I can feel the cold air enter my lungs as I breathe, it's taken me years to get everything, and as I look at the various cursed and Sacred items in my possession, I can only hope they're enough.
The world that I'm headed to is nothing more than a playground for the abominations that I've gotten so used to fighting over the years, but it's the only place that I haven't looked.
][][
The full moon is painted a bright red as he steps onto the edge of the bridge tonight he's going to end it all, he has nothing left to live for after all everyone turned their backs on him, and called him a murderer.
His last moments are being live-streamed through the internet by the cellphone that he placed nearby and even from this distance, he can see the comments of the people telling him to jump.
Maybe he should have put the phone a little further away so that he didn't have to spend his last moments on earth feeling so hated.
He takes a deep breath and is about to give his final step when something impossible happens.
He can feel the air being scared out of his lungs as a bright blue portal opens in front of him and a man wearing a brown Duster Coat steps through and pulls him away from the edge.
"Were you going to kill yourself?" the man asks him as he looks towards the city before turning his attention to every other direction but never bothering to look at him.
'Yes." he answers the man weakly.
"If you are going to die, then how bout a job, that way your worthless life will have some meaning and your death won't feel so empty." the man says to him.
"Wh..what do I have to do?" he fearfully asks the stranger who pulls another duster trench coat from nowhere and puts it on him.
"We're going to save the world or die trying.' the stranger says to him before he lets go of him and begins to walk towards the part of the city that isn't empty.
He can't help but instinctively pull the jacket off of himself, but e can throw it away, he remembers why he came here and instead he just stares at the only thread of kindness that someone or something gave him.
He puts the jacket back on and notices that it's covered in runes or some sort of strange patterns are drawn both inside and outside of it, but for whatever reason he wasn't able to see them until he put the jacket back on.
The sound of the wind blowing causes him to feel a chill run down his spine even though he's now wearing the trench coat, and his instincts tell him that whatever caused the chill to happen is nearby.
So he quickly grabs his phone and runs after the stranger.
He finds the stranger leaning on a brick wall that severs as the outside of a building, but what the building is he neither knows nor cares.
"So you made your choice.' the man says to him, but his words are more f a question than a statement.
"Yeah." he says to the stranger who points at the moon.
"Let me ask you something is it normal for the moon to be that color?"
"Hold on let me change the question, should the moon be that color tonight?" the man asks him.
He turns to look at the moon and even he knows that it's not normal, for whatever reason the color of the moon has been red and unlike other times when it just appears red on this side of the world and appears normal white color on the other side.
For the last couple of weeks, both sides of the world have seen it painted red.
Not only that there are videos on the internet that show the moon's light painting the night sky red.
'It's a countdown." the stranger says to him before he reaches into his coat and takes out a gun.
His eyes widen as the man points the gun at him, and he starts breathing faster as he curses himself for allowing himself to be tricked like this.
He lets out a small breath of relief as the man lowers the gun and hands it to him.
He hesitantly takes the gun from the man's hands and waited for him to say anything, but the man just ignores him and goes back to looking at the people that haven't left the other side of the street.
"So why are you looking at the prostitutes?" he asks the stranger.
"I'm not looking at them, I'm looking at her." the stranger says to him as he waves at someone that he can't see.
"There's no one there." he says to the stranger as he forces his eyes o look into the dark alleys but he doesn't see anything.
"She was waiting for you to jump." the stranger says to him before he waves again, but this time he smiles at the person that isn't there.
"I told" he stops talking when he realizes that he's not able to see anything anymore, there's no light anymore and the man he was just talking to is gone.
"You should have jumped." a woman's voice says to him and despite how soft her voice sounds, he can't help but feel more and more terror as she says each word.
The burning sensation of something hitting his face forces him to open his eyes and he finds himself staring at the stranger who is standing over him.
He can see the man's right hand tightly formed into a fist and judging by the fact that his face hurts like hell, the man must have punched him to wake him up from whatever he was just in.
"She's gone." the stranger says to him as the sound of sirens getting closer reaches his ears.
'What was that?" he asks the stranger.
"A vampire's trance, you were marked and she wanted you to kill yourself so that no one would bother looking for you." the stranger says to him, as he helped him get back on his feet.
"How do you?" he starts to ask the man, but before he can finish his question the man grabs him by the coat and jumps onto the roof of the building.
The man lets go of him and looks into the city.
'What are you doing?" he asks the man, but his voice is softer than he ever hears it before, maybe it's the mixed emotions that he's experienced tonight.
