Chapter 1
Hidden Truths

The night air was crisp, silent, almost like you could cut your hand on the sharp breeze blowing from the north. It still felt like winter, though at least two months had passed since that strange accident occurred. An entire house was laid to waste and several others were found dead that night. The media found it interesting to speculate the cause of the tragedy, but no one really knew the truth. Only those that survived the incident could say, and they were no where to be found, as thought the wind had carried them off to some far off place where only the soft sound of the snow falling to the ground echoed ominously in the air. That and the velvety touch of the dark.

The public never knew the truth, but those that lived through the night were not the only ones who knew what was going on. Rather, they knew exactly what was and would happen. They were watching from the very beginning. After all, they were the ones who put everything into motion.

“You stupid fool!” An angry young man clad in a tight-fitting officer’s uniform spat as he jumped to his feet. “You weren’t supposed to hit him!”

A younger, low-ranking officer sitting at a large control station with blinking lights, buttons and various display screens cowered in his seat. “I’m sorry, sir. The calculations must have been off…”

The angry man, his dark purple hair hanging low in his eyes, stepped over to the young officer and glared at him, his shining amethyst eyes shot a bolt through the officer. “You made the “calculations,” did you not?” He waited for an answer but one never came. The officer could not speak. Still glaring down at the officer, the angry man sighed and bit the bottom of his lip, turned away. “Well, at least we know the lightning works.”

“Sir, you’re getting a call from the Bio Lab 43,” a young girl with short pink hair said, standing at her station to the left of the angry man’s seat.

The man looked at the girl and nodded. “Bio Lab 43, huh? So this is turning into an eventful day.” He returned to his seat and picked up a small receiver to his right. “Yes?” he spoke into the receiver. “Uh-huh. Of course I know the wolf escaped, I’m assuming that’s why you’re disrupting my day with this call. Have you got her under control? Uh-huh. Yes. No, I will not hold! Who the hell do you science people think I am? As long as you have the wolf back in her cage, I really don’t need the details. No, I don’t want to hear the specs on her metamorphosis. I—”

“The girl,” the scientist on the other end of the line went on to explain, “she has been unable to revert to her original form for a total of six years. If she doesn’t soon or if we can’t find a way to force her to change back, I’m afraid we’ll lose the subject. The experiment will fail.”

“Dammit!” the man spat again. “We cannot afford to lose the only morphed subject now. It’s been nine years since the beginning of this project, I will not allow it to simply self-destruct.”

“There is another possibility,” the scientist said. “If we can find the other subject, it wouldn’t matter if we lost this one.”

“But you forget the “spare” ran away. We’re no longer in possession of that one.”

“Not presently, no, but we’ve received a tip. If we can use the girl as bait, we can easily get him back. In fact, he’ll come to us, right through the front gate.”

It was possible. The two subjects shared a strong sibling bond, stronger than any the man had ever seen before. Greater than his own. “Fine,” he said, growing impatient. “Do what you need to. I want results in the morning.”

The second he slammed the receiver down, a second girl wearing the same dark green uniform as the last stood and said, “Sir, we’re picking up movement! The kid’s moving!”

“That’s impossible. You know how much energy is in those bolts? Well, enough for me not to want to get hit by one, that’s for sure.”

“Sir, look at your screen,” she said, patching the video feed to the small, rectangular screen to the man’s left. She was right. The boy had been directly hit by the bolt of lightning and yet there he was, getting to his feet and walking into the house. The man had never seen anything like it. He had seen other things get hit with the same sort of blast and come out an unidentifiable mash of black dust. There was no possible way this kid could have survived! It must be a mistake.

“Sir, we can play back the footage,” the girl said at the sight of the man’s confusion.

He couldn’t say anything but nodded his answer. What the hell was going on? He turned his face away from the screen and rubbed his burning eyes while the video playback was being accessed.

“We’re ready, sir,” the girl said, her hand placed over a red button, ready to pres it upon command.

“Do it,” he instructed.

And she did. The screen flashed brightly and then he saw the same scene as he had seen from the officer’s station, only it showed the boy sitting in the folding lawn chair and a woman walking back into the house. The bright lights turned off and the screen went dark, but the boy was still clearly visible, sitting in his chair, gazing at the stars as though he was looking at the very satellite which was watching him. Then he got up, took the chair and began to walk back toward the house.

