We waited until dark to head out. All three of us sat quietly in the cellar, listening to the screams of the people above. Mother had already made her way out of the bookstore and out onto the streets. I prayed to the Almighty that she made it to the Refuge safely. Watching her leave made me feel guilty. Here we were, Gauss, Deborah, and I, just sitting in a cold cellar while people were being slaughtered above us.

I could have asked Gauss why we weren’t above helping those in need but I knew what he would have said. He would have told me that I wasn’t ready. He would have told me I needed more training. However, this isn’t what I wanted to hear and so I kept quiet. Sure, I couldn’t take on an army of demons but I could hold my own! There was a lot of space in this cellar, couldn’t we go up and bring down a few families?

About two hours into the silence, after I had had my fair share of screams from above, I was just about to charge up the stairs when Gauss stood up suddenly, announcing it was time to go.

I walked over to Deborah and offered her my shoulder but she refused. She rolled her own shoulders and bent her torso left and right. She was completely healed. This got me thinking… being that I used demonic power to heal her would this have any future repercussions on her health? I prayed not.

The two large windows at the storefront of the bookstore were completely demolished. Books were thrown everywhere, their pages coated in three or four coats of blood. I didn’t notice Pom-Pos’ body at first, my eyes set on the red floor when Deborah nodded her head to the wall.

There was the headless Pom-Pos. He was attached to the wall by three sharpened nails running through each of his limbs. His arms and legs were stretched outward in the shape of a star, but, being that there was no head, a bloody star point was drawn. At his feet were thirteen black candles lit. I couldn’t help but gag and had to turn my face. I was pretty sure I could smell his gore.

Gauss turned and shushed me, his finger to his lips as he used his other hand to quietly open the door. The outside wasn’t much better than the inside. The cobblestone ground was drenched in dark blood which had dried from the sun. With every step I took, I heard the stickiness of the carnage below me which had my stomach trying to force me to gag again.

No demons were in sight but neither were there any people, alive people that is. There was plenty of innards and body parts but I kept my head facing forward, refusing to look down. My ears perked at the sound of screams far away. A morbid thought popped into my head letting me know that the coast was clear… for now.

It took me longer than I expected to get my bearings straight. I had Deborah lead me to Auracle’s main river, the river I had made my second kill, and it was there that I was able to lead us back to my old home. All three of us had our weapons in hand, our eyes looking for anything and everything that moved. I must have looked pretty funny to them from behind as I was flinching every few seconds. However, after looking back at them, I could see they were acting the exact same way.

We were about a block away from the chapel when the inevitable happened. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and still, it was not enough to catch sight of the black demon which had attached itself to one of the buildings. It had waited until I was perfectly in front of it before it attacked.

It felt as though I had been struck by a large horse. In the corner of my eye, I caught sight of its flapping black wings before it slammed its feet into my rib cage. The next thing I knew I was flying sideways where I crashed through the glass of the opposite building.

My eyes and mouth were both closed tight to keep the glass out. After the commotion died down, I opened one eye at a time. Then, the pain came. I wasn’t able to breathe and the whole left side of my body was on fire. I whirled my head around looking for my spear but it was no where to be seen. I must have dropped it outside.

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As quickly as I could, I stood up, my demon hand out in front just in case the demon was ready to come and finish the job. For some reason, I couldn’t help but open my mouth and roar and doing so made both of my horns itch.

Looking out the window, I saw the demon coming for me. It was walking upright, its long wings attached to both its legs and its arms. Its body was surprisingly human which chest and stomach muscles. It’s face held a long beak that was coated in blood that had blackened from the sun. I could see its eyes from here and I watched as they flicked from my demonic arm to the horns on my head. It was calculating whether or not I was worth it... still, it walked with a confident air.

And in half a second, the demon’s head was gone. One slice from Gauss’ sword and the head was rolling away, it’s beak opening and closing as it tried its best to scream. Deborah jumped through the window, now offering her own shoulder to me.

“Are you okay?”

“Just dandy,” I said, trying to refuse the shoulder but as soon as I tried to take a step I felt my whole left side erupt again with pain. It would take some time for my hellish blood to heal this wound and so I accepted her offer.

“I was this close to killing it,” Deborah said with a smile, holding two fingers out in front of her, the space between them was minimal. “Then we would have been even.”

“No way, you would still owe me,” I said, a little delirious from the pain

Gauss shushed us again and I couldn’t help but feel like this was my first real mission. I’d read about this kind of stuff before in the library back at the Refuge. It didn’t matter whether or not a soldier was wounded during a fight with a demon. The mission always continued no matter what.

The face of the chapel made my heart hurt. It was in complete ruin, much more so than it usually was. Where there once was two large swinging doors was no more. All the painted glass windows were gone, either broken or stolen and the smell coming from within was terrible. It smelt as though something had died inside.

And that’s exactly what had happened. There were two homeless people laying on the ground, one with a slit throat and the other had a broken bottle stuck in his gut which was probably the same weapon that had slit the first throat. On the edges of the room where abandoned sleeping beds and cooking equipment.

It was nice to know that the church had been used to house some of Auracle’s forgotten people but… a murder in the Almighty’s home? That was uncalled for. Could this place ever be brought back from the dark state it was now in?

“The altar,” Gauss said, walking past me and stepping over the two dead people. Deborah and I followed but we were sure to give the corpses a wide birth.

“What are you going to do?” I asked him, the pain in my ribs starting to subside. I was able to let go of Deborah who kept her eyes on me to make sure I was okay.

Gauss answered me by putting his foot on the top of the atar and front kicking it as hard as he could. The altar, being an ancient structure with lots of history, exploded into hundreds of spinters as it flew forward.

“What the hell are you doing?! Do you know what you just did?!”

“None of this matters anymore, Ira. Lives are at stake and I have no time to fiddle with objects that hold no soul.”

I raised a finger to object but the dusty book lying on the floor where the altar once stood made me shut my mouth.

“This… I can’t believe the stories were true,” said Gauss, dropping to his knees and bowing to the book.

Deborah and I looked at each other before following suit. We kneeled beside Gauss and bowed our head. Our mentor of arms said a small prayer and, with one shaky hand, flipped open the front cover.

Then, nothing.

I peeked open an eye and saw that Gauss still had his eyes shut. He was mumbling something. After a few minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was just about to ask him what the heck he was doing when the man toppled forward, his head slamming into the front page of the book and getting sucked inside.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed, trying to grab the man’s shoulders but it was no use, the book was too strong!

Before Deborah and I knew it, Gauss had been distorted in such a way that the book was able to pull half of him in. Then… he was gone.

Deborah looked at me, her eyes wide with fear.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get him back!” I cried, shoving my hand into the book and just like Gauss, my hand slid right through.

The other side was cold and I could feel a breeze. I tried to pull my hand back but found that I couldn’t. Deborah was there, trying to hold me back but again it was no use! Within a second my head and body were sucked into the book. I opened my mouth to scream but I wasn’t able to…

I couldn’t breathe.