I don’t know what could’ve caused people to panic like that, but I had some ideas. I just hope Tedet is alright. He must be, he’s a lot more reliable and competent than I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried. This isn’t his fight anyway, and he wasn’t even down with saving my nephew. It was his choice to come here and put his life in danger, it was his choice the other times, too, but he did it for me, not for my nephew. However, I was still responsible for whatever happened to him. Screw his girlfriend, I think I’d kill myself out of guilt before she gets to direct a single profanity at me, let alone lay a finger.

I would love to turn back to help but there are two reasons I can’t: we came here to do this exactly, just for Jaser, so turning back when I’m this close to our objective would be stupid. And finally, Tedet is putting himself at risk so I can do this, turning back would be an insult to him, that came all this way just so I could ignore the one reason he’s putting life on the line.

No, I shouldn’t turn back. The moment I stepped on this building, the mission was on. I have to find Jaser and turn around as fast as I can.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs I crossed a doorway to an obscure room. I fumbled the wall next to it to find the switch that turns on the lights as I step in. The single faulty lightbulb illuminated the place more dimly than a firefly would. I wasn’t even sure if I could see better than before, the sole idea that it might not even be better than before made dim light annoying. I just left it one for instinctual reassurance.

Steps could be heard from behind me, coming down the stairs and through the door.

“Hey, hey,” shouted the woman from before. “Who are you?!”

I waited next to the wall where she couldn’t see me as she closed in. The moment I hear her next to the doorway I pounced at her. I grabbed her left wrists and her neck and used her momentum to spin her around into the room.

She yelped and looked at me helplessly, fearful. She didn’t move, only stared.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked and waited for her response.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “Please, don’t hurt me. I won’t say anything.”

She seemed alright, but I just can’t help but suspect her. After all, she’s working for the vampires.

She was now avoiding looking at me and instead looked at my chest or through my chest, her stare unfocused. She simply waited, expecting something, like had seen this same scene before – experienced it before.

“Look at me,” I told her as soft as I could.

“Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Just look at my eyes for a few seconds, and we’ll see.”

She reluctantly lifted her eyes. I began noticing the details of her face. Almond, round eyes, a pale brown skin a few shades shy of fully pal. That was the mark of a human who spends too much time inside, away from the sun. Her nose, slim and pointy, but somehow matching the rest of her soft cheeks and round chin. Her lips were thin, pink-brown. For an adult-looking woman, she was young, I’d give her twenty-two – twenty-five years, at most.

She stared at me and I looked straight into her eyes. Those brown, almondy eyes. Her eyes begin to turn glossy, heralding tears. Her breathing changed to a more relaxed but anguished rhythm. She’s scared of me but somehow calm. Before I could leave her be, realizing she was just a normal human, the soul gaze pulled us in.

I experienced happiness. Joy. The excitement of a child.

The markings of a tomb brought sadness, a big hand holding hers. Her father whispers to her that he will surely make her happy just like her mother would’ve wanted.

Stress from the final days of university. The stress comes with excitement. She will become a layer soon, just like her mother.

Screams shatter her ears, and fear takes her over as she watches one of her friends being pulled by two men. But instead of being paralyzed, she moves forward, a rush of courage takes over her. This kind of injustice shouldn’t be happening to her best friend, the nicest person she knows besides her mother and father. Someone must do something; someone must save her.

Her fist smashes into one of the men and she rushes to help her friend. Nothing good comes next when she’s grabbed by the arm and thrown helplessly to the ground. The face of her violator turns into a monster that grows bigger and bigger until her body is pressed completely into the ground, stopping all movement or struggle from her. She begins to asphyxiate as the tears and pain take over. The screams of her friend deafen her and echo in her ears. She can no longer see or feel anything, except the cries of help from her friend that eventually fade into silence. Something begins to grip around her neck, choking her. Her friend had committed suicide.

The same violent scene, from the attackers until the suicide, repeats several times, but with every scene, she whispers to herself: “this time, I’ll save her,” and unafraid, she launches towards the men knowing what will happen to her body, to herself.

The world that originally surrounded us comes into view like a desperate gasp of air from a long dive. I always find myself metaphorically grasping for this world after every soul gaze. My throat aches and I struggle to keep myself from crying and curling myself into a ball. I just experienced something horrible she went through in her past. I didn’t experience it physically, yet it felt almost real, but as for her… she lived it.

My body feels wrong. But I can’t let this affect me; there are things to be done.

As for the woman in front of me, tears begin to roll down her eyes, her face is twisted in horror and sorrow.

“How can it be?” she asked. “How is that possible?”

“Wizard magic,” I said after clearing my throat, and I let her go.

