Saif ran because he didn't have any other options.

He'd woken up surrounded by men in what was clearly an attempted robbery, and in his disorientation, he'd moved on autopilot to liberate a knife from one and drive it deep into his throat. The other men hadn't liked that. Even with his adrenaline, he couldn't fight them all head-on as they swarmed him, and so he broke through and ran. "Goddammit, Marik," he wheezed as he sprinted down the street. "This is why I tell you not to take us out at night!"

His host really had no self-preservation skills sometimes. He could only assume Marik had wanted some late-night dinner and hadn't wanted to pay for a delivery, not remembering that there had been an uptick in robberies in their neighborhood lately. Their brother was going to have a heart attack when he heard about this.

A loud crack filled the air, followed by a burning pain in his shoulder. Saif hit the ground with a scream, and when he pressed his hand to the source of the pain, his fingers came back bloodied. Just his luck that they had guns. He scrambled back up to his feet and forced himself to keep moving. The men were rapidly gaining ground now, and he could only imagine what they'd do if they caught up to him.

He ducked into an alley, and one of the back doors to a building was cracked open, a dim yellow light shining like a beacon of safety. He went in without a second thought and nearly fell down the steep staircase inside before starting to hobble downwards. He had no idea where he was - he didn't like switching when they were awake, but Marik had been panicking and had begged him to take over. But switching always left him a little woozy, and after waking up to impending violence standing before him, fight or flight had kicked in, and he hadn't been able to pay attention to his surroundings.

The stairway ended with another door, but as he pushed it open and rushed inside, he immediately wished he hadn't.

The room was nearly empty except for what he could only describe as a shrine pressed against the back wall, the altar covered in unlit purple candles. Vicious-looking spikes jutted from the shrine, which seemed to be carved from an ancient, black stone. Scraps of cloth and ruined sleeping bags were scattered across the room, but it seemed as if they had been untouched for some time. As he approached, muttering, "What the fuck?", he saw the surface of the altar was covered in carved text. As he ran his fingers over the engravings, he peered closer. "…Hieratic?"

The closer he looked, the more certain he became that the writing was indeed hieratic. Despite his understanding of the language being a little rusty, he started to silently read it. Most of the writing was too worn to make out, but he could read 'ancient power', 'blood… worthy', and 'the Dark One'. Standing near the altar was starting to make his skin buzz with dangerous and wild energy, and he stepped back with a sharp inhale. Everything about this was screaming "Bad!".

Behind him, he heard a door slam open and footsteps scurrying down the stairs, and with that, he remembered the reason he'd come down here. He cursed silently and turned to get a good look at the room around him, devastated to find that the door to the stairwell was the only way in or out of this room. In trying to find an escape route, he'd trapped himself. He quickly pressed himself behind the door, holding his breath as it swung wide open. As soon as he saw a shoulder, he pounced.

Thankfully, he had tackled the man with the gun, and it went sliding across the floor as he started swinging, but that was where his luck ran out. He managed to land a few punches before he felt hands hooking under his arms to roughly pull him up, flinging him towards the shrine. He hit the altar stomach-first, knocking the air out of his lungs, and managed to twist around just in time to see another man charging at him with a knife. He raised his arm just in time to block the attack, the blade knicking his arm. He gritted his teeth, feeling his strength start to wane under the pressure of the man on top of him.

Saif was increasingly sure that he wouldn't be leaving this chamber alive. Their brother wasn't going to have a heart attack over this - he was going to be devastated. Blood trickled over the curve of his arm and dripped onto the altar beneath him as the knife drifted closer and closer to his throat, and Saif's heart was sinking right along with it. He was supposed to protect Marik, and he had failed.

Something strange happened, then - well, a few things. First, the candles on the altar ignited violently, flames whooshing to life and burning so brightly that the man pinning him to the altar paused to look up, eyes narrowing in confusion. Then, the air became deathly quiet, so quiet that the sound of his breathing was deafening in comparison. The single light bulb illuminating the room started to flicker, and he could see something rising from behind the man, a massive black shape that jutted and spiked in unnatural ways.

The man turned to see what Saif was staring at and screamed in terror, swinging his knife. A massive black spike erupted from his back as it completely impaled him, splattering blood all over Saif's face and chest. He watched in shock as the spike grew spines and segments that resembled scales before retracting, leaving the man to collapse to his knees. The black shape started to fill in with color, revealing a strange humanoid thing standing before him.

It was about as tall as him with a human-looking face and body, but its arms were shiny and black with wickedly clawed hands, perfectly matching the spike it had used to impale the man, which was now recognizable as a tail. Four horns jutted from its skull - two sticking straight up from the crown of its head and two curving out from the side, just long enough to curve along its cheekbones - and massive bat-like wings stretched from its back. It watched him with vague interest, its eyes almost completely bright red with black slits for pupils.

From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the remaining men scramble for the gun and raise it, shooting the thing twice in the chest. The thing's eye twitched as if annoyed as it turned and swung its tail again. This time, the spines caught into the man's waist and completely bisected him, his torso hitting the floor with a sickening splat. The last man left charged forward with a scream, eyes wide at the sight of his dead comrades, and the thing lashed out again, wrapping its tail around him to pull him close. Without a second thought, it leaned in, digging its teeth into his throat and ripping it out in one swift motion.

All the while, Saif was bent backward over the altar, watching it all. It didn't take long for him to put two and two together: they were in a room with a shrine, one that mentioned 'the Dark One', and now a strange being had arrived to make short work of everyone but him. It was probably safe to assume that this was the Dark One. Heat rushed to his face, heart pounding in his chest as the thing eventually turned back to him, licking blood from its lips. For a long while, they stared at each other, the only sound the dying groans and rattles of the men. Once they stopped, the Dark One said one simple word that Saif couldn't quite make out. "What?" he asked.

