CHAPTER I
:~s~:
Innocence

February, 1872
West St. Laurent Du Pont, France

Sabin awoke to the sudden sensation of something very cold on his face. His eyes flashed open. Laying spread-eagle on his back in the snow, he could see gray, moonlit clouds drifting across the deep purple sky above the tall treetops. A high branch directly above his head no longer held its frosty snow covering. A bird must have landed there recently, to knock the snow down upon Sabin as it took flight. Sabin’s first thought was of his body wondering why it was laying in this foreign, icy place rather than warm under the covers of his bed at home. Then he remembered his trip to the woods. He shook his head vigorously and the snow slid off his face as he slowly sat up. The snow crunched underneath him as he shifted his weight and leaned on a sore left arm. His throbbing head pounded as his blood flowed down into his extremities. His legs remained numb and vague thoughts flowed murkily through his groggy head. His absent conclusion was that the summoning hadn’t worked and he had probably fallen asleep from exhaustion during the procedure. Upon climbing clumsily to his feet, two things surfaced in his mind: a burning hunger churning in his stomach, and something else he couldn’t identify, nagging at the back of his mind. He ignored the presence and focused on the primal instinct to locate food. Sabin took his first few staggering steps back through the forest before his legs got working properly again. Trudging through the woods, he trekked a straight path, deviating only to avoid trees and bushes in his way. As the haze in his mind began to clear, he thought about the ritual he believed he had attempted only an hour or two ago. The reality was he was out cold for an entire day before he came to. His fascination with monsters was almost within tangible grasp: he had quietly left his sleeping house in the night to perform a summoning of the thing that had haunted his dreams for months. The anju, a thing of pure evil that existed only to feed and kill. His mind drifted from monsters back to hunger. He thought about the last time he ate. He figured it had only been five or six hours. The trees showed no signs of thinning into the rolling plains his home rested among, leading Sabin’s exhausted brain back into a daze as he realized the walk back would be much longer than he expected.  

The slow beating of his heart entranced him in his mindless, fatigued state as he kept moving through the deep snow. He discovered hours ago that he had journeyed deeper into the forest than he remembered, and slowly became oblivious to the elements beating against his body. The trees began to bend and the ground swapped places with the sky. Sabin let the hallucinations toy with his mind as he walked onward for miles.
Long after his mind had abandoned him, it was painfully snapped back into place with agonizing clarity as his pupils dilated instantly. He saw a light. Oil lamps inside his home were lit, casting blinding orange light out the windows and across the large field the woods yielded to. Sabin focused on the silhouette of a figure pacing back and forth across the front porch, interrupting the light as it passed across the window. He realized it was his mother. Somehow she must have noticed he sneaked out, and probably had quite the lecture worked up for him. Sabin walked faster, ignoring a fearful reluctance nagging at him. He wanted it to be over. He’d take the scolding and lay down to sleep inside his warm room. Take the punishment in the morning when the sun was up. He approached the front porch swiftly, and was about six or seven meters away from the front door when his mother spotted him coming out from the darkness. She released a deafening scream of sheer terror. Sabin stopped dead in his tracks and stared back at her, stunned. And blackness followed.
Sabin blurred back into consciousness. The sun was up. Strangely, he found himself still standing. The first thing he noticed was a splitting pain in his left shoulder, as if he had been struck there. Then he saw his mother’s old rocking chair in splinters that were spread across the wooden front porch. It had been completely destroyed, and some pieces had dark red, near-dry blood smeared on them. He walked towards it but paused when his foot collided with something. As his stare drifted down from the porch to the snow covering the ground, a sinking dread filled his body. He saw red. Everywhere. Where it was supposed to be white the snow was painted brilliant red in long splattered streaks, streaks that all came together in a mushy pool at his feet where the body lay. His fearful expression softened into shocked incomprehension. His mother’s body lay in a heap in the bloodied snow, covered in deep gashes that ran across her chest, stomach, and back. The horror became worse as Sabin noticed large chunks of her legs and arms were missing, cut out by round teethmarks. Her body was utterly mutilated, not a spot was left unravaged and ripped apart, except for her face. Her peaceful face remained completely intact and untouched, which Sabin took traumatized comfort in. His tortured and disbelieving mind darted from short thought to short thought as he walked through the open front door into the house, landing finally on the question of what horrible thing had caused such destruction. And then it hit him.
For the first time since he awoke in the woods, Sabin looked down at himself. His hands poked out of tattered brown nightrobes that were saturated in blood. His hands themselves were completely covered as well. His heart skipped a beat as he saw that his fingers were abnormally large and long, and ended in terrifying, sharp claws. He backed up in disbelief, walking straight into a hanging mirror. His back crushed the mirror and it split into several cracked fragments. Sabin spun around abruptly and saw his reflection. All sense of feeling in his body became numbed as he viewed what he had become. His teeth were extremely long and sharp, like a tiger’s. His skin was a murky grayish-brown color, the pink pigment severely discolored. His long, previously brown and wavy hair was now straight and blindingly white and long, pointed ears poked out from beneath. Eventually he came to look directly into his own eyes. Four pairs of eyes, one in each piece of glass, glared back at him. They were no longer a beautiful gray-blue, but had become fiery red and penetrating. Sabin recognized this monster staring through him. It was the anju creature from his dreams. The thing he was trying to summon in the forest. Something had gone horribly wrong, and this thing had gotten inside of him. After he came to coherent terms with this, his heart dropped further as he came to one final, grim realization. He was full.  

