quit or was fired. It seemed... cruel that a counsel held the keys to one's future after he or she was canned of their job—she had said this to Eldass; he, while remaining calm in her presence, had said in a rather serious tone that it was best to be done this way. It's either this way or the way that we use to go by things before the council was implemented, was what he had said.

Angel went down to the first level; she passed by Zshon, who looked to be carrying eyes in the back and sides of his head, then she went by Yhozah, who was acting in the exact same fashion. When she went by Mekaia, she noted that she was very tense—the woman's ears looked to be almost pointed at the ceiling; it was like she was trying to catch what was being said in the room that her employer, and her father, were in. After seeing these three people, who were trying to remain cool but who had been very badly effected by what their brother had been doing over the last few weeks, she quickened her pace to the smaller of the house's kitchens.

"Bile, what in the whole wide Universe are you doing—"

She stopped short after seeing that the figure that she had taken as being her son wasn't solid. Her son, who was either just shutting his alarm off or who had already shut his alarm off and then started the process of either getting dressed or using his bedroom's adjacent bathroom, wouldn't be down in the kitchen right now... and he wouldn't look like a ghost either.

At first, she wasn't able to detect any colors on this apparition; after closing her eyes, then giving her head a shake, she saw that he was black. The eyes that stared out from his pitch-black face were a glowing yellow color, and were shaped like scalene triangles; due to the apparition's worn hoodie, she wasn't able to see a thing other than them eyes. His body was big, and was pretty well strong with muscle; the six-pack on his abs looked similar to her oldest son's while, from the waist on down, he looked to be slender. It looked like the pair of pants, that she was almost certain were jeans, were in tatters. Due to the knee on down being so faint, she wasn't able to see what it was that he was wearing on his feet.

Angel blinked her eyes; she thought that what she was seeing would go away after she did so, and she thought that what she was seeing wasn't real—she had just gotten up, and the light in the room had just been turned on, so she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her. When the figure remained by the room's refrigerator, she closed and then rubbed her eyes—after taking her hands down, she not only saw that her thought of the figure disappearing was incorrect but that the figure was still there. This caused her to feel a great deal of fear. She had closed her eyes multiple times and yet the figure was still by the fridge, and she was still able to note that he wasn't fully solid! After seeing that the figure was still in the room, and was still ghost-like, she hitched in breath to scream.

Her mouth had only just been dropped for the scream to be expelled when the figure before her spoke.

"Why?" the figure, who's voice wasn't only low, and nasally, but was also grief-stricken and cracking in the fashion of one who was in his teenage years, asked. "Please, tell me why you abandoned me."

The thought of her hearing the apparition's voice before came and then left her in a micro-second; the first scream wasn't able to be expelled from her. With the apparition speaking to her, her scream had just died in her throat. She tried again. Her mouth was dropped, she felt her throat muscles working, then she readied herself for it.

Nothing. No scream, no moan, no nothing from her. This gave her an incentive to be even more scared. Here was this apparition, that was talking to her, and that didn't want to go away, and here she was... she wasn't able to attract any attention to herself and she wasn't able to make the apparition disappear!

The figure remained in front of her; he looked as if he was pleading for her to answer him and that scared her even more. How could she respond when she couldn't even say anything, or make a single sound? She hitched in breath then tried to scream again; again, she found herself as being unable to do so. It was like she wasn't in the house... maybe she had fallen asleep after entering the room. Maybe, instead of being awake, and conscious of her movements, she was asleep and sleep-walking. Maybe she was in that world that existed between being awake and being asleep. When the idea of the apparition using magic on her, to make her be in the state that she was presently in, came to her, her fear turned to anger.

How dare this person, whoever he was, use magic on her! Who was this person? Why was he terrorizing her?

She, after feeling her newly gained anger course through her, looked at the apparition. If she wasn't able to use her voice to speak to anyone with then, maybe, she could think and, possibly, both answer the apparition's question and attract some attention to herself. When she started thinking up her reply to the apparition's question, she intended to be firm; she was quite surprised when her reply came out as being near motherly. She didn't know why but she was think-talking to the apparition as if he was one of her children.

"I didn't abandon you." she heard herself say. "I, and my sons, didn't abandon you."

"Then, where are you?" the apparition asked her. "I wen-k-t to the apartment... you wasn't there. What happened to you guys?"

