11:00PM
A wave of adrenaline surged into Matthew, his veins pulsed with magic by reflex as he instantly readied himself for combat. Demitri, Lauren and Zayne reacted the same. However, upon seeing the four of them power up, the children shrunk back and cowered in fear. The closest one to Matthew, who looked to be the oldest of them, was shivering. They immediately released Matthew.
"P-please, don't hurt us..." the wretched child pleaded in its horse voice.
Matthew did not know how to react. On one hand, he felt fear being caught off guard and outnumbered, but on the other hand he felt familiarity and pity. Demitri looked as pale as a sheet of paper whilst Zayne only looked slightly perturbed. Lauren was ice cold.
Matthew scowled, taking a cautious step towards the oldest child. "What did you just say?"
"The Red Man." The child seemed to reel upon even uttering the name. "He's going to take you away."
"Who is this Red Man? Is he the guy following us?" Matthew got closer to the child.
They nodded shakily. "Yes, that man is the Red Man. He touches you and takes you away. Only monsters remain..."
The footsteps grew closer, along with an eery whistling.
"Be quiet, we'll deal with him." Matthew hardened, creating devilish earthen gauntlets.
The wretched child hissed. "No! You can't!"
But it was too late. The footsteps were now just around the corner, action was upon them.
As a dirty, gaunt face turned around the corner, a heavy earthen hand met it. Before the man could let out even a yelp, Matthew dragged him around the corner and slammed him into the ground, binding his entire body in earth. The squalid children gasped as the man was easily apprehended.
"Nice Job, Matthew!" Demitri gave him a high five. "Now, what to do..."
Zayne flew down, curiously scrutinizing the man. Upon getting closer, he pinched his nose and flew back. "Eww...this guy stinks of bad mana."
Lauren walked up to the man, who was only a head currently, and kicked him. "We're going to torture him, right?"
"Uh, only if he doesn't comply." Demitri stared questioningly at the girl. "Hey, Red Man, why do these kids keep calling you the Red Man? And do you have Blood?"
"MMmMMPH!"
'Ah, right.' Matthew willed the earth to ungag him. "Don't try anything funny."
The man spat at Matthew's feet. "Shut up, kid. Let me go now or else!"
"Okay, pain it is." Matthew flexed his mind, constricting the earth around the man. "Talk."
The Red Man shrieked. "Wait, wait, wait! Stop! Please!"
Matthew relented.
"I'm just a low level stooge who distributes Blood, they call me the Red Man because you turn red after using Blood!" He wimpered. "Please let me go, I'm only doing this to feed my kids."
Matthew wasn't buying his sob story. Neither was anybody else. Demitri walked forward and crouched to be eye level with the man. "We'll let you go after you tell us where you get your Blood, Mr. Red Man. If you don't, then I guess you'll just have to stay here for a while and think about your actions."
"W-what?! Come on, Kid, just let me go! I ain't gonna hurt ya! I'm a nice guy!" the Red Man pleaded. "Honest to the Goddess!"
Zayne landed on top of the Red Man's head. "You can't hurt us even if you tried, stinky man, just tell us what you know and we'll let you go."
Lauren nodded from beside Matthew.
Pondering the situation for a moment, the man began smiling eerily. "Ah, I see, so you're the big shot kids going around. Mom and Dad sure have deep pockets, huh? Feeling adventurous? Is that why you're here? You think you're invincible, well, this aint a playground, you little sh*ts, the Center has no mercy for even kids, ain't that right, Charlie?"
An intense pain struck Matthew as he staggered forward, he turned around to see who had struck him. It was one of the squalid children, the wretched one. 'Charlie.' Luckily, Matthew had the habit of never deaugmenting himself when in unknown areas, so even though he was struck by quite a hefty rock, he had suffered negligable damage. The pain was mainly from shock of the rock's weight.
Taking a better look at the child, Matthew could see that he was larger than the rest, skinnier but with tight muscles underneath his rags. There were pink pigments riddling his body, and one of his eyes was bloodshot and looked crazed. The other one was crying.
"Atta boy, transform, now!" the Red Man grinned.
Charlie squirmed, his right eye gleamed with delight while his left one shed a tear. "I'm sorry," his voice began to disjoint as his body grew larger. Charlie's bones started to crack as he cried out in horrible pain, his skin stretched beyond what it normally could, ripping in some areas. The children behind Charlie cried out in shared pain, watching one of their own, probably their leader, suffer horrendous pain.
Before Charlie could complete his transformation, an expression different from pain appeared on his face. It looked like he was choking. Falling back, he crashed into a house and broke through it, unconscious.
Zayne hovered a few meters off the ground, finger pointed at where Charlie once stood. Everyone stared at him. "What? It doesn't matter how big they are, if they can't breathe they can't stay awake." He smiled unassumingly. "By the way, Mr. Red Man, if you try that again breathing will be the least of your worries."
. . .
"Hey, will that guy be alright?" Matthew asked, the four of them now continuing to move deeper into the Center. "I didn't know you could do that."
Zayne shrugged, floating in the air as he was being pulled along by Demitri. "Eh, there's a lot you don't know about me. Like how awesome I am at soccer."
"Or how incredibly humble you are." Demitri grumbled. "Don't feed his ego, its already massive."
"Up ahead." Lauren listlessly stated, pointing at the abrupt end of land up ahead.
Coming to a stop, the four of them peered over the edge. Matthew gulped, sweating at what he saw. Below them was a dark, bottomless expanse with countless little lights riddled around. There was a large slope of dirt that twisted and turned, reaching down into the dark abyss like an ancient serpent. On that road were countless people of all kind. What made Matthew gulp, however, wasn't the sheer volume of it, it was what the people where doing.
Down below, Matthew could see a long line of people who were cuffed, being dragged along by a wicked looking man. There were others in cages with price tags in front. Blatent drug deals were discussed in the open, and even more heinous crimes were openly committed. Matthew even saw a person get stabbed whilst the people around continued with there day.
This was the Center.