Kai had returned to his body, his scythe was slowly fading into wisps of black mist. His skin had lost the tinge of red. That invisible force was slowly retracting, and the power that flowed through his body was slowly fading away. Kai smiled as he still had time to do what was important, wipe out any living being in this mountain.

Kai moved through the tunnels like a phantom reaper. With each step he took, a phantom blade was sent out crashing through walls collapsing them. As Kai moved, he targeted any living beings. He wasn’t sure how but he knew where everyone was. One by one, he killed them until there were only twenty left, twelve of which he knew to be survivors of experimentation.

There was a shrieking of metal as a phantom blade sliced through the door. It was not a broken boy that had been experimented on that walked into that room. It was a figure of death that walked into that room. Stunned by the eyes they saw, no one was able to speak. The eyes were round orbs of crimson surrounded by a blackness that had no depth. Extending from the edges of his eyes were chains that wrapped around the crimson orbs.

Then death’s scythe fell, and everything ended for both the researchers and the captives.

The final wisps of black energy from Kai’s scythe dissipated into the air, and Kai collapsed forwards towards the stone ground. But before he hit the stone, a pair of arms grabbed him, and Kai’s head was set down to rest in the lap of a woman dressed in silver.

***

In Emberwood, a town in the forest with a single mountain in the distance, there was panic among those with magic; they had felt something that scared everyone. A magical presence that felt like death and the final end. Quests were put up for Hunters to go out and find out what it was, something that powerful did not just go away. It was better to know what they were dealing with.

***

Near the base of a mountain, a group of three hunters felt as if death had descended an absolute finality, a nothingness, the final end. Every movement felt wrong, as if them still being alive was a sin.

“Do we go check it out?” Sara asked her team nervously.

“We don’t have a choice. Whatever this is, Emberwood needs to know about it.” Bear growled out.

Thane nodded his agreement, and they began to slowly walk towards the mountain where they could feel the pressure. There was a crash, and the ground began to rumble as parts of the mountain caved in, then the feeling of death disappeared.

“Shit! What's going on?” Bear yelled.

“I don’t know, but we need to figure it out.” Thane said before urging his team to move faster.

With that, they picked up the pace towards the mountain. When they got there, Thane put his hand on the ground and began to chant. “Mother Earth I seek your hidden Knowledge, lend me your senses. Earth sense.” Mana rippled through the ground, and a minute later, Thane stood back up. “It looks like there were tunnels running through the ground.”

“Is it an old ruin and something was woken up?” Bear asked.

“No, it's too new for that, and also too close to the surface. It would have been discovered already.”

Thane tapped his staff on the ground and began his chant. “Mother Earth, I seek passage into your hidden depths. I ask you to part for me and allow me to explore the unexplored. Earthen tunnel.” Mana flowed out of his staff into the earth, parting it and creating a seven foot tall tunnel into the earth. “Let's see what happened here.”

They walked through the tunnel until they reached what looked to be a collapsed tunnel that Thane carved his way through. They moved slowly, both because they wanted to be careful in case whatever had unleashed that aura appeared, and because Thane didn’t want to drain too much of his mana in case of a fight. Finally, they found something. The body of a man that had been cleanly cut in two.

“At least this proves that it is not a ruin.” Bear said, speaking everyone’s thoughts.

The man was lying outside of a room that Bear opened up. Inside of it was a room with an examination table in the center and storage to either side. The table had leather straps to hold a person down. There were counters on the sides of the room that had stacks of paper, vials of different liquids, and different types of tools.

Without a word spoken, they started looking over everything. Bear started examining the tools and searching the draws, Sara started reading the notes, while Thane examined the vials. Thane soon stopped and started reading the notes when he couldn’t learn anything from the vials.

“Everyone, stop.” Thane said. “Don't look at anything else,. Get it piled up - we’re burning it all.” There was no hesitation, there were no questions. Everything was stacked up in the center and lit on fire.

Thane passed the sheet of paper to each member of the team without a word being said. Sara started reading it only to puke before giving it to Bear who ripped the paper to shreds before throwing it in the fire enraged.

Test #17 The subject's reaction to the newest alchemical concoction was unexpected and resulted in the fire affinity acting up and burning her. Future plan is to reduce test subjects age from 7 to 6 to take advantage of affinities infantile nature.

