Brrrriiinnnggggg.

The tinny ringing of a bell echoed lightly through the bedroom of a sleeping young man, who twitched at the sudden noise, and drowsily blinked his eyes open. Slowly raising himself from under the duvet, he languidly rubbed a long arm over his sleepy brown eyes. He sat up, stationary, on his modestly arranged bed, for a few moments, before throwing off his covers, swinging his legs off the bed and standing swiftly in a single smooth motion. Taking a deep breath of too-warm air, he grimaced, before grabbing a pair of plastic glasses from the window sill, clumsily pushing them onto his tired face. As his vision cleared, he ambled over to the single window in his small bedroom, unlocked it with an unwieldy metal key, and threw it open, taking a massive, relieved breath of the mountain air. Rubbing his eyes one final time, he smiled lightly at the achingly beautiful landscape. Tumbling from the almost worn state of the boy's simple living space were a string of enormous mountains, extending high into the clouds. Among them sat a mighty city, hugged by huge walls of black stone and dark wood, on top of which a steady stream of guards circled around, observing the ground both within and outside of the city walls. Despite the somewhat medieval nature of the outskirts, the suburbs and centre of the city were filled with huge skyscrapers and a sprawl of brick housing, like that of the once modern world in which humanity lived. Green stretches of parks and trees were sprinkled generously throughout the entire space, and on every high-rise visible, glass windows sparkling in the sunlight, the proud insignia of a lightning bolt could be seen, stamped arrogantly on every major structure in the city. The picturesque beauty of the idyllic city brought a feeling of calm and peace to the eyes and hearts of those watching over the area, washing away any feeling of uneasiness caused by the reaching walls, which obscured any views of the outside world, where, lurking unknown to the general populace, a multitude of dangers - both human and monstrous - crawled darkly across the harrowingly utopian lands. The boy squinted his eyes against the spreading sunlight, which began to yawn achingly over the mountainous black walls, his eyes like pools of gleaming chocolate in the alluring rays of dawn. Despite the almost cartoonish brightness of his surroundings, the rising star in the distance still filled the city, and the boy's young heart, with inspiring, almost addictive warmth. The brief flicker of a crooked smile lit the young man's face for an imperceptible moment, before sinking into the emotionless visage of the disillusioned. The embers of the smile remained, glowing softly, on his youthful face, but his eyes were still as water, and hard as ice. Turning his head lightly towards the left, he locked his eyes onto the chilling image of a boundlessly imprisoned flock of people below his ramshackle room. He recalled the distant memories of the house in which he lived, in a remote and delightfully free area, empty and safe from the piercing gaze of a judging society, and false security, and bleak walls. He remembered the love of warm parents, and the lull of a simple life within a harrowing household, both protective and encouraging. He missed the sweat of true work, not just the endlessly mind-numbing farce of employment encouraged within the walls of the city. He longed for the intensity of a life of activity, instead of the cosmopolitan life of passivity, and the rapacious, snatching nature of the modern world. He yearned for a life on the edge, a life filled with electric excitement, of running, and a life of blood, and tears. He dreamed of a life of combat, where he alone could face the adversity of a battle of flesh, instead of the lazy magic of his day and age. And as he remembered, his mind grew dark, and sullen, and his eyes clouded over with the storm of discomfort and anger. He smiled wider, without his dark, brown eyes, and with a relaxed sigh, promising of utmost contentment, and with a listless arm, riddled with skin-crawling, cross-hatching scars, he shut the window in a single pull, slamming it with just a little too much force. The young man turned, suddenly tired again, and pulled on a black wool jacket over a faded long-sleeved shirt, followed by a pair of ragged, studded jeans, and finally a pair of mean-looking grey leather boots. He turned to the cracked mirror beside his bed, and stared intensely into the eyes of the gaunt, fifteen-year old reflection, chestnut-coloured skin pulled thinly over the drawn face of the boy within. Reaching slowly into the air in front of him, his eyes hardened and his face stiffened with effort as he painfully extended his arm into the space near the mirror, eyes sparking with a flash of deep, icy blue...

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...and pulled, from the empty air in front of him, in a little swirl of greyish mist, a primitive necklace, which he immediately pulled onto his long neck with firm determination, clasped with an old bronze ring, and adorned with three disturbing items, especially for the modern day: a ridged bone tooth, curved wickedly and sharply gleaming despite its pale dullness, a smaller blue-grey fang, ending in a blunt point, and finally, a scarlet shard of faintly glowing crystal, which released a chilling aura, like the cold of a bleak and bitter winter. The odd items were fastened to the rope-like string around the young man's throat with bindings, like bandages, of a supple brown wood, which in turn released an aura of gentle warmth, mitigating the frigid energy created by the unsettling shard of red crystal.

Outfit complete, the boy smiled genuinely and brightly into the mirror, pulling his lips and eyes into the facade of an innocent, easygoing grin, and promptly exited his humble room, throwing the shaky oaken door open and shutting it in one go, the brass doorknob rattling sadly and the old hinges creaking protestingly, unheard to the scarred young man, who stepped out into the corridor, and was instantly tripped by the outstretched foot of a fair-haired, sturdily built older boy, which was the unfortunate final image of the recently awoken young man, whose head slammed into the ground with a light crunch, spraying blood into the rickety floor of planks.