Author's Preface
Breathing heavily, Naren had his back against a wall in a cramped cellar of a run-down house. There, he was surrounded by a girl with dark-blue hair and a one-eyed man holding a ghost child.
Speaking through his teeth, Naren held his back to the wall, trying to stay as far from the ghost as possible.
"Get that thing away from me, Cairo."
Cairo turned to him, a confused look on his face at first as he stared down at Nico, whose body continued to grow more ethereal.
With a sly smile, the man shook the boy, holding him closer to Naren as Naren tried backing up deeper into the wall, holding his eyes shut.
"Why? He not cute?"
"Cairo!"
"Can you two knock it off?!"
Yuna snatched Nico from Cairo, placing him onto the ground behind her.
The boy's eyes glimmered as he saw Yuna, trying to speak, but his voice wouldn't come out. As if his vocal cords were being twisted and churned inside him.
Yuna sighed and turned to the two. Pointing to Naren at first, then Cairo.
"First, you calm down. Second, why would you let the husk know that we're in a Dreameater?!"
Cairo shrugged.
"It's not like they don't know."
"That's not the problem. Husks are the Dreameaters puppet. Once they hear that you know, you think the Dreameater will sit still? He'll pick at your head even more than he does now."
Yuna grabbed her head, grimacing.
"Even now, my head's beating."
Now that Naren was able to calm down a little, he was able to approach the situation at hand with a little more thought. Albeit, he was still wary of the husk behind Yuna.
"S-so, these husks. If they're not like ghosts...will they suck out our memories?"
Yuna and Cairo smiled blankly at him, before they both began laughing.
"You kidding? That's a little kid's tale little dude!"
"Neither husks nor ghosts suck your memories. That's just what parents tell to scare kids. How long did you believe that?"
Naren clutched his crimson scarf. His eyes still set on the husk.
"I-I can't be too sure."
Yuna stared at Naren wtih pitch-black eyes.
"These husks...They're what's left of people whose minds were consumed by the Dreameater. It's what we're going to become if we stay here much longer...It's also what happens to a aspirant who fails to become a shaman."
Naren titled his head, looking at the husk with a new found sense of curiousity. His fear slithering away, replaced with awe as he began to wonder if he would end up looking like that too.
Wait, he flicked his gaze at Yuna, scowling.
She was the Werewolf they had to kill. Who's to say how much of her words are truths and how much are lies. Even her spite could've been a lie to throw him off.
Yuna opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, Cairo's broken blade was already an inch from her neck.
"What's your play, Stain?"
Cairo shrugged.
"Dunno. My guts telling me I like little dude here with the scarf. And with how much of my mind the Dreameaters eaten, if he's lookin at you like that, you can't be help, can you?"
Yuna raised her hands in the air, speaking:
"I am a princess, heir to the Macedonia throne, on the honor of Alexander the great I speak nothing but the truth."
Cairo titled his head. He was more knowledgable than Naren, so he knew. A heir putting their lord's honor as collateral is something to give credence to.
"Turn your blade against me and you two will die in this nightmare."
Cairo inched his blade closer.
"Yeah? How so?"
Yuna's voice was steady.
"Three more months...That's how long you have as aspirants. Either become a shaman in three months, or have your soul devoured."
Cairo froze in place. His sharp grey eye staring at Yuna as a smile licked across his face. No matter what, against everything and everyone. He had to survive.
Yuna continued.
"Now if you don't want to live like husks here, then I recommend listening to m—"
Naren, however, did not bite. He stared at Yuna with eyes of a cat. His pupils looking like a hunter before prey, cutting her off.
"Words of gold coming from you...Werewolf."
For the first time, Yuna stared at Naren, clenching her jaw in a look of anger. And for the first time, Naren could hear her heartbeat regulate.
—————————————
In the dark damp corridors that twisted onto themselves into a mess of stairs and halls, the deep darkness of night allowed the blue ambient lightning bugs to illuminate something quite hideous in a cramped corner.
There, the mangled bodies of two hooded figures were cast out. Entrails ripped out, with bones scrunched and crushed. The larger one was missing the entire upper half of his body. And the smaller one, was left with only the shell of his body intact.
As a lightning bug landed on Dian's face, his eyes stared off into space. His voice croaking as the last of his life spilled out.
—————————————
Yuna's pitch-black eyes stared at Naren with a cold truth.
"Tell me...Why is it that you've never considered the little witch?"
A deep snarl resounded from above the three. A bare muscular hand filled with dull patches of hair slammed through the cellar roof.
The claws manging around the room, as Cairo panicked, his blade glowing amber as he dug into the beast.
The wolf tore the roof off, a flood of bodies of husks flowing in. Dead as the wolf continued rampaging through the cramped room now filled with corpses.
But Yuna simply stared at Naren. Uttering one last sentence:
"You are number two. Stop thinking and just listen."
And in return, Naren lost.
His hazy memories began to clear up as he remembered the last encounter with Yuna. Her hands pointing not at him, but at the little girl behind him.
The little girl who began to shake uncontrollably, her limbs stretching and bulking as her mouth ripped into three.
Naren stared at Yuna as the truth slowly seeped into his head. A truth he'd kept from himself. Lied to himself about.
Then everything returned to black.
Just like it always did.