"We were captured. We're on another planet... we're in another galaxy."

"Held ag-k-ainst your wills!" the near-apparition said in a near-angered tone. "Where! Where are you guys? I'll come—"

"Mistress?"

How long had she been standing in the way that she was? Her back was so straight that it almost looked fragile enough to break if she so much as moved; her arms were hanging very loosely by her sides; her legs, which were bent ever so slightly, didn't look up to the chore of holding her weight. When he entered the kitchen, he noticed that her fiery red hair was blowing back—it was like it was being blown by the wind, which, owing to the fact that there was no wind present in the room, it shouldn't be doing.

He looked at this curious, yet spooky spectacle before stepping forward. His only intention in going to the house's kitchen was to see and possibly speak with the one that was in the room... instead, he was finding this crazy spectacle of his employer's wife standing like her inner self wasn't in-tune with her physical self. The woman should be manning the stove... She should be making enough eggs to feed an army, or she should be buttering some bread or making some other food that her family would be eating in the imminent future. She shouldn't be standing this stiffly, or looking to not be there in spirit.

After she didn't turn around, or acknowledge him, he walked around to her front-side. The yell that he wanted to emit was bit back extremely—the woman, who was as lovely as could be, should of had a pair of emerald-green eyes that had a single, golden-yellow ring around their black pupils... instead of seeing these very exotic eyes he was seeing nothing but white. The woman was standing like a stiff piece of paper while having a pair of eyes that had rolled completely around so that only their whites could be see!

He rushed forward without giving it a second thought; the loosely hanging arms of the woman, who was his employer's previously missing wife, were grabbed and then shook. He gave the woman's arms two to three shakes before grabbing her about the waist. While shaking her, and trying to take her towards the kitchen's stationed island, he yelled her name.

He had only just started yelling for Yhozah, who he knew was nearby, when she jumped; her eyes returned to looking as they should as she gasped for breath. After regaining her breath, then taking in her surroundings, she grabbed him by his wrists. Only after taking him by the wrists did she speak.

"Zshon... Zshon! Quit... stop it!" Angel said. Curiously, there was a hint of a laugh in her voice. "I am not a rattle, so stop shaking me."

"Mistress, you okay?" Zshon asked.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"I came in here to find you in a... in a sort of trance-like state." Zshon said. He and Angel stared eye-to-eye for a few seconds before Angel gave a small, weak laugh.

"It was bound to happen," Angel said. "I've had several black-out moments while on Earth—they're almost always caused from stress, and from me not getting enough sleep. I'll be fine."

"Mistress, you—"

"I'll be fine." Angel insisted. Although her voice sounded sincere, Zshon thought that she was lying; the fact that she was trembling caused this thought of his to become stronger.

It took a bit of persuading but she did, finally, rid herself of Zshon's company and concern; with what had just been experienced, she most desired to be left alone and to think. To think of the events that had just happened to her, and to put a rational explanation to them, would be a good thing and... well, to make breakfast for her family was also a good thing. Once Zshon was out of the room, and once the pots and pans were out of their cabinets, she set to doing both of them things.

The act of making breakfast, she was fast in discovering, overshadowed her interest in the near-apparition that she had spoken with; it wasn't long before she forgot the figure and about their conversation and it wasn't long before she calmed down and returned to being her former self again.

She did her best in making a meal that would satiate everyone's taste buds. A tray, that consisted of three types of pancakes, was made and then set to the side—Tazir was the "master" at making pancakes that had a filling in them, but she did try her best to fill two of the pancakes that she made with either raspberry or vanilla sauce—then a silver dish, that had a better than "army-sized" helping of croissants in it, was made. Three stacks of bread—one that was fully toasted, another that was half-toasted, and another that was barely toasted—were made and then slapped to a plate then she went on to grabbing and then using two cartons of eggs. Over-easy, scrambled, deviled, and near-raw eggs were made and then placed in individual bowls before she went on to making a decent-sized dish of potato bits—with Hazaar being in the mood that he had been in yesterday, she draped these in Cheddar cheese before placing the lid on the dish.

With her great-grandfather being a "fan" of egg-sausage rolls, she cooked and then made a tray of them before finally making out a memo for Mr. Volvio. Yhozah Zultoa, who was just coming into the kitchen, was given the note and then told to give it to the chef; with the Goblin on his way to delivering her message, she whistled for two maids then waited.

