• tab Stars scattered the black sky like a river of diamonds. It stretched farther than the eyes can see, looking down on everything on Earth; from the town of Mills to the kingdom of Helner, from the highest of mountain tops to the scorching desert. Even the dull, lifeless village of Trell can bathe on the stars beauty. But everybody was indoors because of the monsters. Monsters come out every night, for they are beings of the dark. The people hide in their homes with wooden covered windows and tightly barred doors, sleeping with a gun or knife by the bed. That’s what it was like in the hospital too. But they didn’t know that what happened tonight would be something different.
    tab The lights in the hospital hallway were dim and it flickered on and off. Workers rarely walk the building during night so the halls are always empty. It was unfortunate for the workers tonight that tried to stop her.
    tab Blood dripped and dripped, it echoed through the dead atmosphere. Her hands were soaked with red blood—not her blood, but theirs. It slid from her elbow to her fingertips. Four bodies lay dead in different areas of the hospital. One was a doctor who went into her room to check up on her, two were nurses that tried to stop her from leaving, and the last one was a patient that was about to scream because he got frightened at her murderous look.
    tab She stepped forward with her right foot and dragged her left. Her arms dangled from the sides and her back slouched. Long brown hair draped over her face like a curtain, but you could still see her eyes—a lifeless corpse with a wish needed to fulfill. She, with a sword in hand, mind full of shame, she that has planned this escape from the beginning, she who has seen too much at such a young age, has opened the door to the outside.
    tab “I knew you would do this” a voice said. A figure stepped out from the shadows, the moons light burning into the figures eye—his lightning blue eye. Allester. “I came by to check on you and this”—he gestures towards the hospital and looks down at her bloody arms—“Is worse than I imagined” he grinned and walked towards her, eyeing her. “Cillia, the female knight at an age of sixteen”
    tab Cillia stared into his eye, not even blinking. Her determination to return to the kingdom was so great that she wasted a lot of energy just thinking about it. She wasn’t suppose to be able to walk until two weeks later.
    tab “You were suppose to leave tomorrow night, not now” Allester places his left palm onto her cheek, his thumb on the height of her cheek bone. As she lifted her head to him, he said, “I saw you bleeding on the ground. You tried to save those people from being eaten by the Honstuki, the wolf-like human giants. In other words, the lowest of creations—monsters, as your kind puts it” he looked deep into her dark eyes, waiting for her to crack. “I watched everything. I was in the trees, waiting, examining. Humans are weak, knights are the most despicable. They’re people who believe that they can save everyone when they can’t”
    tab Cillia’s eye gleamed. She was coming back from her trance, her ghostly state of mind. Allester saw that so he continued.
    tab “All the knights perished—all but you. It was interesting, the fact that you were a woman…or should I say, child?” his words were sin to Cillia’s ears, and he liked it. “I see you’ve killed humans yourself” he brings his palm away from her face to grab her hand. As he brung it up to his lips, he licked it, licked the blood off her fingers.
    tab “S…stop…” Cillia mouthed out, unable to voice out her words. She was getting heated up inside. Allester was speaking lowly about knights, and that infuriated her more than anything, more than seeing a human die. But she didn’t realize herself that she had just killed humans in the hospital.
    tab “I am not a weakling like those knights” he grins wickedly. “And I am no fool, either” this was something that he would or wouldn’t regret, but he was going to take the chance. There was something he sees—feels from inside of Cillia, and it was hidden so deeply inside that he just has to do this. There’s no one else he would chance with. He would do this now or be put to shame like those Honstuki’s. “Prove to me that knights are stronger than I think they are” he dared her. “Be my user” That’s when Cillia figured out that he was a monster—a monster in human form were rare, and the most dangerous. He leaned his face closer to her, their lips almost touching…
    tab And then a static p***k. Cillia’s eyes widened, her hands dropped to her sides. She stared up into the moon, too shocked to look at anything else, too weak to shove him away. The moon was brighter than usual but seemed more ghastly. A tear ran down the side of her cheek as she closed her eyes. This is wrong…this is very wrong. She refused to accept Allester’s kiss, Allester’s offer.
    tab Be my user, Allester says in his mind, under the moonlight of the dark, forever bound by soul, come and I’ll give you what you desire. Be my user. I’ll protect you always, from life to death—always. I won’t betray you.
    tab Cillia heard it all. His thoughts were transferred to hers and hers to his. This was a connection that could only be held by a monster and a human, ones that has performed the bond or close to it. No! Cillia shouts in her mind. The only thing she can do to push him away, to protect herself, is to deny his offer of being his user.
    tab Allester was not about to give up. He pressed his lips closer, held her tight in his arms. I’ll be your shield. I’ll never leave your side. Be my user.
    tab Warmth surged into her body. She felt his heat, his skin. It tingled inside like energy. But she too, was not about to give up. All you say is a lie. Let me go.
    tab I promise you.
    tab The way his mind projected it to hers, the way his voice was calm and serene, the way he loosened his grip on her and softened the kiss, made her, just for an instant, believe him. And in that instant of trust, she had accepted his offer. She had completed the bond.

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