Immediately his gag reflex kicked in and in a spectacular and gruesome upheaval the contents of his stomach rushed up and out before splattering on the wall and floor. Everything that came out was slimy and red. The room spun and Sabin gritted his teeth, his jaw locked. He stumbled backward away from the gore and slumped into a dark corner. He let a wall down and the emotions washed over him. A great feeling of shame, sorrow, and self-pity passed through him and as the shock of the situation became stale and faded away, the monstrous features that took over his body began to revert. His feet, which had broken out of his animal-hide shoes, shrank back inside of them. His fingers shortened and the claws retreated to pointed fingernails. His ears became smaller, though remained pointed at the tips. The hideous teeth were reduced to a near-normal length and his eyes turned blue again, though his hair remained scorched white. He breathed heavily, and climbed to his feet to go outside to his mother’s body again. He couldn’t bear the thought of looking upon her again, but knew he at least owed her a last few words. He knelt in the blood and lifted his mother’s head into his lap. Her eyes were peacefully closed and her mouth was slightly open. With a trembling hand, Sabin brushed the matted hair from her face. Then he breathed a quiet goodbye as he let go. He removed his robe, reducing his clothing to an old pair of shorts and a tan shirt. Sabin placed the robe over his mother’s body and looked back at the house, the symbol of peacefulness marred by the blood staining its face. Sabin knew he couldn’t stay. His father would surely kill him when he returned. With a gun or a knife, depending on how quickly he reacted. Sabin no longer felt the cold of the wind or the snow. It seemed insignificant. He made quickly for the woods in a separate direction than the one he had come out of the previous night.
As he ran for the cover of the trees, Sabin suddenly became painfully aware of everthing around him. The powdery snow stung his legs as it kicked up in the air. Every bird calling out was earsplittingly loud. The thought that his father was searching through the woods for him raced across his mind. He could be anywhere. Just as he reached a very large boulder resting at the edge of the woods, Sabin heard a powerful, male voice calling out his mother’s name in distress. Sabin ducked behind the boulder and peeked cautiously over it. His father, dressed in his heavy fur trapper clothes, was sprinting across the field to the distant house. Sabin could still smell the blood. He turned away just as his father knelt beside the covered body in all the red snow. Looking to the tranquil forest, Sabin tried to imagine himself living inside it. He started into the woods, heading for a cave he used to play in as a child near the mountains on the other side.
“I’m eighteen.” He said to himself. “I’m old enough to live alone. It’ll be no problem.”
For nearly an hour Sabin trekked through the snow, shivering cold, until his stomach began to grumble again. Any food he had eaten within the last day was in the front room of the house he left behind. Sabin forced the image out of his mind and began to scan the area as he pressed on, searching for anything edible. Then he spotted tracks. The four-pointed talon-tracks of a bird pecking around the forest floor. Sabin looked up to the treetops. Nothing moved but the chilly breeze passing through. He took a few more steps through the snow, then stopped as his legs buckled. He was about to collapse in exhaustion when he saw it. A large, brown animal. It was an ibex, one that had probably wandered down the mountain in search of grazing grounds. It looked like a very large, brown goat, with long horns that arched almost all the way over its back. It scratched at the ground with its hoof, only to expose hard, barren dirt. Sabin felt something awaken inside of him. A primal instinct. His mind said kill and cook it. Something else wanted just to eat it on the spot. The ibex looked around, alert. It knew it was being watched, but Sabin’s minimal, lightly colored clothing and white hair made a decent camoflauge against the bright snow. He struggled to suppress a powerful presence rising inside of him. He knew it was the anju. Sabin yelped as his feet suddenly grew monstrously large once again, and his fingers lengthened into claws. He tried to fight the change, but he was too exhausted to struggle against it. He let go, and the transformation proceeded rapidly. To his shock, his range of vision increased phenomenally as two extra pairs of eyes opened on his head, one above his human pair, and one below. His ears lengthened and his hair sucked up into his scalp as his head elongated. His skin turned a shadowy black, clouding over like a glass of water invaded by a drop of ink. Multiple sets of horrible fangs grew out of his mouth and his slender nose flattened and vanished into the plain surface of the anju’s face. Sabin lost control as the whites of his eyes glowed brilliant red.  

