"Kill her," The order was simple. And the one who gave them brokered no argument. "Or we kill the both of you. Make your choice, child."
It really wasn't much of a choice, was it?
The knife shook in my grip. It was a small thing with a plastic handle that could be used to cut carrots just as easily as it could be used to slice open a person; the blade was barely 4 inches in length and seemed blunted all throughout, save for the point.
The men and women in black around us stood still, quiet as the grave. They'd hardly ever spoken since they took me from that dingy little alley and dragged me all the way out here, alongside another kid – a little girl, about my age. She was on the floor after a brief scuffle and she did not appear to be getting up any time soon. She'd tried to escape them, but then they beat her again and again until she stopped trying.
It seemed easy.
All I had to do was jam the knife at the back of her neck and she'd be dead.
Easy, right?
It was her life or mine and I'd choose myself any day of the week.
But I've never killed anyone before.
I killed a rat once, but that was only because it tried to steal my lunch that I worked so hard to steal from someone else. The very idea of taking the life of an actual person was… was not something I wanted to think about. I've heard of a few grownups who killed rich-looking passersby, but they were the rotten eggs that spoiled the basket. Everyone else that I knew only wanted to survive. Threats and acts of intimidation were necessary at times, but killing was never on the table.
Somehow, despite everything, I found myself chuckling. Ah, I can't stop my hand from shaking.
My eyes fell on the figure on the ground.
It should be easy.
It was easy.
Just plunge the knife and that was it.
Cold sweat ran down the side of my face. My chest neared bursting as my heartbeats thrummed and thundered within. My breaths came rapidly as my heart raced.
I can do this.
It wasn't even a kill or be killed situation – well, it kind of was, but not quite. She wasn't a threat to me and I wouldn't really be defending myself, but if I didn't kill this kid, we'd both end up dead anyway. One of us had to die; there was no way out of it. We were surrounded by the men and women in black and running away was not an option. They'd just beat me to half-death, like they did the other kid and where would that leave us? I had to live. I wanted to live. And the only way to live was to kill someone else.
My chest hammered. And quick, ragged gasps blew from my lungs. I have to do this.
I can't do this.
I've never killed anyone before and I don't want to kill anyone.
The knife trembled in my hand.
I can't kill anyone.
Wetness welled from my eyes.
Was I crying? Probably; I would've peed myself too if I had drank any water in the last ten or so hours.
All in all, I was mildly thirsty and utterly horrified.
Cold air blew harshly across my face and I barely suppressed the shiver than rang across my bones. The men and women in black did not seem to mind the chill of the night air. At some point, my hand had gone limp and the knife that was in it had clattered to the ground. My chest heaved up and down, and my skin paled rapidly.
I took several steps back almost on instinct and shook my head all the while. "I can't do this… I can't do this."
One of them stepped towards me and knelt down, leaning towards my right ear. I shuddered absently as the figure spoke. Her voice was like the grinding and breaking of glass and metal. And I noticed right then the faint crimson glow of her eyes. My body shook uncontrollably, but I quickly squashed away the urge to run, because I knew – for a fact – that running meant I'd die. "This is your last chance, child; kill her or die with her. Make your choice, before the night ends. And don't think for a moment that your death will be quick; it will be painful. We'll skin you alive and leave your body out to dry in the sun when the morning comes. Is that what you want?"
The images appeared in my head – of me, stripped bare and skinned, and left to rot in the open, my entrails dripping and hanging low onto the streets. Blood… I saw blood everywhere. Crows and birds pecked apart the remains of my face, and swarming across my form was a sea of vermin and rodents.
I shook my head.
The woman in black smiled. Pearly teeth glinted softly as she stood back up. And she took back the cooking knife they'd given me earlier, swiped it from the floor. Her smile widened. And her blazing red eyes seemed to burn even brighter. "For that, you will kill her without the aid of a weapon."
I took in a sharp breath of air.