Or maybe it's the fact that the man just did something impossible, but his voice is loudly showing his fear and unwillingness to make the man angry.
"Looking for our prey."
"That thing marked you, you were involved long before I got here, the difference is you're on our side instead of hers." the stranger says to him, as the police finally arrive and begin to seal off the street below.
[Change ]
I can't help but take a deep breath of the cold night air as I silently order the timmer that only I can see to show itself.
I silently stare at the clock and it's hard for me to believe that it's only five o'clock, the taint of the red moon has already begun to affect the world and that means that there won't be any place safe.
I have to move but I don't know where I have to go.
I briefly turn and look at the young man who I made my anchor to this world, the poor fool probably thinks that I helped him out of some sort of kindness.
It's better that he never knows the truth.
I watch as a red drop of blood appears next to the clock and unfortunately, the situation has already spiraled out of control.
No, I have to accept the truth, I was never in control of anything, even when I was trying to get my hands on the items that I'm hoping will keep me alive long enough that I can find everyone before time runs out.
"I don't have a choice." I say to myself as I summon a bottle fairy, the tiny creature looks at me with its bright white eyes that shine with a purity that is only rivaled by the light of the saints.
What I'm about to do is a crime of the highest order, but I have no choice but to do it, if I don't I risk never finding whoever I'm looking for.
The fairy looks at me with a horrified expression as it realizes what I'm about to do.
I raise the bottle high above my head before quickly bringing it down and shattering the bottle when it hits the side of the roof.
The scream of the fairy spills into the world catching the attention of all of the creatures that are at home in the dark.
I can feel the hair on my arms, legs, and head move as a pulse of purity flows into the world and calls to heaven for help.
I can't help but smile as I see the tiny fairy fly towards me, it's no taller than my hand and while she is attractive by all means of the word, I know that what I'm looking at is nothing more than what it wants me to see.
The tiny creature flies in front of me and turns into a ball of light.
I look past the white light of the fairy and once again I look into the city below, and as I look into the souls that call the city home I notice how many tainted souls there are.
The souls of man glow a pure white, but they lack the purity of a being that was created by god or the angels because of the sins that man has committed.
The souls of the earth-born, those filthy creatures that claim that the world itself created them to defend it glow green, while the undead barely shines at all.
Their light is constantly dwindling and only recovers when it's stealing the life from others.
There's no point in mentioning the demonic or in my case the outer ones, we have no light.
I look down and I can't help but laugh a little as I see my hands glowing white with the fire that only a Human soul can make.
the scream of the fairy reaches my ears and as I turn in the direction where it came from, I can feel my senses being forced to focus on someone or something that is miles away from where I'm standing.
"Found you," I say to myself before I turn to look at my anchor.
'Do you know how to use that gun?" I ask him, and I watch as the white flames that are his soul lift the gun that I gave him.
"No, I never." he says to me but I don't give him the chance to finish.
'Good, you'll learn." I say to him before I walk up to him and force him to run toward the edge of the roof and force him to jump off of it.
I channel the pure energy that the fairy is sharing with me for setting it free into his body so that he doesn't break before we reach our destination.
"Why is everything burning white?" he screams with a mixture of fear and confusion.
"What your looking at is how Human souls look, there is no reason for your soul or anyone's soul to look like how they look in their physical form." I say to him as I jump onto another building.
Im forced to stop moving from one building to another when I see my target vanish.
"Damm." I say to myself as the fairy returns to its mortal form and loses its pure white soul fire.
I let go of my anchor and begin to look at my surroundings thankfully we landed on a parking lot, meaning that we won't have any trouble getting out of it and walking into the street below.
"Come on."I say to my anchor as I lead him toward the exit.
"So mind telling me what we're looking for?" he asks me as I open the metal door before I start to walk down the concrete stairs.
"Someone or something with a Human soul." I answer him.
"Waite do you mean you don't know?" he asks me.
"No, I know what I'm looking for I just don't know who it is." I say to him as I pass the fifth-floor sign.
I stop walking when I reach the first floor but as I'm about to open the metal door and walk into the parking lot, the door opens, and a pair of women that look and smell as if they had just been drinking walk in before looking at me and my anchor as if we were going to attack them.
I'm tempted to kill both of them, the smell of a pure soul is irresistible to the undead, tainted and demonic but I restrain myself I can't waste time in pointless fights.
Bottle fairies are capable of killing almost anything and tracking almost anything, unfortunately, their power quickly runs out because of their size.