“You…” she began, “you couldn’t do anything –”

“STOP!” I screamed. “We don’t talk about what we saw.”

She held herself tight when I screamed. “We? You saw something too?”

“ ‘As above, so below.’ Just as a wizard can see into your soul, you can see into theirs.”

“ ‘When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.’ “

“Precisely. You know your lore,” I said while stepping away, hunching my shoulders and rubbing my eyes.

“What did you see?” she asked innocently.

“It’s not right to talk about what we saw. And even if it was fine, you don’t want to know. And besides,” I said and started walking away from her. “There are far more important things than having a chit-chat.” I pointed at the ceiling, the muffled sounds of people screaming could still be heard.

“Why are you here?”

I kept walking and her footsteps told me she was following.

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“Looking for someone…” I explained. I tried to keep an act. Aloof, uninterested. Dismissing her existence or importance.

There was a door at the far end. It looked heavy and made out of metal. I touched it and reached for the handle.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“And neither should you,” I answered. “You should quit this job if you don’t want to end up as some vampire’s meal.”

“What’s with the vampire talk? Wasn’t the radera outside screaming the same things?”

“Why do you think so?”

The handle had a huge keyhole, which meant I needed to move a big mechanism to open it. I didn’t have the key and I didn’t have the time to look for it or to pick it open. I had to use force. My specialty.

“The police are coming,” she said. “If y-you don’t want any trouble, you better go.”

“Can’t do that, ma’am. I still haven’t found this someone.”

I placed my hand on the lock and begin imagining magma. Something really hot and melty.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” she answered. “And I think you don’t want to either. Maybe you should take your friend--”

“Ma’am, I’m trying to concentrate, here. Can you stay quiet for ten seconds? We can resume our conversation once I’m done with this lock.” I knew she would answer so I turned to see her and the moment I saw her face muscles twitch, cluing she was going to resume talking, I interrupt her. “Ma’am. I mean no hard to you. Just give me ten seconds, will you? Thanks.”

I imagine again. I think of the industrial revolution and I think of the big metallurgic factories. Liquid iron flowing around me. The heat permeating me. I don’t cast a spell, all I do is draw the power. I draw the energy around me. The air around me began to chill and my coat started condensing vapor from the air. Meanwhile, the lock starts turning red.

I lift my hand from the lock but keep my fingertips touching its surroundings. The lock glows brighter and yellow.

“What?” the woman asked baffled.

The yellow turns into white and the intense glow begins to illuminate all around me so intensely. I squint my eyes. The smell of it… it was like rust but different. It also smelled like something was burning. The heat begins hurting my palm. But soon after the lock starts deforming as it treads the thin line of the transformation between states of matter, between solid and liquid.

I step back and, as soon as I do, I pull on the handle and slam my body with all my weight behind it. The handle loosens up like it was being held by soft clay and the door creaks open.

Another dark room, semi-illuminated by the white-hot and drooling door-lock, opens before me as I stumble into it.

“What did you do?” she asked again.

My answer? “Wizard magic.” I shrugged. “Again.”

She begins to chuckle. “Wizard? Yea, right.”

“Explain to me how I did that then, Einstein? Secret blow torch? As if it could melt steel that quickly.”

“You have to be joking.”

“I wish things were simpler, too,” I said and picked up the pace. If Jaser is here, I have to get him out quick before something happens to Tedet.

I felt the stench of mold inside the damp place along with iron oxide. Many bars that made up several cells were stacked on the sides. In the eerie silence – or what would be if it weren’t from the commotion above – I could hear crying and whimpering. It was subtle and muffled as if they didn’t want to be heard. Just as I realized that the sounds came from all around us, I heard a gasp coming from behind me. The woman noticed the curled-up bodies of all the people around us.

Sweet Mary, I thought, just how many do they have here?

Lambs for the slaughter. They will all become the meals of the vampires. Living sacks of meat that served as self-filling blood bags, to keep the warm blood fresh.

It disgusted me and made me tear up.

I should let all these people out – I have to… but we don’t have time, and I need to find Jaser.

Damn these vampires, I didn’t come here with time to do this. I wasn’t expecting to find several people in here but it makes sense that they did.

In any case, whether I help them or not I must find Jaser first.

“What is going on?” said the woman.

Two, four, six, eight. On the right. Nothing.

Two, four, six… nothing on the left.

Where are you, Jaser?

Ten, twelve, fourt-- there!

“Jaser?” I questioned the young figure on the ground. Their hair somehow reminded me of the lad I used to play with, but their face was buried in their arms and chest, all curled up in a ball. A fetal position. “Jaser. It’s me, Uncle Edmon!”

