As Mom’s white wings came out from the soldier’s body, I wondered what the reason for his death was. At the same time, it was my first time seeing the murder of someone up close like that and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I wanted to talk to Mom about it but one look at her face let me know that now wasn’t the time.

It was a face that I hadn’t really seen before.

Is that what a demon truly looked like? Not that her face looked really different, it just felt more...scary.

Back home, everyone had been honest about who my mother was along with some of the realities of this world. Nina had explained that most people hated my mother and the things that she had done. Even Mom easily shared stories of destruction and despair. Concepts that I didn’t quite understand until now.

With everything that my family had taught me, I wasn’t quite sure what was right and what was wrong but my mom had taught me the world wasn’t black and white. She told me that there were all shades of colors and that I needed to decide for myself what colors I liked the most.

The analogy didn’t make sense to me at first but I realized that everyone has different perspectives. Lukas had mentioned a grey area where right and wrong blended together but I liked Mom’s explanation more. Things sounded prettier that way.

What resonated with me the most was when I told her that I was confused about who I was supposed to be. My uncle and aunt were adventurers. My mom was a feared demon. Tania...I wasn’t too sure about. Other than finding out where I had come from and seeing the world more, I wasn’t sure what all I was supposed to do.

She looked at me with caring eyes and told me, “Just do whatever you feel is right. People like to put us in categories but that puts a fake box around us telling us what we can and can’t do. Would a demon have raised a child like I did? That sounds crazy right? But that’s what I decided on doing. So rather than worrying about that, do what you want to do.”

I had decided then that I wanted to be with my mom for a while longer. That I didn’t want to be abandoned by her no matter what. Because she could understand the best what I was going through.

And until I had a better idea of what my place in the world was, I wanted to remain with the person that had taken care of me. The demon that I called Mom.

“A demon you people like to call Amethyst is asking,” Mom said into the yellow helmet.

“1st Sergeant?”

“No ones shittin you, Captain.”

A brief pause.

“We haven’t found it yet. Things got real busy around here plus we lost comms with a couple of our squads including the Prince’s when this whole thing broke loose.”

“Figures I was hoping for too much,” muttered my mother.

“What do we do now Mom?” I asked.

I caught the soldier looking back and forth briefly between my mom and I, to which I responded with a shy smile. Mom then turned towards the soldier.

“Give me your helmet,” she ordered the soldier.

After a slight hesitation, the soldier took off his helmet, revealing a tired looking man with short blond hair and a scar running down the right side of his face. I studied his appearance for a moment before realizing that I shouldn’t stare at people like that. My curiosity had gotten the better of me.

Mom took the helmet and I jumped a little as both helmets shattered in her hands.

“We don’t have time to be distracted by useless humans.”

The man looked a little concerned for a moment but didn’t say anything.

At that point, four of Mom’s undead soldiers came back holding two aggressive children and one adult male while the other undead had returned to a closer distance in order to keep us safe. They must have been pretty good since all of them had come back.

Looking closer at the people they had captured, their facial expressions seemed rather freaky. It didn’t seem fitting especially for children and it saddened me.

Mom went up to the adult first...and took off his head. A black mist began to come out from the body as it fell to the ground. I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything recently as my stomach started to feel upset. Also, I really hoped these people weren’t family...

“Make sure not to get closer to this black stuff,” she warned me. “It doesn’t look like any form of magic and I don’t sense anything from it. I wonder if it's what's causing them to act this way or if it's just a symptom…try using your healing ability on the other two.”

I nodded with determination and set to work. Even if everyone else had perished, even if Lukas and Nina were truly gone, I wanted to at least help these little kids. Having not healed anyone before made me nervous though.

Concentrating on manipulating my mana, my hands began to glow slightly as I focused on restoring the two to their normal selves. It was going well at first as I could feel whatever was affecting them start to disappear but then it started to fight back. I didn’t know how to describe it but I started to panic.

I wanted it to work.

I didn’t want to fail.

Tears started to form in my eyes at the realization that I might.

“Helia, try focusing on just one first.”

Hearing my mother’s advice, I concentrated my effort on just one of the children. Whatever it was still fought back but I could feel it weakening and then it went away. The little girl slumped in the arms of the undead for a brief moment before starting to stir.

“W-here am I? W-who are you?” she asked timidly.

“I’m Helia. Do you feel ok?”

“My head hurts but I think so.”

I turned towards Mom with a smile and to my surprise she had a small one too.

“Good job. Go ahead and do the other.”