When the maids—one being Mekaia Zultoa while the other being a woman by the name of Attaec Ioniff—entered the room, she asked for their assistance in taking what she had made and then prepared to the table. While the interest in having a few butlers join in on helping to take the food to the table hadn't been disclosed she found herself as having two butlers coming in to help her and the two maids in taking what she had made to the dining room and then getting it all arranged on the table. She, and the two men and women, had only just gotten the table all situated when the first group of people who were expected to take up residency in the room walked in; she smiled at her husband, then made her rounds in saying hello and good morning to her adoptive daughter and sons, then said hello to Ashaklar and Qeeta, before going to take her seat. The ones who had entered the room were fast in following in her example.

"I think ma's been military cooking again!" Bile said after everyone in the first group was seated at the table, and after the lids to the table's various items had been lifted. After making himself a plate of what he wanted to eat that morning, he noticed that his mother looked a bit tired. This gave him a small cause to be concerned. "Ma, you okay? You look a bit—"

"I am, honey." Angel was fast in saying. "Working in the kitchen for a family as large as what I have isn't easy. I'll take a breather after breakfast is eaten."

"I love you," Bile said. His arm stretched over to her shoulders; the hug that he gave her was gentle, yes, but oh so full of love. "You're the best ma in the Universe."

"I love you too, Biley." Angel replied. Surprisingly, she had come very close to falling asleep while he was hugging her.

"Someone really needs to be barred from the kitchen when it comes to cooking for the family." DuruVile said after he, and the second, and final, group of breakfast-attenders entered the room.

"When a woman cooks for her family, she doesn't dilly-dally around." Angel said.

"True," Cyla said. While taking her seat at the table, she nodded her head; even though she wasn't one to openly admit this, she was one who sometimes went overboard when it came to making a meal for her family. "And I suppose that, since you have more than seven here, you do have to cook a lot to meet up with the demands of the extras."

"No trouble in it, granmammy. Cooking is something that I enjoy doing." Angel said. "One of many, actually."

The seemingly calm and cool attitude that was present at the table went on for a while; he was near ready to start thinking that everyone had settled in and that any and all confrontations were to be few and far from now on because of it. He and his children ate their meal; his mother and her family, and Qeeta, made and then ate their meal; and his father and his family made and then ate their meal in near-quiet for a long time before any type of full-on conversation started at the table. With it being early morning, and with everyone either still being in the throes of still waking up or in trying to gain their bearings, he should of known that things weren't going to remain nice and pleasant at the table. Mr. Volvio, it did seem, had gotten a memo from his wife telling him that she had breakfast just fine; nothing that he had made or prepared was set on the table, but he was seen as peeking around the corner a few times—it was quite obvious that the man was curious about what was going on in the room and on why the room was so quiet. A few of the maids and butlers, who were in the area, did the same as Mr. Volvio in peeking their heads around the corner every so often.

The maids, butlers, and the chef found their curious selves as being spectators to the seemingly now normal antics that happened at the table after everyone finished their meal. His stepfather, after cleaning his plate, then pushing it from him, was the one who started the after-meal conversation; everyone else either listened or joined him in the conversation that he had started.

"Think I'll be needing your gym again, Tazir." Cheshire said. "Angel, where in the Universe did you get your culinary skills?"

"My boys, of course, are the answer to that question. Once they started leaving the house to play with the neighborhood kids, or hit them growth spurts, I found myself as having to either do a constant re-stocking of the kitchen cabinets or having to man the stove for sometimes hours at a time." Angel replied. "I always fed them well before them growth spurts came in... found that their demand for food got a bit extreme after they hit them spurts."

"Normal—Cyla, and the ones that I hired to man the house's bigger kitchen, were doing near-constant work in the kitchen when Gaajah, Uevaa, and Selik were going through their growth spurts." DuruVile said. What he said next shattered the seemingly calm and cool air that was in the room. "Piece of advice, Girl—be careful of what you feed your sons. They're a bit too big for their age; don't overdo it in feeding them."

"My sons are very healthy for their ages." Angel said defensively. Despite her exhausted state, she was still going to act in a defensive manner towards her children's well-beings.

"They're still growing, Angel." DuruVile said. "You don't want them to look ungainly—they have at least two more growth spurts to go before their physical maturing is all said and done with."

