The air in Ravensboro's gym held the must of dead rats, humid and metallic it crept along evoking fear and despair. It had been a place of celebration the night before, now it was a slaughter house. The red runic barrier that had protected them had become a cage. It had shattered sometime during the night. And within, a nightmare had taken root.

  David's face cast into a scowl, swung his sword in a wide arc. The steel parted the air with ease as its grave tune sounded out. The half-man half rat thing before him snarled at him viciously. Twisted flesh covered a skeletal frame, rat-like features half merged with a humans, and eyes that glowed with a malevolent hunger. Colocolo as David had begun to call them in his mind, were tall, the height of the humans they once were. Their claws, tipped with a black, viscous substance, were deadly and infected their prey to become like them.

  He ended the rat with a clean strike from above, the impact jarring his arms. He felt it then, a pulse of anger. The familiar surge of irritation that threatened to bloom into something darker. And then he heard it. The whisper.

  "Set me free!" It slithered into his mind, a voice both eeire and intimately familiar.

  He clamped down on it, forcing it back into the floor of his consciousness. He couldn’t afford to lose control, not now. He remembered the last time, the blinding fury, the… the things he’d done. He shuddered, focusing on another Rat-Thing lunging at him. This time, David was ready.

  He sidestepped the attack and brought his sword down in a swift, decisive strike. The blade bit deep, severing the creature’s spine. It collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs.

  He spared it a glance, a flicker of pity warring with a cold, hard necessity. It wasn’t Silas anymore. It was just a… thing. A thing that needed to be stopped.

  Across the gym, Isabella danced a deadly ballet. Her dual quatars blazed with a fiery energy, each strike leaving trails of searing heat in the air. Her movements were graceful and sharp. It reminded David of a whirlwind of controlled aggression. She was tall and imposing, with feathers woven into her dark hair that swayed with each strike.

  "David! To your left!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the deep snarls and screams that filled the air.

  He turned to see another Rat-Thing, its beady eyes trained on him, dashing over its fallen bretheren. As it arrived, he reacted on instinct. David plunged his sword into its chest and the steel meet little resistance. With a final flourish the blade was free, the creature collapsing at his feet.

  "Thanks." David grunted, feeling the warm connection he had to the steel in his hand.

  Isabella met his gaze, her expression unreadable. "Conserve your energy. We need to clear this place. Vanessa's gathering the uninfected."

  David nodded. He trusted Isabella. He had to. She was the only one who knew about the rituals, the darkness that lurked within. The only Aiodos that would be able to make any sense of this madness.

  He and Isabella had no choice but to continue their grim work. They fought back-to-back at times, a seamless dance of death. With increasesd familiarity they had begun to anticipate the other's movements. Colocolo fell before them, their unnatural forms dissolving into purple smog and leaving behind only the lingering stench of their corruption.

  During this time, near the main entrance, Vanessa had her own task. With her ornamental garb she was trying to maintain order amongst the terrified survivors. The white robes, now stained with tears and blood, contrasted the grotesque reality surrounding them. Her usual arrogance, had been amplified in the face of this unimaginable horror.

  "Quiet! The spirits will not tolerate hysteria!" she snapped, her voice sharp and demanding. "Those who are infected, stay where you are! The rest of you, form a line, and remain calm!"

  Her attempts at control bordered on the theatrical, but proved efficient. The last of Ravensboro's survivors huddled together. They were a flock of sheep, and Vanessa, was their shepherd. On her side was Tom, holding on to her robes for dear life with white knuckles.

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  "They'll be okay, right? Vanessa?" he whispered, his voice trembling.

  Vanessa's face softened slightly as she looked at him. The tiniest of flickers flashed across her face. It spoke of something genuine, maternal even before it disappeared once more.

  "No, Tom." she said, her voice as gentle as she could make it. "They won't be okay. But we will be. We have to be. We need to get out of here first."

  Suddenly, a Colocolo jumped at them from the shadows, its claws dripping with the corruption. Vanessa reacted instantly. She shoved Tom behind her and raised her hands. A guttural song that sent shivers down David's spine, and anyone that dared to listen to closely. A wave of shimmering fire erupted from her, slamming into the Rat-Thing and sending it flying backwards.

  "Tom! Get behind me and stay there!" she commanded, her voice regaining its stern edge. "We're leaving now. Everyone, follow me! Quickly, before more of them emerge!"

  Vanessa, with Tom in tow, led the survivors towards a side exit. It was a small and rarely used door that led outside; to the sparse trees of a forest in the distance. With surprising speed the group moved, driven by fear and promise of death.