Healing the other kid was a little easier than the first one but I was still relieved that it worked. Turns out the two were siblings and were relieved that they were together. As soon as they saw the body on the ground though, they both screamed. Thankfully, after they calmed down a bit, they said they didn’t recognize who it was.

Mom had unfurled her wings to shield the kids from seeing the fighting around us. As long as they didn’t turn around, they wouldn’t see anything scary.

“Do you two happen to know where the scary demon is?”

“I know. She’s at the church!” the boy said.

“Yea. The scary girl’s at the church,” replied the girl.

“And how do you two know?” Mom continued.

“The priest started acting funny so we followed him-.”

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“We saw him with her!”

“-and then she saw us and I don’t remember what happened next.”

“What does she look like?” I interjected. I really wanted to know because I didn’t think my mom looked scary. At least when she wasn’t mad.

“She doesn’t have a face.”

“Just a big scary mouth.”

“We’re gonna go take care of her ok?” Mom interrupted.

“How the hell did they-”

Turning to the soldier, she said “Kids often notice things others do not. Anyways, you stay here and protect these two, got it?”

“Uh...sure.”

“That’s reassuring. Helia, let’s go.”

She took off into the sky and I followed her up. Glancing back, I saw the kids stare up in awe as the soldier tried to move them elsewhere. I wondered why Mom took the time to ask them but there was a more important question to ask.

“Is the demon really going to be at the church?”

“They may have moved but since it hasn’t shown itself yet, it’s the best lead we got so far.”

The fighting continued down below but there were significantly less soldiers still fighting, though the ones that remained seemed to have gotten into a good defensive strategy. There were less corrupted people too.

I hoped Lukas and Nina were ok; it still made me feel depressed thinking that they may be gone for good. The thought of other people dying down there bothered me a little as well but hopefully once we took care of this demon, things would be alright. There was no way I was going to sit around and sulk; I was gonna do something about it.

We reached the church and initially I thought Mom would just punch right through the roof of the church or something but she landed at the entrance to the building. There were about 12 corpses of yellow soldiers littered about and Mom raised them all. Sometimes I wished I had that cool ability but I learned quickly that I wasn’t able to do everything.

“Guard the entrance. I don’t want any distractions.”

“As you wish.”

“Helia, I can go in alone if you want?”

“No, I want to do this together.”

She nodded and carefully opened the door. Entering right behind her, I was awed by a colored glass that adorned the back of the church. I knew I should have been paying attention to other things but I hadn’t been to very many places. The red glow from Mom’s dome provided a little light but it was pretty dark otherwise.

Nothing seemed out of place, or so I thought.

It looked like there was more than just this room with benches and the raised platform towards the back, as there were additional openings in the back and I remembered it was more than one story. There was a musical instrument in the corner as well; an organ, I think. Creepy music would definitely have fit the atmosphere.

Mom was already walking cautiously forward and I followed her, making sure not to make any noises but she suddenly turned around yelling, “Run!”

I could tell she tried to get back to me as quickly as she could but all I felt at that moment was the sudden impact of something hitting my back and punching through my chest. The force of whatever had penetrated my body sent me flying. It had already exited my body before I had even hit the wall.

Intense pain, the likes of which I had never felt before, overcame my mind. Not only was it painful, I could also feel a powerful burning sensation around my chest and it was hard to breathe. I tried to scream as I couldn’t think of anything else but I coughed up blood instead.

I wanted my mother and I wanted her to make the pain go away. I wanted her near me. But she wasn’t there.

That brief distraction from the pain allowed me to finally notice what was going on.

Some parts of the ceiling fell and I noticed part of the wall collapse. I could feel the building shake as if a powerful earthquake was happening. That’s when I saw a being that looked like a human woman. She had straight, long brown hair that covered a good portion of her face and was wearing a white dress shirt that was unbuttoned at the top. Only thing that made her obviously inhuman was the horrid smile plastered on her face and her sharp jagged teeth.

And nothing else but that smile was on her face.

Still writhing in pain, I was able to watch as my mother and the demon danced a terrible dance of destruction. Both were incredibly fast, dodging and weaving within the interior of the church but their attacks often tore up another part of the building. The demon was able to elongate and stretch parts of her body with such power and at breathtaking speeds, I realized then that she had punched right through me. Mom truly had no time to help me.

That’s when even with everything going on, I became truly scared. Scared not because I thought I was going to die or because of the other demon.

I was scared because Mom’s wings had turned from white to a crimson red and I didn’t know what it meant.

Unleashing a wave of red feathers, the other demon managed to evade most of them except for the few that sliced her otherwise unmarred face. The rest of the feathers dug deep into the ceiling, bringing that part of the ceiling down.