“This was an illegal experimentation site. Everything needs to be destroyed. We can't let someone get this knowledge.” Thane ordered his team.

Sara and Bear nodded in agreement. Every room after was burned and collapsed until they reached something different. There were more bodies in this area, and they seemed fresher than the ones they had seen before.

“Everyone, be careful.” Thane said slowly moving rock into the walls until they got to a room who’s door wasn’t closed but was instead on the ground cleanly sliced in two. Slowly, they moved into the room where they saw something unexpected.

In the middle of the room was a pile of corpses, and sitting on that pile was a woman. She was beautiful with long silver hair that had silver chains woven through it. She was wearing a silver dress decorated with patterns of chains. The strangest part of the scene before them was not the beautiful woman or the fact that there was not a speck of blood or dirt on her, but the boy laying next to her with his head in her lap.

The boy looked to be around nine or ten. He wore ragged clothes, and he had deep, vibrant crimson hair streaked with deep black and bright silver that the woman’s hands were running through. The woman spoke to them in a soft beautiful voice.

“Hello, Hunters. You coming here was a brave, but stupid thing to do after feeling that aura, but I am glad you did. This boy was an experiment of the corpses you've seen scatter about. He was both their greatest failure and biggest success. He also brought about their downfall.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The woman looked up for the first time, her silver eyes piercing deep into theirs.. “He has been here for five years. In this time, his mind was broken, his mana pool used as a cauldron for their experiments, and his body a play thing. His mind is shattered, but he is still young. Please take him and care for him. If you do, he might be able to live happily at least for a time. Will you do this for me?”

Sara stepped forward. “We will take care of him.”

“Then I thank you.” With those words, the woman slowly started to fade away. “His name is Kai, his life has been hard and will only get harder. Please help him see happiness.”

Sara walked over and picked up the boy. ” Let's get out of here, we need to return to Emberwood, they need to know what happened.” With that they left, collapsing everything behind them.

Once they left the tunnel, Bear dropped his backpack and started going through it, taking out a blanket and some rope that he had Sarah use to tie Kai to his back.

The first day was a long and hard trip not made easier by the surprisingly heavy Kai. Kai’s weight was not enough to truly affect Bear, but he was still heavier than he should have been. Despite the struggles of the forest, beasts were not one of them since they had all been scared away by the aura that they now realized came from a small ten year old boy. It was on the second day when something finally happened.

Something on his back began to thrash, and there were ripping sounds and a thud. Looking back, he saw Kai laying on the ground looking up into the sky, a look of fear turning into a look of wonder and then sadness.

Bear had seen Kai before, but it was at this point where the strangeness truly struck him. Kai had shaggy crimson hair with streaks of deep light eating black and bright almost glowing silver, his eyes were crimson orbs wrapped and highlighted by a deep never ending black that replaced the whites of his eyes and chains that seemed to originate from the edges of his eyes wrapped around the orbs of crimson red.

Kai was staring into the sky, an expression of simultaneous sadness and joy. Before he curled up on himself, soft unintelligible words could be heard from him.

“It isn’t real - it's a dream, it isn’t real - it’s a dream, it isn’t real - it's a dream, it isn’t real…” Over and over, he muttered to himself. Sara was the first to move forward, laying a hand on Kai and speaking.

The boy flinched and faster than a kid his age should be able to move, he was on his feet, body lowered, ready to fight. Tears could be seen rolling down his face. Almost instantly after getting on his feet, he relaxed, falling back on the ground and curling back up.

“It doesn’t matter - they're not real. None of this is real, none of this is real, none of this is real.” Kai uncurled and looked back up into the sky, more tears could be seen falling down his face. “The sky is so beautiful. I had forgotten what it looked like, and the air is so fresh. I hope this dream lasts forever.”

Sarah moved forward, resting her hand on him. “This is all real. The sky, the air, all of it.” Kai looked up into Sarah's eyes and she looked back into his tear filled eyes.

“Is it?” He asked weakly as if not allowing himself to hope.

“It is. I promise you, this is all real. “

Kai smiled. “I hope it is I really do.” And with that, he fell asleep.

Bear’s fists were clenched hard enough that the skin around his knuckles could be seen turning white. “Those bastards, I wish there were a couple alive, so that I could kill them.” He growled out.