When the anju subsided, Sabin sat for a moment until he regained his senses, then scanned the ground around him, finding exactly what he had expected. The ibex’s skeletal carcass lay in the stained snow several yards away, its red bones festooned with torn strips of its flesh that had been left behind. Though the savagery of eating a brutally slaughtered animal disturbed Sabin deeply, he decided not to reject this meal. He needed it.
Several more hours of travelling on a full but nauseated stomach brought Sabin to his cave retreat. From afar the entrance appeared as nothing more than a narrow, horizontal crevice between two boulders, but Sabin slid quickly between the rocks and climbed down into a cleared pit. He remembered that sunlight normally poured through holes between the stacked rocks that formed the ceiling, but the blanket of snow above now covered all of the cracks. Sabin hadn’t been to this place in several years, but even so it seemed strangely unfamiliar and foreign to him. He walked over to a corner and lay down on the undisturbed dirt floor, falling asleep almost the second his weary eyes were closed.
The sun was freshly rising in the sky when Sabin slowly awoke from a pleasant dream about a fond, distant childhood memory. He felt entirely refreshed, but still groggy from sleeping nearly fifteen consecutive hours. The anju had taken a lot out of him, and the extra sleep was working wonders healing his depleted body. Unfortunately, he found himself starving again, and in serious need of a place to do his business.
Sabin returned to the cave two hours later with a sickly look on his face. Blood was smeared from his lips to his left ear, and was drying on his hands. The anju had eaten six squirrels and four birds. Sabin suspected the birds had been swallowed whole, feathers and all. He glanced around the cave for a suitable sitting place when he spotted something sitting on a high ledge of the cave that he hadn’t noticed the previous day. He reached up and pulled it off. It was a stack of yellowed, water-warped papers. The ones on the top were newer and cleaner than the ones closer to the bottom. Flipping through them, Sabin quickly realized they were love notes. Every other note in the stack was in a female’s loopy cursive handwriting, scribed in blotchy black ink. The others were scribbled in a man’s writing, sloppy and smeared. He looked at the signed name at the bottom of the male one he was holding. It took him a minute to decypher the scrawled writing. “Chase Bourel.” The innkeeper’s son at the town of St. Laurent Du Pont, about a dozen miles east of the forest. Sabin and Chase were good friends growing up, though Chase’s crowd would always play tricks on Sabin and tell jokes at his expense. Sabin was just coming to realize how naïve he had been as a child to accept their laughing as simply clean fun. The note crinkled in his hand as he subconsciously squeezed tighter. He then set the blood-printed paper on a rock beside him and looked at the name on the next note, in the feminine handwriting. “Renee.” Written in large, round, looping letters and surrounded by hearts, Sabin felt his own begin to sink. Renee was the closest person to him in his entire life outside his family. He thought about all of the time they had spent together, though lessened in recent months because of Sabin’s increased infatuation with monsters. He almost smiled as he thought aloud:
“I am a monster now,” he forcefully threw the love letters into a corner and sat on a boulder jutting out from a dirt wall as he buried his face in his hands.  

