As it turned out, Xias had stayed true to her end of the bargain. On my way through the last lap of the Eastern Spires, I had no problems with trolls. By the time I could see the vast landscape of ruined buildings and ghost towns in the distance ahead of me, the sun had already risen and trolls wouldn't be a problem any longer. I thought about slowing down, but thought against it. Just because it's day doesn't mean other creatures that lived in these mountains wouldn't pick me for their next meal. . . or worse.

Before I knew it, I was emerging from the last line of trees that separated the mountains from the ground below. I made a silent prayer that I survived my ordeal, but then had a sinking feeling when I remembered the deal I had made with the vampire queen. I didn't know how I'd deal with it, but I'm sure I have time to think it through.

I looked about my surroundings. The vast plains and fantasy-esque scenery changed dramatically. Again, I was looking at the ghost of the world I was knew, a lifeless husk of a posh neighborhood. I could tell it was a small, friendly neighborhood, and even though age ate away at the homes and street, it still looked nicer than the city. The street was jammed with broken down cars and various modern appliances. Broken fences stood where normally a white picket would be, and the bricks on most of the homes had crumbled. The lawns were overgrown and weeds sprouted from in between concrete pathways and snaked up the sides of the homes. It looked grim and abandoned, and killed my mood real quick, but my hopes soared when I saw someone sitting atop a noticeably larger brick house, tearing into what looked like a drumstick. When they noticed me, they gave me a disappointed look.

"What took you so damn long," Mikoto said, "thought you died. Would've been up and on my merry way if you didn't turn up by midday."

I frowned, "Well damn, thanks a lot!" I shouted distastefully "And I did almost die by the way!"

"I'm just kidding," she said laughing, "get up here and tell me all about it."

I looked up and down the house, "On the roof?"

"Where else? Come in through the back door, I got this bastard boarded up. We got ourselves a pretty good base for the time being." I did as she said and skirted around to the back of the big house. Behind the house, there was plastic chairs set up around tables with various food items. I saw a pack of Doritos and contemplated eating them, but common sense told me they were probably long been spoiled. A gas grill sat atop a linoleum patio next to the back door of Mikoto's "base". I entered in through the sunroom and headed down the halls while looking around the place. On entering the kitchen area, I was surprised to see how neat the place had been kept. I had a damn good feeling it hadn't been like this all this time. Compared to the outside world, it seemed weird for this place to be the only non post-apocalyptic thing in the whole neighborhood.

After downing a can of cold baked beans that was left on the table, I explored the house for a little bit until I felt drowsiness begin to take me under its spell. The house had large rooms that soaked up the sunlight because of the wide windows. Most of the rooms were dilapidated and strewn with mess and mold, and the rugs and drapes were torn and covered in mildew. The foyer was bright and sunlight shone from huge windows in the roof. A badly stained, Persian wool rug covered the flagged floor, depicting an image of a flower or sun-like pattern, the center being yellow then raising in temperature as it spread outwards.

Mikoto hadn't been joking when she said she'd boarded up the door. Sturdy wooden planks lay horizontal against the birth of the door, each one nailed down to the threshold. I took a closer look and noticed that the door seemed to be welded to the threshold and the knob had been removed.

Before sleep could take hold of me, I checked out the upper floor. The stairs had collapsed in some places and groaned as I pressed my weight against them. Soon I was on the top floor and made my way down the long hallway. Nearly every single door along the walls were boarded up, only the door at the very end of the hallway would open. As I stepped in, the scent of air freshener wafted outward towards me. It smelt like home. A soft, bear skin carpet lay sprawled out along a polished wooden floor. The bears head faced towards me, it's maw wide open and imposing. To the right was a king-sized bed. The bed had clean sheets and was made neatly. On the ceiling a small hatch along with pull down stairs that might've lead to an attic and to the far wall a window with elegant drapes looked out over the front yard of the plot. But I didn't care for any of that. The moment I laid eyes on the bed, I ran over to it and threw myself face first into the sea of fluffy pillows and sheets. I got a much earned sleep, lost in an ocean of softness.

