The area was dark and damp, with light shimmering down from above as if the whole place was submerged underwater. What can only be described as a room without doors, a box of hopelessness, emerged from the dark surroundings. The room was filled with the sounds of ominous creeks and heavy breathing, snoring, and coughing. Suddenly a stirring occurs, a movement in the dense black fog that encapsulates that place. A creature lurks nearby, a girl, stepping through the clouds as they part to let her pass like a veil of black lace. The girl is of medium build, average for a girl in the later years of high school. Her hair is deep black with a jet of scarlet that runs through her fringe. Her eyes are a brilliant shade of green, emeralds embedded in the sea of ivory that was her skin. She steps towards the box, the room with no entrances, and stands before the wall. She waves her hand and the wall before her crumbles, the rubble falling at her feet as if the room accepts her, wishes her to enter.

The room from the inside seems impossibly long with walls that stretch far past the visible distance. The inside is clean, or at least cleaner than the outside. It doesn't smell damp and the walls seem more inviting from this angle. Inside the room there are two rows of beds, one pushed against each of the infinitely stretching walls. There are windows high up on the walls, but they do not seem to lead to what is on the outside. They instead show a brilliant full moon, shining its light into the room and onto the beds, illuminating the faces of people sleeping in them. Humans of various ages and builds, from people late into their lives to children very early into theirs. They all slept in these beds, and every bed was full. The seemingly endless tide of beds appeared to hold a seemingly endless tide of people, stretching from the crumbled wall as far as the eye can see.

The girl steps into the room and the dark smoke followers her inside. As she takes a few steps towards the beds the wall behind her reconstructs itself, closing off those inside the room from the other side. As she steps up to the first pair of beds her hands flutter, forming complex shapes around her body. The smoke reacts to each different shape, flexing and writhing like an animal before jumping to her hands and swirling around them. She lowers her hands over to the first pair of people, and the smoke pools off and leaves streaks across the people. They start to rock and squirm, tormented by something as the smoke flows across them. The girl walks forwards, her hands outstretched passing over the people, always close but never touching them. The smoke trails behind her fingers, flowing over the faces of the people, causing them to display signs of discomfort, some curling up into balls hiding under the bed sheets and a few even having tears form in the corners of their eyes. The smoke continues its path along the beds as the girl walks the everlasting corridor. This process is continued for what seems like hours as the corridor stretches out further and further. The girl draws close to a boy with dark brown hair that shimmers in the moonlight. As she passes her hand over him the smoke reacts differently. It doesn't pass over him, instead avoiding him completely. The girl's ears perk up, aware of the lack of the whimpering that usually accompanies her actions. She turns around and sees that amidst all the faces of fear is a face of calm, one that hasn't been affected. She turns back to face him, an expression of anger coming over her normally emotionless face. She walks up to his bed, looking over him with a mix of awe and disgust, with the slightest hint of dread. She pulls her hand up, a large pool of the smoke accumulating in its palm, before plunging the hand gently but firmly onto his forehead. The smoke contacts his skin and sinks into it. The boy shivers, and the girl smiles as the desired affect is reached. However, this smile changes to one of confusion as the smoke reappears from out of the boy's head and travels to re-join the larger pool, the boy still smiling calmly in his slumber. The girl grimaces, the anger within growing wilder and greater than before. A flicker of a furious flame ignites in her eyes, punctuating the green with a burning red. She musters her strength and brings all the smoke in the room to her hands, producing a swirling mass of dark energy that pulses and writhes. Taking this mass, she plunges her hands towards the boy hoping to produce the results she so desperately wants. As the darkness speeds towards the boy, the light from the moon reflecting off his hair encircles him, creating a barrier of pure white light. The darkness bounces off this barrier, rebounding and flying around the room. The light from the barrier starts to expand and grow brighter, starting to fill the room with a light so bright that the girl must cover her eyes. She starts to run from the room, stumbling over the beds as the light gains on her, getting closer and closer. She turns to face the light and yells to the sky as the barrier consumes her and the darkness of the area is expelled. All that is left is the brilliant white light.

