I wake up with a jolt of panic as I gasp for as much air as possible. I frantically look around, the small black dog on the floor, next to the small bed I’m lying on, starts barking at me. Vienna was still out cold on the other bed opposite of mine. She was laying on her side facing the wall, but I could tell she was asleep due to her soft snore. I scramble out of the bed, noticing that the clothes I’m wearing aren’t what I remember I putting on. I’m in a white crop top with black shorts and light blue ankle socks. I found my black boots under the bed while I searched for a weapon to use to defend myself. I put them on quickly, fumbling with the laces while I think up a plan. The little black dog had stopped barking, and was now looking up at Vienna as if he was waiting for her to wake up as well. I walked past the little dog to shake Vienna’s shoulder, but she wouldn’t stir. “...shit.” I muttered, then I looked under her bed. Her shoes were there, along with her bag, but I have a feeling that the drive, camera and papers wouldn’t be there. I grab the bag anyways, and wrap the leather strap around my shoulder. I scanned the room for a while, a metallic small confinement area with hospital beds and empty storage compartments around the room. The door was also metallic with a silver door handle. I tried it once after putting on my boots and rummaging around the place, and it was locked. When I tried it now, it was opening, making no squeaks or creaking noises. I didn’t want to leave Vienna alone, since she’s the only one I can sort of trust. She wasn’t waking up though, so I don’t think I have a choice. I opened the door a little, looking through the small slab of open space to see what I was going to walk into.

The room outside wasn’t very big either, but at least it’s not smaller than the closet we were lying unconscious in. There was a small group of people, not including the guy who hired Ruther to drug us, and they were gathered at the far corner of the room. I could barely hear them talking, most of them were sitting down in chairs with devices on their laps. My eye moved from the group to the table in the center of the room. It looked like a pool table, but there wasn’t anything related to the game of pool on the table. A few metal chairs were scattered around the room, one was on its back like someone threw it there out of rage. My money’s on the man with the short gray beard who was responsible for that. These people looked no younger than thirty, three men and two women. One woman looked stronger than Gray Beard, but maybe that was the light playing tricks with my mind. I don’t know exactly what to make of these people, but they look strong, resilient, and I’ll most likely not get away without fighting them first. I’m about to close the door so that I can have another go on waking Vienna, when the door is thrust open. My hand lets go of the door handle and I fall onto my knees with my hands slamming onto the floor. I look up and see a familiar tall figure walk in. “You're up later than I anticipated.” comments the boy who brought us here. I stand up and take a swing at his head with my balled up fist, but he dodges it and pushes me to the ground. I land hard on my back, but I get up quickly to attack him again. He pulls out a small handgun from under his black hoodie and points the mussel at Vienna’s head. “Stop. You both aren’t supposed to be hostages, but you keep this up-and I’ll only have one hostage to deal with.” I freeze, not wanting to cause any more trouble just by moving an inch. I know for sure that if she dies, I won’t ever have a chance of finding Tristian on my own. “Tch. Lame.” he responds, placing the gun back underneath his black hoodie, “We only need one, but I guess two will do.” He leans on the doorframe, watching me with disinterest glowing from his…albino red eyes. Huh, I didn't notice that at first. His hair color is pitch black along with his eyebrows. He must have dyed it, because it doesn’t seem genetically possible to have albino red eyes and not be albino everywhere else. “Are you just going to stand there analyzing me like I’m some new kind of species,” he begins, breaking my train of thought, “or are you going to do as you're told and follow me?” He gestures with his thumb to the other room outside of our room. I look over at Vienna, who’s still not waking up, and shrug. “Fine.” I say. He moves away from the doorframe and starts walking at a fast pace towards the center table in the other room. I follow behind him, but slow down a little to look around the room. The guy whistles and gestures to the group in the corner to