"I always did think that Bile was going to be a big fella when he got older." Cyla said. "Lhaklar, though, surprises me. I wasn't expecting for him to look the way he does."

"Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Lazeer all look like their father," Ashaklar said. "You can see him in each of them three boys."

"No offense, Ashaklar, but I still don't have much faith in your son." Cyla said. "For him to of had enough go for his first wife to conceive was a surprise. For him to of had enough to produce three sons, though..."

"Why are you busting balls?" Hazaar asked Cyla, who was fast in giving him a sharp look.

"Hazaar, you hush." Angel said. While she was glad to hear that he was, in a sense, taking up for his father she didn't think that he should become involved in what was being said at the table. In a way, she didn't help matters by saying, "It's very well known that it's the male that's responsible for deciding what the gender of the unborn child is. The female always carries the X-chromosome on her eggs; the sperm, which carries the chromosome that decides what the gender of the unborn baby is going to be, is the deciding factor."

"Exactly—thank you for pointing that out." Cheshire said. After saying this, he leaned back in his chair.

DuruVile, who felt like he had been deliberately targeted at by Angel's words, stood up. While he was a smart man, and a man who had gone through a lot in his long life, he was also a proud man who did hold himself in very high regard—he had been married six times, with the final marriage being to his second wife, and he had made a total of seventeen children, two, of which, weren't around to speak due to either dying shortly after being born or having died before being expelled from their mother's womb. Of the children that he had sired, six of them were male; the other eleven had been born as being of the female gender—this, he viewed, wasn't on him.

The fact that the man that his ex-wife had gone and married had said something in regards to approving what his great-granddaughter had said didn't mesh well with him either—he felt insulted by the man's seemingly apparent approval of what Angel had said in regards to it being a man who decided the gender of a baby. How dare the farmer/miner, who seemed to not have a "stud"-like bone in his pathetic peasant body, agree with what had just been said! Cheshire Ubalki, he thought, had shown his true colors by not only agreeing with such a ludicrous statement but he had also shown that he was a true kiss-up of a man who agreed with what-all was said only to fit in or be noticed. He disregarded the fact that the man had made three sons in a row before making a daughter and he disregarded the fact that his secondborn son had made one daughter before going on to make three sons—why, if the women that he had married and then had relations with had thought of the egg that they had just released as being a male child he would of had more sons than daughters!

He was very fit and healthy, and his sperm count had just recently been evaluated by the physician that he employed; when he ejaculated, he produced anywhere between a hundred and three hundred thousand sperm... he had only needed to hear the number to know that he was fully fertile and that he was fully able to create further offspring if he so chose to do so with his wife—and if she chose to conceive for him, of course.

Why his secondborn son, who he regarded as being inferior in comparison to his older, and much stronger and healthier looking, half-brother, had had enough to make three children with Angel was beyond him; he was glad to have Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Lazeer as his grandsons but he didn't understand how Tazir had been able to create them.

He wasn't about to allow for anyone, his great-granddaughter included in the mix, to say that he was the cause for his having more female offspring than male; after hearing what he just heard from Angel, and after hearing "Mr." Ubalki agreeing with what she had just said, he stood then rang out a lecture to the both of them about the prowess of a male and about how disrespectful their words were in regards to him. After finishing his lecture, he sat down; the table's occupants were quiet for a while before Angel cleared her throat.

"So, uh, from what I was able to read of the one newspaper article that your son kept upstairs, in one of his picture albums, your father was dating some people." Angel, who was picking her words very carefully, said. "Has he become settled yet?"

"No." DuruVile was fast in replying.

"Any baby brothers, or sisters, running around, nipping at your heels or—"

"No."

"Shaam's one of the most eligible bachelors in the Universe; the women are crazy about him and he—" Cyla stopped to look at her husband, who was doing nothing more than looking at his empty plate. "He's dated a few times, but he's not been fully into it. He's been much too concerned with his grief over you and over your disappearance to get fully involved in dating."

She left it at that; due to remembering how her great-grandfather felt about his possibly getting a sibling or two one day, she spoke no more on his father dating or marrying or possibly having more kids.

