Bundi's skin was slick with sweat. I crackles all ten of my knuckles purely out of nervousness as I scanned over their body. The stiches looked infected, and there was a small bruise on their head. My mom would have had to take to stitches out and wrap the wound up with a cleaning solution, one we probably didn't have here. I was also not my mom.

     Nole was sitting at Bundi's side, clutching their healthy hand string at them with a face beaten by fear and rounded by caring. He pressed his lips together, and took a deep breath.

     "Tell me later, Craig, do your thing."

     I dug my teeth into my lip, Nole nodded in my direction, Jason who hung back per usual shot me encouraging look. I sucked in a deep breath and flexed my fingers. Peri landed on my shoulder and started firing off information while I powered up, filling the room with an eerie green glow.

     "Be careful, you're going to have to dive deep for this one, I don't know what you'll see in there," he warned.

     "I'll do what I have to," I promised, then touched my hand to their forehead and wrist.

     I was immediately eclipsed by darkness. It bathed me like a cat's tongue, rough and full of prickling spines. I was falling, choking, being wrapped in layers of skin and cloth that I was not ready for. Lights whizzed by me, along with noises and smells and continuous awful affronts to my senses.

     Then all of sudden it stopped.

     "I don't feel right, ma," I said, it wasn't my voice.

     I was looking at Bundi's memories through their eyes. I blinked, and the inside of a tent came into focus. I was staring into a crackling fire, it smelled old. There was a woman slowly roasting what looked like a rodent of some kind on a stick over the blaze. Her mouth crinkled in discomfort when I spoke.

     "Not this again Bundi, I don't have time for that nonsense tonight."

     All of a sudden, I was very aware of my body. I sloppily pushed down a gagging sensation. Something wasn't right about my body—about Bundi's body. Oh Kosmos, this was such an awful feeling... is this how they felt all the time? Bundi's fingers curled into their palms and the feeling went away slightly.

     "I'm not a boy or a girl ma, I hate it when you call me that," their trachea shook with the effort.

     Bundi was going to throw up. They were going to throw up because of the awful stare their mother was giving them and the horrible awful feeling of being wrapped so tightly in a body that wasn't supposed to be theirs. This wasn't their body. That's what Bundi was thinking, so loudly, so painfully. I heard it over and over again as I relived this memory, it was like it was being seared into the back of my skull.

     Their mother yelled something angrily but it was muffled and my vision started to go blurry. The last thing I saw was the fire lashing out along with their mother's arm and a sharp, stinging pain in the side of my face. The fire grew and morphed, until it extinguished itself as I was in a different memory.

     It was a summoning circle.

     The circle was in the middle of a dying grassland, I could feel the sweat on my neck. The stones themselves were flatter and smoother than the stones in the forest. My—Bundi's hands shook as the runes on one of the stones glowed a bright orange color, and a ball of fire rose up from the carvings in the ground. This memory had no sound, but I could feel Bundi's scream of distress when the ball of fire exploded, they fell to the ground, hands covering the back of their neck. Only to discover a few moments later that they were completely unharmed and not burnt to a crisp. Bundi looked up and standing there, perched like a king, was Moriah.

     One of his eyes was a brilliant orange color.

     Then the memory changed and Moriah was being ripped away from Bundi's arms. The sound came back like a tiger's roar and I was screaming. Bundi was screaming as their hands were tied behind their back and hundred of people waved torches and spears as they were forced to walk down a wooden plank and onto a boat. The harsh sunlight gleamed off the metal armor of the royal guard, as solider ordered by the Queen made sure they didn't escape. The Queen's orders were making sure they made it to Thanatos, that cursed isle of death. They could sense Moriah was near, in a cage, in the belly of the ship, as Bundi and so many other fifteen-year-old children were bound and carted of to Thanatos with blood staining the wood they walked upon.

     I was so hungry. My stomach was a claw as Bundi huddled in the dark in a crappy lean-to on the edge of the woods, it was their only safe lace from Antaeus, their back stung, the product of fresh welts from a whip clutched tightly in that man's evil grip. They were shaking and shivering from the cold. I didn't have any blankets, I just had...

     Bundi's hand opened gently and a small fire blossomed in their palm, it was a meager warmth. The more I stared at it the more Bundi hated it.

     Antaeus was a murderer. He sat atop a throne of wood and fused together animal bones. His dark hair swept over his face and his eyes. The only facial feature visible was a cold, pure white smile that made me want to gag. Children were gathered around this man, this demon, their ribs and hip bones were painfully visible as Antaeus stuffed himself on the leg of an animal. I could see the drool pouring down the face of one kid because it left clean tracks in the dirt covering her face. Any of them were crying silently.

     "We're gathered here for something special, my brothers and sisters," he grinned.

     Bundi cringed.

