The night was restless, as was the norm.

I couldn't shake the feeling there was something watching from the window, beyond the veil of glass segregating me from the outside world. The night didn't help much either, the moon hung low tonight and the light couldn't penetrate the woods at that angle, it was a miasma of black shapes that looked vaguely tree-like.

By the time night had finally gone, and the dawn was just beginning to rise, any more sleep than what little I'd gotten throughout the night was all I was getting. I had places to be today, school was supposed to start in a few months, but time was of the essence, every second counted.

I knew that I couldn't stay here, not with the situation at hand. With my mother breathing down my neck, my sisters looking for any opportunity to either avoid me or belittle me, and my father being so far gone outside of hunting, I knew that I had to become self-sufficient to get out of this place.

It didn't matter where I went, what I did, who I was, anything would be better than this. Besides the elaborate homestead full of trinkets and legacy, I had nothing to my name. Nothing.

Thinking about the situation was making me boil, a sickening feeling that ran through my veins like fire. This fire within me was a sick one, it was tainted and most certainly not a healthy feeling to maintain, however this fire would act as a fuel for me, the passion would push me to become what I had to be.

Self sufficient.

Capable.

Someone I can be proud of.

Could my mind take the brunt of the outside world, the horrors of the forest? What about the Mistrali bandits that had been destroying the outer colonies for the last decade? Or the inequalities seen on Solitas?

You can never really know until you've seen it, but it didn't matter. I had to be stronger, I had to resist, I had to stand tall.

I had to.

As for my body, it was certainly a bit stronger than my mind was at the moment. Despite the sheltered life I had lived in the Arc manor, I passed my time fixing things in this run-down wing of the house for my own safety and… what else did I do?

Yet another thing I couldn't remember yet, perhaps the other rooms in this wing had the answers.

I rose out of the bed, still dressed in my ratty clothing from the night prior. I only had one goal in mind, so I marched to the door and walked through, ignoring the rest of the room's contents. The corridor contained two rooms ahead of me, and the stairs at the end of the corridor to the right. The doors were identical, the same brown as the rest of the hallway. My gut was telling me the room on the left was a better idea, so I went for that.

When the door opened, it revealed a room with a singular light in the centre, which was off. The darkness of the room was obscuring everything else, and if there was a window the light wasn't coming through the blinds enough to spot it. I pawed at the wall around the doorframe for a lightswitch, and found one after a few seconds. Flicking it revealed a workshop, albeit a very cluttered one. There were stacks of boiswood, neatly squared off against the left wall, surrounding it were several cluttered mounds of small logs, thick and stubby. There was a table directly in front of me against the furthest wall, on it was a series of wooden carvings. The right side of the room had another table with various tools strewn about, files and hacksaws and chisels.

I knew this room, and it knew me. This… this was who I am, who I was. The only escape I had, the only comfort I found in this barren place. I made carvings, I was a whittler, a carpenter. Father didn't want me to be a hunter, he figured Claude was enough for the role despite her clear lack of aptitude when it came to understanding what it meant to be a hunter, that they were more than enough to replace him when his time to retire came, but he still wanted to teach me something, back when he was still around often enough for me to see him. He'd left most of the learning to books he'd brought from various corners of the world on their carpentry customs and norms, but I'd occasionally get to work with him on wings of the house, albeit in minor ways that didn't help much. I'd move logs or wooden beams to and fro, or I'd whittle out door handles and furniture while he constructed, or he'd just let me watch. It didn't matter to me, I was with my father back when he still smiled. That was all I needed at the time, someone who was proud of my efforts. I haven't felt that in years though, a good few years now.

The carvings on the table across the room looked mostly familiar, one was the family crest, another was the family blade Crocea Mors, another was fathers backup weapon; a small single-shot pistol that fired this huge bore cartridge of flame dust tipped flechettes, it had saved his life on multiple occasions, apparently most hunters can't get out of the spread in time, and flechette hurts regardless of whether your aura blocked it or not.

There were many other things in this room I'd built, things that I could remember later. I needed to get some catharsis, as soon as possible. I rushed over to the pile of wood, grabbed a chunk of log, and rushed back to the carpentry table. I knew what I had to do, I had to see what that things face looked like in the light. From memory, it'd be difficult to articulate but close enough that it'd sate my curiosity.

