Oracion's POV

I had swung in an arc against this being dressed as any other human. Cleaving and leaving a trail of blood as a large chunk of his shoulder runs off his arm. He silently watches me, un-phased by the pain. I felt myself instinctively step back, it wasn't cause the figure left my sight or made a sudden move. 'The wind itself said it', I told myself. Kicking off of the stone in the opposite direction and towards where the wind whispers in my ear.

The others stare at me with confusion, one that didn't last long as within the place I once stood, was now this same man who was in front of me. A movement quick enough that nobody, not even my own eyes caught onto. "And they think you're normal?" He looks back at them, flicking off a piece of flesh he grazed from my hip like it was snot.

I can feel the cold sweat dripping through my clothes as droplets run across my entire body. This man wasn't human, I could testify to that much. My eyes run across him one more time, trying to examine him out of extreme curiosity. "The clothes?" He tugs on the torn pieces, smiling a bit as if reminiscing about something else entirely. "They aren't mine. In fact, I'm the one who tore them off those people." He tilts his head, gleaming his eyes at me with sadistic intent.

'Again...move' The wind within this enclosed space whispers, jolting my body to the left until I'm left on the edge of the dark from where he once emerged. My hasty movement surprising my own body, forcing a shitty landing that causes me to trip. 'Idiot.' I spit at myself.

"This was the man I waited so long for?" He calls from in front of me, crouching just out of my own unstable reach as he uppercuts my stomach, crushing what feels to be my ribs and causing me to soar across the room.

"SOMEONE ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!" Ira screams as the room darkens even more.

'Quite frankly, I couldn't give a fuck about the room's light anymore.' My mind finalizes while I pull the stone out of my flesh, a pain that would soon subside with the overwhelming amount of adrenaline pumping through me.

"Still alive?" I hear him mock from the centre of the room, still barely dancing between the light...avoiding it.

I hoped nobody could see my face as I dashed towards this man throughout the blinding night, bursting the wall of stone beneath me as I crash directly on top of him. Wrapping my hands around his throat, not wanting the reassurance of a human weapon...instead seeking the direct touch of his cold dead flesh against my fingertips. Sinking my nails deep within his throat before crushing his spine through his back with my knee and tearing through his skin to directly touch the bone.

"Oracion?" Freya asks while trying to guide herself using the lifeless gags of this thing between my hands. "Where are you?" She asks again.

His nails dig into me, scratching at the skin on my body in complete desperation, 'Not yet...don't come any closer' I think to myself, hoping for some reason that she'd hear me. 'I can't let her see me like this, I won't.' I pray, applying more pressure to hurry up the process and avoid her prying eyes on me.

The grotesque crack finally explodes within his body, shattering what bone was left and satisfying me. And along with it, his sad attempts to claw me off, fade.

"I'm here." I respond to her, wiping the blood off on my clothes before extending my arms out to hug her.

"Where'd he go?" Requis tries to confirm.

"Dead. Now let's answer this question and leave." I walk with Freya, avoiding where I placed the corpse that's hidden by the sheet of dark.

Ira repeats, "You're not the first, you're not the second, you're not the third, you're not the fourth or fifth and you're not the last, but you are one of these, which are you?" Trying to remind himself.

They begin conversing, vocals that I'm trying to listen for, but I can't. My body doesn't want to rest, and embrace what little comfort my friends are providing. For what overshadows their voices are small cracks and the sound of liquid, flowing backwards, undoing what has been done.

"What's wrong?" Freya squeezes herself against my chest to confirm that my muscles haven't relaxed.

"Does...anyone else hear that?" I ask, attempting to look back at where I left the body but of course, remain unable to see it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

'Can you not see it, or is it truly not there?' My head begins to race, looking across the room but unable to see absolutely anything. "Everyone speak, Requis." I call out.

"Here." She responds from where she's always been, assuming she replaced Freya and is carrying Akira.

"Freya!" I shout just to confirm.

"I'm here." She flicks my chest.

"-Ira" I call. Waiting three seconds, four, five...six. "Ira" I call once again.

"-er-e, or-cion" He weakly responds, his hand just barely touching the light as his body rests against the stairs up to one of the engraved walls.

I feel my body flare up with an unbearable heat, so much so that I want to tear my clothes off from the sheer amount of pain it's causing me. "If only your friends could see you right now." The same voice, the same fucking voice that I swear I heard the last of. "They'd surely be confused at who the monster is. You...or me?" He laughs with glee, tossing Ira's cold body to me.