He knew Renee was meant for him, not Chase. For years, when he wasn’t thinking about monsters, he had always been thinking of being a grown man, sweeping into town and taking Renee away to see distant places together. That was a shattered dream now, distorted out of any hope of becoming reality by Sabin’s realization of the dehumanization the anju was forcing upon him. He was no gentleman now. Thinking about people made him feel sicker. His mind drifted to thoughts of the anju sleeping deep inside of him. There must be a way to get it out, to make it go away. Maybe he could kill it. He began to imagine ways of disposing of the anju. Every plan that entered his mind would involve a high risk of killing himself too, so he gave up quickly on each of those. He felt the creature stirring inside of him, slowly awakening. He stared at his human hand for minutes, then released all the tension inside of it and let it hang limp. Almost instantaneously the skin pigment in his hand began to darken and his fingers lengthened. He focused on keeping every other inch of his body in check, but he let the anju have his hand. Then he decided to try something. He raised the anju hand to his mouth, and bit it. He felt nothing. The hand was no longer his, it was the anju’s. He bit harder, nearly breaking the skin. Sabin sensed the anju awakening fully. The hand thrashed, clawing at Sabin’s face. Sabin fell off the rock in surprise, and the anju took the opportunity to break free. Sabin’s entire left arm quickly became the anju’s, as well as a good section of his chest and stomach. The dark gray color creeped up Sabin’s throat and along half of his face, mutating one of his ears and opening an extra eye just a crack before Sabin got his focus back. He stumbled around the cave, half man, half anju. Sabin punched the anju side of his face, and the anju clawed at the Sabin side.
They kept up the single-bodied struggle for quite some time, taking it outside into the snow. Sabin, still in control of his legs, ran headfirst into a tree. The anju screamed a high-pitched howl of pain, hurting Sabin’s human ear. They wrestled each other to the ground, and began to roll in the snow. Sabin scratched at the anju’s two eyes, and the anju jerked the head around in an attempt to bite Sabin’s arm with the bit of their mouth it controlled. Sabin got up and threw himself back into the snow, and the anju took the weight of the hit, but bounced back into the air, sending them tumbling down the slope of a small hill. After rolling some distance into a clearing suspicously void of any plant-life, Sabin and the anju resorted to a contest of grabbing the other’s arm in an attempt to stop it from throwing any more punches. They rolled again, and Sabin finally grabbed hold of the anju’s wrist. The anju, however, had stopped fighting back. Sabin stopped too when he heard what the anju’s sensitive ears had already picked up. It was a muffled sound coming from beneath them. Something firm and thick was cracking under their body. Seconds later, the ground caved in and they fell with a section of the snow around them into the frigid water of a large pond. The snow melted instantly, much like the anju. The severe drop in temperature was an extremely painful surprise, especially because it was not accustomed to physical sensations. Sabin regained complete control as the anju gave up. His body changed fully back to human and he grasped the icy edge of the hole they had broken through. Chunks broke from the ice as Sabin attempted to pull himself up, but he managed anyway and crawled to firm ground, the ice ripping his wet flesh as it froze and was pulled away again. Sabin climbed shakily back to the cave and rested inside, his skin blue. He feared he would suffer hypothermia, but was strengthened by the fact that he had won his little battle with the anju. He felt no traces of its presence as he curled up in his wet clothes against the cold rocks in a corner, where he huddled shivering for a half-hour before he passed out.  

Sabin was unconscious for several hours before he awoke. He was in terrible pain from the wet cold he was forced to endure. All of his muscles were sore, but he forced himself to crawl out of the cave and sit on a rock warmed by the afternoon sun. Spring was approaching, and Sabin hoped the snow would soon melt and the grass would grow again. As he sat on the rock, he found himself reflecting on the past couple of days. The thought of his body being shared by another being still hadn’t sunk in, as his brain hadn’t quite grasped the situation yet. He knew he couldn’t trick himself by telling himself it was just a dream, and he accepted that this thing wasn’t just going to fade away and disappear. His stomach felt heavy as he thought about his future. He’d never get a good job, and probably never marry. He thought about whether or not he would love or be loved by anyone ever again. His thoughts made him very cold again, and he slinked sadly back into the darkness of his cave, wondering when the anju would make its next appearance.
Another eternity spent dwelling depressively on his condition was interrupted when Sabin heard a noise in the distance. It sounded like a large animal running quickly through the forest. Sabin was disgusted with himself when the first thing that came to mind was dinner. Obviously the anju was thinking the same thing, because once again every nerve in Sabin’s body was humming with a primal instinct to hunt. To Sabin’s surprise, and increasing feeling of dread, the running sound grew louder. After listening intently for a few more seconds, Sabin recognized it as the unmistakable sound of a galloping horse. The horse approached the cave quickly and slowed to a stop just outside the entrance. He heard a voice.
“Wait here, Arielle. Good girl.” Chase. It was most definitely his voice. Sabin figured out the game now. Chase and Renee were taking turns travelling to this old cave of theirs to leave each other love letters. Sabin hid in a corner as he heard the near footsteps. Suddenly the anju pushed from inside. It wanted to take over. Sabin broke into a sweat as a wave of fear washed over him.
“No… you horrible thing!” he whispered to the anju in a purely enraged tone. “You killed my mother and I won’t let you kill my friends too!” The anju would have nothing to do with Sabin’s requests. It emerged quickly and strongly, mutating Sabin starting with toes first and working its way up to his head. As Sabin’s vision tripled and his head transformed completely, he was horrified to find that he wasn’t blacking out.
“I’ll let you watch this time.” The sound of the anju was horrifying, a raspy, ghostly echo of a voice.  