I dumped the log chunk on the table, and reached for a hacksaw. It felt odd in my hands, too light, like I could crush it in my hand without much effort. It felt like a baby's hacksaw, something fit for a toddler. I should dig around the house where it's safe to, try and hunt down some more tools… Definitely need to keep an eye out for a proper saw though.

There was a little jolt of euphoria as I made the first incisions on the wood, it was a magical feeling.

—-

It took a couple hours, and it likely wasn't my best work… but it was done. The mask had been fashioned. It was a gaudy thing, and it was probably far too simplistic to be completely accurate.

But it was enough.

The mask wasn't quite as frightening as it was in my mind, it disturbed me how… comforting I found the visage. Maybe it was how long I visualised it in my mind while in the black room, maybe it was just because I'd made it reality, I didn't know for sure. But this mask didn't look scary anymore, it invoked no terror, no fear.

It was a rather simple design, oversized gaps in the mask where the eyes should be, a large mouth that seemed almost dislocated from the skull, an absence of nose or teeth. It was strange, it looked vaguely Grimm-like, but it lacked the glowing eyes or the red markings that all Grimm had. I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was… then again, my knowledge of Grimm was confined to books, and our history isn't recorded particularly far back. Maybe this was an ancient Grimm I'd seen once in one of my fathers books before and forgotten about? It wouldn't be the first thing I'd forgotten.

It didn't matter all that much right now, the pride of creation swelling within me was enough to focus on, I had to keep that pride going, let it fester in me. Hopefully this little spark of joy would keep me going long enough to find a way out of this place, preferably without my family noticing.

I wonder how long it'd take them to realise I was gone?

I had to quell that thought, it wasn't a good idea to dwell on the negatives, focusing on the positives if possible was always a better idea, so long as you weren't deluding yourself. And I had something to be proud of here, a creation of my own imagination, born from my own hands.

At least, I hope it's from my imagination.

I went to the table at the back of the room, I planned to place the mask with the rest of the carvings, but something stopped me. I couldn't bring myself to let go of the mask, something was niggling in the back of my mind that letting go would not be a good idea. I begrudgingly grabbed a nearby piece of string and looped it through one of the eye holes on the mask, and tied it a few times over. The mask was now an oversized necklace of sorts, it should hang heavy, but it doesn't. This trend of things being oddly light are concerning, perhaps I was just getting stronger with age?

I shuffled out of the room, sealing the door behind me with a clack. I leered to my right, out the window and into another wing of the house, the dining hall. I could see through the windows a few figures, my mother in the centre of my view, sat at the end of the table and cheerily chattering away with my younger siblings while she fed the youngest.

The twins were Eleanor and Elyna, they had matching hair and appearance, it was practically impossible to tell them apart, the only difference in the two of them being the different coloured ribbons keeping their hair tightly secured into pigtails. The youngest was a toddler, Felicite. There was nothing to say about her, she was a toddler, she was just as demanding and bratty as any other child her age.

They all seemed so… happy, in each other's presence. They were comfortable with each other. All of them.

It hurt.

It felt like my chest was on fire, but it was cold at the same time. It was horrid to feel, similar to what I presume being stabbed in the heart is like.

My stomach grumbled boisterously. I'd forgotten to eat in a long while. With my mother in the dining hall, the kitchen may be free for just a little bit of time, just long enough to get something without her hassling me any further than she already had.

—-

The walk to the kitchen was more of a fumbly sprint that was marred with dead ends and wrong turns that burned more time than I had, I was desperate to get there before she did, the fear that hid beneath my determination fuelled the sprint further, I was running as full-bore as I possibly could given the hallways I was charging through like a beowulf after a downed deer. The similarities in the comparison of me and a beowulf was not lost on me, both were equally ragged, equally hungry. I was a hell of a lot more desperate though.

When I finally reached the kitchen, relief flooded into me as I scoured the room with my eyes, finding not a soul here. The kitchen was free for the moment, although I could hear them not too far away from me, it was faint but I could make out the rumblings of effeminate voices a few rooms down, presumably where the dining hall was.