Her great-grandfather's father was a nice man who did deserve a lot of respect; he was a rather kind and gentle man, but he did have his moments where his temper showed and where he got mean and cruel. She had been the one to bring Shaam back from Limbo, and she was also the one responsible for both his and his only surviving son's relationship to be rekindled and to be as strong as it was—while Duru was reluctant to speak of the issue with his father possibly getting with someone, and having a kid or two with that someone, she knew that he and his father were still as thick as could be.

During the times that she had sent mail to her great-grandfather, she had done a little joking and teasing about his possibly getting a new sibling or two one day. Not a single reply had been received from them sent letters; whenever she and her great-grandfather spoke on the phone about the issue of his having a brother or sister following him around one day, he had either made some excuse to put the phone down or he had changed the subject to something else—it had been quite evident then that he hadn't had a desire to have any siblings and it looked like the feeling was still on-going now. She figured that the man didn't want to have any brothers or sisters; the idea of his not wanting to fall from his father's "favor", or be forgotten after a new sibling was born, had been thought of almost immediately after her correspondence on the issue started.

While she didn't speak it out loud she did think that his desire in not wanting a younger sibling was odd; here he was, adding to his family, and giving his already adult sons and daughters younger siblings, but he didn't want to think about or have any siblings of his own. Surely the man, who was smart enough to know that his place within his father's heart wasn't to ever change, knew that having a sibling or two wouldn't change anything in his life.

After speaking of the subject of Shaam's brief dating life, she decided to discuss something else. She was just dropping her mouth to begin the subject that she had thought to discuss when Hazaar turned and then asked her a question.

"Mom," an instinct told her that he wasn't about to ask her a normal question; something told her that he was about to ask her for something. What could it be that her thirdborn son was about to ask her for? A model of a spaceship or train? A magazine of some sort? After hearing him address her, she turned then looked at him. "I'm a little low on paint—for the model that dad got me, y'know. Can you—"

"What colors do you need, son?" TazirVile asked.

"Rather low on just about... everything." Hazaar replied.

"I'll get you some more."

"Really, Boy, you should can their interest in building models." DuruVile said. "They're not children anymore."

"Even grown men build models, granpappy." Angel said. "What's so wrong in him, or in my other sons, or Eshal, for that matter, getting and then putting a model together?"

"It's childish."

"So is your not wanting a baby sibling." Angel thought. Was that really fair? Surely, if she had been as close to her father as her great-grandfather was to his she'd... no, she knew better. She knew that any additions to her father's family wouldn't change her opinion of him, or her social standing with him, and she also knew that any additions to her family with Tazir wouldn't change her or how she felt about her four sons either. After thinking this thought, she said, "Is that all you need, Hazie? Just the paint, nothing else?"

"Just the paint, momma." Hazaar said.

"Okay, well, seeing as your father's said that he'll take care of that..." Angel trailed off; she said nothing for a few seconds before saying, "I'll not be making any trips to Earth for a while, boys. Something—"

"You'll not be what?" DuruVile, who looked and sounded quite startled, said. "Tazir! You have not been letting her teleport to Earth!"

"She's been going to Earth these past few weeks. Been coming back after every trip so—"

"You shouldn't be letting her!" DuruVile shot up like a Jack-In-The-Box. "We just got her back! She was just brought back to where... you want her to escape again? To take the boys again? I sure as hell don't!"

"She's been returning." TazirVile remarked.

"So what! She was returning way before she disappeared as well!" DuruVile shrieked at the top of his lungs. "Give her something that'll make her unable to teleport—do something, Boy! I don't want her running off again! It damn near killed me on the inside when she disappeared... don't you dare let her—"

"Granpappy! I won't be going back to Earth for a while." Angel said. "I have no reason to disappear; I did so the last time because I was being threatened of having myself taken from my children. Is that happening now? At this moment?"

"I don't want you running off again, Angel. I'm serious now. When you left, you took a piece of me with you. I just got that back. You're my great-granddaughter... they—" DuruVile pointed frantically at Bile, Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Lazeer, who were fast in shifting their weight in their chairs. "—are my grandchildren and great-grandchildren! If—"

"I won't be running away again! If I do so at any time in the future, you have my permission to tear every fabric of skin from my backside after I'm found and then returned home." her voice was very elevated; after saying this, she sat down then forced herself to calm down. After calming down, she said, "Besides, the location that you found us in is off-limits now."

"Off-limits. "Bile repeated what his mother had just said. "Why is that, ma?"