“God help me, this thing’s learning to speak!” Sabin said to himself. He was truly terrified by the immobility that overcame him as the anju controlled his body. Sabin saw the dagger-like claws, the slender arms, the sharp toenails at the ends of unbelievably long feet. Chase slid into the cave. He stood still for a moment, then dropped a rolled up piece of paper held in his hand as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the six glowing eyes staring into him. His mouth opened in speechless terror as the anju jumped upon him. Sabin was screaming wildly inside, but it could not be heard as his body’s voice was lent to the anju’s satisfied growling while he swung his claws across Chase’s chest. It cut all the way through the multiple layers of fur garments he was wearing and sliced diagonal slashes through Chase’s torso. The anju then raked at Chase’s face, slicing clean through his left eye and cheeks. Blood bubbled from his mouth as he collapsed, but was caught on anju’s claws, which dug deep into his gut. His remaining eye was wide open and fully dilated, peering paralyzed at the anju before it took the first bite into the flesh between his right shoulder and neck. Sabin was forced to watch the whole bloody process as Chase died while his organs were being scraped out of his rib cage and swallowed accordingly. The anju was thoroughly satisfied after it had finished stripping every last bit of skin from Chase’s body. It backed off, finished. Chase’s unrecognizable corpse lay in a bloody pile at the entrance to the cave, and the anju retreated, giving control of the body back to Sabin. But he didn’t take it. He was too tramautized by what he had just been forced to witness to carry on. The demonic features reverted only halfway back to human and Sabin lay stunned on the cave floor. Sabin’s human legs stretched out before him, though his calves were still grayish anju and his feet remained abnormally long. The anju was pleasantly surprised at the effect. It had taken great, if utterly insatiable, pleasure in feeding off of Sabin’s fear, a smog that still lingered in Sabin’s trauma-shocked brain. Quick, barely coherent thoughts flashed in his head.
“I’m becoming the anju… it’s taking over. But at least I’ve stained it. I’ve made it impure. It laughs now. It talks now. It feels pain now. But still it refuses compassion… and sanity…” Sabin’s brain turned off after that thought washed through his tortured mind, his only energies devoted to holding back the anju from taking over completely. Their control of the body was now equal, and in Sabin’s inactivity the anju took the opportunity to use the body freely. Disliking restrain, the anju quickly ripped the shirt from his body, revealing pulsing, toned muscles: muscles that once belonged to Sabin but were now made tougher and stronger by the anju’s physical influence. It got up off of the cave floor and climbed out of the cave. Upon sight of the horrible half-man, half-monster, Chase’s horse spooked and bolted into the woods. The anju let it go and began to wander the woods, occassionally sending a mental taunt to Sabin. Sabin’s hazy mind was completely unresponsive, and the anju quickly became bored. After hours of unsuccessfully prowling around the forest in search of something live to inflict fear upon, the anju’s own mind began to lose its grip on reality.
Several weeks of Sabin’s inactivity and the erosion of the anju’s mind to boredom and incomplete freedom turned the two of them into a single creature, feral and savage. For months to come the wild beast they had become roamed the forest, lusting to tear flesh from bone and to eat. It felt forever hungry and forever wild…  

CHAPTER II
:~k~:
The Grand Ball

March, 1872
Bucharest, Romania

Kamiki awoke to the first rays of the rising sun pouring through the yellow glass of the balcony window overlooking the frosty rooftops of the city that stretched on for miles onto the horizon. She shifted her position under the fluffy white covers to look at her sleeping husband beside her. She stared at his face, watching his chin move slowly up and down with the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed shallowly. He was a strikingly handsome man, with narrow eyes, a bold chin, and a large, rounded nose. Kamiki leaned carefully over and engaged him in a playful kiss.. Dorin’s eyes opened almost immediately. Kamiki rested back on her side.
“Good morning to you, too.” Dorin said, rubbing his eyes. Kamiki wrapped her arms around Dorin and pulled him closer. She felt his warm, soft skin, and ran her fingers through his auburn hair. Dorin traced Kamiki’s spine with his fingers, stopping at her lower back as he touched bare skin, then ran his hand back up, though this time under her nightshirt. Kamiki playfully interlocked their legs together, and their bodies became one, so close that they could hear the soft beating of the other’s heart. They kissed again, though this time with heightened passion. Dorin closed his eyes.
“We could stay here all day,” he suggested.
“Father’s Celebration Ball is today. I have to get ready.” Kamiki replied firmly. Dorin fell back, disappointed, as Kamiki rose from the bed and tossed the covers from her body. She entered the bathroom connecting to the master bedroom in their wing of her father’s estate mansion. Dorin rubbed his arms and pulled the covers over his torso to rid himself of the coldness that had rushed in after Kamiki’s departure.
Inside the bathroom, Kamiki stared at herself in the center of three connected mirrors. She gazed into her violet-gray eyes, then looked absently at her mocha-brown skin. She automatically thought of her country, of the cause her father supported, and began to play with her silvery lavender hair in an attempt to dress it to look less foreign. She had never learned of where her mother had come from originally, as her parents never spoke of their pasts, even after her mother died, and Kamiki was left to wonder about that place every day, because she had to stare at that place’s genes each morning in the mirror. She had inherited a very minimal amount of her Romanian side, looking nothing like her father, or her friends, or even her pure Romanian husband. She didn’t mind, she felt it was her place to stand out, but at an event like the one scheduled for that evening, she wanted nothing more than to blend in.  