I rushed for the pantry, digging through it for whatever canned food I could find that I could eat cold. Peas, potatoes, apple slices, whatever was there. I grabbed what was left of the loaf of bread sitting on a shelf crudely wrapped in its own packaging, and a jar of what looked to be some sort of yellow jam? It didn't matter, it looked edible enough. I hobbled my pile of food out of the pantry and onto the counter, and immediately pawed at a nearby drawer in an attempt to find cutlery. The knife was easy to find, but there were no spoons. Presumably my family was eating desserts, or perhaps Catherine needed separate spoons for each of her desserts. A fork would have to do. With that sorted I added it to the pile of food and set off in search of a pitcher for water. Cabinet after cabinet was searched, it took me too long for my liking, but eventually I found that and a glass alongside it.

I was unsure of how I'd get this all back to my room in one run, perhaps put the food in a bag and carry the pitcher and glass in the other?

My train of thought was interrupted by a figure glaring at me from the doorway I'd entered from.

It was a female figure, not my mother thankfully, this figure was a good few inches taller. That narrowed it down, but it couldn't be Claude, she'd left for Vale to attend Beacon a few months ago. That only left one possibility. Cheri.

"Hey, bro." Her voice preened out like a purring cat, she let the 'o' in 'bro' hang for a second longer than it should have.

Cheri was a bad sign, but nothing compared to my mother typically. But I got the feeling this would be far worse than normal.

"Looks like the rat found the kitchen again, I wonder how fat you'll grow on it." She purred out, sweet Oum she was unbearable.

Cheri held her gaze on me, unmoving for what felt like millennia. Her cerulean eyes seemed to be glazed over like a foggy window, almost like they were looking through me rather than at me. It was strange, I couldn't remember the last time I'd talked to Cheri, let alone see her alone. She'd been in the presence of mother almost exclusively since Claude left for Beacon months ago. Those eyes didn't seem right, and from what little I could recall they didn't always look like that, I remember a far sharper hue of blue than this dismal blue-ish pallor.

I only noticed then that her face was of a similar nature, while her tone seemed almost playful and coy, her face was frozen in a blank state, as if she was bored, or sleeping. Closer to dead, upon a second look.

I don't know how long we were locked in this staring contest for, but I was snapped out of… whatever this was by the lack of noise surrounding me. The rabble I could hear from mother and my sisters had faded further, to the point it was no longer audible.

And then the change occurred, clear as day.

The haze over her vision lifted like the sun piercing the cloud cover, that familiar sharpness that I once knew well returned all the same, her expression twitched back to life with a start, as if she had forgotten how to use her face entirely. Her eyes once again locked onto mine, I could feel my breathing start to simmer slightly as the glare I'd gotten so accustomed to was no longer there.

Cheri smiled in a way that didn't feel familiar at all, before she sprung into action. She practically ran towards me, jumping the counter top in between us and onto me, knocking me to the floor. Normally I'd attempt to get out of the way of such an attack, but I'd found that I couldn't move from her gaze, something about what I was seeing had stuck still in place. The impact had knocked me down to the floor, smacking the back of my head against the fridge, an act that should have knocked me dizzy, yet it did nothing to me. If anything, it had just upset the fridge.

I could hear crying.

My sister was crying.

The sister who had a hand in making my life as miserable as it was.

This didn't feel right, despite how desperately I wanted it to be. This wasn't normal, this wasn't how it always was. I looked down at my sister, who was bawling my eyes out with her head wedged into my shoulder, the tears were seeping into my tatty shirt and her grip had tightened so heavily onto me that it likely should hurt. Yet again, something that should be causing me pain does not…

Why?

My sister's neck creaked upwards, painfully slowly as her eyes came to meet mine again.

"I… I…" she sputtered on a loop. It seemed clear whatever it was she wanted to say, she couldn't put the words together. Either that or she didn't have anything to say at all. I was sure it was some sort of ploy, part of a trap to get me into more trouble as usual, or at the very least torment. After all, this had Catherine's sugar covered fingertips all over it, this was her modus operandi, her method. She'd lure me in using a false sense of security, presented through another sister, only to pull the rug out from under if I fell for it. This is what Catherine always did, and she'd usually use Cheri because of her qualifications in drama and acting, however she always had a flaw. Catherine didn't want the bait to sound too good to be true, she never went for the throat with whatever bait she held out in front of me. Mother called dibs on the worst of it long ago, and Catherine was, as always, quick to fall in line. Her bait was never something as heartfelt as this, but perhaps mother had given her some sort of leeway, a one-and-done opportunity to hurt me more than her norm, although I seriously doubted-

"I'm sorry!"

…What.