I woke up sometime in the afternoon, my body bursting with energy and my senses at it's peak. My right hand had gone numb from laying on it so I took a few minutes to regain feeling. Once I did, I wandered around some more, checking out the rest of the house. Then I remembered that Mikoto had been waiting for me on the roof and I slapped myself mentally. I had totally forgotten and took a damn nap! I rushed back to the bedroom and up the pull down stairs, assuming the hatch lead to a roof. I was right. I poked my head up and saw Mikoto laying on her back staring up at the cloud speckled sky. She sensed me before I made a sound and looked my way.

"You're up. You sleep deeply, you know."

"Sorry for keeping you waiting." I apologized.

She smiled and motioned me to sit beside her. I did as she asked and lay down on my back. We were high off the ground but the roof wasn't very sloped so I had no fear of sliding off. We sat there in silence and for the first time I felt a little sheepish being next to her. Thinking back to our time in the cabin on the Eastern spires filled my stomach with butterflies.

Eventually Mikoto broke the silence. "Ay, you brought the Bestiary back with you?"

"Yeah, I left it on the kitchen table."

"Good. We're gonna need it later on. But anyways, here." She held out my sweatshirt to me. I had totally forgotten I was shirtless for the lonely hike down here. I'd given it to Mikoto the night before and never gotten it back.

"Nah, you can keep it." I said, trying to be a gentleman.

Mikoto could read me easily and shook her head. "It aint gonna do me any good out here, plus is has your scent all over it." She handed it back, "thanks though. I'll remember it. Would've gotten one bitch of a cold if not for you."

"Hey, you're the leader here, I can't be having you getting all bed ridden on me. Nice house by the way."

"Yep. Saw this baby sitting vacant and decided to borrow it. Doesn't look like it was raided, well, till I showed up!" She gave me a pound on the arm, "anyways, tell me everything that happened."

"What do you mean?" I asked, raising a brow.

"Come on, we both know you didn't navigate yourself all the way down here without running into something, so start from the top."

There was no point in playing dumb, so I told her everything. I mentioned my encounter with Xias and how she could control the trolls, but I left out the part where I made a deal with her. I didn't know how Mikoto would take it.

She set her jaw, but didn't seem too worried. "Redblaed. . . the damn blood sucker's not gonna give up, is she. I've been daft, as Xias would say. She's pissed alright. Did she say anything to you?"

"She told me about how her great grandfather or something made a pact with the darkness and was cursed. Some real satanic shit. I don't know what she was talking about though."

"The darkness. . .damn. . .damn! I hate not being able to understand things. She's definitely referring to something that happened in this world and I feel like I know what she's talking about, but it's just not there." she stared off into the distance like she usually does when she's conflicted. "Did she say anything else?"

"No," I lied, "but she allowed me to go free. Said drinking my blood wouldn't be a smart idea."

She went silent for a while, then she turned to me, her eyes gleaming with eagerness. "I guess it won't do much to keep this from you. Do you remember when I told you I'd explain to you where I got electricity from, back in the plains." I nodded, "Well as you might already know from Redblaed's tale, there exists something known as the Nether, or the Dark. That's irrelevant to us right now though, what I'm going to show you is the opposite." With that, she clasp both hands together as if she were praying. I watched attentively, trying to figure out what she was doing. Then all at once, the air around us ionized, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I've always known that the energy she emitted wasn't normal, and when she had claimed to have gotten electricity out of no where, I put two and two together.

She inhaled deeply, her chest rising and falling as the air pulsed with static. Her eyes seemed to flash with and iridescent blue for a split second, and the air returned to normal. But something had changed.

As Mikoto parted her hands, something bluish-white flickered inside. It was bright, darting rapidly on the inside of her palms. I didn't want to believe what I was seeing, but I knew with all my heart what I was seeing was real.