It paused, then said in Arabic with the same inflection, "Speak."

"Oh. Uh… what should I say?"

"To start," the Dark One said easily now, stepping towards him with bare, clawed feet. "You can explain why I was woken by such an exciting display of violence. It was quite delicious carnage, but also quite unexpected."

Saif swallowed hard. "Well. They chased me down here trying to kill me."

"Why?"

"Probably because I stabbed their friend in the throat."

The Dark One laughed. Its voice was strangely both masculine and feminine, making its gender completely ambiguous. Saif couldn't help but notice that the thing was naked, but scales covered the area between its legs and didn't help to clarify in the slightest. "That would do it. Given that you're the only one who was wise enough not to strike me, I'd ask you of your name."

Saif frowned slightly. "Ah… that might be tricky. Not to be difficult, Dark One -" The Dark One's brows raised slightly at the title, hopefully in approval. "We're a system. Do you want my name, or the name of this body?"

The Dark One paused, head tilting slightly. "Yours."

"Saif Ishtar."

"Saif," it repeated. "Sword. Although you seem to be the one getting sliced up." The Dark One finally smiled, seemingly pleased with its own joke. It grabbed Saif's arm and held it out to draw a clawed finger along the cut, its eyes drifting upward to the wound in Saif's shoulder, idly examining him.

"You, uh… I didn't get to really read the…" Saif pointed down at the altar he was leaning on, head pounding with fear and excitement. Up close, he could tell that the Dark One was gorgeous, its long, white hair spilling over its shoulders. "I didn't know you were down here, and -"

The Dark One's smile faded in an instant and it tightened its grip on his arm, nearly crushing it with force. The air grew ice cold as it asked, "You didn't know I was here?"

"No, I was just running and found you."

The Dark One stared him down, its eyes filling with utter fury as it pulled away with a growl. "What the hell have my followers been doing? Do they not understand that cults work the best when people know about them?" It stopped its ranting to look around the room, noticing the abandoned sleeping bags. Saif carefully stood up, his back growing sore from bending over for so long, and he pressed a hand to his shoulder with a wince. "…What year is it?"

Saif hesitated for a long moment before answering, "2023."

The Dark One whipped back around to him, eyes blaring. "What?!" Saif instinctively glanced down at his former assailant's abandoned knife, briefly contemplating grabbing it for defense. The Dark One unfortunately noticed, storming back to grab him by the throat and lift him in the air before he could move. "Do not lie to me, Ishtar."

"I'm not!" Saif choked, grabbing the Dark One's wrist with both hands.

The scales dug into his palms as the Dark One seemed to stare into his soul for a long moment. "…Twenty years," it said eventually, sounding less angry and more distressed. "Almost twenty years since I was last called. You seem to have a brain. You understand the issue?" Saif nodded slowly, struggling to take a breath against The Dark One's iron grip. Unceremoniously, it let him go and he collapsed to his knees, coughing and gasping for air as he grabbed his throat. "How did this happen?" it muttered to itself, turning away to draw a hand down its face. "Twenty years - my cult's numbers were dwindling, I knew that. But now, no one? How did this happen?"

Saif couldn't answer. Gods and demons and mystical beings had been the bread and butter of his and Marik's education growing up thanks to their borderline psychotic upbringing, but he'd personally grown out of believing in this stuff years ago. It was all ghost stories and folklore and ways to scare Marik into line when the screaming and threats of whipping didn't work. He looked up and saw the Dark One towering over him, scales crawling up its legs and fading just above its knees, its wings flicking and contracting almost like it was fidgeting with them, and knew that this was definitely real. Real and massive and utterly capable of destroying him with a single gesture.

"Are you blushing?"

Saif blinked. The Dark One had turned back to him, its expression now dumbfounded as it stared down at him. He cleared his throat and stood, shaking his head. "No, uh - just didn't… think this stuff was real."

The Dark One snorted. "Of course not. Humans have grown more skeptical as time has gone on. Hence the cult. But I think you've given me a perfect place to -"

A bouncy pop song started to play from Saif's back pocket and he paled, fumbling around to pull out Marik's phone. "Shit. I have to take this." The Dark One sighed dramatically and stepped behind Saif to take a seat on top of the altar as he accepted the call. "It's Saif."

"Where are you?" Rishid, their brother, didn't bother saying hello. "I came by to check on you and Marik and you're not home."

"I, uh… it's a long story. Marik decided he needed some snacks, I guess. Some guys held us up in an alley."

"Are you alright?"

Saif glanced at his shoulder and frowned. It didn't hurt much anymore, but it wasn't something he could easily explain. "They shot me."

"They shot - Saif, where are you?"

"Heading to the hospital right now. I can meet you there." Saif glanced back at the Dark One. It was watching him, one leg crossed over the other as a small frown settled on its face. Once he'd hung up his phone, he said, "Sorry. But I should probably have someone look at this hole in my shoulder."

The Dark One looked around at the bodies splayed on the floor. "Well. A proper guest would help clean up, but I understand human bodies have limitations. These men will be satisfactory sacrifices for now. You will return here - I'm not done with you yet."

Saif swallowed hard. "…Alright. Fair enough." The Dark One remained seated, watching Saif as he shuffled to the door, pulling up his map application. He wasn't too far from the hospital - he could easily get there within ten minutes. He offered the Dark One one last glance backward before stepping through the door, which slammed shut behind him.