Not to mention that they're irresistible to the very creatures that they kill and if one of those creatures were to eat one, then they would get the power of a pure soul.
I dont have to say that, that would be very bad for everyone.
To prevent this from happening the fairies allowed themselves to be put inside bottles until the day someone needs them.
When that day comes they will burn over and over again until they can't burn anymore and it's up to whoever freed them to protect them so that the angels of heaven can retrieve their souls when they die.
A compass appears in front of me, which means we're close, whoever I'm looking for can't be far.
I hear the sound of the metal door closing behind me, as the lights of the cars passing by nearly blinds me.
"Open the door" I order my anchor.
"What?" he asks me confused.
"Open the door!" I order him as my heart starts to beat faster, as the word danger flashes in front of me faster and faster.
The young man quickly opens the metal door and we both run back inside before we close the door, there's a brief moment of uneasy silence as we both listen but hear nothing except the sounds of the cars passing by.
We both let out a breath of relief as we realize that nothing has happened, but that moment quickly passes as something slams onto the wall outside and nearly breaks the metal door.
"Run!" I order my anchor as we both run upstairs and try to escape before the door completely falls apart.
I watch as my anchor is about to open the second-floor door and I grab his hand before he's able to open it.
If something is strong enough to break brick, metal, and concrete it's strong enough to jump three floors.
He looks at me with wide fearful eyes as the scream of two women reaches us, I point at him to keep walking until we reach the seventh floor again, and the sound of something hitting the metal door below us forces him to obey.
The sound of our footsteps is drowned out by the combined sounds of the metal doors being hit as several creatures try to get inside.
We finally reach the seventh floor and unfortunately, the door is wide open and I find myself looking into the empty glass-like eyes of one of the women who I had seen earlier.
I cover my anchor's mouth so that he doesn't scream and alert anything that doesn't know that we are in here to our existence.
I glance towards the image of the none existent drop of blood and I remind myself that this is what it means, every drop of blood means that more and more people will die.
A single drop can mean anything from a house filled with people to an entire office building being left lifeless.
Two drops and a town that's next to a military base and whose people are well-armed is whipped out, three drops and a city is thrown into chaos.
I don't need to say what four drops mean's and god help us all if something makes five drops appear.
I reach into my coat and command one of the guns that I collected into existence as I slowly walk towards the door, fortunately, I don't have to worry about anything seeing me, as there's nothing except the woman's organs keeping the door open.
Again something hits the door beneath us but there's something different about the sound this time, it's more hollow and I swear that it sounds as if the wall itself is about to give in.
I signal to my anchor and we carefully step over what's left of the woman's corps, as we look around to see any signs of danger we soon see a trail of blood leading in the direction that cars come in and out of this level of the parking lot.
I turn to look at the fairy who lifts both hands and begins to slowly count backward from ten, as she slowly lowers one finger then another.
I signal to my anchor to move quietly so that we don't attract the attention of something that is either hunting someone else or eating.
As I step further and further away from the stairs, I begin to hear the quiet moans of a woman, this isn't good the sound that she's making means that she is both alive and conscious of the danger she is in.
I need to, we need to get behind something before she sees us or else we risk her calling to us for help.
I can see my anchor from the corner of my eye and as I walk toward a nearby stone pillar, I feel a cold chill run down my spine.
There's a woman wearing pajamas on the other side of the street, but her mouth and shirt are covered in blood, her eyes are wide and filled with madness.
I can feel the air in my lungs being forced to stay inside my throat, as I watch as the woman lifts her hand and points at something behind me, even as she makes a mad smile, but instead of human teeth, her mouth is filled with fangs.
A burst of purity forcefully teleports me and my anchor to our destination, but unfortunately, the fairy loses its flame the moment we arrive and so she crawls into the coat that my anchor is wearing for protection.
I summon the compass that I used earlier to find whoever I'm supposed to be looking for, but the thing only vanishes, meaning that whoever I'm looking for is long gone.
My anchor runs past me and begins to vomit, but considering that seeing the top half of a dead woman didn't force him to react like this, what he must have seen must have been truly depraved.
I turn to look for whatever he might have seen and I wish I had never found it.
the sight before me is something out of nightmares, Humans, dead and undead are all melded together in some sort of twisted abomination that begs for its suffering to end.
"No." I say to myself as the timmer changes and shows me what the creature that did this is planning and unfortunately for the people of this city, it's nothing good.
