The two silhouettes silently moved through the shadows, their feet barely touching the roofs of the houses as they jumped from one tile to another.
“We must inform the king,” one of them whispered to the other as he halted in his footsteps, turning to leave as the other’s voice lingered in his ears.
“I would rather be safe than sorry, go back on your own.” The other shadow replied sternly as he resumed tailing Elena and Ray, not waiting for an answer as he disappeared into the darkness.
The first one sighed reluctantly before following behind the other one, his figure also disappearing in the darkness.
As Kai’s parents left the main city, the two shadows resumed their pursuit on the ground, an eerie silence accompanying them as the city grew farther and farther away.
The two suddenly stopped, and they looked around them as a cloud of pitch-black darkness surrounded them. “What’s going on?” The first shadow asked with a panicked voice, clearly not expecting an answer from the second one, who suddenly jumped in place as his formless lips parted.
“RUN WE’VE BEE-’” his words were cut short by a whooshing sound, accompanied by a faint purple light, and his head left his body as blood spurted from his neck, softly hitting the ground, an expression of disbelief clearly on his face.
The other one had no time to react to what happened. At the same time that his friend’s head hit the ground, a small wisp of fire shot toward his chest, instantly shattering his mana core, and he fell to the ground as his body convulsed violently.
Elena and Ray popped out of the darkness, slowly walking toward the corpses, and Ray kneeled in front of the beheaded one as he inspected it. His expression turned to one of disgust and anger, but it was quickly overtaken by worry.
Elena looked at the two corpses from afar, her lips trembling behind her hands and her pulse rose slightly as her stomach churned. A wave of nausea took over her as she did her best to balance herself.
She looked away from the corpses and said in a muffled, trembling voice “Ray, those two… who are they?”
Ray stood up, a small, dark flame appeared at the tip of his gloved finger, and he said as he sent it toward the two corpses. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen such concealment magic before but it seems familiar…”
“It can’t be!” Elena gasped as she took a step backward, the smell of incinerated flesh lingering in her nostrils as the bodies disappeared without a trace.
“I’m afraid so…” he said in a grave, slightly panicked voice and his heart dropped to his stomach as he turned to Elena, “I can feel some leftover mana, but I can’t erase it, I reckon we don’t have much time before they start searching for us seriously.
I assume that we have two weeks at the most, he isn’t organized enough, but we’ll leave once Kai’s birthday passes. Let’s let him have one last good memory of this place…”
“Where should we go? Elly’s place? Or maybe to Fen Fen? What will we do about his hair and eyes?” Elena bombarded Ray with questions as her mind overflowed with worries.
“What do we do, the whole reason we even decided to live here was-” Ray cut off her sentence as he hugged her tightly, his deep and reassuring voice ringing in her ears as his lips parted.
“We’ll be fine, we’ll figure something out, we just need to hurry and pack our belongings…”
They left the scene and hurried home, grabbing the already asleep Kai and laying him in his bed.
…
Six days passed by quickly, time in which Ray crafted two more spatial rings, while Kai watched him curiously.
“Listen carefully,” Ray said, “a spatial ring is crafted from a very pure dark crystal and advanced magic. You basically find an empty spatial node and link it with our space, and the ring acts as a key. The size is mostly dependent on luck, but it’s better than a backpack”
He tinkered with a few small components in his hand that slowly transformed into a ring, and he reached toward emptiness with his hand, where a dark light appeared shortly thereafter.
Ray passed the ring through the ring, and it glowed faintly as it let out a soft chiming sound. “There you go,” he said as he handed Kai the ring, “I think there are about three cubic meters of space, not too shabby…”
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Kai put the ring on his finger, staring at the dark crystals with excitement as he said “Thanks Dad, but must we really leave?”
His dad sighed as he ruffled his hair, “Yeah, it will be fun, I assure you. You’re not a little chick anymore, you need to see the world.” He stood up and patted Kai on the shoulder “Now go and pack your stuff, you just need to infuse a bit of mana in the ring when you hold an object in your hand, and you’ll be good to go.
If you want to take something out, just umm… you’ll figure it out when you use it.”
Kai nodded and rushed to his room, where he picked up a random book and did as his father instructed. He jumped slightly as the book disappeared from his hand in the blink of an eye.
Now… How do I take it out?
He fiddled around with the ring for a bit, nothing happening even when he sent Mana inside of it. There has to be some secret right?
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, carefully leading the mana through his veins toward the ring, and he focused intensely while thinking about the book.