"One of the gas lines, that were located under the apartment that we use to live in, exploded a week ago. The apartment went up in a very violent explosion." Angel replied. "I'm not sure why but the military evacuated everyone from Green River, Wyoming almost immediately after it went. They said that the evacuation was done because of radiation concerns, which is crazy because a gas line has no radiation in it. It's just... gas."

"Good thing that we found and then retrieved you and boys when we did, then." TazirVile said after this event was spoken of. After saying this, he stretched his hand towards his wife's. After taking her hand, then smiling at her, he said, "I love you."

"Same to you, Blueberry Cutie."

Conversation went on for another ten or fifteen minutes; when everyone was done talking, the chairs were pushed back and then vacated. Their mother, grandma Ashaklar, and "Granmma Cyla", as the woman was firm on wanting him and his brothers to call her, went in one direction while most of the men went off in another. He and his brothers, instead of dispersing in different directions, or heading off with either Phaggo or getting into some sort of trouble with Gaajah or Selik, went towards the foyer while Eshal went off somewhere with Uevaa, Blaiga, and Defe. Granddad Cheshire "scooped" up Qhuakiz then followed them for a while before heading off to where a different stairwell was—this was fine and dandy for him because he had a certain someone that he wanted to speak with.

After leading his brothers down the hallways, then stopping after reaching the foyer, he turned; the fist that flashed towards Lhaklar struck dead-center—Lhaklar yelled, then fell back to his rump, then gave him a wild look. Hazaar and Lazeer, while emitting gasps over seeing him strike their brother, stood out of his reach; it was quite apparent that they were both curious and afraid of what was to happen next.

"You sorry sack of shit! You said that it was a dream, and that it'd not come true!"

"How the hell was I suppose to know?" Lhaklar returned in a near yell. The twin trails of bluish-colored blood, that were coming from his nose, were slowly trickling towards his chin; he wiped his hand across his chin before they could drip down onto his shirt. "I said what I said to comfort you. How was I suppose to know that what you dreamed was—"

"Our apartment! Our old home... I saw that go up... Go BOOM... in my dream and you made me think that it was nothing more than that!" Bile rushed forward; with one, well-placed kick, he sent Lhaklar flying onto the steps that were on the stairwell that wound around the foyer's left side. "A dream! A dream of where a shadow walked out from nowhere... a dream where many were possibly either injured or killed!"

"I didn't know!" Lhaklar yelled. "I have no newspaper here... I didn't know that what you had dreamed was—"

"Ma could of been in that apartment!" Bile shrieked. He lunged for his brother; due to the stairwell's volute being in the way, and due to his foot coming in contact with the lip of one of stairwell's steps, he tripped. After getting his balance back to where it was suppose to be, he charged up the stairs. Lhaklar was grabbed by the throat and then thrown towards the wall; he kept his grip on his brother's neck after throwing him. "Ma could of been killed if she—"

"How... c-c-could... I... of... k-cknown!" Lhaklar tried his best to pry his brother's hand from his neck; Bile's long, dark yellow fingernails were very dangerously close to his jugular vein, and he was gasping for breath.

"You're a fool!" Bile released his brother; Lhaklar, in the time that he had had him by the throat, had gone a shade lighter green in the face. Lhaklar coughed, and then gasped at his feet, after he released him. "A blasted fool! I don't know why I take your fuckin' advice in the first place, or even waste my time in hanging around you. You're just as spineless as an Octopus!"

"B-Bile..." Hazaar said in a weak voice. When his brother turned, then looked at both him and Lazeer, he felt his throat close up. He, and Lazeer, stepped away from the stairwell that Lhaklar was being assaulted on.

"What! You want a piece of this you little brat?" Bile spat.

"N-n-no..." Hazaar sputtered.

"Then go away! Both you and Lazeer! This is Big Brother time, not time for you two Pissy Fried Baby Wipes to cry and bitch and clutch at our backsides!" Bile snapped. Hazaar and Lazeer, who were phenomenally scared and confused, and who felt a trifle bit hurt by what their brother had just called them, heeded their brother's advice in leaving the area.

He was glad that Hazaar and Lazeer were fleeing the area—they didn't need to see or become apart of what was about to happen between he and Bile! As he saw it, he both deserved and didn't deserve the ass-kicking that he was about to receive—that went double for the near heart attack that he was about to get too.