Thane set a hand on Bear’s shoulder. “Stay calm. We can't control what happened, but we can control what will happen. Let's put him back on your back, and then get moving again.”

They found that Kai had ripped the ropes when he got free, but the blanket was mostly undamaged, so they wrapped him back up and set out.

Night came quickly, so they stopped to make camp, setting up their tents and starting a fire. They put Kai in Sarah’s tent since hers was the smallest, and took turns watching to make sure nothing tried to attack them at night.

***

Kai awoke, wrapped up in some blankets inside of a tent. His head whipped around, where was he? He grasped the medallion around his neck and felt shock as the feeling of metal instead of rough stone and leather met him. He remembered everything that had happened. From his mind being attacked, to fighting Seth, to killing the researchers, then waking up in a forest that felt more dream than reality.

Those people must have put me in a tent. But why? I don’t know them, they don’t know me. Maybe they also want to experiment on me. Kai wouldn’t let them do that, so he carefully moved towards the exit in the direction away from the subtle glow that he assumed was a fire.

The night wasn’t too dark, and any extra light he might have needed was provided by the stars and fire. He carefully made his way towards the trees, leaving the campsite, careful not to make any noise. He had just gotten away when a thought hit him. What if they don’t want anything from me? It was possible, right? Kai thought about it. What if I watch them I might be able to learn something.

Kai climbed up into a tree close to where they were camping, careful not to make a sound and started watching them. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was a thin man with a staff watching everything, and two other tents but nothing else. Time passed, and eventually the man moved. He went over to the smaller of the two occupied tents and woke someone up, a woman. The woman he had seen before that told him this was real.

She had long hair and a slim body. She wore leather armor and had a belt of knives with a short sword on her back. Along with the knives on her belt, Kai identified three different places that there were knives hidden in her armor.

She took the same place as the man from before, carefully watching everything going on from where she sat. As she sat there observing, Kai noticed something that he had missed previously; the plants here weren't tinged amber. The night passed with no troubles and morning came. Once it did, the woman started to go through a bag bringing meat and bread out.

Kai’s stomach grumbled in response to seeing the food. The woman’s head shot up, looking around trying to find out where that came from, but she found nothing. She was on guard and moved towards the tents. The first one she checked was the tent Kai had been in. When her head came out from checking it, she seemed concerned.

“Hello, Kai. If you're hungry, you can have some food.” She said, setting some of the meat and bread near the edge of the campsite before backing away.

Kai looked at the food, and then the woman. Could he trust her? She didn’t seem to be trying anything, and she hadn’t done anything but still. His stomach grumbled again; he was hungry and needed to get some food. Kai looked at the food, worst case, he could run right?

Kai climbed down the tree, careful to keep everything in his view the whole time. He reached the food, grabbed it, and moved back quickly before starting to eat it.

The woman sat down, watching him. “Is it ok if I talk while you eat?” When she got no reply, she continued speaking. “We are going to the town near here called Emberwood. If you would like to, you can travel with us. I promise that you can have all of the food you want to eat and you can continue using the tent.”

Kai looked at her, and then down to the food that he had finished. His stomach let out another rumble, still hungry. The woman took out and set down some more food before backing away, letting Kai take it.

Kai hesitated, should he trust her? Probably not, but he needed food and wasn’t sure what he should do.

She seemed to notice Kai’s hesitation and continued talking.

“My name’s Sarah, my companions are Bear and Thane. We are Hunters that were out here looking to kill a beast when we felt some magic from the mountain and went to check it out. We found collapsed tunnels and then you. We were hoping to take you back to Emberwood with us. Do you want to come with us?”

“Why? Why do you want to take me back to Emberwood?” Kai questioned.

“Because we want to help you.” In a quieter voice, she said. “We saw that place. We have some ideas of what was going on down there, and we want to help you in any way we can.”

“Why help me?”

“Because that’s who we are. We want to help people when we can and right now, you are the person we can help so we want to.”

“Ok, I will go with you.” Kai said, hoping that she was telling the truth.

She smiled at Kai and carefully walked up to him, handing him some food. Behind her stood Bear and Thane. Bear was the first one to talk.

“Kid, this world is a hard one, but some people try to lessen the burden on others. We will do what we can for you.”