"It's a flesh pillar." I tell my anchor who doesn't say anything and instead chooses to keep looking in the other direction, as he continues to empty his stomach.
This changes everything, if I destroy this pilar it will buy me more time, so I can look for whoever is in this city, but if I do that whoever made this thing will be looking for me.
My choice is clear, I reach into my coat and pull out a gas can, and pour its contents onto the abomination.
I ignore the people who beg me to save them and the empty promises of the dead and undead, before I reach into my pocket and take out a box of matches, I open the box and light a match.
I watch as the gas quickly catches fire and the fire change color as the tainted flesh begins to burn.
The fire rises into the sky as it burns the flesh pillar that it is connected to by supernatural means, there's no way of stopping the fire now and that means that whatever\ whoever is responsible for making it is already aware that something has gone wrong.
"We're leaving." I say to anchor as the smell of burning meat begins to fill the air.
"Wha, what was that, and what were those things?" my anchor says to me as tonight's events have already begun to take their toll on his already strained mind.
"I don't know what the things we ran into were, I didn't see them, but that was a flesh pillar."
"In simple terms, it's a part of something that isn't in this reality, I don't think that I have to tell you what the rest of the pillar is made of." I say to him as I walk towards him and place my hand on his back, as I try to comfort him.
I feel how he jumps out of fear, but his body doesn't react anymore than that, he isn't capable of doing anything else yet.
"If that thing was here, then there should be a church nearby." I say to him as I order the compass to lead me to where the nearest church is.
My anchor doesn't say anything, he just walks beside me in silence as we ignore the curious glances that the people give us before we find ourselves standing in front of a cathedral.
'Why are we here?" he asks me.
"It's a safe place, or as safe as any place can be in this world." I answer him as I place a seal that keeps the creatures of this world and other worlds away.
I grab the handle of the large wooden door and I listen to the door creak as I open it and let the young man walk in before I follow him inside.
Neither of us says anything and to be perfectly honest, I don't plan on saying anything either, I just wanted a place to sleep where I wouldn't have to pay.
"Who are you?" my anchor asks me.
"What have you been calling me, inside that head of yours?" I ask him.
"Stranger, because that's what you are. I mean you never told me your name." he answers me.
'I'm Stranger, that's my name from now on." we look at each other and I can't help but smile before shaking my head at his confusion.
"Listen, names have power, and it's easier to forget people if you don't know their names." I say to him before I ask him his name.
'Me, I'm no one, everyone abandoned me after what happened." he says to me.
"Hello Noone, I'm Stranger and your old life is over." I say to him as the sounds of footsteps reach our ears and we see a priest walking towards us.
'I'm sorry but we're closed for the night.' the priest says to us.
"Forgive father but we as for sanctuary on this night, we are but simple hunters that have caught the scent of a beast lurking in this city," I say to the priest who stops walking and we watch as he swallows a mouthful of spit.
I didn't say anything that has any real meaning, I just copied the words of a character that I saw in a movie back when I was still a little kid.
'I'm sorry but I'm not bound by the pact, nor have I been asked to join." the priest says to us as he tries to ec[plain something that I don't know nor do I care to know about.
'We are neither allies nor enemies of whatever organization, group, or whatever you may be speaking of."
"For we are nothing more than Noone and a Stranger who speak to a priest that is or was a Nobody." I interrupt the priest who seems t take a deep breath and begins to pray.
We watch as he prays for God's guidance before he signals us to follow him.
'I'm sorry but Hunters don't usually come my way, you know I was never trained nor did I ever expect to be chosen by someone that isn't a part of the church." he says to us.
"Damm." I say t myself, even if I don't say the word out loud.
"By the Heavens are you mad." the priest says as the fairy flies out of Noone's coat and waves at the man.
I watch as the man lifts his hands before kneeling and starting to pray as he gives thanks to God for allowing him to see one of the last pure spirits that exist on earth.
"I have to contact the Vatican, they have to send reinforcements if one of our God's children is here then." he begins to say but I place my hand on his head and he immediately closes his mouth and stops talking.
"Do you know how to fight Father?" I ask him.
The priest looks at me for a moment before he stands up and seems to inflate and grow inside.
"I use to be a troublemaker when I was young." he answers me.
I reach into my coat and take out several items, that will help the man defend himself as well as help him grant us blessings that neither Noone nor myself could use because we aren't Holy Men.
I watch as the priest's hands tremble as I hand him the items and despite the items being things that I ran into over the years I watch as the man holds them tightly as if they were made of gold.
