FOUR

His eyes were filled with yellow and fire. His vision was a sea of it, yellow banners and flaming torches stretching as far as he could see. By his feet an adult cheetah was settled in the grass, purring contently as it rubbed its face against his boots. Vultures screeched as they soared through the air, a solemn sign, a sign of death. He watched as a male close to his own age stepped forward. His dark hair shaved but the faint hint of curls was growing back, his brown eyes reflecting the sea of yellow behind him. He watched anxiously as the man stopped in front of him, stretching out his right arm, showing off a sleeve tattoo. A tree surrounded by sky and stars.

Tyler screamed. His legs giving out beneath him as he dropped to his knees on the floor, heaving dryly. He braced his black smeared hands against his knees as he tried to catch his breath, his vision swimming as he watched the neon glow fade slowly from his veins. He glanced up finally, shaking his head to clear his vision as a Bishop stepped close to him, kneeling to his level. "Tyler?" The Bishop called, holding his face in their black stained hands. Tyler nodded, his eyes focusing on the blurry outline of two Bishops dragging away yet another corpse from their experiments. He looked down at his own patch sewn neatly into his worn grey jumpsuit as he climbed unsteadily to his feet, the number that branded him as a Dema experiment, as a tool to be used for the Bishops' own gain.

"What did you see?" The head Bishop, Nico, asked.

"Yellow." Tyler responded looking at the ground. He'd learnt to make a mental note after his first time seeing the body of the other person involved in the experiment to never look in the direction of the small huddle of Bishops heading to the back of the hall with the corpse to be disposed of. Two gasmen joined Tyler's side instantly, with a wave from Nico, instructing them nonverbally to remove Tyler from the hall.

The Bishops banded together, becoming a scarlet ring in the middle of the now empty hall, their hushed voices still reverberating off the stone walls and back at them as they discussed their plan. "We know he saw the Banditos in his vision, but what does that mean for us?" Lisden spoke, his hooded head shaking in dismissal.

"They attacked once before a year ago and took our last group of rats with them." Nills growled, his voice rough and bitter, much like his demeanour whilst Vetomo, Listo and Sacarver nodded in reverence. "The real question you should be asking here is why now? Tyler's been here with us in Dema for almost his fifth year, why is he only seeing them now?" Andre, another Bishop, spoke.

"You don't use your common knowledge!" Nico snapped suddenly, startling the others into silence. He turned his attention to Keons, the quietest Bishop of the group. "Is he ready?"

Keons looked up at Nico almost in surprise as if shocked that anyone had remembered that he was even present to begin with. "Almost," he said, his voice low and quiet, "if you take him under your order, he'll be ready."

Nico nodded. "Then it is decided. Tyler will join my ranks." He turned his back on the other Bishops, dismissing them with a wave of his black stained hand as he walked out the back entrance of the hall to a small and secluded balcony that overlooked the forest where the vultures continued to swoop above the points of the trees. He looked down towards the ground, a mild sense of bemusement crossing his features, his covered eyes staring down at the rows of trees. "We're getting close."