My sister went back to garbling into my shoulder, tears pouring from her eyes. It didn't matter. Not now.

What the fuck sort of ploy was this? There's not a chance in hell that Cheri was being sincere, Cheri was never sincere, never honest. She was practically a fucking compulsive lair with how much shit spewed from her mouth. Did Catherine put her up to this? Mother? Was this her own machinations, her own fucked up plan to hurt me further than she already had, so many times before? So many times… I'd lost count a while ago.

Regardless of whatever demon convinced her it was ok to stoop to this level, to swing this low at me, they just made a fucking mistake. This sick fuck I call a sister thinks she can just waltz in here and give her heartfelt apology out of the blue, as if she'd had a sudden change in heart. What a ridiculous thing. Completely unbelievable, outside of reality. She was acting, she had to be. It's what she always did, an innate talent she used against me for fun. It had to be her acting again, there was no possibility it could be anything else.

With a jolt, my limp right arm sprung to life, latching on hers and throwing it away with as much force as I could use, her arm went back with almost no effort. I slid to my right and tried to undo her other hand, but the grip on her left hand was far tighter than the other. Her sobbing had gotten louder. And the bawling had gotten quieter, more desperate.

Cheri was always a good actor.

"Please, I… I'm sorry, please." she muttered, her speech staggered and smothered by her tears.

"Just get it over with and say it." I replied. It was difficult to keep the anger out of my tone.

Her eyes locked with mine and her throat let out a strangled croak. Her eyes seemed truly sad, and almost manic. Like a panicked fear. Cheri had improved, clearly. It must be difficult to fake emotions to this level, she truly was an artist when it came to ruining my day.

She cleared her throat and muttered out "I'm sorry, so sorry… for what I've done. I don't know why I do it but I can't stop it. I can't stop myself and it won't stop happening!"

Her crying got heavier, yet quieter.

As I said, Cheri was a good actor, great even.

I was never any good at it.

"If you're here to apologise, then tell me the truth. If you're just here to spout bullshit at me and lie to my face, get the fuck away from me."

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be caught dead using this tone on my own family, it felt wrong even under these circumstances. But this was too far, too much for anyone to bear. Keeping the vitriol in check had gone out the window, and the profanity was something I hadn't used when talking to others in a long while.

I watched Cheri's face twist into something I couldn't really interpret, there was a hell of a lot of sadness, but unfortunately the act is ruined once you know it's an act, and not an honest feeling. The tears got stronger, her bawling got louder, but it didn't matter.

It was all a lie.

It had to be.

It always was.

Cheri reached up to me, her hand shaking as it twitched its way towards my chest. I grabbed at it before it could touch me, and wrenched it away from me again. It took much less force than I recall needing in the past.

"You do this all the time, you work with Catherine to do this all the time. Am I supposed to fall for the same trick on the hundredth go-around just because you've proven your dedication to it?" I let the fire within me corrupt my words, I was letting the venom free, on my own sister no less.

It felt cathartic, worryingly so.

"What, exactly are you getting out of this act anyway? Do you enjoy hurting other people? Or is it just me? Am I your favourite rat to stomp on?"

"It's not that, please!" she barked, a lot louder than she had been before. The tears were spewing from her eyes.

"Look, there's not a chance in hell any of what you're saying and doing is real… but even if it is, it won't matter. You didn't keep any of those old promises you made, none of you bothered to. I am nothing to you, Cheri… Not to any of you."

The tears stopped.

"Just, leave me be."

Her face twisted into something different.

Something familiar.

At first, her face was frozen in kyne, emotionless and deadened.

Then, the fake tears shed like hail in a Mistrali typhoon.

And now, something familiar.

Anger. Fear. The point of no return had long since passed, she knew as well as I.

A fast fist came careening towards me with all the force of a paper bag, her right arm towards my left cheek. I caught the loosely tightened fist before it could even get close. She swung with her other hand, another wild haymaker that would hit like a wet cloth.

It missed, by a mile.

She flung herself with her own force, following the direction of her fist and winding up with one arm still in my grip and the other hung over it lazily.

"If you're going to try to punch, at least make it count." I muttered.

She jutted her elbow at me with her free hand, it was already at the perfect angle. I didn't have the time to react to the movement, and yet it felt like it took forever and a day to get to my face. Strangely enough, I didn't have the urge to even bother to stop it, as if my mind was convinced the incoming wild elbow was nothing.