The girl's eyes open and her head snaps back, slamming into a metal pipe attached to the wall behind her, sending a clanging echoing around the room she is in. She tries to reach up to attend to the wound, but her hands are caught by the tight hemp ropes that tie her hands behind her back, attaching them to a metal loop on the floor. The room she is sitting in is pure stone and is only lit by a small candle sitting against the wall opposite to her. Suddenly a sliding is heard as a slot in the door to the left of the girl is slid open. From outside the door, a deep voice bellows into the room. "KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE SHADE, DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND BECAUSE WE CAN'T COME IN THERE THAT I CAN'T MAKE YOU SUFFER!"

The slot in the door is slid shut again and the sound of footsteps start to fade away. Shade takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, trying to connect to that place again, but in her mind's eye all she can see is that brilliant white light, as if it is blocking her from it, preventing her from going back. Shade opens her eyes again, it's not worth wasting the energy trying if it isn't going to happen. She assumes that the boy is the reason that she cannot go back, and even if she is only blocked temporarily, it is still a massive hinderance to her work. He must be eliminated. Shade takes another deep breath and brings her head forward slowly before slamming it back against the pipe once again, creating another loud ringing that echoes around the entire room and along the corridor, followed by the sound of loud angry footsteps rushing towards the door. The slot in the door slides open and the same voice from before comes from the other side. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU SHADE? I SWEAR TO GRULM THAT I CAN MAKE YOUR LIFE FAR WORSE THAN IT ALREADY IS!"

Shade repeats the action, but this time with even more force creating an even louder noise.

"YOU ARE SO LUCKY THAT THE GUARDS ARENT ALLOWED IN YOUR ROOM OR YOU WOULD RECIEVE THE BEATING OF A LIFETIME!"

Shade looks across to the slot on the door, seeing two eyes filled with fury staring at her through it. She leans forward once again and brings it back with even more force than before, so much so that it dents the pipe she was hitting. The loudest clang yet fills the room and blasts its way out of the slot in the door, as the eyes on the other side grow even angrier than before. Shade slumps her head, breathing shallow breaths, a small splatter of blood left on the pipe.

"ALRIGHT THAT'S IT! YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!" The door slams open as a tall man with pointed ears wearing full plate armour steps into the room. He stands before Shade as she stares at the floor, head slumped over. "HEY SCUM, LOOK AT ME WHEN IM ABOUT TO BEAT YOU! I WANT TO SEE THE REGRET IN YOUR EYES!"

Shade continues to look at the floor, head slumped over to the side so her fringe covers her face, concealing it from the man in front of her. He takes a few steps forward and hunches over, his face mere centimetres from hers.

"DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO SHOW RESPECT TO A KNIGHT OF THE CIRCLE OF GRULM?" He yells so loud that Shade's hair parts in the current created, for a second revealing her face, showing that she is smirking. The man looks closer, confused by her expression.

"Why are you..."

Suddenly, a black tendril of smoke grabs him by the neck. He reaches for the sword that hangs at his waist but can't reach it in time. The tendril throws him, and he hits the wall with a loud clank, then a slightly quieter squelch. The smoke goes over to the body and grabs the keys that are tied to his belt and the sword that lays on the ground below where he was standing. The tendril uses the sword to cut the ropes that hold Shade to the wall, and it drops the keys in Shade's hand before retracting back into the tiny splatter of blood that is on the pipe. Shade stretches, clicking the joints in her back and knuckles, enjoying the ability to move.

Shade moves through the winding corridors quickly, avoiding direct contact with any other guards that are patrolling. Only one guard is ever appointed to her cell at a time, so she has time to escape before anyone sees she is missing and alerting the prison to this fact ahead of time will only make her situation more dire. She moves with urgency, and eventually finds the entrance which will be her way out. Using the key she stole off of the guard that was assigned to her she unlocked the door and snuck her way out. As the door is opened the cold north wind blows flakes of snow through it. Shade pushes her way out of the building and onto the white snow that covers the ground outside. The building appears to have been built into the side of a cliff that stands tall in a mountain range. The icy winds blow past Shade as she reaches for a dagger that she had strapped to the inside of her leg. She strikes the dagger across her palm and drops large splats of blood onto the bright white snow. Smoke tendrils stretched from the blood and started to cover her, encompassing her entirely. Then, as suddenly as the tendrils had appeared, they were gone, and so was Shade. She was free, she had a target, and she was angry.