Launching herself off the ceiling, the demon attempted to close the gap and stretched both arms out, coming at my mother from multiple directions. She didn’t stand still though as she went straight for the demon rather than dodging it’s attacks. Her foe tried to maneuver out of the way but Mom corrected her path, giving the demon a rather nasty trio of cuts in the side. Mom gave it no respite as she sent a small but powerful fireball at it, as the demon tried to recover from hitting the floor. It managed to dodge the fire as the surrounding benches were set ablaze.

Lady luck wasn’t with it for long as Mom predicted how it was going to move. This time, her magic struck the other demon dead on, electrocuting it with a lightning spell.

Meanwhile, I could feel my injury start to close up. While the pain and the burning sensation still remained, it was starting to become more bearable. I tried to get up yet I was still too weak and fell back to the floor.

Watching the two again, the lightning spell had only stunned the demon briefly but it was long enough for Mom to send her claws into the demon’s chest while simultaneously lopping off its head.

I thought that things would be over but I was terribly wrong.

She grabbed both the body and the head of the demon, flying straight through the ceiling. Unfortunately, the building had already taken substantial damage and the entire top section of the building started to collapse. A part of the building fell towards me so I used the strength that I had left to raise my left wing over me to try and deflect some of the rubble. Another wave of pain enveloped me as I could feel my wing buckle from the impact and then finally crumple but I had managed to keep the bulk of it from smashing me.

My chest still burned and my wing was now broken. I was determined to get back up. I had to find out where Mom went.

Slowly getting to my feet, I heard the terrifying noises of explosions, the screams of men and women, and the sounds of collapsing buildings. Looking down, I saw the remnants of a fist sized hole in my chest and I wondered how I had survived that.

Despite how I felt, I put one foot in front of the other, leaving the debris and getting a better view of what was happening.

I almost immediately wanted to go off somewhere and hide as dead bodies of all types littered the streets. Most of the buildings were on fire or had collapsed while some of the tanks that the yellow soldiers had been using lay in various states of ruin.

In the distance I could hear more death and destruction. I didn’t know why Mom was doing this but I wanted to see her and let her know I was going to be ok. The problem was that I was unable to fly till my wing healed and I didn’t think I could chase after her on foot.

Not knowing what to do, my mind went to the two kids that I had saved earlier and I started to run, only for the pain to remind me that I couldn’t though I still went as fast as I could. Passing by countless bodies and piles of debris, making constant turns and occasionally backtracking, I raced towards the area where I thought they may be.

Finally spotting a couple of the undead soldiers outside a mostly intact house, I made my way over and they each gave me a short bow.

“Where are the kids, have you seen them?”

“They’re inside along with the other.”

“Where are the rest of the undead at?”

“Making sure that nothing gets in the mistress’ way.”

I didn’t think my heart could take any more details than that for the moment. Not knowing where Lukas and Nina had gone off to, my mother’s rampage through the village, and the injuries I had sustained earlier were enough for me.

Entering the house, I found the blond hair soldier staring blankly out the window and the siblings huddled in the corner. Part of the house had collapsed but the living room they were in was intact. I put on the best smile that I could and walked over to the two kids.”

“H-Helia! What happened to you?”

“Helia, we’re scared.”

“I’m scared too. We can be scared together.”

“Can I play with your feathers?”

“You can touch the ones over here but my other wing is hurt so please don’t touch that.”

“Me too!”

I cried silently as they stroked and played with my black feathers, we stayed huddled in silence. Occasionally the ground would shake and we would hear the occasional sound yet the kids seemed comforted by my presence.

It didn’t take long for that silence to get broken though.

“So if you’re her daughter, why aren’t you out there going all berserk?” the soldier breathed.

“I’m...adopted,” I admitted.

He started laughing maniacally and said, “You’re joking right? Why would someone like her adopt anyone?”

“And why would someone like her leave someone like you alive?” I snapped.

“Oh believe me, I’ve been wondering that ever since you two woke me up from my cat nap.”

“How about I kill you now and you can stop wondering about it?”

“Like mother, like daughter,” he cackled. “But you may want to table that for later.”

He gestured towards the kids and I looked down at them. They had fallen asleep curled up in my wing. All I could do was glower at this blond man who had decided to push my buttons as I didn’t want to wake them up. Even though I hadn’t slept in awhile, I remembered how much I hated being woken up.

Some time passed in silence and the red glow from outside disappeared, leaving only the quiet glows of fires burning into the night.