The world blurred. Everything appeared as a hazy mess of colors and things in motion. I felt pain around my knuckles, but I didn't know where it came from or why. Nothing made sense. Sudden warmth splashed across my face and my chest. A pungent smell, like rotting copper, filled the air. I think I might've heard one or two bouts of laughter, but I couldn't be sure. All I really saw was a loose amalgamation of colors and shapes that all seemed to blend together into a confusing portrait.
And then the haze cleared. And all I saw was blood, flesh, and scattered bone. The remains of my hands shuddered. I'd broken my fingers in all that. Below me, splattered across the pavement, was the other kid's face or, more precisely, the gruesome and bloodied pieces of her face.
Someone clapped and laughed from behind me. And soon, a round of claps echoed across the dingy alleyway. A man spoke. His voice was deep, but the tone with which he spoke revealed both amusement and delight. "Another promising neophyte; you've done well, child. I expect great things from you."
"Take him away," The others moved. But I hardly cared. My eyes homed in on the bloodied irises that stared back at me. The woman from earlier stood there. She grinned at me. Her pearly-white teeth seemed to glisten in the faint light of the moon.
"You'll do well," She said. "I sense great potential in you, boy. Don't let me down."
And then I blanked out.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When I awakened, I found myself in a dark, dank room that smelled vaguely of dried herbs and stale water. I was on the floor. It was cold and dry. And yet, there were sounds of droplets from somewhere, falling and splashing at a constant rhythm. There was a soft, dim light that shined in from a crack in the ceiling. There were others here, shadowy figures on the floor around me. They were children, I realized, like me. They were all unconscious for some reason. And the boy who was nearest to me was covered in boils and sores, and had a shortness of breath. His eyes were slammed shut and he seemed to be deep in a nightmare as he twisted and turned. There were a few others like him, groaning and moaning in the shadow, but the dark made it difficult to see what was going on with the others. There must've been hundreds of us in this place.
I pushed myself up and wobbled. My clothes were missing and my skin felt extremely hot – as though I'd spent hours under the heat of the sun. My insides felt the same. But that hardly mattered. I had to find a way out of this place.
Glancing around, I spotted what appeared to be a vaguely rectangular thing on the far side of the wall. It must've been a door. It couldn't have been anything else. I stepped over the other children and moved towards it. There were bare spots on the floor, where the bodies hadn't covered. Still, I had no choice but to actually step on a few of them as I moved. A few kids groaned as I moved over them, but none of them appeared to wake up. Some had a greenish tint to their skin, while others appeared to have crimson blotches all over their bodies.
They were sick for some reason – a lot of the children here were.
What happened to them? I shook my head. It didn't matter what happened or what was happening to them. The only thing that mattered was that I lived through this.
I paused at the thought. If I escaped, I wouldn't really have anywhere to go back to, no shelter, no home, and no family to keep me safe. The world was a dark place. I'd been on my own for as long as I could remember. I begged, I stole, and I ran and I was good at all of those things. I would escape from this place.
And I would do as I've always done – survive.
The door was close now. It was only a few steps away.
I reached the edge of the dark room and laid my hands on the rectangular shape. Please, be a door.
I ran my hands across its surface and searched for anything that might've been a doorknob. I found nothing. But the door appeared move forward slightly, which meant it would probably swing forward if I pushed hard enough.
I pushed as hard as I possibly could. It budged by the tiniest bit, but did nothing more. Breathing out a slow, raspy breath, I fell on my hands and knees on the floor, gasping. The air suddenly seemed so thin. Each breath was difficult and heavy. My insides seemed to burst into flames – hot and painful, creeping from my stomach and spreading outwards across my body. I fell to a knee and wheezed.
What's going on?!
And then, the wall seemed to move. I froze, just before I felt myself falling forward as the rectangular portion I'd held onto drifted away from my grasp.