Kamiki came out of the bathroom wearing a loose, purple gown and a tight, almost sleeveless blouse. Her father didn’t approve of her “low apparel,” but she didn’t care. Her husband definitely didn’t mind. Dorin eyed her playfully as he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
At about five o’clock in the evening, Dorin and Kamiki came downstairs again, dressed in a much more formal manner than earlier that day, though Kamiki now looked stunning in her new outfit. She wore a flowing silver gown with a white shawl that was held together at her chest by a broach featuring a large, purple gem, and her flowing hair was tied up in a long, purple ribbon. Dorin was dressed in a formal suit and held her hand high as they walked down the stairs to the landing that overlooked the main ballroom leading out to the main hall of the mansion. Many guests had arrived and were either gossiping in whispers or just generally chit-chatting. Kamiki’s father, Anton, spotted them and signaled them to come down. Kamiki lifted her dress as she quickly descended the last staircase to the main floor. Anton approached her.
“Good evening, father.” Kamiki said.
“Good evening, sir.” Dorin added formally. Kamiki loved it when her father and her husband were in the same room together, because awkward tension would always form very quickly between them. She knew Anton was intimidating to him.
“Daughter, I would expect you to cover yourself up a bit for an occasion like this one,” Anton said edgily.
“Father, don’t worry. I’m fine. Just… go get people mingling. It’s too quiet in here.” Kamiki said. Her father looked scornfully upon her as he turned away and interested himself in a conversation with a very wealthy couple from farther up north.
“Do you really think this ball will make a difference?” Dorin asked. Kamiki looked him in the eyes.
“Depends on who shows up. Nobody important’s here yet. Let’s come back in a minute.” Kamiki tugged Dorin by the collar into a back hallway and he stumbled after her. They ended up in a dark corner near the mansion’s library. Kamiki suddenly began kissing Dorin, and he responded clumsily with a few attempts of his own to show affection in return, but only added awkwardness as he tried to hug her. She slipped out from underneath his arms and pinched his rear, causing him to stand straight up in surprise. Then he ducked around her and grabbed the bow that bound her dress together in the back under the shawl. She ran from him, but he pulled her back in and they engaged in more quick kissing.
The two of them emerged from the back hallway a good while later, and the ballroom was packed with guests. A group of musicians were playing upbeat folk music by the stairs and Kamiki’s father was standing at the high landing, overseeing everything. Kamiki left Dorin behind as she ran up to talk to him.
“Shouldn’t you be down there greeting your guests?” she said with a sly smile.
“I’ve been socailizing for the past two hours… It’s time I took a break, especially before the new governer gets here.” Anton said.
“He’s coming?” Kamiki inquired.
“He accepted the invitation and said he was making plans. He and his wife should be here any minute.” Anton twisted around to view a massive clock mounted on the wall underneath the highest staircase to the upper rooms. It was almost six. The light was fading outside as the sky deepened in hue. Then the front doors were opened by two officers keeping an eye on things as the governer, Eugen Breltar and his wife, Claudia, entered.  

“So much for my break.� Anton moved swiftly down to welcome them. They were introduced, and the ball got moving. More wealthy people with forgettable names arrived and joined the dancing crowd. Dinner was served and Anton talked over things with the number of politicians that had arrived. The ball was thrown to support the country’s movement for full state independence, her father was a powerful political activist fighting to sever all remaining ties the country still had to the oppressive Ottoman empire. The combined effort was proving successful, and Kamiki’s father had chosen to throw one of his great parties to honor their work. Kamiki discovered herself quickly losing interest in the affair, and left the dinner to dance more with Dorin. They stood close to each other as they shuffled in small circles to a slow song.
“Having a good time?� Dorin asked. Kamiki looked into his eyes.
“Is that a joke?� she asked. Dorin smiled. Kamiki rested her head on his chest and gripped his arm tighter.
When the music began to pick up again they headed upstairs, as the ballroom was getting too crowded. The room was packed full of guests, and finding your way from one end of the room to the other was quickly becoming a difficult task. Kamiki led Dorin to the stairs, and they went up the first set to the lowest landing overlooking the ballroom, then kept moving up. After ascending another staircase they came to another landing close to the wall. They stood about thirty feet above the main floor. A guard was watching over the festivities from his post there, and Dorin pointed down to Kamiki’s father making his way through the crowd.
“I think he’s gonna make an announcement.� Kamiki said. Anton moved up the same staircase Kamiki and Dorin had just gone up, and stood at the center landing below. The crowd began to quiet down and look expectantly up at him. “Maybe he’s gonna do something to save us from this boredom. I mean, this is turning out to be a pretty dull night.� Blood splattered across the railing Anton stood behind. He doubled over, grasping the metal arrow that protruded from his chest as he gasped for air. The guard by Dorin and Kamiki jumped in shock.
“Get down!� he said urgently. Dorin and Kamiki ducked and were ushered down a back staircase.
“What happened?� Dorin asked, confused.
“My father’s just been shot!� Kamiki cried out, struggling to get a glimpse at the high windows lining the walls near the ceiling of the ballroom. She could not spot the assassin. Shrieks of terror filled the air as guests stumbled around, flooding the exits. The guard ushered Kamiki and Dorin into a dark back room, but Kamiki wouldn’t have it.
“No, let me out!� she shouted, pushing the guard aside. Dorin followed close behind as Kamiki took off down the hall and rounded a corner into the ballroom.
“Kamiki, wait!� Dorin yelled. Kamiki rushed up the staircase to the wooden landing covered in a pool of blood. Anton was slumped against the railing. Kamiki went to his side and stared into his frozen eyes.
“No….� tears streamed down her face. “Father!� Anton was unresponsive. A doctor rushed up the stairs after Dorin and went to Anton. He inspected the arrow sticking into his chest, then felt his pulse.

