"This way!" she urged, making me worry because I felt as if not obeying her would be the source of my death. "They're coming!"

"Who's coming, Mommy?" I asked, my tiny hand gripping firmly onto hers.

She stopped in her tracks for a moment, knelt down, and held onto my shoulders. "The bad people," she replied in a low whisper, "and they're coming after you... But I'm going to bring you somewhere safe, okay?" I nodded, not knowing how else to reply.

She picked me up and started running. When I looked back, all I could see was the village on fire. Buildings sank downwards due to the intense heat; people ran away, screaming their lungs out as the flames hungrily roared and sank its burning teeth into their skin. A little girl stood at the base of the fire, giggling and dancing among the blues and the reds. That was the last thing I saw before my mother made a sharp turn into an alleyway and set me down in the darkness of the buildings.

"You'll be fine here," she said, moving strands of dark hair away from my face. "Just stay here and play in the shadows. You'll be fine," she repeated. "Stay here until I get back. Okay? Okay?" I nodded quickly, breathing heavily. She wore a worried smile. "Good."

After that, she went away. I just played with the shadows as I was told, making them swirl around the dusty, cracked, concrete floor. Waving around my hands, I got the shadows to crawl up the walls and make figures of animals; trees, too, because I was good at making silhouettes of trees. And I waited. Waited. Waited.

The fire burnt out, extinguished by means unknown to me. Overhead, the dark red sky shifted back to its original colour of light blue. There were no clouds, though; instead, there were ashes that floated downwards like dirty snowflakes on a winter's day. Meanwhile, I waited and waited and waited, but my mom still didn't come back. All that time I waited, I watched the sky fuse into different shades of pinks, purples, and oranges while the sun gracefully set in the distance.

In a matter of time, a man -probably middle aged- found me in the alley's corner as I quickly tried to pretend as if the moving shadows weren't being controlled by me. He montioned over another person, and after whispering to each other for a bit, they started closing in on me. I scooted backwards despite knowing how useless that would be since a wall blocked my way out. Closer and closer they came with their arms bent in front of them like an eagle's talons right before swooping in to catch its prey. What do they want with me? I thought, Were they the 'bad guys'? How do I escape?

Then... they stepped into the shadows; an accidental mistake. The darkness climbed up their legs, soon covering their entire bodies, and clogging up their throats, eye sockets, nostrils, and ears as they gagged, falling to the floor. But I knew for sure that I wasn't the one who did all of that; I had to have, though, because I was the only other person there. As an eight-year-old, however, I would never have thought about doing something so gruesome with my powers.

"What are you doing just sitting there?" a voice asked me. It sounded like a little boy, but I couldn't hear exactly where it came from; the voice just echoed down the alleyway.

I stared, wide-eyed and disgusted, at the two dead bodies ahead of me. "Who are you?" I asked, rather than responding.

"I'm Cain," the voice answered. "And you are Nicia, correct?"

I looked around myself, even spinning around a few times to make sure there's no one up against the wall behind me. "Y-yeah..." I muttered. "Correct." My hands formed tight fists at my sides as I darted my eyes back and forth. "Are you the one who killed them? Those two guys? Are you going to kill me too? Please don't! I'm still waiting for my mom!"

"Tch. I'm not here to kill you! But I did kill those men. If I hadn't, then you'd be in a lot of trouble! So... you're welcome!" It was silent for a few moments before he began to speak again. "You might want to give up on waiting for your mom; she won't be coming back."

I stood, stiffly shaking and holding back a few tears. The shadows engulfed the two lifeless bodies and brought them god-knows-where while I simply leaned against the wall. What now? Cain didn't say anything else; he seemed to have left. So, for the first time ever, I was completely alone.

}{}{}{}{} Six Years Later {}{}{}{}{

"Five hundred dollars," the clerk said to me, dusting off the box. He wore a foolish grin as his eyes were glazed over with mischief and weariness.

I pouted and stared back down at the box, removing a layer of dust with my thumb. "Can I get a discount?"

The man and I were supposedly the only people who were in that structure at the moment. Around us were specks of dust contaminating the air and the products he had for sale. I should mention how peculiar of a shop this was; dead rats floating in jars, unknown plants acting as medicinal ones, mystery meats laying raw on shelves and counters, contraptions arranged in ways that look as if they wouldn't properly function, and the bone chandelier swinging back and forth while the flames on its candles somehow went out. Now I knew that were weren't alone, so I decided to make things quick.

"No way!" the store clerk shouted back, almost interrupting my sentence. "If you can afford such a brilliant Familiar, then you should be able to afford this!" I grinned and looked back.

"Did you hear that, Nicia?" Cain asked from behind me. "He called me a Familiar... But, alas, I am a demon. The only things that can see demons are Nicia, other demons, or angels."

"If you were an angel, you wouldn't be selling an evil box," I said to the store clerk. "Even if you are an angel selling this box, you would've lowered the price." I said, stepping towards him slowly. "And you're sure as hell not me... So..." I trailed off.

The man wore a worried and surprised look. He threw his hands up in front of him as if it were a useful form of defense and spouted incoherent sentences in a panic. There's nothing he can really say to defend himself. Next time, he should be a bit more attentive to what he lets his customers do; earlier, when I removed some dust with my thumb, I revealed a certain symbol. In other words, he literally just watched me prove wrong whatever alibi he had.

Cain swirled around, stretching out his body and turning into a jet-black spear. "Demon," he stated as I caught him in midair, quickly stabbing the clerk with the sharpened edge.