"Oh, only one of them survived." A sudden voice spoke just as I fell on my face; the tone with which he spoke was disappointed. "I thought at least ten or twelve of them would make it through the physical exam. Did someone up the dose? One child out of two hundred seems a bit odd."
Someone spat on the floor – and, thankfully, not on me. Footsteps approached the opening of the wall. A pair of massive boots settled right next to my face. "No, it was the same as it was last year. The runts just aren't as strong as the last batch. This one's different."
The figure was a woman, but her voice seemed raspy and gruff, like the voice of a grandmother.
I felt a foot stomp down on my back. It wasn't heavy, but it certainly wasn't light either – just enough weight to keep me from moving. Though, I couldn't move even if I wanted to; my whole body felt frozen stiff, despite the burning in my chest and stomach. "Such a shame; I placed a bet on this one kid from Laguna. He was a fighter; the boy killed the Jap who raped and killed his sister. I had high hopes for him."
"That's exactly why you shouldn't be making bets before they've had their physical; who knows how many of them can actually survive?" The man said, before suddenly humming and taking a single step forward. "Oh, I take it back; there're two more survivors, just over there. You see? Yeah, the one with the red blisters; the kid's still alive. The other one's unconscious – pale skin and polka dots all over."
"Tsk, my bet is still very dead." The woman answered, before sighing exasperatedly and walking into the room. I sighed with relief as the pressure of her foot disappeared from my back. A moment later, she walked back out, dragging the unconscious forms of two other children. Unlike me, their bodies were covered in ugly sores, boils, and strange, pulsating red dots.
"Alright," The man clapped his hands together. A cacophony of footsteps approached – more than ten people, at the very least. "Clean up this mess and prepare the next batch of children. Take these three to the healing room; I want them hale and healthy by the end of the day. There are plenty of orientations to be had for our newest batch of neophytes and I don't want any of them falling asleep."
"Yes, Lord Vaago!"
I groaned and found strength in my limbs. I tried pushing myself up on instinct, but then the boot returned harshly and pushed me back down onto the floor. The woman chuckled. The pressure on my back increased. "This one's stronger than most. Been pretending to sleep the whole time."
"True," The man confirmed. I had no idea what they were talking about, but it probably involved me somehow. His name was apparently lord Vaago. The name was definitely foreign. I've never heard of any Filipino with a name like that and it definitely wasn't Japanese or American, either. He spoke in English with an accent that was neither American nor British, but somewhere in between. It begged the question of where they'd taken me.
The pressure disappeared. And I soon found myself hauled up into the air by invisible hands. I tried to move, but something kept my limbs in place, a constant pressure that pressed all over me. Burning crimson eyes met mine, smoldering above chalky lips and a smooth, pale, and porcelain-like face that seemed unnaturally youthful. He was almost like a doll in that regard. His skin was too smooth and too perfect to be natural.
Lord Vaago smiled, revealing pearly white teeth that seemed to glimmer softly. He was halfway between scary and pretty.
Still, I met his gaze.
A few of the older kids always taught me to keep my head low if the Japs came at us, yelling and barking in whatever language they spoke. It'd keep me alive, they said. It'd give feed them the image that I was just a helpless little boy, who was not worth their time – not worth killing. I didn't want to do that. I'd long since resolved never to bow my head to anyone. I'd survive off the strength of my back and my arms alone, by my power. And it worked. I stole and looted and never had to bow to anyone, never had to humble myself in front of anyone – not even the Japs. I'd escape and survive, or they'd kill me; bowing was out of the question. Keeping my head low was something I did not want to do.
Force me to kill, to maim, but my head will be held high.
"This one has spirit," Lord Vaago said, grinning now as his eyes traveled across my form. "His potential is great. I can see why Lady Victoria placed quite a hefty bet on him. It's a shame he wasn't found earlier."
"What's your name, boy?" He asked. The pressure around my form increased until it became painful. I grunted as I felt my muscles twitch.
"Uriel Alvarez…." I groaned.