“I’m sorry…” he said.
“No!” Kamiki repeated, backing away from the body. Dorin held her and she sobbed in his arms for a moment as the remains of the panicked crowd disappeared. Guards ran all over the place hunting for the murderer. Kamiki felt pure rage rising inside of her, and, breaking Dorin’s grasp, took off down the stairs, heading straight for the main entrance. She burst out the doors and looked frantically about, though her efforts were futile as the criminal could easily blend in with the rest of the guests who were running away. Dorin walked quickly toward the doors out to Kamiki, but was interrupted when a large man approached him from behind and wrapped his hand around Dorin’s entire face, ear to ear. Dorin kicked and struggled for air as the guard dragged him out of the room and into a side hall. The doctor stood and looked about the empty ballroom.
Kamiki cried as she fell to her hands and knees on the cobblestone pavement outside the mansion. A large, black horse-drawn carriage came to a halt several feet from where she sat. A man dressed entirely in black with his face covered jumped out and stepped swiftly to Kamiki, grabbing hold of her arms. She sprung up to her feet and screamed, thrusting away from her attacker, but he had a firm grip on her wrists and dragged her into the wagon. The smooth black door with a covered window closed quickly and the carriage was off again.
Kamiki awoke groggily several hours later. She had been knocked out upon being taken into the carriage, and now found herself lying on a cement floor with a thin covering of straw. She waited for her vision to focus and her mind to clear, and saw the black, vertical steel bars.
“A cell. Figures.” Kamiki said, pushing herself up into a sitting position. The room outside the cell was not much more interesting. The walls were stone bricked, lined with several burning torches. A staircase in the wall led upwards. Two other cells were adjacent to Kamiki’s, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the right was vacant, but a woman sat in the one left of her. She sat against the corner with her head bent over. Her skin was dark brown like Kamiki’s though her hair was almost black. A black, raggedy robe was draped around her, though her arms and legs were mostly exposed. She heard Kamiki’s movement and lifted her head.
“You’re awake.” The woman said in a plain tone. Her voice was feminine, but deep.
“What is this place?” Kamiki said, finding that she herself had been redressed in rags.  