That’s when it happened. Out of the clear black sky a bluish-purple bolt of lightning pierced through the sky and imploded directly on top of the boy. It didn’t just hit him, it enveloped all around him, but then just as it hit, something else exploded: his hand. From his left hand came a protective shield made entirely out of fire. That shield is what protected him from the bolt and only left the ground to show any signs of damage.

“Impossible!” the man said, his head slumping into his hand as he watched.

“Shall I play it again, sir?”

“Yes, put it on a short loop,” he said.

He sat watching the screen for several minutes. It was a miracle that the boy survived the bolt; that didn’t need to be explained nearly as much as the sudden burst of flames from his hand did. All that the man could think was the inescapable question: Who is this kid?

It had been over a half a year since then and still the man could not fully answer that question. That would have to remain unanswered for all time since the kid was dead, gone, never to return. No body was ever recovered, but there had been witnesses, one was still in recovery and the other was one of their own, a very strange individual by the name of Chryarnth.

According to his reports, he was the first on the site with a small group of troops to do the clean-up. As far as the man knew, Chryarnth could have seen something or even tried to cover something up as to not allow anyone else access to the true events of what happened that night. The man was determined to uncover the truth, the truth that lye dormant in the unconscious mind of the only survivor, a young high school student with green hair.

**********

“All things living and dead have a destiny, a place where they belong, an unstoppable force that draws them closer… We too have this such force calling out to us, calling for our own destruction. We’ve seen this coming and have prepared for it. One day our world will come crashing down, destroyed by one of our own. We have made the necessary precautions to keep this from happening, our well established reign of peace shall not come to an end so easily. Thus we must be weary. The bringer of our demise can be of any shape or color, any characterization at all; that is why no form of retaliation against us will be tolerated. You, Marix, have been tried and punished under such law. Even though you believed what you did was right, you encroached upon a very delicate area of our government and no leniency shall be had. You shall live out the rest of your existence in the shadows and you will become what you hate the most.”

Springing up from his bed, beads of sweat pouring from the sides of his face, Marix sat gasping in the darkness of his room. The only light in the small room came from a torch affixed to the side of the wall directly opposite him. He blinked many times, trying to regain his senses. Then he heard the sound of foot steps rapidly growing louder from outside the room.

The wooded door swung open and a small girl with a round, flushed face ran into the room. “Marix! A-are you all right?” she said, running to the side of the bed. “I-I heard you scream.”

“I… I’m fine, Chibiru. It…was just a dream,” Marix said as he brushed his sweat-soaked, red hair out of his face.

“Is it time for your medicine? I’ve lost track when you had it last. These nightmares might be because you’re late…”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I would look like this if it were,” he said, stretching his bear back. “I’m not due to become that demon in another day or two.”

Chibiru nodded hear head, the olive green hair from her two ponytails brushing her shoulders softly. “Here,” she said, stepping closer to Marix and holding out her cupped hands. “Maybe this will help you feel better.” Slowly from the center of her hands a warm light grew brighter and brighter until it shone brighter than the torch across the room. The steady light washed over Marix’s dark, rough skin and he closed his eyes as though he could smell some beautiful soothing scent of a blooming, summer flower. He could never understand how such a small light could make him feel so calm and at peace. He didn’t want it to leave, but he knew he could never hold on to that light forever. A few moments later, Chibiru removed her hands and the light winked out.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her big yellow eyes sad, worried. “I don’t know if it does more good than it does bad.”

Marix smiled softly his thanks. “Every little bit helps, even if it must be taken away,” he said. “Have you found anything more that might help us find him?”

A flash lit in the girl’s sad eyes for a moment. “Maybe,” she said and then ran out of the room as though to tease him with the cliffhanger.

Marix lowered his head and grinned. Chibiru, even though she was hundreds of years old, still had the heart of a playful child. If only he had half of her strength, her optimism. Nothing was ever the same after that day the curse fell upon him, stripped his wings from his back and left him with nothing but darkness. His holy aura was tainted by the command of the Goddess, his mother. Of all the things worse than death itself it would be this curse that condemned him to live in the darkness, to wear the face of a demon. If it weren’t for his mother’s sudden sense of pity, to give him a few days of peace to regain his strength, he might not have been able to endure. Now, he kept close tabs on his medication which helped to suppress the demon curse. As long as he took the meds regularly, he only had to bear the form of the demon half of the time. Two weeks for two weeks. Back and forth he would go, demi-god…demon, demi-god…demon. For him there would be no end, an eternal curse. Unless he could find him, the one who could end it all, the destroyer of heaven.