Vaago raised an eyebrow and reached forward. He placed a thumb on my forehead and closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, lasting just noticeably but otherwise barely longer than a blink of an eye. "The Japanese killed your parents and sister. You survived, because they hadn't bothered looking under the floorboards. You were eight at the time. Quite the little survivor, aren't you?"
I'd mostly forgotten it. The surge of memories was wholly unwanted – my sister's eyes, my mother's voice, and my father's gentle smile. Then the Japs came, shouting and roaring. There was gunfire from outside our home. Men and women screamed. And then our door was forced open. Soldiers rushed inside. My sister screamed, followed by my mother. My father put himself in front of them and was shot down without a word. Two more shots rang. And two more bodies fell to the floor.
"AAAAGH!" I screamed and lurched forward. And the invisible grasp over my body seemed to shatter for the briefest of moments, before it returned harder and harsher.
Vaago and the woman laughed. The woman spoke first. She walked towards me and placed a hand atop my head, ruffling my hair as she did. I struggled hard, but the sudden strength I gained from my earlier burst of rage disappeared as quickly as it appeared. And I felt weaker and weaker with every passing moment. "Ah, to think a child could break through a spell of holding through sheer anger alone; this one's going to be a real monster."
"Yes," Vaago nodded. And I was dropped to the floor, where I only barely managed to shield my face with my forearms. It hurt. But, by then, pain was an old friend. I'd broken more bones than I could count, jumping off of high places – mostly people's windows. "Victoria's really going to rub this in our faces, isn't she?"
The woman shrugged. "Eh, she always does that."
"I wonder…."
"Take him to the healing room," Vaago said after a moment of silence. "Make sure no one tampers with his recovery; this boy is of… interest to me. If he dies, the rest of you will die with him – understood?"
"Yes, Lord Vaago!"
I felt several hands grabbing me, right before I was hoisted up and dropped into a stretcher of some kind. I saw a host of hooded figures around me, wearing jet-black robes that covered most of their bodies. Over their hands, they wore gloves that concealed their skin. The only discerning feature about them was their eyes, glowing like still-burning coals in the dead of night.
They marched. I was too weak to look at my left or right. And all my eyes witnessed was the drab ceiling above – withered grey stone that sported tiny cracks here and there, and strange dark patterns that almost seemed like faces, peering down at me. Some sneered, while others seemed to look at me with pity.
I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments and must've fallen asleep, because it seemed as though I'd ended up in an entirely different place when I opened them. The ceiling had changed from a dull, blackish grey to an alabaster white. The air, having noticed it just then, carried no sickly scent, no diseased wretchedness that was all too common in military hospitals and those places where the bodies of the dead were piled high and burned, until all that was left of them were gnarled and blackened remains. This place, which I surmised must've been the Healing Room, smelled faintly of Sampaguita flowers and grass.
"Put him on the table over there," A woman commanded. And the hooded figures bowed their heads for a moment, before turning and placing me down on a very soft surface. It was strange. It'd been many years since I last laid on a bed that was actually soft and not just a loose stack of cardboard or leaves that I just happened to find lying around. It was soft – softer than anything I'd ever lain on. It should've been comfortable, but I felt only the stark opposite of comfort. It was alien.
I didn't want it. The only beds I've ever known were hard and stiff.
The hooded figures turned and walked away without another word. I tried to push myself up, but found my arms with a distinct lack of strength; moving them was impossible. Still, the area around me was well-lit, allowing me to see the things around me.
The first thing I noticed immediately was that it reminded me too much of a hospital. I've only been to a few hospitals – mostly the ones that offered free medicine to everyone and not just the wounded Japs. There were several other beds around me, and injured people resting atop them. There were… many-limbed things that walked to and fro, carrying trays and other strange things that probably wouldn't look out of place in an actual hospital. They appeared human in shape, but their skins were chalk-white and covered in pulsating, red veins that crisscrossed all across their form. And they had no faces, only blank canvasses of skin where eyes, noses, and mouths should've been.
