"I can finally break through into tier 1. At long last, where's my journal I have to write this down." said the old man crazily as he ignored the fear in the kids' eyes and began rummaging through the drawers of an old musty cupboard.
The inside of the warehouse was more spacious than it first appeared to be, however the shadows all around the kids gave the illusion that the room was smaller. As the old man continued talking to himself it seemed as if the shadows were moving around as well, but most of the kids passed it off as their imagination playing tricks on them due to their fear.
"Listen here old man, I-I don't know what the deal is here , b-but you better let us go or else." said one of the boys in the group, feigning courage when really he was scared shitless. The old man continued bickering to himself as if the boy had never said anything.
"That does it, come on guys what are we afraid of there's one of him and 9 of us. I say we beat the old man and take whatever stuff he has." said the same boy as determination tried to replace the fear in his eyes. "Darkness heed my call." said the old man almost inaudibly, as the boy was about to turn around blood spattered to the floor.
Everyone was quite confused until they saw they boy's head fall to the ground. "Did you say you want to steal my research? No-no-no I can't allow you to do that." said the man this time with a cold voice as if he had suddenly switched personalities. "Hmm now that I think about it, I only need the anomaly for my research. I can always stockpile on normal test subjects later." muttered the old man more to himself than to anyone else in the room.
The old man muttered something inaudibly and with a flick of his wrist the darkness around him took the shape of a thin blades and rushed at the group of boys culling most of them in one fell swoop. Now only 3 children remained and the rest of them were but disbodied body parts. Legs, arms, hands ,eyeballs and different body parts lay in a sea of blood in front of Arya, Arya held in the urge to vomit. He had seen death many times but it had never been this gruesome.
The other two survivors were Terresa and the brown haired boy from earlier, however the boy was missing a leg and blood was constantly spreading onto the floor around him. The only reason Teressa came out unscathed was because she was behind Arya, whom the old man didn't hit on purpose as he was to be his test subject.
The brown haired boy was in a state of shock, he stared blankly at the old man as he continued to look for something in the drawers. Teressa was in a state of shock as well, she was tied up and couldn't move which meant she was forced to witness the gruesome site. "Ah here it is." said the old man as he removed a book from the drawer and began jotting something inside it.
"I have to get out of here." whimpered the brown haired boy as he snapped out of his shock and realized the danger his life was in. The boy tried standing however as if the pain had suddenly just hit him he fell to the ground crying.
"Oh you're still alive?" asked the old man as he tilted his head to the side and stared at the boy as he wailed in both pain and fear. With another inaudible mumble and a flick of the old man's wrist the darkness around the room rushed at the brown haired boy turning him into mince.
As remains of the boy dripped to the floor Arya barfed out bile. The old man didn't seem to care and continued jotting in his book. "Brother that man is a definitely mage. We have to get out of here now. Get the girl and flee." said a voice in Arya's head. "Your only talent seems to be pointing out the obvious ,however what is this about get the girl? Are you insane, I bet Arya won't even make it out of here if he tried escaping alone." said the other voice as the old man approached Arya.
"White hair? Never seen someone with hair like this in Calburg, are you perhaps a foreigner? Anyways that's not important right now, what I really want to know is why you have the life force of a mage yet your mana flow is static?" asked the old man as he bended over and tilted his head at Arya, coming so close that Arya could smell what the man had for breakfast. Whatever it was, there's no way it was actual food.
The man was quite tall being 1.84 m and he had quite a small frame, coupled with his black robe in the dark room, he seemed almost skeletal, like some kind of necromancer out a fantasy novel. "Will you not answer me boy? You know at first I thought you were a mage, how silly of me. Than I realized that you must be about 4 or 5, maybe 6 there's no way someone your age could use magic. Then I thought you were a monster taking human form but seeing as you are still tied up that couldn't be the case." said the old man as if he were talking to one of his acquaintances.
"Could it be that you don't know either? Well any how it doesn't really matter, I'll be using your life force for my experiments. You ought to be grateful I'm offering you eternal life. I'm turning you and all you're friends into undead, however I first need to extract your life force without killing you. Truth be said though boy, humans can't survive without at least an ounce of life force, and I'll be taking every little bit out of you." said the man with a smile on his face as he dragged Arya's tied up body to another room.
The room they went to was located in the basement, this room was even darker then the one above and the only source of light were a few candles on a desk at the end of the hallway. The hallway was about 2m wide and along it were cells caged with steel bars and the only reason he could see them was because light from the candles reflected of the steel on to Arya's face. The hallway itself was about 20m long and every cell was about 2m by 2m making a total of 10 cells on each side.
As the old man dragged Arya through the hallway Arya could see silhouettes of weird figures in the cells, it was too dark for him to tell but the figures had a human outline but with a few deviations. Sometimes Arya would notice that one of the silhouettes had more arms than usual or was without certain body parts. As Arya was dragged past the last cell a monstrous voice roared at him from behind the cell.
"Silence, I told you, you were a failure. Don't disturb my new subject." scolded the old man he whispered something to himself and the darkness in the cell restrained whatever was inside it. "Excuse her, I haven't taught her proper etiquette yet. Now where were we? Oh yes your life force." said the old man in an almost confused manner. Clearly this man wasn't completely sane thought Arya as he reached the desk with the candles.