His eyes snapped open as a soft thud rang in his ears, and he saw the same book he stored inside the ring on the ground, not looking any different from how he stored it. Oh! That’s quite simple, but I need to practice it a bit…
The day passed uneventfully as the three cleaned out the house of anything valuable, with Kai spending the whole day in his room, training with the ring like a child playing with a new toy.
When he finally descended, the house he grew up in for ten years turned into an unfamiliar dwelling. The beautiful decorations his mother made throughout the years had been taken down, the bookshelves filled to the brim with knowledge disappeared and even the kitchen utensils had been stored away.
Is this what Deja Vu feels like?
He walked toward the window and grazed its cold surface with his fingers, memories of his past life flashing in his mind as image fragments quickly appeared and disappeared.
He remembered the red patches of the empty walls as some older men helped him pack his belongings, his mother’s room closed off by police tapes, and one officer talking to a middle-aged woman who kept wiping her tears with a handkerchief. So something like that happened as well? I had almost forgotten…
His red eyes lit up faintly as he stared at himself through the transparent reflection of the window, a melancholic expression plastered on his face, and a wave of sadness washed over him. Was I really about to forget… my mother?
A sudden chill feeling around his neck startled him awake from his daydreaming, and he quickly turned around with a racing heart, only to see Elena’s face. He looked toward his chest and saw a beautiful dark sphere hanging around his neck with a beautiful silver chain.
“Do you like it?” his mother asked him as she rearranged his shirt, “your dad made it for you, I think it may be a bit too heavy to wear it all the time though.”
Kai held the large crystal in his hand, a shivering cold spreading from its surface up his fingers and down his arm, but he endured the frosty feeling as he examined it closely.
Inside the sphere lay a small white cube, its exact details were hard to discern but Kai’s gut told him that it was something very important.
So cold…
He shivered as he let go of the thing, his hand temperature quickly returning to normal, and he raised his head toward his mother as he said “Yeah… I like it a lot, thank you.’
“I’m glad,” she answered, kneeling in front of Kai and hugging him tightly, her racing heart pushing against his chest.
He returned the hug, feeling a shiver run down his mother’s spine as he did so, and could not help but ask “Mom, is everything alright?”
Elena tightened her hug around his body, and she said in a quivering voice as a tear dripped down her cheek “Yes… everything is alright, don’t worry.”
She could barely hide the distress in her voice, and her body began to tremble, fear and anxiety took over her body as warm tears dripped down her cheeks like a waterfall.
Her shoulders shook lightly as her soft sobs rang in Kai’s ears, his heart skipping a beat each time. I may not read a lot of history, but… even I know vampires aren’t welcomed anywhere…
He ran his fingers through his mother’s delicate, silver hair as he tried to reassure her, his uneven, uncertain voice shaking slightly. “Mom… it’s alright, we’ll be fine…”
Elena’s heart stopped for a second, and she took a deep breath as she separated her body from Kai’s, wiping away her tears, saying. “You’re right, tomorrow is a big day, so let’s go get some rest.”
She stood up and turned off the light crystals as she walked up the stairs, Kai following closely behind her, and he let out a soft sigh as he took one last look at the empty house.
A soft thud accompanied by a sharp click resounded in his ears as the door closed behind him. His dark, empty room gave him a melancholic feeling, the bed creaked under his weight as he lay down, and a heavy exhale left his lips as he closed his eyes.
I have a bad feeling, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember falling asleep last week, I wonder what happened after Kana’s party…
He rubbed the chilly surface of the necklace as he gradually fell asleep, his mind racing with thoughts and fears. Fragmented memories flashed in his mind, abstract dreams and nightmares, a violent thud pumping against his chest.
Thud… Thud… Thud…
He tossed and turned, his clothes and sheets drenched in a cold sweat as his entire body vibrated rhythmically to the beat of the thuds. His mind shook as the thuds became louder and louder, his dreams vanished, replaced by pitch-black darkness.
Jumping up, he gasped for air as sweat dripped down his entire body, panic plastered on his flushed face as he frantically looked around, his long silver hair swaying wildly about.
What happened… Was it a nightmare that…
Thud… Thud… Thud… Thud… Thud…
The horrific sound rang in his mind, and he jumped up, trying to make sense of the situation.
Thud…
Thud!!!
A huge earthquake accompanied a heavy thud, and the sound of shattering glass resounded in his ears, and he quickly ran downstairs with ragged breathing, blood rushing through his veins as he felt weakness growing in his legs.