All he had done was try to help his brother in his time of need; how was he to know that what he had dreamed had really happened? The Green River Star, the local paper that was given out to the people who lived in Green River, Wyoming, wasn't able to be gotten here and he hadn't picked it up or read it in nearly a month; the same went with the local news channels that were present for the community of the area that they had recently been living in—there was no way that he could of known about the apartment going up, so he should be trying to get his brother to calm down... that or getting an adult's attention so that he'd not get beat up but so badly. Instead of just plain helping his brother out in telling him that what he had dreamed was nothing more than a dream he should of gone to his mother; her attention should of been gained and then she should of been the one to speak to his brother on the matter that he had been worried over—he, in a lot of ways, had brought this on himself.

It was this thinking, and this thinking alone, that caused him to keep his mouth shut.

After getting up from the stairwell's steps, he went up the stairwell step by step. While keeping his back pressed against the wall, he kept his eyes on his brother, who was slowly advancing towards him; only after his brother charged at him did he turn and then tear up the rest of the stairs. His knees came very close to banging into his chest; his eyes felt like they were about to burst from their sockets; and his lungs pumped their damn selves into a near-frenzy as he went up the stairs. Surprisingly, he not only beat his brother to the stairs' top but he also started down the hallway with his being behind him by about four or five steps.

He ran on and on until, finally, the pounding sound was heard; he looked around for this sound for all but a second before realizing that it was Bile—he was putting on the heat and, somehow, he was still able to remain in front of him. The three to five length gap that was between them was closed up and fast, but he managed to keep six to eight inches of space between them. Thoughts of his brother catching him, and then tearing him limb from limb, coursed through his mind as he charged down the hallway; thoughts and mental images of his parents and younger siblings, all gathered around his tombstone, occurred right when he was passing the room that he and his family had stayed a week in; and thoughts of his brother spending time behind bars for killing him happened when he was passing by the employee lounge.

He was just going by his parents' bedroom when he decided to make an attempt in turning around and then going back down the hallway—he was running out of hallway to run down, so it was either he try to turn and then go down the hallway that he had just run up or run out of hallway and then be grabbed and brother-demolished. Maybe, if he made it past the raging beast that was his older brother, he could reach one of the foyer's stairwells and then, maybe, he could go down one of them and then make his way to where an adult was. Maybe he'd run into his mother, or his father, or into his grandfather... maybe someone would see, or notice that he was in trouble and needed help and, maybe, that someone would help him in not getting beat up.

While he saw reason in needing to be beat up, he had no intention of letting Bile get a-hold of him. He wasn't about to let his brother end his life, or go to jail for ending his life.

After going by the room that his parents slept in, he edged over to the wall then, on a dime, he turned. He ducked to avoid the hand that swiped at him then he ran on. Once by his brother, he resumed the task of running down the hallway. Whether it was fate or plain consequence he didn't know but, at the precise second that he was going past the employee lounge, Homsi poked his head out from the room's door. Homsi only barely yanked his head back to being inside the room before having it run into by Bile, who was crazily pursuing him still. After Bile went past, Homsi left the room then started after them.

"Hey!" he heard the one who was third in place in their crazy race yell. "Hey! You two!"

With his turning to go down the hallway that branched to the right of the one that ran into the foyer, he had been able to hear the pounding footsteps of two people going up the stairs and then going down the hallway of the second level; after hearing these sounds, he had thought about going to see what it was that was going on and to see if he could put a stop to it. Running in the house was strictly forbidden—unless it had good purpose, no one was allowed to run in the hallways. There were too many things out and in the open; his employer didn't want anything to be broken and he didn't want to have the walls repaired after someone accidentally put a hole in them or ran through them.

It seemed to be his unlucky day because, when he reached the foyer, he wasn't able to see what was going on; a series of knocks were heard on the door right when he appeared in the circle that was the foyer. Seeing as there were others around—co-workers, or people that he either worked for or that were related to the people that he worked for—he trained his attention to the door, and to who was knocking on it.

When he grabbed the door knob, then gave it a twist, he gained the feeling that he was about to see another of the ones that he had accidentally sent an invite to. Would it be Kuruk and his family on the door's other side or would it be Shaam? Would he be seeing the man who seemed to have a better understanding towards his employer in regards to the ones that he hired or would he be seeing the man who had grown sick of him and his co-workers almost immediately after being returned from Limbo?