The elbow crashed into me with all of her force, and yet I felt no pain.

I could feel the harsh skin of her elbow, but the pain that should have followed was completely absent. Yet another confusing mess to consider later. I decided now was the time to strike back, Cheri had aura, it was fair game. The one thing the whole household seemed to agree on, a fist swung is a fist you can get sent right back at you, free of charge.

I had 3 swings to repay, I'd only take as many as I needed.

I threw a jab at her face, light and quick. It was meant to be enough to daze her, make her stumble back out of my grip and give me some space. And yet, it wasn't meant to be.

The jab connected, and a damn-near miracle happened, inexplicably.

The combat equivalent of a sneeze had shattered her aura, from full to nothing in just one hit. Furthermore, her nose had broken… well, more than broken, the damned thing looked like it had broken a dozen times over, the ridge bone looked like an earthquake fault line with how much damage a mere jab had wrought.

She fell backwards onto her back, blood oozing from what was left of her nose. She looked horrified, this was more than a simple fear. She didn't think anyone could do that, let alone little old Jaune, it seemed.

She was right to be terrified.

I don't have an aura, or a semblance, I'm just a normal teenager. She has an aura, an above average one, and a semblance that she forgot to use through her sheer forgetfulness.

I should not have been able to do anything close to that amount of damage, if anything it should be me in her position right now, as it normally plays out.

What the hell had happened to me in the black room? What is happening to me?

I couldn't bear to look at her anymore.

I grabbed my food and water, and marched back to my room.

I couldn't hear her crying, or anything from her.

The house was completely silent on the way back to the guest area.

—-

The food was haphazardly dumped on the table, and the water jug was dumped on a nearby counter, Oum above knows this table could not take any more weight than what little was on it.

I wobbled over to the chair that was most sturdy, and hastily took a seat.

Before I even knew what was happening, I was already halfway through the first second can of potatoes.

Clearly I had not overestimated my hunger.

The table was cleared in minutes… a few minutes was all it took for me to engorge myself on what made up almost 3 days worth of food, and still the hunger remained. Even more questions, and yet not a single answer.

The table groaned like a whale as I set the last packaging remnants down, I had to move this stuff off to somewhere that was more stable, perhaps even the floor. The damned thing would cave in pretty soon otherwise. Regardless of where I put it, I could move this stuff and then I could work on something to keep my mind off things, not sure what yet, maybe take a look in that one room I hadn't checked ye-

A sudden urge, palpable and demanding. The mask around my neck called to me again, it craved my touch.

My hand rushed down my scratchy shirt and pawed at the familiar slab of wood, and an instant rush of relief flooded into me as if the flood gates had opened unto me. I forcibly pulled it from my shirt with a tug, and stared at the visage of the woodland monster that once haunted me. The pleasant feelings I got from staring at it, just being in contact with it, was bothering me.

It didn't make any sense, how could it possibly have changed? How had I seemingly overwritten my own memories and twisted them from something that left me frozen where I stood, into the same feelings that filled me when I thought of family…

No, this feeling wasn't what family meant to me anymore. They used to be different, things used to be good. Father was home more than a week before he left again, he was willing to be himself around us, he didn't seal himself away like a weapon of mass destruction behind the frankly ridiculous amount of locks and failsafes he'd placed on the entrance to his study, which at this point was more akin to a sacred palace of worship than a study… What did that man have left to study, truly? He was already an accredited hunter with scores upon scores of achievements and medals honouring his deeds, hell even Atlas had been forced into giving father awards for his efforts in Menagerie.

Mother didn't have me as a target of her ire at that time either, let alone any vitriol to fire at all. My mother was a good mother at one point in time. It changed a few years ago, around the latest birth of the lineage, roughly 3 years ago. I've never been able to figure out what caused that sudden change in her, why she would suddenly enact this radical change in behaviour, and better yet why nobody father and myself seemed to ever bat an eye at it. Saffron was the only other one to ever question it, but because father blundered the whole 'coming out of the closet' debacle with Saffron they haven't been on good terms ever since.

She was close to father before that, almost ironclad in their unity. But she hid Terra from all of us, and when the time came for them to take on the challenge of parenthood, they chose to… make use of me, instead of father… It had to be a true Arc, after all.

I haven't been able to look Terra in the eye since.

