As Paul's driver hustles me along through the gloom of an early dusk, I can't help but cast nervous glances at the shadows looming all around us. Could there be someone lurking about in the darkness right now? The vision I just experienced shouted an unambiguous yes. Yet how far could I trust the ego bleed?

The dark thoughts. That intruding stream of consciousness which overwhelms me whenever I blank out thanks to ego bleed. Being able to take advantage of the information gleaned from the visions was one thing, but the dark thoughts raised a troubling possibility.

The possibility that I'm not actually experiencing memories of my previous incarnations. The sensations, the emotions carried with the ego bleed are simply too alien to me. I can't imagine living life as a total mute. Or even having the power to freely manipulate my body in the way experienced in the visions. I experimentally flex my hand, half expecting my fingers to start peeling away like errant fibers.

No changes to my body. Nothing. My hand's perfectly normal.

"Hurry up." an urgent hiss interrupts my reverie and for an instant my mind flips back to the mystery woman directing me in the vision. I stumble and my eyes line up with a single word stamped in capital letters.

EVIL

"Evil?" I murmur, an irrational fear coursing down my spine. A nonsense word that means nothing. Just like the nonsense words flashing on the screen mounted at the gantry.

ARE YOU AWAKE?

AWAKE?

EKAWA UOY REA?

A warm sensation brushes my skin followed with paralyzing numbness. Its happening again. I feel my mind begin to buckle under the onslaught of dark thought. Opaque clouds churn in my head and I grit my teeth, hoping to ride this next episode out when -

"Wake the fuck up." a sharp pain lances through my scalp as my head is bent at an uncomfortable angle.

Its the driver, tugging at a fistful of my hair. It hurts but the pain does a really good job of exorcising the intruding presence.

"My name's Nevil." the driver whispers, "If you're done babbling about my damaged nametag, can we keep moving?"

"Nice to meet you, Evil." I slur out, trying to unjumble my thoughts, "My name's Robert."

"Smartass." Evil grumbles and slaps me hard on the back, driving away the last of the cobwebs infesting my brain, "Pull yourself together."

"What, what's going on?" I manage to wheeze out before slumping on a nearby wall. We're in the network of small side streets servicing the industrial area and I can see Paul's limo parked discreetly nearby. Or as discreetly as can be managed for such an ostentatious machine. Evil, sorry, Nevil must have some serious skills to wrangle the massive limo into such a narrow alley without getting any dings or scratches.

"Bad things." Nevil glumly replies, wiping his face with a handkerchief in an oddly familiar manner, "The master's gone inside the warehouse by himself. Told me to wait outside."

"Hold up." my breath catches as I remember the recent vision, "Is by chance Carl inside the warehouse with Paul?"

"Ah yup." Nevil smooths out his slicked hair, "The challenge came from that bastard Carl himself. Said he had something the master was willing to fight over. So here we are."

"God damnit." I groan out at this latest complication. Nevil's the bringer of bad, though not completely unexpected news. It would have been far too optimistic to expect Carl not to retaliate after what happened at Rutger's, even if Paul was not personally involved in the attack.

"So here's what we're going to do." Nevil continues without missing a beat, "I'm going to drive you to a safe location. And you're going to stay there until the master sorts things out with Carl. Savvy?"

"No way. I'm not going to sit on my thumbs while the boss is in danger." I rebut, thinking back to how Paul has been supporting me ever since the attack at Rutger's. Paul never wanted to be our gang leader but he did step up for me when I needed it.

"Master can look after himself." Nevil answers flatly, "Doesn't need us getting in the way."

"Aren't you an employee of Wyvern Security?" I jab at the nametag clipped on the Nevil's black jacket. The "N" on the tag might have faded away but I can still see the insignia of the Wyvern Conglomerate embossed by the side of Nevil's name.

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"I am, yes." Nevil looks uncomfortably away from me.

"So shouldn't you be doing security stuff instead of hiding away out here?" I demand and Nevil's face twists into a grimace.

"Master sent the entire security team away this morning." Nevil explains, "I've asked the office to scramble backup but no one's arrived so far."

"What happened to the knights that were supposed to replace you guys?" I recall what Sara told me earlier, "Where are they now?"

"Don't know. Miss Yvonne was supposed to fetch them," Nevil sighs exasperatedly, "but we regular security were kept out of the loop. The only thing I know is master suddenly ordering me to drive him here as quickly as possible."

"Meaning something has probably happened to Yvonne as well." I ball my fists in distress, alarmed at how fast things were escalating.

"Eh, most likely." Nevil agrees with a broad shrug, "You see why I need to get ya out of here right now?"