She was creating electricity. Taming it with her hands like a beast on a leash.

I was mesmerized, staring at the sparks bouncing about her hands. Tendrils of currents traveled around her fingers and lashing out at the air when it reached the tips.

"What I'm doing now is similar to what Xias was talking about, except instead of the darkness, it's electricity. There is energy all around us, energy that lies unseen. But you can feel it, can't you?" I nodded vigorously. I always knew that there was something there. Something that I could feel but couldn't see. When I had tracked Mikoto down back in the forests when she didn't return that one night, I had followed the energy she emitted. The electrical energy. I thought back to the times when she'd used it. When she reduced that vampires head to ash, she had electrocuted it, hitting it with enough volts to totally fry it. And when she stuck her hand into the running stream Xias had gotten out before Mikoto could electrocute her through the water. It all added up and it felt like a whole new world had been opened up to me. A world unseen.

Mikoto closed the current and the sparks zapped out of existence. I swallowed hard, still staring at her hands as if they would suddenly spark back to life. I looked up at her in awe. "You have to teach me how to do that! Wait, can I do that?"

"Well you took it better than I imagined. I thought you'd start screaming like a banshee or something."

"Nah, I'm used to this magical stuff now."

She shook her head. "This isn't magic. As far as I know, magic isn't real, but don't take my word for it. I still have a ton to learn about this world. But anyways, you want to learn?"

"Hell yeah."

She looked me up and down as if picking a slave. "I don't know. You gonna obey and do whatever I say if I choose to take you under my wing?"

"Ugh, yeah sure. Whatever you say."

She held her head up high and grinned. "Then it's decided, I will teach you how to touch the unseen world. First things first, do you know what Ki is?"

"No idea whatsoever."

"Well, at least he's honest. Do you at least know what aura is? Chakra? Chi? Et cetera?"

"Oh, yeah. I know what aura and all that stuff is. It's like energy, right? Like Anima or whatever?"

"Yes and no. Your Anima is something different. Something that is alien to us as far as I know, but aura is a sort of energy we emit constantly. It's properties are influenced by our emotions and state of mind. Something that you probably know is real back before all this. But now, it's different. If you focus hard enough, you can literally amplify it enough to do things like I just did."

"Wow. Sick." I said, not fully grasping what she was telling me.

"Anyways, before even attempting to wield the awesome power of the elements, where gonna have to find Bloodblade first."

"The hell? Why?"

"Because, genius. How am I suppose to teach you something I don't even fully understand myself? Once we find it, all will be clear."

"What happens if we can't find it?"

"It's not a question of can or can't. It's how long it will take. Hopefully I find it before you get eaten alive somehow. Then it'll be real boring around here." Mikoto laughed when my faced paled. "Anyways forget about all that junk, I found something pretty cool." She turned on her side and fished around in her sack until pulling a small radio from it. "What I got here is a Survival Radio. You never know if there are other survivors out there that may be trying to contact others using these bad boys. Sucks that we can't speak back, but at least we'll have some closure knowing we aren't the last sane people on earth."

"Yeah, if we were the last people, we'd have to repopulate and--" Immediately feeling awkward, I shut my mouth and gestured for her to switch the radio on. She extended the antenna and turned a few knobs. For a while all we heard was feedback, but as she continued switching through the frequencies, I could here what seemed to have been a mans voice. I told her to go back and as she did, I was now certain I was hearing a mans voice, nearly inaudible due to the static.

"I can barely hear it." I complained. Mikoto then pinched the base of the antenna between her thumb and index finger and took a deep breath. The static cleared and now the man's voice could be heard almost perfectly.

But the chilling sounds coming from the other end made my skin crawl. The man seemed to be rambling incoherently, speaking with an urgency that made it impossible to understand his words. He then stopped and began breathing deeply into the radio and then went silent.

What we heard next was truly disturbing. I wanted Mikoto to shut the radio off and destroy it.