The family doesn't know what happened.

The family can't know what happened.

I couldn't let that happen, so I did as Saffron asked.

—-

I don't know how long I sat there for, but I wasn't snapped out of the stupor I was in till the familiar siren call of my table falling in on itself alongside the clatter of cutlery and cans.

The table had collapsed again, great.

It was then that I was able to look away from the mask, and look around me.

Things had changed, time had passed, and I had no idea how long.

The table, of course, had collapsed in on itself at the centre, the whole central plate that made up the surface had caved in, it was in large chunks. Those boiswood table legs were still in good condition, as always. You can't go wrong with boiswood once you've got it how you want it. They'd similarly fallen inwards and landed on the pile, albeit far more in-tact than the table surface.

I noticed it was a little darker than usual, nothing particularly close to black as pitch or anything, but enough to be noticeable. Must be getting late, so I'd probably been sitting here for an hour or two, days flew by fast in the Valean winters; you get maybe 4 hours of daylight at the best of times… some days you get no daylight… I'd heard from my father that this was something unique to Vale and the northern frontier; he hadn't seen it in Vacuo, Menagerie, or Atlas, although he never mentioned Mistral. Something about the moon being damaged and messing up how days worked on Remnant. Vacuo only got a couple hours of dark per day on average, they could have weeks without night sometimes, an exact opposite of Vale.

He mentioned once that Atlas days were really strange, and keeping track of time by the sky was practically a crap shoot. He said one day it was dark at 1pm, and the next day it was mere minutes to midnight. Father said that nobody really understood why it happened, none of his books that he has given to me over the years has understood why either. Father claims nobody knows the why, only that it seems to change with the moon's broken alignment.

I was getting off track, it was darker than usual but it was still the same blue-ish shade that would be expected for noon, just a lot dimmer than it should have been.

I also noticed that my right hand looked strange, it looked like I had suddenly gotten a rash over all of my right hand, the hand that was holding my mask up. I don't remember what I did to get that, but I didn't have it when I was eating earlier.

I pulled the sleeve of my right arm down, to see how far the rash goes down.

The answer was, shockingly, at my shoulder.

What in Oums name could possibly have rashed my entire arm, without a single speck that was less or more rashed than the rest? Rashes rarely spread completely evenly, especially not at this scale.

Perhaps father would know.

I stood from my chair to walk to his study, and hopefully get at least one nagging question answered today, but a sudden banging on the guest house door shocked me still.

This banging was excessively loud, like a Beringel was headbutting the door.

What the hell could possibly be at the door now? Nobody ever bothered to come here, let alone knock on the door.

"Jaune! What did you do to your sister? Open this door, Now!"

Ah. Mother.

Typically, whenever my mothers wrath came knocking I would respond by freezing up. I'd let her do what she had to do, and hope that by being as compliant as I could it would minimise the punishment.

Not today.

Today, I felt a rush like nothing else. Fear overshadowed by something far stronger, far more effective.

Drive.

I needed to get away from her, I had to get somewhere in the house she couldn't get me, anywhere that could buy me time. Seemed I'd be leaving this place long before I expected to need to leave, but I'd need a weapon first.

What could I possibly use as a weapon, father still has Crocea Mors and the other weapons were all in…

The study. With my father. Where I was already going.

Perfect.

All I needed now was an escape route, a way to get out of this building without her noticing, and get into the western wing where the study and presumably my father resided. I suppose smashing a wall in would work, after all I seem to be rather strong all of a sudden, and the boiswood table legs were sturdy enough and bulky enough to cleave through the overly thin walls pretty effectively, but it would be far too loud, mother would notice very quickly.

There was only one way in, the front door that my mother was now bashing in with as much force as her ageing body could muster.

I looked behind me, to the window concealed behind the blinds.

Correction, there was only one doorway in.

—-

The window shattered into hundreds of pieces as I hurtled through the glass pane to the outside world. It was loud, very loud, but far quieter than my mother clattering the door in.

I doubted she noticed that one.

I'd typically be rather concerned about flying through a window head first, but this was the guest house windows; they were single-panes of glass, the cheapest father could get. He was planning to replace them at one point, but when the guest house update was left behind in lieu of his work, by the time he'd gotten back and had the time to work the twins were already on the way, and the wing for the last of his children was focused on instead.