I kept calling his name softly and speaking my name more than a couple of times before a tearful and scared face peered from behind his arms and looked back at me. His expression softened and grew surprised as he realized who was before him.

“Uncle…” he started, “it’s you…”

“That’s right, kiddo, I came for you,” I told him. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

“Uncle!” he shouted.

And with his scream, the commotion grew as the rest of the people realized the change of tone from one of the prisoners like them. They all began calling for help.

“Come on,” I said and grabbed the lock. “Let’s go.”

I did the same to this lock that I did to the last, but this one was much smaller and melting it needed almost no effort. The lock popped open with a ping.

“Help me!” screamed the others as I pulled the door open.

“We don’t have much time,” I told my nephew. “We need to run.”

He said nothing and just kept moving alongside me.

“What about the others?” asked the woman.

I winced at the question, I was trying my darndest to ignore that situation and I was happy Jaser didn’t ask. In fact, it was obvious he wouldn’t care about the rest, but this woman was completely conscious of the situation and couldn’t help but ask to help the rest. But we don’t have time to do it.

“I didn’t come here for them,” I said.

“But they need help,” she countered.

“We don’t have time!”

“You need to help them!”

“I can’t help them!” I turned around and pulled Jaser under my arm.

“Isn’t it your duty?!” she screamed desperately.

The shouts that begged for help echoed in my head. The pleading started grinding my mind.

Your duty as a wizard.

Uphold the safety of mortals from those that hold power above them.

“I know you’re not a bad person…” she said. “I know you’re desperate. But they need help and you must help them. If I could do it, I’d do it myself.”

Fuck! I screamed in my head. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Why this? Why now?! Tedet is out there risking his life for me, for my nephew. Not for these people! I don’t have an obligation to them as I have to Tedet.

I scratched my head violently as if trying to get the pleads of aid from the prisoners out of my head.

“Gaaah!” I growled. I couldn’t take it anymore. “You!” I pointed at the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Huh?” she said perplexed.

“YOUR NAME!”

“M-Misa.”

“Misa, you have a job, now.”

“W-what?”

“This is Jaser, my nephew,” I began explaining. “You will get him out of here. Take the back emergency exit and head out. Run, for your lives.”

“I-I-I-I d-don’t--”

“You want me to help these people out? Get my nephew to safety! There’s a radera outside fighting with vampires. Tell him that Edwhite says to take his nephew and get the hell out! Do you understand?” I ended but I saw hesitation in her eyes. “Do you understand me?!”

“Yes! Get him out. Tell your friend to go with him.”

“Good. Go!” I began. “Go, go, go!”

Misa took no time to nod, she just grabbed my nephew and pulled him out with her. She’s a courageous woman, I knew that from the soul gaze, but I needed to give her some directions and the energy to do what her heart compels her to do: save other people’s lives.

I wish there were more people like you Misa.

As for me, I began doing what my duty told me to do: save other people’s lives. I’m not a good person in nature, unlike Misa. I make an effort to be good, she’s good because she’s the real deal. I’m just a fake that pretends to be good because I want to be good.

There’s a philosophical dilemma on whether what matters most? The effort put into doing things or that someone does something because that’s their nature. The name Confucius came to my mind, but the image of Tedet correcting me came to my mind. I once confused Sun Tzu with Confucius.

That one’s gotta be wrong too, I bet. Must have been some other guy.

I held the lock from the cell in front of me and the lock popped open. Twenty-four more to go. There’s not enough time. I reached the next and when the lock popped I heard a loud bang from behind me. The man I had just rescued had taken up a metal tool and smashed the fragile lock with it. The two men that we had rescued ran out and found more tools to help.

We can do this… I imagined.

The locks popped again. And before I knew it, we had finished. It took some time, but not more than two minutes.

“Let’s get the hell out here,” someone said, “those monsters are gonna come back for sure.”

“How are we leaving?” someone asked.

“Leave that part to me,” I said. “But grab a weapon, we’re not out of danger yet.”

The men took the tools and held on to them tight, the fear in their eyes had turned into fury. I could smell the stench of revenge in the air.

The women huddled behind them, a few men hung out with them too, but some women were up in arms, as well.

“I’ll lead the charge; we’ll leave from the back emergency exit. We’ll use the commotion to take the workers with us and we’ll be safe together. Those vampires may be strong, but they still fear humans, we’re their greatest enemy, they know what we’re capable of.”

I heard the whispering of the word ‘vampire’ coming from behind me as I started walking forward at a quick pace. Some agreed, some disagreed with each other but no one dared to ask.

Despite the problems from above, this is turning out quite well.

You idiot, I told myself, everything goes wrong every time you say that!

I tried ignoring my sensible self and pressed on up the stairs.

What waited for us above shook me to my core.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.