To think that he would be smoking a cigar, at one point in his life, he would have never touched the thing.
Not because he didn't want to or because he wasn't curious, but because his health wasn't ever the best.
He can't help but look at his blood-covered hands and hope that he is nothing more than just another serial killer, just another madman amongst the many that have been driven mad by this uncaring world.
If only things were so simple.
If it hadn't been for that man he would have already been dead, and ever since then he neither cared about contacting the people that turned their backs on him nor going back to the life that he couldn't go back to.
Who knew that his old life wasn't normal either?
Now the people that did care about him, are revealing themselves to have never been human or to have already known about the world that he has been forced into.
It doesn't matter, not anymore, he was Noone and he is still Noone.
If he had ever been something other than that, then that person died the day the Stranger pulled him away from the edge of the bridge, saved his life, and gave him this new life.
He is Noone, he is just another Hunter named Noone.
Stranger
He is from another universe and is looking for his friends.
He doesn't know how long he's been traveling from one world to another, but he does know that it's taken him years to get his hands on a nearly endless supply of items, from worlds that people once believed to be fictional.
He also knows that he has no way of knowing if he can even get back to his original world.
Those that meet him, think that he has the answer to anything and maybe he does.
Others think that he is just the latest person to use the name Stranger and that the name has been used either by a secret organization that has been active for years or a modern incarnation that only took the mantle recently.
What people do know is that whoever meets him and knows he's in the city will immediately rely on him and place their trust in him regardless of how hopeless things seem.
][][]
Nobody\ Priest
The only good thing that he ever found in this life was when he heard the voice of God call to him.
That was more than enough to help him turn his life around and work to become one of his servants so that he could help those that are caught in a downward spiral and see no hope for their meaningless lives.
Never did he imagine that he would be called once again, and be tasked with walking between the lines of mortal men and the creatures that share the world with us.
He has sworn to heal, clean, and guide back the creatures that can still be saved as well as vanish those that can not or will not be saved.
For this he has accepted the title, the name Nobody for that is who he is, nobody, he is neither a man nor a being of power, he is just one more of gods servants.
He is just one more face amongst the many, he is Nobody.
"Thank you." Nobody says to me before he puts the items into his pocket and stands back up before he starts walking again.
"As I said earlier, I never expected to be contacted by anyone, I am but a man of God." he says to us.
I'm starting to understand why the man doesn't stop talking, he's afraid.
Hunters or whatever he thinks we are must be something that exists outside of the ordinary in this world and if we arrived here then he must think that we want him for something.
I probably shouldn't have said that we were Hunters and that he was a priest named Nobody, it's better if I try to calm him down.
"If our presence is too much trouble then I ask of you to excuse us, we neither seek to bring you into anything that you are neither prepared to face nor capable of fighting," I say to him before I signal to Noone to follow me out of the cathedral.
"I am a man of God and your presence is him Calling to me." the man says with a low but powerful voice that forces me to stop walking.
"If one of his children has arrived at my door, accompanied by a seasoned Hunter and his apprentice who grant me both a name and tools, I have no right to deny my Kings call."
I turn to look at the man who a moment ago looked so small and frightened and what I find myself looking at is a man that has a sharpness in his eyes that show years of fighting experience.
He isn't any bigger than myself or my anchor and yet the man seems to tower over us, by will alone.
The bottle fairy flies to his side and kisses the man on the cheek before patting him on the head.
"You should bring him with us." she says to me, with a voice that doesn't use words but instead speaks directly into our souls.
"No, this man has his own life if he wishes to aid us then I only ask for a place to rest and heal my wounds." I say to her as I lock eyes with Nobody.
"Nobody allowed you to stay here, and nobody has ever or will ever heal you if you come here injured." Nobody says to me as he smirks.
"Father, I cannot tell you why I am in this city except that I'm looking for someone, but I do not know what that person looks like, or even if they are Human."
"Noone was targeted by a Vampire and it will be up to him to tell you his story and explain why he was about to take his own life."
My anchor turns to look at me with wide eyes, that show his disbelief and feelings of betrayal after I just told someone what he was about to do.
"I'm sorry my son, you must have endured a lot."
"Those abominations and their kind destroy the lives of countless people just for their amusement and care little for those that they turn or the lives of the people that they destroyed." the priest says to my anchor, and for this long moment, we are just normal men standing inside a church.
][][Change ][][]
I gasp for air as I try to shake away the nightmare that has haunted me ever since the red moon appeared.
