The scarred man grabbed the child’s arm and roughly dragged him into one of the many small and dark alleyways branching off from the marketplace.

The man looked at the emotionless child with empty eyes and smiled sinisterly before dragging him further into the darkest patch of the alleyway.

“Umbra.”

The word seemed to worm it’s way out of the scarred man’s lips before the surroundings around the man and the child disappeared with a dark flash.

The duo reappeared on the deck of a gargantuan pitch black aeroship the size of a large town sailing above the sea.

There were hundreds of people dressed in black above deck, yet even with the sheer amount of sailors above deck, there was not a sound.

Even though the teleportation made no sound at all, every person dressed in black turned their heads simultaneously towards the two, causing the child to shiver unconsciously and the man to smile yet again.

“Bring me to Zero.”

One of the people dressed in black nodded and led them below deck, where there was no light whatsoever. The boy tripped immediately on the stairs once the door to the deck was closed, tumbling down painfully and eventually landing on a hard metallic surface, but even while nursing a sprained ankle, he heard the man yell out into the inky darkness of the hallway,

“One hour is all you need to find us. Any more and we will be only presenting your head to Zero instead of the rest of you.”

The child, heart thumping, raised his head in the direction of the man’s voice and limped rapidly towards the faint sound of footsteps he was hearing, putting the pain to the back of his mind.

The absence of light allowed the boy to fully focus his mind on his hearing that had never failed him so far in his short life. His pointed ears twitched and he then stood up and planted his hand on a wall.

He followed the wall until he found that the corridor split in two. He stopped for a few seconds, ears twitching again, and followed the right passageway.

As he continued doing the same things every time he felt a split in the passageway, following the scarred man’s footsteps. Unknown to him, a man in a dark cloak was watching him navigate the labyrinth through a crystal globe that revealed the powerful and clashing,

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The person under the cloak hoarsely whispered,

“Not badddd….He has the potential to become one of the numbered.”

The boy, following the man’s footsteps, eventually found himself nearing a doorway that the man had entered a few seconds before - he had heard a door open and close.

He stopped in front of the doorway and after seeing that no-one was letting him in, he allowed himself a timid knock on the door, not wanting to disturb anyone in the room, just like his mother used to tell him.

*Knock knock*

As soon as he knocked the door opened and the scarred man smiled at him yet again, causing involuntary shivers and his hair on the back of his neck to stand up on their ends.

“Come in, Zero wants you.”

The child entered an empty dark room with the only source of illumination being a shining crystal globe the size of a man’s head on top of a metallic desk.

Puzzled, the boy looked around for the person named Zero, before flinching back when he suddenly materialised right in front of him.

“Hello child.”

Zero’s hoarse voice caused fear in the boy at an instinctive level, causing the child to take a step back away from him.

Zero’s shadowed face shook from side to side.

“Not gooood. We can’t have an agent of Umbrrrra cowering in front of anyone. No no no. You disgusting child. Filthyyy. You’ve been tainted by the heathens in this accursed land. Youuuu are tainted. Mhmmm. Yesss. You will need to be broken down first before being given the honour of becoming one of our numbered, no matter your talent or bloodline.”

The child shivered at the raw insanity and passion in the person’s voice.

“Fakko. Take him to the rest of the prospectivvve apostlesssss.”

Fakko’s eyes widened imperceptibly but he still grabbed the child’s arm and teleported once again.

The boy and Fakko appeared at the entrance of a gargantuan room housing thousands of people who were talking, crying, shouting and in some cases, fighting. The moment they appeared, they were greeted by yet another black robed man.

“Greetings Ferryman Fakko. Welcome to room 106.”

“I’ve come to register a prospective apostle.”

The black cloaked man looked at the child and said,

“Are you sure we need such young livestock to temper our entrants?”

“He isn’t livestock. He is here to be broken down and then built back up in our image.”

“Interesting.” The black cloaked man looked at the child. “Well then. Thank you for the information Ferryman.”

Fakko stepped back into the shadows and teleported away.

The black cloaked man then grabbed the child and threw him into the throng of people, who all seemed to be teenagers or children, though none of them seemed to be below the age of 12. The boy landed hard, the breath blown out of his lungs as he tumbled a few times before finally stopping.

The man then rose up into the air, black wings bursting out of his back as he flapped them to bring him right above the entrants.

“Greetings entrants! I am number 10! You have all been selected to be part of our glorious syndicate, Umbra! We will be starting our first test in a few seconds!”

The boy looked around him, to see if anyone knew what the man was talking about but everyone looked as confused as him, if not even more distraught, with some of them crying their eyes out onto the floor, calling their parents.

The child was confused at that. Why would they want their parents there? He would do anything to not return to his cage back at home.

“The test will be starting now! You must now kill each other until I find that we have just the right amount of participants to move on!”

At that sound, everyone froze.

“I would like you all to know that you all need to kill at least one person or else you will be killed by me, and it won’t be quick.”

None of the children moved until a teenager who looked to be about 17, with a strong build and a cruel glint in his eyes, leapt onto a young child next to him, throttling him.

And then, chaos unfolded.