When he awoke, a breath of fresh air, born again to the world that had just tried to dissolve his existence. If not for that screeching sound he heard as he pulled himself out, his coughing fit would be bearable. He wheezed and leaked out a pearly white liquid, a puddle forming after he slipped out of his night residence. He wiped the cream off his eyes with the back of his hand and, more than fresh air, he was born again when light blinded his eyes. Forearms flat against the ground, he looked in the direction the screeching sound had come from.

"Where am I!" he wheezed, outstretching his right arm as if to try and stop the wide blurry figure from leaving his vision. But the blurry movement didn’t stop, and he instead waited for his vision to clear whereupon his right hand came into focus.

"I don’t remember having this." He stared at the three black lines on the back of his right hand, each shorter than the one before it, as he grasped the little body still clinging to his nose with his left. He pulled it off and felt an itchy relief sweep across his nose. He stared at the little body, now covered in pearl goo, and shivered.

"Looks like you lost the light," he said as he threw it to the side and inspected his right hand. The lines were distinct on his pale skin, the way the sun was distinct to the sky. And it pulsed and vibrated and then released black fog in puffs. He jumped back, forgetting that he couldn't escape his own right arm, and fell into one of the clear pools. It was searing hot, leaving a tingling in his skin, throat, and eyes. But only for a moment, as it was over in the next instant. He splashed out and looked at the clear liquid and then at the lines on his hand. They were darker.

He stood and walked over to the pearly liquid he had come from. It was thick and when he stuck a curious hand into it, he felt nothing but a soothing cool softness. He then looked at the other pools and one by one he timidly placed a finger into them. Each time there was a searing pain followed by dull ebbing. He jumped into the last pool back first. His back lit up, a tingling that disappeared as soon as it started. The worst pain was his rear end hitting the bottom. The inside of his knees scraping the edge came second. He hissed and looked at the three lines, or should they be three holes. He poked the lines but his skin was there. He let out a sigh.

"I just want someone to tell me what's going on," and he gazed down at the still liquid. He stifled a gasp. His pale white skin seemed reasonable, but his hair was a dark white and his eyes were dark red. He almost thought there was a head in the pool but he knew that was him. He couldn't remember if his face was supposed to look different. All he could do was accept this was the face he had. The corner of his eyes stung as they threatened to overflow. Why couldn't he remember anything? He let his head fall back and hit the rocky textured wall. With a sigh he closed his eyes and then sprung them open. Above him, black roots were protruding from the cliff's side. He looked at how high the cliffs edge was and then he looked at the black roots. He turned his body around to stare straight at where he had fallen from.

"First, how am I still alive? No matter how thick it may be," he reached over and gave the pool of pearl cream a hard slap. "It shouldn't be enough to have broken my fall. At least I feel it shouldn't."

    He then stared at the distance he had fallen. "And second, I may remember nothing, but there is no way roots from those black trees can reach this distance." If they were trees. They were black to being with. Nothing was making sense and he needed answers. He remembered the fat man running away when he awoke. He could start there.

But he shivered, looking at the pink little body on the ground as he did. Instead, he melded with the pool and looked at the sky, lazily watching the clouds pass by with his recovered eyes. His eyes. Another mystery.

"Boss, there it is. Look, LOOK! You see, I would never lie to you."

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He turned his head immediately to the noise. There before him, walking out of the woods he had paid no attention to, were three men. The biggest of them quivered, a bucket on his head, and hid behind the man that led them; his waist was more than twice the length of the solid man standing forefront. The fat man wouldn't stop trembling and that put him on edge. What was he scared of.

"He looks like a young man to me. Is this an ambush Moursh, your friend here going to take a dagger to me, eh? I’ve Dan with me, eh, he'll wick you clean, and your friend, any second," Boss boomed not once turning to Moursh. Instead the Boss stared him straight in the eyes, a stern but short figure, hands behind his back. He forgot how to utter a word under that solid gaze, a heavy pressure settling on his shoulders. He was in trouble but what for he didn't know.

The third man, Dan, was tall and lanky, he stood a head shorter than Moursh. "Stop shivering Moursh. Boss is only joking, stunning as that thing may be, those are the distinct blood red eyes. And there can't be anyone that devilishly handsome. I won't allow it."

Dan grabbed the bow from his back, strung it, and reached for an arrow in his quiver. Moursh gulped. It was one of Dan's special arrows, famous for sucking in any liquid they hit: it had left husks out of full-grown men. Dan drew his bow toward the ghoul and there he noticed.

"Boss," he whispered, aghast. "Are those the roots? They ca—"

"Yes, looks like we won't be collecting Rejune any time soon."

"I don't think there will be any more Rejune," Moursh uttered as he pointed a shaking finger at the little pink fairy next to the ghoul's feet, barely visible when covered in paste. “A fairy?”

"A dead one. Couldn't believe you Moursh. I didn't want to believe you, " Dan released his arrow which the ghoul sprang away from. "Who would believe a ghoul to still exist. Around a cozy fire with a hot drink in hand, maybe, but not here."

The arrow hit its mark true, piercing into the flesh right above the knee. The skin around it quickly began to crackle as the ghoul dropped to his knees.

"It's as strong as the grannies say," Dan remarked as he drew his bow, an arrow already aimed at the ghoul’s head. "I can't believe it."

Boss released his posture, presenting hands engulfed in orange flaring flames. "But there lies the disgusting waste only an envoy of death can make. And there lies the protection of our future covered in that waste. We won't let that thing leave alive."

Boss steps forward with his left foot as he spreads his right arm backward to then swing forward, letting loose a torrent of flame.

The ghoul grasped the arrow shaft with both hands and, scrunching his nose, drew it out, pain making his vision dance. The arrow came out from under his leg, his teeth unclenched, and he quickly flung it to the side. It had felt as if his body was contorting into the arrow.

As he pressed his marked hand onto the wound, he was hurled into a pool. His mind again lit ablaze. Contorted screams became a stream of bubbles. The water boils, it burns, and he's covered in heat refusing to be quenched no matter how much he squirmed and jerked with every lick of pain. The fire had enveloped him completely, a red orange flame that fiercely caressed his body.

The light dimmed, followed by a somber sensation enveloping his very core, and his right hand grew cold. That sweet relief wrapped itself around his arm and then his body. Soon the flames were but a distant memory overlapped by the ebbing of his pain. Enwrapped in darkness the pain disappeared, he stretched out his arm and carefully pulled himself out of the pool and took a deep breath.

"Look at that, nothing but a pretty pink. You could mistake him for a fairy, " Dan remarked and chuckled as a bead of sweat traveled down his face. He forgot to let loose his arrow.

The ghoul is covered in smoke, a cylindrical darkness that travels his body, entangling him and returning his skin to its original pale color. He looked up at the three men, worry and sorrow trembling across his face as he took a step to stand. For a moment, Dan was bewildered, surprised at the emotion in the ghoul’s face; he began to lower his weapon. He couldn't kill such a defenseless creature, not when it so closely resembled a human.

"Plea—" began the ghoul before his face was slammed in by a wooden bucket.

"Don't let him speak or stare at his face unless you want a curse on you," Moursh screeches as he picks up a rock and hurls it wildly. He sprints on to the next rock he can see. Dan shakes his head and aims his bow, enraged at the fact he was seduced by the ghoul's sorry state. Next to him, Boss releases a torrent of flame, one after another, complemented by the whizzing sound of Dan's arrows.

"We may not be able to kill it," Boss declared as the flames at his hand began to sputter, each torrent smaller than the last. "But we must hold until that Light Priestess can come to our aid."