'You killed Ira' I speak to myself, 'You killed your best friend, you did it, only you. How else could a dead man be talking to you?' I drop to my knees, holding his head and patting him down, feeling across his body but avoiding one spot in particular...his throat. Finally working up the courage, I place my hand across it. Feeling it completely intact but his pulse weak. I follow the vein down, eventually tracing a lump across his neck, one opened by two holes that run a sub-zero chill throughout his body, like Akira's.

"What. Did. You. Do." I demand.

"What happened to Ira!?" Requis screams, audibly drawing her sword just as the man's eyes melt into the dark.

"REQUIS!" Freya yells, dashing after her sister in hopes of defending her.

As I sit here, embracing my friend's dying body, I ponder what to do next. My breathing getting heavier, faster and cutting itself short at times. Both their swords ring as they try fighting him off, instead bashing against the environment and at times releasing a spark of light from the damaged metal, the one that enthralled the light. 'Pick, a weakened man or the lives of two vengeful warriors.' My thoughts begin to force me, ruling an ultimatum with each millisecond that passes as the reality becomes that more realistic.

A large boom resonates throughout the room, securing nothing but my worst fears as Requis screams her name, "FREYA!"

I tense my hand, gripping the stones between my fingers and drawing my boiling blood from my skin. A sensation that soothed the scratching within me but one that Ira wouldn't allow. He places his hand on my own, gently pushing me back as if already telling me his decision. "I'll kill him." I promise him. Removing my knees from his head and gently placing him against the floor.

"Requis, come to me." I demand. I hear her desperate footsteps attempt to reach me, they fall short but just enough for me to know where she is.

"He-re" She croaks, possibly within the man's grasp as she struggles to breath.

Finding my way to her, I grasp the nearest thing between her and what seems to be nothingness, a fight that these two weren't winning, no matter how good they were. I feel his familiar cold skin, crushing his grip of her hand and forcing him to drop her to the floor. "Go to Ira" I smile softly even though she can't see me.

He continues to speak, "A smile worn by a monster, one that they're blind to. Why is that-" I grab his jaw, driving my fist deep into his mouth until reaching the back of his throat, one that I thought was already broken to pieces. He avoids sticking his teeth into me, instead opting to accept my hold on him.

An idea hits me, urging me to suddenly slam his skull across the metal pillars that stick from the ground while he thrashes against my grasp, fighting far more desperately than last time. The metal that I failed to break with my sword, now chipping piece by piece, flicking bone, blood and spit against my face while revealing bits of light from inside that beam up to the ceiling. With each removed part, his body becomes more erratic, spastic like a bug.

I place his eye next to it, gripping between both his cheeks and crushing his nose so I can hear him speak. "Scared of the light?" I question him as his eye stares directly into it, searing up and burning like a roach under the magnified sun. I let go of him as he cries out in pain, holding onto his own eye from shock and annoyance.

"You drain the blood from my friends, you delude his mind, you return from the dead and you hide from the light. What the fuck are you!?" I shout at him.

"You're stronger than me...you're fast-er, but you're...human!? Riddle me that Oracion!" He yells back with a hiss. "We were here before you all!" He speaks, pissing me off with each vocal that leaves his mouth. Prompting me to re-grab him, slamming him back into the metal as more light releases, burning one side of his face off entirely. "THEY LEFT ME! THEY SAID IT WAS FEAR!" He ignores his cooked flesh, instead focusing all his attention to his next and final set of words.

"WE'RE NOT THE FIRST!" I slam him onto another point of metal, crushing and burning his remaining right eye.

"YOU AREN'T THE LAST!" Further, I drill his head into the metal, just enough to avoid his mouth so that his tongue can blabber on.

"VAMPIRES!? HUMANS!? WE'RE THE ONE OF MANY!" He belts through the room, lighting it up entirely as he rips what's left of his head free. Using the last fighting will inside of himself to point up to another engraving above all our heads, something that we had previously missed.

And as his body disintegrates into nothing more than a small pile of ash and torn clothing, I quickly divert my attention from the uninteresting death of this nameless vampire. The image shows three orbs, each glowing a slightly different hue as they circle a creature importunate to the world it flies above with its multiscale wings, covering the sky and shadowing the land in its graceful presence alone. Leaving one last text underneath the images, 'Comprised of sins, flesh and soul. Here lies those with a free mind, within a free body. The ones that enslaved themselves, to themselves. The Humans."