come towards the table. They crowd around the right side of the table, leaving me alone on the left. They mumble a few words to each other before turning back to me. “Got a name with that face?” says Gray Beard. “You first.” I respond, and this makes them grow quiet. Tapping on the table with his index finger for a while, Albino Eyes go first with introductions. “I’m Luno,” he says, “I’m twenty-one. When I joined this group I was only sixteen. I don't have a sad story to tell, and I'm sure the others probably would agree with me on that.” “Didn’t really care at first, but now that you’ve said that-I’m really not interested.” I respond before turning to the next person to speak. Grey Beard speaks with a strange accent, “Orme Rike, traveled here by boat three years ago, now I’m stuck with these fools ‘till they find what they're looking for.” “And what relevance does that have to do with me?” I ask. “It’s because the guy who murdered you has something to do with the clan.” answers the older woman, “I’m Davina-my husband and I came together.” She gestures to Orme with her head, and her husband nods to show that they are, in fact, married. “Whatever,” I responded, “clan? What clan?” “Mort des éléments.” responds the other woman who was a little younger than the other woman. She had long black hair in a ponytail, and light green cat eyes. “Death of the Elements,” translated Luno, “These people go by a lot of different aliases, but Hadley likes to call them by their original name cause she used to be one of ‘em.” “So?” I asked. “These people are an organized group of forgotten criminals, shadow snatchers, and boogie men.” explains Orme, “Hadley had told us that the only reason they joined together in the first place was because their leader, Solaris.” “He and his league of misguided followers are the core to a destructive clan of elemental conjurors.” says Hadley, “Elemental conjurors are people who can summon souls through magic of the elements-earth, fire, water, air, lightning, etc.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” I say, “What the hell does all this have to do with Tristian and I? I know damn well that Tristian wouldn’t throw himself into nonsense like this.” “Like you knew how he wouldn’t kill you over a dumb breakup?” says one of the men that didn’t say his name. He and the other man looked similar, both had brown curly hair tied up in a small ponytail, and both had hazel eyes. However, the one that spoke was taller, looked fairly built, and had no freckles unlike his twin. I rolled my eye before giving this shithead my deadliest glare. “How do you think I’m supposed to believe all of this?” I growl. “Well I’m starting to.” calls out Vienna from behind me.

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I spun around to see her walking towards us, looking around the room while doing so. “Oh come on.” I start, “You’re a reporter, shouldn’t you be the most logical one here?” “I lost my sense of logic the minute I was attacked.” She responds coldly, “If these people are telling the truth, then maybe this could help us later on with our research.” “You can continue believing in all of this on your own, cause I’m not interested in just conspiracies.” I interjected before she could start asking questions. “Look,” starts Luno, “everyone here started off not understanding any of this for a while. But then we all witnessed a bunch of crazy shit and decided that either we’re all individually going insane or that it’s actually real.” “And?” I prompt, “What was your conclusion?” “That it is real,” he says. I pull back from the table, but something catches my eye before I turn away completely. Luno had his hand stretched out to the center of the table, and growing from the right center of his palm, was this white glowing stone. The stone took about a third of his entire palm, the light it reflected off of its smooth surface was an iridescent white and blue color. It reminded me of this gemstone I saw on my mother’s ring. What was it called…moonstone? Yeah, I think that was it. I wanted to think that it was just the lights from about the table that was causing this stone to glow like that, but the lights were too dim to cast that much of a radiational glow to the stone. The stone had its own light source, and was using it with all of its might. When Luno saw how my expression changed, he folded his fingers over the stone and it ceased its magical glow. Now it was just a normal looking river rock in his hand. “See what I mean?” he says with a smirk of triumph. “I don’t really…” I start, but when I look over at Vienna’s face I shut up all together.