It was just them folk who had yet to arrive for their visit. Just them six people, who may or may not cause trouble for his employer's family, who were already showing signs of stress from the ones that had arrived for their too-long stay.

As he turned the door knob, he heard the sound of one making a hard turn in the hallway above; the sound of the pursuing party followed that hard turn's doing then, for some reason, the sound of a third joined what he was hearing. What the hell was going on upstairs and why wasn't anyone doing anything to stop it from happening? Surely, there were people in the hallway, or in the employee lounge; the progress of what was going on upstairs should of been put to bed a long time ago. He was shocked in knowing that the ones that were running upstairs were still running and that they had been joined by another.

Who was it that was running in the hallway, he wondered for the thinnest fraction of a second. His Mistress's sons? One or more of Duru and Cyla's children? How about one or more of Ashaklar and Cheshire's kids? There were twelve children in the mansion; any one of them could be the ones that were breaking the No-Running rule that his employer had put down.

He was fast in discarding Miss. Eshal from the list—she knew the rules and she knew better than to run in the house. The Young Masters seemed rather respectful; he was tempted to scratch them from the list of possible House Runners. With their being as young as they were, it might just be Defe and Qhuakiz who were running in the upstairs hallway and then again, going by how disrespectful they were of others, it could also be Gaajah, Uevaa, and Selik. Phaggo and Blaiga were a good bunch of kids that seemed rather respectful; like with Miss. Eshal, he was fast in discarding them from the list.

With his just hearing the sound of someone yelling for the ones that were running in the hallway to stop, and then after hearing the ones that were running in the hallway respond to that person, he figured that the hallway runners would stop and soon; after hearing this exchange, he opened the door then acknowledged the one that was on its other side.

"Mr. Surfeit," Losal Khrelan said after answering the door. He was fast in letting the man in. "My employer's been expecting you."

Lhaklar reached the end of the hallway by, really, the skim of his teeth; he had begged for his brother to not kill him all while running back down the hallway and, naturally, he had also told him that he loved him—both out of honesty and out of trying to get him to be distracted. Bile's response of his loving him too had caused him to put the momentary breaks on, which had caused him to damn near lose his head—Bile, though probably being earnest in saying that he loved him, hadn't been distracted or thrown off in chasing and then wanting to beat him up; the ends of his fingernails had scraped the back of his head just before he was off again.

For him, there were two options—run, and try to get away from his brother, or stop and get the living shit beat out of him, and possibly either be put in the ground or in the hospital afterwards. How he had been able to keep ahead of his brother, and keep his brother from being able to grab him, was beyond him—his brother was faster than he was, so he should of been able to run him down quick. All while running up and then down the hallway, he had kept in front of his brother by either mere inches or by nearly a foot.

He had done the arm pinwheel thing as a way to get more speed into his run; he was now plain running while having his arms stretched out before him. In the one instant that he had partaked in glancing behind him, he had been able to see that his brother was non-changed in what he wanted to do to him. Bile's glowing yellow-green eyes were very bright, and his face was dead-set in what he was doing. During that one glance, he had noticed that Homsi was following them—the man was a distance from him and his brother, so he had known that he'd be little to no help.

When he reached the balcony that overlooked the room that the twin staircases were in, he didn't stop, or turn around, or even concern himself with choosing a stairwell and then going down it. With a groan, he threw himself at the balcony railing then went sailing. When he landed on the floor of the foyer below, he did so with such force that all of his wind was knocked completely from him—this caused him great fear; if he couldn't breathe, he couldn't run or get away from his too-angry brother's clutches. He was sunk. He was as good as a cooked goose now. All Bile would have to do was jump down, then grab him, then pommel him to death.

When Bile leaped over the railing of the balcony, he came close to crying. He managed to move to the right ever so slightly but he wasn't able to avoid his brother falling on him; he yelled after his brother's knee collided with his groin, then he yelled after seeing the anger that was on his brother's face, then he came very close to shitting his pants after seeing that a maroon-colored hand was coming towards his brother's backside.

The last thing that ran through his head, after the hand was seen, was Bile's responding yell of his loving him; once the hand touched Bile's shoulder, then became a firm fist, he blacked out.