“Some mid-dimensional dungeon wedged between two planes of existence… I was kidnapped and brought here almost a year ago. Been in this cell ever since.”
“They just… left you?” Kamiki said.
“They bring food every five hours, and a bucket to do your business in… don’t imagine you’ll like it here.” The woman seemed disinterested in any further socializing, and turned her head to study a wall she had probably stared at hundreds of times before. Kamiki, however, kept asking questions. She was scared.
“Why are we here?” The woman turned to look into her eyes. She herself had stunning, deep blue irises.
“Not a damn clue. I didn’t even get to look at the men who took me. Maybe they’re going to use me for something someday…”
“I was taken right after my father was assassinated at his ball.” Kamiki said bitterly.
“My family probably all died a long time ago. I’m sure you’ve heard of the alternate time theory…”
“Time moves faster in one dimension than in another. How long has it been in your world?” Kamiki said.
“From what I learned when I was in school, probably something like two centuries. I’m sorry to hear about your father.” She said.
“Thanks…” Silence followed for several minutes and Kamiki rested her back against the brick wall. “I’m… Kamiki, by the way.” Kamiki said awkwardly.
“Vastella.” The woman said in her deep voice. The sound of the name seemed to resonate through the room.
“Have you always been the only one here?” Kamiki said.
“A long time ago, there was a man in the cell next to yours. He was in here for four months before he started acting up. Then they got some kind of transfigurist down here… crazy old man with lots of old gadgets… locked the man’s essence into some kind of rare stone that they probably sold on the market for a lot of money. More valuable if it contains a real soul. Transfigurists are all rich because they just combine two normal things to make precious, valuable objects. I’ve kept my mouth shut for a year, and I’m still alive.”
“Do you ever worry that if you never speak out you’ll just be here until you grow old and die?” Kamiki said.
“I don’t age… part of my heritage.”
“Your heritage?” Kamiki said. Vastella seemed to be getting colder the more they talked.
“Not really in much of a storytelling mood.” She said, pulling her tattered robe’s hood over her head. Kamiki took the hint that this woman wasn’t warming to her anytime soon, and busied herself trying to brush the tangles out of her hair with her fingers. She didn’t quite know what to make of this place, she had never been outisde of the Earthen realm, but had known alternate dimensions must have existed; she picked that up from all the puzzle pieces about her origins her mother had laid out over the years before she passed on. She was just getting bored again when something came down the stairs. It was a man, about seventy years old, dressed in gray robes much like Kamiki’s. Without a word he walked to Kamiki’s cell and raised his head into the light. His eyes were a deep sky blue color, and his hair was silvery gray. Kamiki noticed something strange about him.  

“Take off your hood.” She said to him. The man lowered his hood, revealing a pair of silver fox ears, one protruding from the left side of the top of his head, and the other on the right. The man unlocked the cell with an obscure black key and opened the door.
“Come with me.” He said, extending his hand. Kamiki rose to her feet without his help. He motioned her to the stairs. She went up and he followed. Vastella kept her head down, but watched them under the brim of her hood as they exited the room.
“What do you want with me?” Kamiki said as they arrived in another room, this one containing a long table with a chair on either side. Kamiki was seated in one of the chairs and the old man walked slowly around to the other. Kamiki waited as he adjusted his robes so he wouldn’t sit on what was likely a bushy tail.
“As you have probably noticed, I am a kitsune.” The old man said. His voice was deep and mysterious, as if inside him he possessed a greater being than the appearance he showed outward. “It’s time for you to embrace your destiny, young one.”
“Destiny? It was destiny that my father was murdered? And what about my husband?” Kamiki said, fresh anger rising inside of her.
“We did not murder your father, or your husband, or kidnap you. The kitsune would never be able to do any of those terrible things. We merely rescued you from your kidnappers and brought you here.” The old man said.
“To lock me up in a cell?” Kamiki said.
“It was a safety measure. It may not look like much, but without my key nothing can get inside that cage. We had to protect you in case the enemy came back to recapture you.”
“Why is everyone so interested in me?”
“It’s a matter of ranks. The kitsune are losing, and we need everyone we can get. Unfortunately, the enemy appears to be a step ahead and is eliminating potential allies before we can reach them.”
“So you think I’ll join you?”
“Your Earthly ties have been unbound… everything that would make you wish to return to Earth has been eliminated. The kitsune will do whatever is required to maintain their world and the peace within its boundaries. The death of your father was tragic, but a small price for the humankind to pay for us to have you… to reunite you with your true path.”
“Reunite? Are you talking about my mother?”
“Your mother was a kitsune… nothing special, but a kitsune still. Our numbers have declined greatly over the last century due to the hunting of our vulpine brethren in the human world and the ongoing war we are waging.”  

“So you need everyone you can get to keep your kind alive.” Kamiki said. “But you don’t want me, I’m impure. A half-breed. I have no kitsune qualities.”
“Look at yourself. Your skin, your hair, your eyes. You are purely human-kitsune. There is no fox in you, but that can be changed over time…” The old man said.
“But I don’t want to join you, I don’t want to be a soldier.”
“You haven’t a choice. Go back and you will die.” The old man proclaimed.
“You’ll kill me too?”
“The kitsune do not murder the innocent.” The old man said.
“I don’t know if I trust you...” Kamiki said.
“Then maybe you should wait in your protective cell until you have had enough time to think everything over. But please, take this with you. It will protect you should anything happen to you.” The old man reached over the table and strung a necklace around Kamiki’s neck. It held a small, teal colored jewel inside a metal frame.
“What is it?” Kamiki said.
“That doesn’t matter. Just keep it with you… protect it and it will protect you.” The old man stood and led Kamiki back to her cell. She was too worn out to think up an escape plan and willingly laid back down on the straw floor. Vastella didn’t seem surprised to see her return. They were promptly brought food to eat, and upon finishing her meal Kamiki drifted off into a deep sleep.