Vienna turned her attention to the other twin that hadn’t spoken and asked, “You have something on your mind?” The twin comes closer, blinking several times before saying, “I…I, I have a few questions, but I wasn’t sure if it was a good time to ask.” All of us pay close attention to what he wants to ask. “I’ve done some research.” he begins, “I couldn’t find much about both of your cold cases-but I could get that information after I’m done with my other projects.” He moves his small pink tongue quickly over his chapped lips before continuing, “So you both were brought up in the same hometown, here. Vienna quickly moved away to a city down in the south later on when Liv was still in high school.” “When Liv and Tristian both snuck out to go to a party on Wednesday at about 8:45pm, that’s when Vienna came back home to her apartment.” “When Liv and Tristian had officially broken up-Friday-that’s when Liv decided to sneak out on her own, called an uber-not knowing it was Tristian who was driving-and was almost killed when he continuously kept swerving and making sharp turns.” “Wait-the jackass was him?!” I exclaimed. “Correct.” he said, “But going back to-” “Wait-no. That doesn’t make sense!” I interjected, “Why would he let me go if he was trying to kill me that night?” The nerdy twin shrugged as he said, “I don’t really know, maybe he planned on killing you and himself in a car crash but decided to go another way to kill you.” “Yeah-okay, what research have you found that you just need to share with us?” I ask, already getting bored by all this talk. “Well…when I was looking up the timelines where you both were during the fire, I located Vienna’s exact location near the fire, and apparently…she was a witness to the whole thing.” I slowly turned over to Vienna, who was stunned by how blunt and extraordinarily fast that information was told to us. “You saw all of this happen…and you didn’t tell me?” I say coldly. She shakes her head and her eyes flutter as she says, “I didn’t know it would happen right then and there, I was just passing and-” I grab her shoulders and whisper harshly, “Did you see him? Did you?!” “I didn’t get the chance, I was on the other side of the sidewalk, and it was really dark out.” she explains, but the excuses weren’t in her favor. “I know you saw him! A shadow, a dark figure running-something!” I yell, shaking her with as much vigor and rage as a lightning storm at sea. “I didn’t know it was him! I swear, I’m not lying!” she says calmly, though in her voice, something cracks. I shove her off of me and begin to walk away, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me back. “Listen! If I’d known it was him, I would have told you.” she explains, “I didn’t tell you before-that was my mistake-but even if I did-we still have no clue where he went.” “What direction did he go when you last saw him?” asks Freckle-guy. “I don’t know, maybe left on Broadway, near Cougar Street-but I couldn’t really see him that well, I was too busy calling the ambulance?” she recalls, but then she lowers her head and shuts her eyes. After a while, she says in a low voice, “I should have helped more.” “You would’ve been dead.” responds Luno. “And stupid.” I add, “You had no intentions of dying this early in your life, so why bother helping out a couple of unfortunate souls, hm?” After that, I had completely lost interest in the conversations, and didn’t want to remain in this room any longer. I look over at Luno, who’s tapping his index finger on the table in what looks like a morse-code pattern. “Useless directions combined with useless papers of an unknown cult language isn’t going to help us find him.” I concluded. “Why do you say it’s all useless?” asks Orme. “Because it could be misleading.” I said, “This could all be just some crazyass dream he had a while back, and decided to make it real on his own.” I fold my arms glaring at everyone with gritted teeth as I said, “And-I don’t have to help you! I can find him on my own with “little miss reporter” here-while you stick to your bits and pieces of horse shit!” “This isn’t horse shit!” yells Luno, slamming his hands on the table, “It’s real! All of this is real! Why can’t you just get it through your thick blonde head-that you’re in deep shit…we all know you’re not human anymore, so stop playing games and tell us what really happened!” Before I could say anything, he pulls out something from under the table and my breath cuts into a short gasp. My eyes widened, my mouth went dry, and I was starting to back away from the table little by little. What he placed onto the table was something that will haunt me for a while, and I will never forgive him for reminding me of the pain that it caused me. The long silver torch lighter was now rusted and burned, the front tip where it blew out raging fires from hell was melted until it looked like a dripping faucet. Yet the only thing that strikes this piece of metal odd besides all of that…was the golden etched markings of symbols similar to the ones that Tristan had drawn before he disappeared.