It was different this time, something had changed, it was different, and I was different.
I looked at the items that the Stranger gave me and I can see the Grace flowing through them, each item is extremely powerful and a part of me wishes that the hunter had never chosen to enter the cathedral.
The tiny figure of one of the last pure angels that remains within the physical world sits on my desk, I can't even begin to understand how or why she allowed herself to be set free in these troubling times.
"You are needed, not for them but for others." she says to me as she looks at the red moon that hangs high in the night sky.
"I don't know what to do." I say to her.
I watch as her pure flames grow and she is now standing over me, she is now a giant of a woman who can barely fit inside the room.
I can't help but let out a small gasp as she wraps her hands and wings around me in an embrace that reminds me of how my mom held me when I was still a small child.
My body begins to feel warm and I realize that she has returned to her original size, but she is still burning with the light of purity.
"Look at your hands." she says to me.
I do as she says and I nearly scream in shock, I can't believe that my hands are burning with the, no, I was about to say that the white flames that cover or make up my body, were similar to hers, but they pale in comparison.
'What am I to do?" I ask her but she only smiles and turns to look at the moon.
"That's up to you." she says to me.
The tone of her words suggests that her presence here doesn't have a greater meaning, but if that was true then why did she say that earlier, and why did she give me this power?
I rise from my seat and walk towards the window maybe if I open it and let some of the night's air in, I can clear my head with the cool wind.
I can't help but freeze in place at what I'm looking at, it's as if the entire world has become infested with depraved abominations that walk next to ordinary people.
I quickly step back and in my horror, I end up walking into the chair that I had been sitting on and fall onto the stone floor.
I gasp and try to control my breath before closing my eyes and pray to god for his protection and then I feel a warm hand on my face, as I open my eyes I'm met with a horrifying sight.
I see something, yet at the same time, I don't see anything, it's as if my nightmare has replaced the waking world.
I can't help but let out a scream as the overwhelming terror of what I'm forced to accept is now my reality falls upon me like an avalanche and I curl into a fetal position as I start to cry.
"Breath."I hear her say as loud and powerful footsteps approach me.
I close my eyes tightly and once again I feel her warm hand on my head.
I open my eyes slowly and I see the Hunter, The Stranger standing over me, and the fairy holding my head with her tiny hands.
I listen to the stranger as he walks towards my fallen chair and puts it back in its proper position before sitting down and, he doesn't say anything he just watches over me.
As the fear that I felt earlier begins to leave me, my thought begin to clear themselves until I can replay what I just did.
I can't help but feel disgusted at my cowardness, God has sent to me one of his Hunters, God is the Sheppard and I am the one that helps him guard his flock.
I pick myself up and look into the eyes of my senior, he may not believe himself to be a man of God, but if the angel is with him, that is more than enough to prove that he is.
"Sorry, it's all so new to me." I say to him
The stranger just smiles at me before standing up and walking towards the window.
"What happened here?" the Stranger asks me and t my surprise the fairy is the one that answers.
'I granted him my flames." she says to the Stranger who doesn't bother to turn and acknowledge her, this act alone is an insult to the heavens themselves.
I want to protest, to chastise the Stranger for daring to treat such a pure being with such disrespect, but I can't muster the strength to do so, not after failing as I did.
"I shouldn't have come here, I'm sorry." the Stranger says to me.
If there was any doubt of my failure of both in my faith and as a man I can now say that it is gone.
My senior is a man that can look upon the twisted reality that exists beyond the safety of the cathedral and not falter regrets ever coming here.
"For my failure, I ask your forgiveness, Stranger."
" I was not prepared to see the reality of our world, for me, the people that call this city home have always been Human, and I was overwhelmed."
A heavy silence settles in the room and I watch as the stranger reaches into his coat and pulls something that shouldn't be possible out of it.
The man is now holding a great sword and I watch in amazement s the sword comes to life and it takes the form of a cat before covering the Strangers right hand and vanishing from sight.
"Father you said that you were overwhelmed and judging by the way I found you, you saw the monsters didn't you?" the Stranger asks me.
"Yes." I answer him.
"Tell him what that means." the Stanger orders the fairy who flies towards my side and looks into my eyes
I can see the fires of purity burning within her ad I can't help but be overwhelmed by how kind and welcoming both her eyes and the fire within them are.
"Father if a man and a dog are drowning would you try to save both of them?" she asks me.
"yes." I answer her honestly.