"I'm not going to cut and run while Paul's in danger." I begin heading back in the direction of the warehouse, "You're welcome to leave by yourself."

"Wait, wait, wait." Nevil hurriedly grabs me by the shoulder, "You don't know what you're getting yourself into. This isn't a schoolyard fight. You're way out of your league, Robert."

I stop dead in my tracks, the seriousness of the situation beginning to sink in. Nevil's right, this isn't fight club. I'm swimming in deep, hostile waters here.

"You're a professional right?" I urge Nevil in return, "Our chances would be better if we worked together."

"Burke had plenty of people working with him the other night." Nevil huffs, "He still ended up dead. That's the kind of situation we might be dealing with here, Robert. This isn't a game."

And with that single rebuttal, Nevil sucks the wind right out of my sails. The memory of Burke being sent flying through the air by Carl during the Rutger's attack quickly resurfaces. Carl utterly destroyed Burke. And Burke was far stronger than me.

"How long before your backup gets here?" I murmur to Nevil. Hopefully the cavalry isn't too far off and Paul can hold out until then.

Nevil pulls out his phone and swipes through the alerts with a worried expression on his face.

"Ah really can't tell. This entire district seems to have been locked down by the police. Or at least that's what the office is saying."

"How convenient." I note sourly, "No wonder we're the only two people wandering about in the entire neighborhood."

"I'm actually surprised you managed to make your way to the warehouse." Nevil comments, "You should have been caught up in the lockdown. How'd cha slip past the police?"

The uncomfortable feeling in my gut returns with a vengeance as I have no reasonable answer for Nevil. I was stumbling about completely mind blasted from the ego bleed. There's no way I would have been able to tie my own shoelaces in that state, never mind evading the police. Thankfully, Nevil is distracted by his phone buzzing angrily away to pursue the issue with me any further.

"An update on the situation?" I ask hopefully. Maybe the backup Nevil requested is almost here.

"There's been a report of a hazardous chemical leak." Nevil's face goes pale, "Somewhere in the warehouse area. That's why the district's been locked down."

"I didn't notice anything like that so far." I shake my head in disbelief, "Everything around us is as normal as can be."

"There's no one in the district now," Nevil's voice is nervous and I can see beads of sweat form on his forehead, "We need to get to one of the emergency shelters, that's where the workers would have evacuated to."

"The shelters? Weren't those built ages ago?" I play nervously with the buttons of my shirt, "They're still operational?"

"Built during the days rifts would open up in the middle of the city." Nevil explains in a rush, "Thanks to the warding pillars those days are over. But the city still pays for the upkeep of the shelters."

Nevil's eyes lock on to a stele towering over the various low rise buildings surrounding us. Cables are plugged into the stele, feeding it with the electricity needed to keep the warding runes active. The runes glow with lambent blue light, exerting an invisible pulse preventing a new rift from taking root in its vicinity.

Despite the stele's imposing appearance, it was a delicate construct. A fuse blowing or a power outage would cause the runes to fail. And that could lead to a rift tearing open right in the middle of the neighborhood. It wasn't a likely occurrence though, after all each stele were fitted with backup generators and other fail safes to prevent such a catastrophe from happening.

"Nobody wants to take their chances on a warding pillar shutting down." Nevil pockets his phone and begins walking away, "So the shelters should be secure enough."

So an evacuation had occurred in the district. Leaving Nevil and I by ourselves. As the sun continues to set, the shadows grow longer, grasping outward like extended claws. And I remember an important piece of information from my vision.

Whatever is lurking in the shadows will be "force ejected" if there are too many people around.

And thanks to the evacuation of the district, this problem has been conveniently solved.

Its here. That "thing" that was watching the warehouse in my vision, it has to be still up and about in this iteration of the purge cycle. Why else would a bogus evacuation be called? There's been no sight or sound of a chemical leak so far.

"C'mon, we need to get out of here." Nevil urges, "We won't do the master any good if we keel over from being poisoned."

Leaving with Nevil would be the smart thing to do, even though I don't believe for a second that a chemical spill occurred. Just by being around other people in the shelter would be the best form of security against the thing lurking in the darkness. I bite my lip struggling with my conscience.

And then a stark cry pierces through the gloomy evening.

"Noooooo!"

"Sara!" my heart jolts and the decision is made.

"Robert! Wait!" Nevil calls back in alarm, "Where're you going?"

I'm past caring about whatever excuses Nevil has for sitting this fight out. I double back to the warehouse, sprinting as fast as I can. My friends need me.

That's all that matters.