That being said, jumping through a glass window still hurt, but not as much as I really expected. In the movies it always looked easy, Spruce Willis would blow through a window while wearing nothing but a tank top and short-shorts and he'd come out unscathed, but I knew that wasn't exactly a one-to-one representation of reality.

I expected it would be the exact opposite, that the glass may require more force to break than just my head, or that the amount of glass I'd get embedded into my skin would be borderline comedic in volume. But the pain indicated that I didn't get much glass in me at all.

I wasn't exactly willing to take the moment to find out how bad the damage was.

I landed in a heap, and rolled over as quickly as I could. I was facing the western wing already, but just like in the guest house, there was no doorway that I could use, I'd have to use the door behind my mother, and she would no doubt see me walking past her. I was good at being quiet, but not that good.

It seemed the same solution as before was needed. I looked up at the sky when I noticed that the sky looked darker than it should've been, given how bright out it still seemed to be.

The moon was out, the sun was down, it was night. And yet I could still see far clearer than what was natural for a human.

It didn't matter. I had to keep running.

I charged at a window dead ahead of me, I was unsure which room was behind the glass but it really didn't matter all that much, so long as it got me into the wing quickly.

The glass once again shattered as I hurtled head-first into it. I landed on an overly soft carpet, it had to be new. The only room to get the carpet replaced would've been the room the twins stayed in.

The two young voices screaming definitely helped me figure that out.

I stood up again, this time noticeably slower and requiring a bit more effort than the last one did, and sprinted for the door ahead of me,and only when I barged the door open and swung to my right towards my fathers study did I notice that something was wrong.

The right side of my vision was blacked out, and I couldn't feel my right eye.

My face felt wet, and my shirt felt heavier than normal, like something was pulling it down, although I hadn't the slightest clue what could be causing that. I had my guesses about the wetness on my face, but checking that required time. Time I did not have.

It didn't matter. I had to keep running, no matter what.

I kept barreling down the corridor as fast as I could, I could see the door to fathers study down at the end of the corridor.

I was a few steps away when my right leg gave out under me, sending me hurtling chin first into the floor.

I was still conscious, which was more than I expected, and while I was expecting pain, I did not expect the pain to feel akin to a minor toothache rather than blunt force trauma directly to the jaw. In the moment, I could care less for what happened to my leg to make it collapse under me, I could faintly hear my mother shouting and the twins shouting at one another. I had to get through that door before she figured out what direction I ran in, the twins no doubt saw the direction I chose. I had to be fast, faster than I had ever ran in my life.

I tried to stand again but my right leg couldn't take any force at all, it gave out under any strain as if I'd had my achilles tendon snapped. It was a harrowing experience, knowing that time was running dry fast as my literal doom was no doubt on my tail after hearing the twins scream like a pair of wailing sirens.

I couldn't bring myself to look, there was no time.

I used every ounce of effort I had in my upper body to drag myself to the door, and I had to lurch myself upwards on my good leg to get the door handle down and push the door open.

Once I landed on the unfamiliar stone floor, I knew I was in. Father had replaced the old carpet with stone after it had burned, he'd set it himself after he grew paranoid about it. The fire changed how he treated this room, the fact I was even in here at all, let alone invited in by my father was staggering.

I heaved myself upwards and twisted to the right to face the way I came from, I had to slam the door shut before mother saw me in here, even if she wasn't allowed in here, she could just wait outside it.

I got a good view of the trail I had left behind, scarlet red trailing from a doorway at the end of the corridor all the way to this door, it thickened into a puddle a few metres from the door where I had collapsed.

I still couldn't bring myself to look at my legs, that sharp burning pain had been getting substantially worse since I had barreled through the second window , nor could I bring myself to paw at the eye that didn't seem to work anymore. My face felt wet, warm and wet.

I'll admit to fearing what I'll find when I stumble across a mirror.

"I did not expect this much commotion on your first visit, son."

I turned back to look deeper into the room, towards my father. It was unfamiliar, in every aspect.

The room was nothing like the rest of the house, not only were the floors made of rough cut stone, so were the walls, and the ceiling. Were it not for the intimidating cave like greys of the walls and floors, it was otherwise quite homely. The walls were adorned with wooden bookshelves, containing dense books on every shelf, filled to the brim with presumably the Arc-Allard legacy. There was also a series of display cases in various places across the walls, they contained weapons, none of which I could recognise beyond being weapons.