  David watched them go, his eyes creased and a deep nauseau settling in his stomach. While he knew Vanessa was reckless and pompous, he hoped that she would prove capable. And Tom, he was just a child, most likely paralyzed by fear.

  "Their backs are exposed," he said to Isabella, his voice urgent. "We need to ensure they get through the door safely."

  "Let's go." Isabell nodded, her eyes hardening with determination.

  As one, David and Isabell fought. They carved a bloody trail towards the emergency exit, keeping the attention of all the twisted humans turned rats on them.

  As they reached the exit David smelled burning wood. Isabella's quatars had set the surrounding area ablaze, creating walls of flames that kept the Rat-Things from reaching them. Vanessa and the survivors had disappeared into the forest, their silhouettes flickering in the suns rays.

  "Go! We'll hold them off!" David shouted to Vanessa.

  She heard David's cry from afar but didn't reply. A simple nod followed as they disappeared into the trees, Tom's small hand still clutched tightly in hers.

  Together, David and Isabell, formed a bastion against the encroaching darkness. The Colocolo swarmed around them, their eyes burned with unholy light, their claws dripping with corruption that had infected them before.

  " Kill them all, let me free. " Again the voice reared its ugly head.

  The voice in David's head was growing stronger, more insistent. Green tendrils wrapped around the silvery white avatar of David in his head, tightening their grip. He grit his teeth as he fought against the urge to let it free from the shackles.

  He turned towards Isabell, her face showed nothing but her resolution. She met his gaze, her eyes filled with a quiet strength that gave him courage. David knew she was fighting her body, healed just a day before, but she held firm.

  Without a choice they fought on. Each carrying their own burdens, weapons a blur of icy steel and fiery light. While outnumbered and outmatched, they held firm. Thoughts on their minds flowed away, replaced by the thought of being Ravensboro's last line of defense.

  As the Rat-Things closed in, David took a deep breath and prepared to unleash the full force of his fury. He knew it was a dangerous game, that his reserves would bottom out if he wasn't careful. But he had no choice. He had to protect the innocent, to keep the darkness from spreading.

  The fiery pit of his stomach threatend to bubble over into his connection to the blade, but he clamped it down. Instead he drew power from himself as an apprentice Sciath. A fine line of silvery light connected his heart to the steel. The cold metal gave him the strength as his speed and precision increased.

  A labyrinth of gnarled trees and tangled undergrowth greeted the survivors. Dense, suffocating shadows that pressed in from all sides. Vanessa stumbled through the trees, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Tom's weight a constant burden on her robes as she dragged him along. With movements sluggish and uncertain, the other survivors trugged along, faces cast in terror and panic.

  From the distance she could hear the battle. Steel striking bones, explosions of fire, and the guttural hiss of the Colocolo. Instinctivly she knew that David and Isabell were buying them time, but time for what? No where was safe. The mission she had been bestowed by her ancestors seemed so far away now.

  All she could think of was the next step. Bring the survivors else where. But where? The foul corrupting magicks of the rats had infected Ravensboro and the next town was days away on foot. A chilling certainty settled in the pits of her gut. Even if they ran, the rats would find them and corrupt anything in their path.

  A faint flicker of light broke her downwards spiral. Tom tugged on her robes and pointed at the phenomenan.

  "What is it?" Vanessa asked, the tone of her voice low and clipped.

  "I… I don't know," Tom stammered, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and hope. "But it's… it feels warm that way."

  Vanessa hesitated, it could be a trap set up by whatever gave the rats their intelligence. But what choice did they have. Exhaustion, desperation, and emotions threatend to end their path here and now.

  "Alright," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Let's go see what it is."

  She led the survivors towards the reflection of light. As they pushed through the dense undergrowth, her heart pounded in her chest. The light grew brighter and brighter and soon they found a clearing. In the middle of it stood a tall structure carved of stone and smoothed by unnatural means. A steele stood in the center of the groove, its rectangular shape reaching towards the sky.

  The crystalline monument promised hope that Vanessa had almost forgetten. Dense script, written in imperceptibly small text, filled the white structure with rows and rows of black letters. A steele, Vanessa remembered, just like the one that had granted them access to the enclave of their ancestors.

  Maybe, just maybe, survive wasn't the only thing they had to do. Maybe, just maybe, they had just found the means to fight back against the darkness.

  But as she looked back towards the gymnasium, a wave of icy dread washed over her. She knew that David and Isabella were still fighting, still holding the line against the Rat-Things.

  And she knew that their immediate survival, and the survival of everyone else, depended on them.