     There were three kids on their knees in front of the man. Behind three animals were crouched, a bird of paradise, like Peri, but this one was bigger, the size of a chicken, an okapi, and a crab. I noticed the flash of bright orange hair and came to the startling realization I was looking at a much younger Nole.

     "As you all know I live only to follow in the footsteps of our goddess, Queen Persephone, in her malevolent ways."

     Bundi, along with the rest of the crowd, muttered out a weak, "may her violence last always."

     "That is why I'm going to kill you three, like she has killed us," Antaeus grinned, and his hair fell back to reveal two glimmering dark eyes. "But first..."

     He shot forward and with a movement so quick in precise, so beautifully elegant, he stabbed the bird of paradise right through the heart.

     The human girl who belonged to that familiar let out a scream that grated against her throat with not only fear but agony. Antaeus held the dying bird in two strong fists as she writhed on the ground in pain, her cries of suffering echoing off the pale and terrified faces of everyone around him. Bundi could feel tears streaming down their face as he watched the girl sob openly.

     Antaeus took a bite out of the bird's raw flesh. A darkness settled upon the valley, and everyone could sense it. You couldn't kill a familiar, not without the consequence of the spirits raining down upon you. Did Antaeus know that? I wasn't sure, did he care? I knew without doubt he did not. I—Bundi had to do something. They locked eyes with the orange-haired boy and something in Bundi's throat forced him to call out.

     "My lord," they cried weakly, "wait."

     Antaeus stopped, the bloody wishbone of the bird stuck between his revolting fingers. Nobody dared interrupt the killing ceremonies before, certainly not a wimpy little kid. Every functioning eyes was trained on Bundi now.

     "You better have a good reason before you utter you next words, young one," Antaeus hissed.

     "I...I..." Bundi's throat began to close up and at their feet, Moriah's fur prickled with fear.

     The orange haired boy stared at Bundi, his eyes full of hope, and then all of a sudden Bundi had the words.

     "I've seen these three before." They clenched their hands into fists to stop the shaking. "That one," they pointed to the orange-haired boy, "was a learning healer in my village, they traveled around with the other two. I got my cough cured by them once. I not suggesting you spare them but..." They didn't know what else to say.

     It was all a blatant lie of course, and Bundi prayed they would go along with it.

     Antaeus's lips parted slowly to reveal those awful fangs. "You're suggesting if I were to fall ill it would be beneficial to have them alive? To nurse me back to health so my humble reign may continue?"

     Bundi nodded, staring at the dead familiar in Antaeus's hands and already knowing he would die a horrible death.

     "What is your name, child?" He asked.

     "Bundi," I called out weakly.

     Antaeus nodded slowly, "cut them loose, then come see me after."

     Bundi scrambled weakly over to the three shivering children, and pulled out a small blade, I recognized it because it was the same one they tried to use on me.

     "Thank you, Bundi." The orange haired boy said, rubbing his wrists.

     "What's your name?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

     "Nole," he grinned wryly.

      Bundi's heart skipped a beat.

     The memory changed, and all of a sudden, I was a lot taller, in a much darker room. I was a lot less malnourished to, and out of my rags into finer clothes, but my body still felt...wrong.

     "What is it, my lord?" I spoke down to a bed.

     Antaeus lay there, dying. I could tell he was burning up from the layer of sweat on his skin... I got the feeling he was literally burning from the smell. Bundi didn't nothing to help this, perhaps they both knew, that with familiar blood on Antaeus's hands, nothing could be done.

     "Water..." the man gasped.

     Bundi's fists clenched around a knife they held behind their back. I carefully tipped a wooden cup of water down Antaeus's throat, heard it sizzling as it hit the man's burning body. I suddenly knew this was it, he was dying right here, right now. I leaned down close to his eat and Bundi began to whisper into his ear.

     "You're dying, demon. I'm going to take over your place and I'm going to fix every single awful thing you ever did to those children, phonoi. I am going to revel in every bit of your suffering, just like you did to me, just like you will never do again. Die, you skotóno theoús scum."

     Antaeus looked up at Bundi with fear in his eyes, and Bundi was just filled with overwhelming satisfaction. Down on the floor, Moriah stared at Bundi with his piercing orange eye, and that scene repeated itself over and over again, as if was stuck in the spotlight of this eyes of judgement, standing over a man who killed a spirit, with a knife in my hand and murder in my heart.

     There was a pain in the back of my eyes, then all of a sudden, I was yanked from Bundi's memories pulling my head out of an icy lake. Bundi's still unconscious, their arm was a normal color for a wound, and I was back in my own body. My body that feels right, and I was overcome with relief.

     Then I started to swoon. Jason leapt to his feet and caught me, I barely had time to enjoy his strong arms wrapped around me before my eyes rolled back into my head and I passed out.