A warm fireplace in the centre of the wall across from me, spewing an orange glow throughout the whole room, and right in front of it were two overly grandiose chairs, more akin to thrones than chairs. In one sat my father, dressed in his usual garb and looking as dishevelled as usual, the other was empty, there was dust on it as if it hadn't been touched in years.

My father was reading a book, I couldn't make out a title or anything else to identify the book, however it looked thick and old, the pages seemed aged, almost crusty and browned with time. He closed it with care, a gentleness I was not aware he was capable of, and moved his gaze over to me.

"Honestly son, what could you have done to get your mother so enraged this…" My fathers tone was humorous up until his gaze cast over my body, at which point he froze, his speech stopped, his breathing stopped, everything.

We were staring at each other in an uncomfortably long silence, almost like we were stuck in time, it felt like aeons were passing with each bated breath.

My father stood from his chair with a start, and darted towards me, fury in his eyes.

His arms coiled around me roughly, pulling me with an unsurprising amount of force towards the fire that spat embers onto the cobble floor. I felt a strange pull from the fire, a surge of emotions that was… complicated, overly so.

The only way I could really describe it was that I simultaneously feared the fire and adored the fire. It was a strange feeling, even stranger was the itch developing in my jaw whenever I looked at the fire.

When father sat me aside the fire, he looked towards my now clearly injured leg, and analysed. There was a shard of glass stuck in my upper leg, or more accurately a blade of glass, long and razor sharp.

"Oum above, son… How did you even wind up like this? No matter, the wound isn't bleeding too badly, if we handle all the other glass first it eliminates all the other problems." Father explained, his tone clearly forced to stay calm, a surging fury condensed deep within.

Father reached for a large satchel attached to his belt at the rear, and de-attached the buckles keeping it restrained. When he sat it next to me and lifted the flap, it revealed medical supplies, perhaps too many of them.

I forgot my father often played medic, where required. Wasn't really brought up at the dinner table I never got to sit at.

He began patching my wounds, for each wound he would remove the glass shard with pliers then clean the wound with a cotton ball and alcohol.

Once he had the majority of the glass shards handled, he pulled a needle and a wire out of his satchel, a strange look glazed over his vision.

"This will hurt, son. There is no other way, these wounds need to stay closed."

Father reached back towards the wound he was working on, and paused.

"Something wrong, father?" I questioned. He had been frozen in place for several seconds.

"It's nothing, son." Father dismissed. The look in his eye was getting stranger, but I couldn't get a good enough look to figure out anything about what he was feeling. The room was illuminated purely by the fire behind me, it casted deep shadow over everything else, most of Fathers face was cascaded in deep blacks.

I could make out determination, that's all I could get from him.

Father placed the needle and wire back into the bag, he hadn't even used them yet. I figured it wasn't worth questioning while there was a metre-long chunk of glass embedded in my leg.

"Right, this will be difficult son, when I pull out this glass it will likely hurt, you'll have to bear with it. It will likely also start bleeding a lot, so I may need you to apply pressure to the wound." My father explained, his tone betraying the worry in his eyes.

I nodded back at him, and without so much as a second thought he yanked at the glass with all of his force, tearing the obstruction from the wound.

I was expecting blood, and clearly so was my father.

What he wasn't expecting was the wound to be bone dry.

Father's face got even more worried, his face twisted into a pained expression.

"What in the name of Oum…" Father muttered. He stuck out a finger, and prodded at the internals of the wound. He froze.

He stared into my eyes. Confusion, anger, and worry all combined into an amalgam of complex, swirling emotions.

"Why is it wood?"

I planned to at least try and say something, an attempt to ease his woes.

I didn't get the chance to, before my leg began twitching violently.

I looked down to my twitching leg, and my father followed suit. Of all the strange shit I had seen today, from my sister acting the exact opposite of her norm to the almost insatiable hunger that still had not left me, I had never expected this, and I don't think any human could have expected it either.

The wound was sealing itself, hardened fleshy strings rapidly wiring out from the edges of the wound and coiling into one another, before rapidly sealing the wound shut with a very noticeable squelch. It likely should have been excruciating… but it was oddly cathartic. Almost pleasant.

A moment of silence passed, the crackle of the fire being the only exception.

I looked to my father, panicking.

"Please tell me I just have a strange semblance."