“Good morning m’lady,” I greet, unable to resist smiling back.

“Good morning. Come on, the others are waiting.”

I follow her to the car and go in after her. In the front seats of the car are Brian and another guy I am unfamiliar with, while at the back, apart from Cassandra are Diane and another girl who I sometimes see with Cassandra but whose name I do not know.

“Hey everyone,” I greet as I settle down beside Cassandra. A chorus of heys and what’s ups reply to me. Then the next moment I hear Diane exclaim.

“Holy shit, Ian. What the hell have you been doing? You look fit as hell!”

“Thanks,” I say, flashing her a smile. “I’ve been working out a bit.”

“It’s definitely more than a bit. Dang.”

We continue chatting as Brian starts the car and drives away. I had expected to spend most of the car ride silent since I would be in the company of mostly strangers, but Diane’s presence completely changes everything. As she talks she makes sure to include everyone, including me. As a result, I spend the rest of the ride conversing with a group of mostly strangers as though we had been close friends for a long time.

Almost too quickly we arrive at the venue of the concert, Westminster Arena. The place is positively bustling as people mill to and fro, doing one thing or another.

“Stay close,” Cassandra reminds me as we begin to weave through the crowd.

I do as she says, doing my best not to lose her, or any of the others, in the throng of people. We submit our tickets and gain access to Arena. It takes us a little longer than I expected to find our seats but we do so eventually.

We stay in our sits as the number of people around us increases rapidly. We still try to converse, but with the amount of noise around us, it soon turns from talking to shouting.

All of a sudden, the crowd roars. I, with the rest of my companions, turn toward the stage. The members of Rolling Hills are on the stage. The concert has officially begun.

After giving a little speech, they start singing. I stay quiet as Cassandra and the rest of her friends join the crowd in singing along with the band. I’m content with stealing little glances at her while she sings. The look of excitement I see on her face is a novel one, one I hadn’t seen before and I want to take the time to appreciate it.

Eventually, I get caught up in the excitement of the crowd and soon find myself singing aloud at the top of my voice. This keeps up until I feel the abrupt and urgent urge to pee. I hadn’t done so in weeks and hadn’t been too worried, after all, Lathia had told me that Laens could typically go for weeks without feeling the need to do so. But now, from the looks of things, it seems I have reached my limit.

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I inform Cassandra that I’ll be back soon, and she gives me a nod in response. After that, I push my way out of the crowd and make my way to the restrooms. The amount of people around me reduces drastically the further away I get from the singing. Probably because the concert is still in full swing, I muse.

Still, without the overwhelming sensations caused by being around a multitude of people, I begin to feel free. The restroom is not too far away from where I am when I feel it. The same murderous aura I had felt two weeks ago. Last time, I had Tahku with me and he had teleported me away the moment he sensed it. Now, I am all alone.

The aura hits me with brutal force and for a moment, I am so scared I almost piss myself. Maybe it is because I have gotten a bit stronger since then, or because I had felt the aura before, either way, I am able to stop my bladder from soiling me. A moment later, I see the source of the aura, a normal-looking man who is staring directly at me. Or more accurately, my forehead, where the Laen symbol is imprinted. His expression changes, turning to one of fear, urgency and in some strange way, hope. He opens his mouth and begins to shout. “Run away! Infor-”

His voice hooks. Then his expression changes, turning into something strange and warped. Feeling the wrongness of the situation, I instinctively turn on second sight. And then the Fasuru comes into view.

It completely covers the man it is possessing, like ‘Taur had been when I first saw him. It has a humanoid appearance, yet it looks nothing human; a pair of horns sprout from the top of his head and curve forward, piercing where its eyes would have been if it had had eyes; also glaring, is its lack of a nose, a thin lipless mouth, and fingers whose ends seem to go inward, leaving nothing but dark holes. Thankfully, that is the full extent of its strangeness, and if one ignored them and focused instead on its long, silky black hair, it wouldn’t look all that bad.

For a few seconds, we are at a stalemate, then it speaks. “Listen here little Laen, you and I have nothing to do with each other. I will let you live out of respect for your Order, but if you get in my way today, I will send you straight into the jaws of death. Do you understand?”

My head moves on its own, giving him a small nod before I could even rationalize my actions.

After receiving my reply, it seems to smile at me. “That’s a good boy. Have a nice day, and for your own good, forget everything you’ve seen here.” Having said all it wanted to say, it turns and walks away in an unnatural-looking gait.

Even after it has left my line of sight, I still stand frozen, my brain trying to comprehend what it had just seen. Then the sudden urge to pee spikes, and I remember why I had come here in the first place. I hurry to the restroom, a sense of urgency in my every action. Snippets of the little I know about Fasurus pop into my mind; how they are overlaid over people they are forcefully possessing, and the fact that they derive power from people suffering being the foremost. All of that added to what the Fasuru had said just now leads me to a terrifying conclusion. Something terrifying is about to happen here. My mind flies to the murders that have been happening recently and I can’t help but fear that they might be tame compared to what is about to happen.

Immediately after using the restroom, I begin to run towards the main hall where the concert is currently being held. I have just one goal on my mind, get Cassandra and her friends out of here before anything terrible happens.

I am quickly reminded of how slow it is to do anything without magic. I seriously consider using burst to run faster before deciding against it, remembering Drew’s words about the Laen’s wish to not let normal people know anything about magic. Hopefully, the Fasuru wouldn’t act immediately.

Halfway to the main hall, I hear a loud boom and feel the ground beneath me tremble. My heart clenches and I stop. For a few seconds, all is quiet, then I begin to hear screaming, followed by the sound of a multitude of people running. Not too long after, I see a crowd of people moving toward me, panic all over their faces. Most people show extreme devotion to getting out of the hall but there are a few who don’t seem to want that. I spot some people looking frantically around them for something, a few are even shouting unintelligible words even as they are forced forward, and I even see a woman fighting to get back into the hall as tears stream down her face, but her resistance is futile as she is swept forward by the overwhelming rush of bodies.

As I watch all this happen in front of me, some part of me realizes something: my goal of getting to Cassandra and her friends is nothing but a pipe dream. Even if I take all my abilities into consideration, there is no way I can go against that crowd, unless I begin slaughtering people while hoping those behind them would avoid me. Reluctantly, I turn around and begin running away, hoping that against all odds, Cassandra and her friends would make it out of there without getting hurt.