"What if it was just the man or just the dog?' she asks me.
"My answer doesn't change," I say to her but I'm confused by what she is trying to say to me.
"Then if a monster that was once good was cursed to be evil, but was not itself evil would you try to save it?" she asks me.
I want to answer her, I want to say no, but at the same time, I know that the answer cant be so simple, or else she wouldn't be asking me this.
'There are things and people that were tainted, not because they wanted to, but because something tainted them or their situation left them no other choice but to be tainted." she says to me.
"I swore to protect and guide man, not the beast and not those things," I say to her.
'And yet your fighting with yourself to say no" she says to me as she leads me towards the window again, but this time I see people walking down the street, and there are no signs of any monsters.
"Nobody I have things to do, 'll give you some advice."
"Don't worry about it, you already chose your path, it's what allowed you to see them, so you will do what you need to do when the time comes." the Stranger says to me before both he and the fairy leave me alone with my thoughts.
If there was ever a time when man needed things of legend, myth, and things that we once believed to be fiction it is now.
From what we have seen the Stranger has all of these things and perhaps more.
Perhaps it has something to do with the age that his name is linked with.
Perhaps it's just the things that he has encountered over the years that led him to acquire so many objects and beings but the stranger has been seen using weapons that by all-natural law should be impossible for a normal person to use.
A Gun that is capable of firing different kinds of spells, some of which are so powerful that even some of the strongest of monsters run in fear.
The day that I met him, he bestowed upon me a gun and over a thousand bullets, I am ashamed to say that I thought that he was looking down on me when he gave it to me.
The gun is a devastating weapon that has killed what many once believed to be unkillable, its only flaw is that it's only capable of firing one bullet before needing to be reloaded.
It's unknown if every member of the Unknowns is capable of accessing the stranger's armory, but considering that the ones that we have been able to find, are all in possession of several mystical artifacts, it would be foolish for us to believe the contrary.
Stranger is a name so ancient that no one knows when a person first spoke it, Nobody and Noone are just as ancient.
Unlike the Stranger, these two men have been seen gathering several tainted beings, but for what reason is unknown.
The battle in the sewers, the war of the hour, and the battle for the gate are just a few of the events that I have found linked to these men.
Nobody is a priest who seeks to save everyone be they man, beast, or tainted.
Noone is a man that has turned his back on the life that he once lived after everyone and everything turned their backs on him after he was framed for crimes that he never committed.
Unlike the Stranger whose motives are unknown, and Nobody who seeks to save the souls of everyone, Noone doesn't care to spare anyone that he deems too far gone.
I will continue to follow after them and will update you as time goes by....
"I want you to stay here." I say to Noone who looks at me with wide eyes.
"Why?" he asks\ begs.
"You aren't ready, your mind isn't ready for where I'm going, the priest's mind isn't ready either. Stay in the cathedral for tonight." I say to him.
I watch as the young man walks away from me and sits on the floor, he knows that I'm right, and even if he wanted to argue with me he can't.
I can feel the fairy's fire return to my eyes and once again I can see the location of the person that I'm looking for, I could easily have her teleport to his or her location, but I risk entering a place filled with monsters or armed men.
The fairy' might be able to call upon her power repeatedly, but if she uses it before her recharge time is up then it will be even longer for her to be able to use it again, making her even more vulnerable to a monster or Human.
The fairy's fire allows me to see beyond the veil and I can see the creatures that walk amongst us, and I can see what nearly drove the priest insane.
Unfortunately for the man what he saw wasn't the entire truth.
While it is true that as I walk down the sidewalk I walk past all kinds of abominations, the fact that several of them turn to look at me is proof that what he saw wasn't the entire truth.
Depression, anger, greed, all of these, and more are things that have spirits that either represent them or use them for power.
These same spirits possess a person without the person ever knowing it, so if someone like the priest were to suddenly be able to see the possed person then they would mistake them for another monster.
I can hear them whispering and shouting to each other, warning and daring each other to stay away or attack the fairy.
By the end of the night, there won't be a place in the city that hasn't heard about the fairy's presence and by the end of the week, the entire country will have heard about her appearance.
I ignore the smell of blood and unlife the vampires that call this city home aren't my problem and neither are the shapeshifters that live here.
Again the fairy's fire is put out and I find myself walking in the material world once again.
My instincts tell me to look into an alley that is light by several lights that hang over the metal doors of several apartments from each side of the alley.
Both the runes that cover my coat and my instincts tell me that the place is safe but for whatever reason, my instincts tell me to head there and look for something that isn't there.
