Author's Preface
Naren shifted in his seat, the cuffs binding his hands behind him clinking. He shook his head violently trying to get the scarf off his head but to no avail.
"Yo. Come here. Get this scarf off me real quick."
The child looked at Naren in the dark. Understandably hesitant.
Naren's head was already beating from trying to figure out what value Cedrine held to him. Even despite this pain he still held through, picking at his brain. But now, there was something just a bit more interesting.
"Hurry up."
His voice bordered on madness. As if something unwordly pocessed him. Giving him an out to the excruciating pain he was dealing with.
Naren paused for a second before adding:
"...I believe you."
The child looked up at Naren's voice coming from the dark.
"Y-you do?"
Without wasting his breath on a response, Naren nodded. A nod that wasn't seen in the darkness, but one that wasn't needed.
The child only needed the slightest validation before his chains rattled closer to Naren, pulling the scarf off the golden eyed boy's head.
Naren shook his head in exasperation. Built up sweat dripping down his chin as he felt he was finally able to breath again.
"Be a dear and wrap it around my head...Since you're hands aren't behind your back."
Through the pitch-black cell, Naren was only barely able to make out the child wrapping the dull red scarf around his neck.
His dark scruffy hair reaching his neck along with his big round eyes. He looked familiar.
The child's voice was raspy as he stumbled over his words:
"C-can you help me...? I have to get out of here...I-I have to find Leah."
Naren stood up, stretching out as best he could with the bounds restricting him. Letting out a yawn, he squinted trying to make out the surroundings.
Even if he managed to escape there was still the cuffs holding his hands back. He'd need a key. Then he'd need someone else to use a key and reach around to unlock him. What a loaded ordeal.
The dripping sounds of water continued resonated through the dungeon as the subtle heartbeat of whatever criminals lay down here pulsated.
Naren turned his gaze to the child who's big round eyes were in a trance.
"You got a light?"
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Above ground in the city of Lastlight, with the asburd darkness of light came the bioluminscent glow of their organic lanterns. Blue lightning bugs repeatedly buzzing around in the glass containers hung up every fifty meters.
Yet even in this lit world, their was something crawling in the deepest of shadows.
In a certain alleyway, a scene that would make one's skin crawl, sprawled out broad as day.
Two men, grizzlied and brutalized. Their innards completely removed and their bodies left to die in a husk.
The locals of the city however, continued about their nights in absolute disregard. The stray ones that were still out this late at night would barely spare a glance as they continued through the alleys, surrendering to their own homes.
A strange, cold language resonating every now and then.
But a different figure moved through the darkness, his pink fur flowing through the corriders as he limped away. Holding onto his severed arm spilling out a trail of blood, Dian leaned against a wall merely fifty meters from the scene.
His breath haggard as he spoke.
"What...what on God's green earth is wrong with this place."
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Inside the dungeon, the child opened his mouth before closing it again. He tilted his head as he peered at Naren.
"Light?"
Naren yawned as he took the question as an answer. As they were now, there was nothing they could do to get out.
And that's what bugged him the most.
Clamping onto the cells, Naren began berrading it with his legs, causing a ruckus as he yelled. His ears experiencing a sharp backlash from his perfromance.
"Yo! Someone! Come here and get me! I'm gonna pee myself!"
Soon a pair of violent footsteps approached holding a blue glowing lantern. Their woodlen mask shaking with fury as they appeared before Naren's cell.
Staring at him with their dark lifeless eyes they didn't speak a word.
"What?"
Naren asked titling his had around, trying to peer into the holes they drilled for eyes on those eerie masks.
His golden eyes turned almost green in the bioluminescent glare of the lantern as he carefully watched the dripping water right beside the guard.
DRIP
DRIP
DRIP
And just as the water was about to splash upon the ground, he was gone.
Within a moment, the guard was on the ground. Unable to even put together the events that conspired.
Kicking him closer to the cell bars, Naren nudged at the child inside. His grim and raggedy figure now made more apparent.
'How long has it been since he's washed himself?'
"Open up the cell then open my cuffs big-eyes."
——————————————————
Naren peered outside the trapdoor leading out of the dungeon, surveying the empty plaza. Guess everybody went home as soon as night feel.
Not that he could blame them. Now that it was the dead of night, It was freezing.
Pulling himself out, the little boy quickly scampered up behind him. His meek exterior evident as soon as he saw the blue lights of the city dangling around.
"Nice now that all those voices aren't beating inside my head."
Naren pulled his scarf tighter around his neck before continuing.
"Big-eyes what was that about a murder?"
"...Nico."
"What?"
"M-my name is Nico...And you shouldn't hurt the Fae."
Naren paused for a moment staring at Nico, who's eyes swam the moment anybody paid it direct attention.
"Alright big-eyes. The murders—"
Before Naren could finish his sentence, Nico began sniffing the air aggressively. His nose pulling him further from Naren, deep into the city's winding alleys.
Naren followed suit. The moment he stopped to think, the name Cendrine would prop up again, sending his head spiraling.
Instead, shaking it, he decided to figure this out first. He didn't know why, but a nagging feeling inside him was telling him this was more important right now. That this was something he had to figure out.
A couple minutes later, Nico stopped in his tracks in a now secluded alleyway as he immediately threw up. All remnants of a crowd, now completely dispersed, leaving only the hideous uncleaned scene in their wake.
"Ay! Big-eyes where we going?"
Naren stopped dead in his tracks as his gaze fell upon the sight before him. In front of him two men were brutalized.
A giant brooding man with iron pieces bolted into place where his thighs should have been. However, what was disturbing was what was missing. His entire top half.
Naren's gaze glided across him onto the figure beside. His golden eyes shaking.
A man with one eye covered in bandages layed their lifeless. His abdomen ripped up and innards devoured.
Naren shook as he staggered back. Cairo. That was Cairo. He knew that guy.
He didn't know how exactly, but he definitely knew the guy there.
A sudden voice brushed him out of his trance. A young woman sitting atop a mess of debris he hadn't noticed before.
"You're still not back...I thought a timeout would've done the trick this time..."
She stepped down, walking towards Naren, while pulling her hood down.
Her dark blue-almost black hair ruffling along with the hood as she readjusted the purple flower on her ear. The glint of metallic ear piercing glinting at Naren's eyes.
She wasn't ugly. He realized that as she spoke, removing two white buds connected to a wire from her ears.
"Well now that you're here let's start thinking about what really matters...Who in Lastlight is carrying the werewolf virus."