"If anyone is listening to this, then I'll use whatever time I have left to warn anyone. My name is Daniel Finley Campton. I was with a group of  twelve. If you're listening to this and you're anywhere near that fucked up town, get out now! We lost seven of our guys there, torn to pieces by those. . .things. They hit us at night and only five of us made it out alive. We got the hell out of there, and didn't look back. But those things. . .the-they didn't follow us. If you are listening to this. Please. . . if you want to live, Do not go into that godforsaken forest! What's in here is worse than what's out there! You can try to make it back over those mountains, some of us tried that. They left by night  but didn't return so either they made it or they're dead. Just get the hell out. . . I think I'm the only one left-- I don't fucking know anymore--but please. . .if you're listening to this I--" 

 The man's voice cut off abruptly. There was complete and total silence in the radio; the only sound was my heartbeat as we waited for seconds that seemed to tick by in slow motion.

Then there was the snapping of twigs and the crunching of leaves. I instinctively swiveled my head behind me, but no sooner had I done that, that I came to the realization that the sudden sound wasn't near us.

It was coming from the radio.

We held our breaths in anticipation for what we knew was about to happen. I didn't want to listen. I wanted to get out of there before it happened, but I found myself frozen in place, adamant about staying for the conclusion to the impending horror.

Then the screaming began.

It was truly horrible. Like nothing I've ever heard in my whole life. His throat was torn to shreds from the sheer desperation of his dying cries. It went on longer than a human could hold their breaths, at least it seemed that way. After ten horrific, drawn out seconds, the screaming stopped, and again, all was silent.

But the radio was still broadcasting.

There was breathing again. Horse and raspy. I could feel the warm air of whatever was now on the other side of the radio blowing against the back of my neck.

Then almost as if it called out to us itself, Mikoto and I both lifted our heads. There, looming far out in the distance, past the dilapidated houses and broken down cars, was a sinister expanse of green, like a great wall, and behind it, hell itself. The sudden feeling of dread I felt now was so crippling I nearly vomited. Whatever had generated so much fear in the man was somewhere in that forest. The sense of safety I'd felt moments before now dissolved. I felt trapped; completely at the mercy of the fates.

The line died, and we were left in static once more. Daniel was definitely dead. 

+++++++

For the rest of the day, I did nothing but plead and urge Mikoto that staying in this town was a horrible idea and that we'd wind up like that guy on the radio. She just blew me off and acted as if it wasn't a big deal. I fell back onto the bed, irritated and scared. Her complete lack of regard for the mans final warnings pissed me off. It was like she didn't even believe him.

At least that's what I'd thought until she nearly kicked the door off its hinges, urgency sketched onto her face.

"Me—you, we need to talk, now." she commanded, leaving the room and heading back down the stairs. I knew it was something serious, so I wasted no time following her. I still had the revolver Mikoto had lifted from the dead body back on the Eastern Spire. I grabbed Mikoto's Bestiary before heading out and racing behind her.

Mikoto waited for me in the den. She sat on a sofa by a blazing hearth. The fire light illuminated her conflicted expression. In the room, there were shelves lined with picture frames facing downwards. As I walked past, curiosity got the better of me and I reached over to see the picture.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," warned Mikoto, "it's bad luck to look at the memories of the deceased. It can stir up restless spirits. Which is also the reason why we need to talk."

"Restless spirits? What do you—"

She held up her hand to silence me. "You're going to want to sit down for this one." I sat down beside her in front of the blazing hearth. It's warmth hitting my face and spreading throughout my body.

"So. . .what's up?"

She stared stoically into the dancing flames before speaking. "You have the bestiary on you?" I nodded and handed the notebook to her. She flipped through it for a few seconds then stopped at a page near the front. She ran her finger along the header and stared hard at me with her piercing green eyes.

"This creature is known as a Ghoul. Take a good long look at it, because once the sun sets, we're going to have more to worry about than vampires."