As I walk into the alley I find myself looking at nothing, because there's nothing here, I'm about to turn around and leave when I see a bracelet on the sidewalk.
As I pick it up I notice that it's covered with designs that don't exist in this world, maybe it's a clue to help me find who I'm looking for, or maybe it's nothing more than something that is being used to lure me somewhere.
Regardless it's something that I can use, my coat begins to fill with power as several tracking spells activate and I find myself looking at the locations of several of the objects that are scattered about this world.
I reach the first location and it's only because of the wards that cover my coat that I don't immediately die from the heat and radiation that poisons the world around me.
My coat consumes the ancient power from before the modern records of history, it pulls into itself all of the information that it can from this place but it's nearly impossible for me to breathe much less walk.
The fairy's fire creates a protective bubble around me but instead of using it for my protection, she orders me to pull this place and the other places into the warehouse, the place where I keep all of my weapons.
Since I was the one that freed her prematurely, I have no choice but to do as she says and so I pull this place, whatever it may be into the warehouse.
I can hear the warehouse systems, both natural and magical as they work to keep the contamination of the place from spilling into the rest of the warehouse.
It's going to take days, but they should be able to clean the radiation and whatever else infested this place.
The world around me begins to shake as whatever kept the massive tunnel from collapsing is no longer keeping it from falling into itself and so I teleport back to the alley.
"What are you planning?" I ask and demand the fairy to answer me.
She just places her hands behind her back and smiles at me with a kind smile. "I don't know what you mean," she says to me.
"First you grnat that priest your power now you send me somehere I had no place being."
"There's no way that the bracelet had a relation to wherever that was." I say to her the irritation in my voice can be heard by anyone that hears me.
"Watch your tone, I don't care for it, but no I didn't do anything to your spell, whoever went there in the past didn't stay there for long." she says to me before she points at her wrist and reminds me that time is running out.
She has existed since before Adam and Eve, she was there when the first corrupter disobeyed the Creator.
She had been amongst those that begged God to spare Adam and Eve from their punishments and it was for their kindness that they were punished by being forced to watch as Humanity lived.
They would and could interfere, but they had seen what the others had become and how far they had fallen from grace.
Not only that but the filth that plagued the creator's creation had learned of their power and sought to make it their own.
So they called to those that could hear them and allowed themselves to be put in the bottles, they would sleep within the bottles until the day that their power was needed.
Yet in their sleep, they would watch as Humanity grew, was destroyed, and was remade anew.
She had seen how the filth attacked her creator's creations, calling them a plague that needed to be stopped.
When she fell into the hands of the Stranger she does not know but what she does know is that the man seeks to find something or someone that is his equal, and so she prepares to stop him should that being be a servant of the fallen or cursed ones.
Yet in the few hours that she has been awake, she can sense the presence of the first corrupter and so she prepares herself to deal the final blow to her.
[][][]
Lilith
Innocence and Beaty are not things that prove one's purity, they are just as much a weapon as a blade or a spell.
It's easy to seduce anything and anyone, you just need to know what they want even when they don't know themselves.
She has become a master of an endless number of arts, so many that she is certain that she has forgotten several of them, oh well it's not like she doesn't have time to relearn them again.
She has seen the world turn and watched as empires rose and fell, yet she always remained.
How easy it was to whisper into the ears of a lord and watch as he taxed and killed his people so that he had enough to pay for some prince's hand in marriage.
Only to find that the woman that he was so interested in, was already carrying the child of another man.
Sometimes she regrets her actions after all there hasn't been another kingdom like Camelot for a long time.
Yet the world grew boring and so she learned to step back and allow it to grow and the people to forget about what happened before.
So once again she steps into the world and she finds herself at the end of another age except that time something interesting is happening.
She can taste something that immediately reminds her of Eden and so she begins to plan.
If this is the end of another age and an old friend has made her presence known, then perhaps this time she too will join the festivities and not watch as everything falls into ruins.
[][][]
The warehouse
It's unknown if the Stranger knows where or even if the warehouse ends, what is known is that the stranger has everything that he needs in it.
From the man's own words, it is his first and last line of defense.
If the situation ever calls for it, he will release everything and everyone to fight and either defend the warehouse or invade wherever he has to.
That is a frightening thought that no one ever wants to see happen, as entire realities or perhaps continents exist inside of it.
What have this man and those before him seen that drove them to fill this place with so many terrifying and amazing things?