One of them turned and walked towards me, a four-armed thing that might've been a woman at some point. It moved with grace and precision, more akin to a machine than to a real person. I froze. It was carrying a tray, filled with bowls and syringes. Was it coming to kill me? I couldn't move. My chest heaved up and down.
The bed shook. And the air around me seemed to hiss and sizzle. Tiny sparks fluttered upwards and drifted in the air.
What was that smell?
"Relax," The woman, from before, spoke. And it was just then that I noted she'd been standing beside me the whole time. And, somehow, I hadn't noticed that she was there. "If I wanted you dead, I would've already done so, before you entered the premises, whelp. Be not afraid. You're burning the bed."
I glanced to the side and found black smoke emanating from the sheets around me. "Wha-?"
The very instance I noted it, the heat around me dissipated and disappeared. And the sparks in the air disappeared with it. The smell of smoke, however, lingered. It was probably the only familiar smell about this place. Even the scent of the flowers was only barely familiar in that I'd ran into a few flower shops here and there, wandering around Cebu.
"Where am I?"
"A long way from wherever your home is, I reckon," The woman replied with a shrug. I took a moment to examine her. Like everyone else I'd seen in this place, thus far, her eyes glimmered like still-burning coals. Her skin was of a dark shade, like mine, but smooth and radiant, like the skin of a celebrity if there ever was one. She was definitely not a foreigner, but she also definitely was not a native, either. She was probably some rich mestiza, judging from her mixed features and brunette hair. She was also a lot taller than most girls I've seen.
She wore black robes that covered most of her body, save for her neck and face. Her hands were concealed underneath a pair of black gloves.
Everyone here seemed rather fond of wearing black.
She eyed me for a moment, burning eyes staring intently into mine. "You've passed the first test – magical exposure. Most humans die when exposed to massive amounts of magical radiation; it often causes deadly mutations and diseases. Some, like yourself, develop immunity and gain the ability to use magic."
"Magic?" I gulped, almost chuckling at the absurdity of it. Having woken up in a Nazi internment camp would've been more believable than magic. "You're kidding."
"I am not." She replied flatly. Her tone brokered no argument. She was neither stern nor laidback, but the gravity of her words seemed to pierce through my mind with ease. "You survived the first trial, which means you are now capable of summoning and wielding magical energies. Congratulations, you are now officially a Neophyte of the Shadow Academy, which means your life expectancy just got a heck of a whole lot shorter."
My head hung low. "Why am I here? What am I doing here?! What is this place?!"
"Come now," She began, turning away from me as the strange, four-armed monster reached the edge of the bed and stopped. "Would you really prefer to return a life on the streets, fighting and stealing for the barest scraps of food? You're stronger than most, I'll give you that; but how long would it have been until the Japs caught you and cut off your hands? Is that the kind of life you want to live?"
"Out there, you're no one," She continued, having taken a metal bowl from the tray held aloft by the monster. "Your family is dead. You have no friends and you're a criminal. And the only relatives you might have are probably already dead, because of the Japs. You're nothing. If the Japs don't kill you, then you might just die of hunger."
"In here, however," Her crimson eyes flared. "You have a chance to become something more than what you are – something more than human. In here, you can become a god."
She held out the metal bowl to me. It smelled faintly of garlic and onions. Thin trails of vapor snaked outwards. My stomach grumbled. When was the last time I ate? When was the last time I ever had a hot and decent meal? I couldn't quite remember.
And so, I swallowed hard and reached out.
It was hot when I grabbed it, but not painfully so. Inside was what appeared to be chicken soup, with bits of real chicken floating about in the broth. My mouth watered and my breath hitched. It smelled so delicious. A spoon landed on my lap from somewhere, afterwards.
"And you definitely aren't going to starve here." The woman chuckled, before turning and walking away.
It was when I took my first sip of the soup that I realized I'd been crying.