Cain usually prefers to spread throughout the victims' bodies like a fast-reacting poison from the wounded point, and escaping through the eyes and mouth. Over time, I had gotten used to his disturbing way of killing. As the curled clouds of his body retatched, I took the box, spun on my heel, and left the dirty shack of a store. I shoved the box into the pocket inside my trench coat, rested my hands within the outer pockets, and walked away from the building, my shoes clicking against the sidewalk. Without any warning, out of nowhere, the shop bursted into a flurry of clouds and fires.

"It looks just like..." I muttered, dragging out the end of my sentence. I gasped and my eyes widened as I instinctively began sprinting away from the explosion. Not again, I thought to myself. Not again.

"Uhm... Nicia! We've got a tail!" I looked back to see two people following behind me.

"Well, this kind of sucks," I mumbled. Getting a glance of my feet, I got an idea. "Not a problem," I told myself, grinning.

My brilliant idea got me growing three inches taller and moving more nimbly. I laughed triumphantly, admiring the pair of skates that I forged out of my own shadow. Happily rollerblading away, I noticed that instead of just two pairs of footsteps, there were four. Two were further away now because I distanced myself, but the other two weren't on ground; they were above me... on the rooftops.

Glancing up to see who it was, I saw one girl to my right who wasn't exactly moving at all, but she had some kind of ice-surfboard that she leisurely rode on in thin air, twirling a parasol decorated with black bows between her gloved hands. To my left was another girl; she had bright red hair that was tied back in a ponytail. A trail of ice was forming in front of her, and she traveled on it by ice-skating with sword blades attached to the soles of her boots.

Out of nowhere, daggers started shooting down from the sky, and I would have been stabbed if Cain hadn't made himself into a shield. "Tsk," a voice above me sighed in disappointment. "I missed."

"Nicia!" Cain shouted at me. "I don't know if this matters to you at all or changes anything in your plans... but we might be in a bit of a pickle here."

I smirked back at him. "Isn't that what makes this job more fun?" I shouted back. Hardly anyone ever gives chase, so this is the most excitement I've had in awhile.

I shot my hand out in front of me, making all the shadows around me build up into a staircase leading to the top of the buildings. Hopping from step to step, I made my way to the same level as the two girls. Of course, I was sure to destroy the stairs; who knows what kind of person would follow me up. There's also a chance that the two people who were after me on ground earlier were still hounding me. No way would I give them the advantage of easily matching my pace up the stairs.

It didn't take long before the girl with the parasol started striking lightning bolts at me; I don't know how, but she did. Being a person who could control darkness, I guess I'm not exactly in a position where I could question others. I kept reminding myself not to strike back at her, though. My mom always told me not to fight anyone unless they're in the wrong. Sure, they might be trying kill me at the moment, but I did steal the box of evil. Then again, I took it for safe-keeping, but they didn't know that... So, at the moment, I just assumed that we're all in the right. However, if I stopped for just a millisecond, it might be my cause of death, and there's no telling whether or not those people really were good.

The girl with the bright red hair somehow kept getting her hands on different knives, throwing them at me. There I was, dodging lightning and blades; I don't even know how I stayed alive, but I did... thankfully. That was until something was shot near my foot.

A... firecracker...? A boy wearing a grenade-filled utility belt and a girl running with a dress and heels -whom I believed were the two people that were following me- ran behind me. As I was watching them, I saw the guy hold some sort of explosive in front of the girl as she lit it up by touching it with her finger; and, of course, he shot it directly at me with the help of a small, wooden slingshot.

Okay... I thought, A girl who can control weather, a girl who can summon swords, a guy who uses bombs, and a girl who plays with fire. Thinking back, I remembered seeing a little girl in the fire that burnt down my town back when I was younger. The way she looked so proud and happy, dancing with the ashes amongst the flames... and the way she looked exactly the same as the girl chasing me now. The face, the hair, the skin; it's all the same. I kept telling myself 'It's not. It's not. It's not', but once I pieced together the fact that this girl is probably the one who set up the explosion at the store, my mind could only say 'It is. It is. It is.' So, I decided to fight.

I literally just found myself turning around to face all four of them with a crazed face etched with angles that longed for revenge. Out of all the scenarios in my mind, I probably would never have imagined facing off with people who were similar to myself; who had some sort of power as well. Four against one? This should get interesting.

For a moment, everyone stayed completely still, like boulders in a calm breeze; that was until the guy made the first move. He held a match in his mouth as if it were a cigarette, and with a quick movement of the arm, it was in his hand, all lit up and ready to go. I had a feeling that one of the girls was going to distract me while he lights a bomb, so I figured that instead of dealing with all of that, I had to get rid of him first.

-Del's Point of View-

I twisted the screwdriver in the dim light of the laboratory, carefully attaching the two metal plates. The mechanic watched from a few feet away, still tied up in his chair with a cloth gagging him.

Twisting in my seat, I faced him and looked straight into his eyes, fluttering my eyelashes. "What do I do now?"

On the surface of his thoughts, he was thinking about how to escape while, at the same time, mentally cursing at me. However, at his fault, he still held knowledge of mechanisms. I'm able to use telepathy well enough to go deep into his mind. So, he's unintentionally giving me answers without verbally replying.

"Thanks for the info," I said, going back to working on my project. I turned my head just slightly so that I could see his face and he could see mine. "By the way... you should give up on trying to find a way to escape from here. Because, let me tell you... it's impossible. Once I'm done with using you to help me, I'm going to kill you off. You've committed so many crimes in the past, my friend. You are a menace to society..."

Searching through my desk for his wanted poster, I read it over out loud, "'Wanted dead or alive', hm? The reward is... 'Five hundred thousand gold'..." Grinning, I gazed over at him. "Jim Casey is your name? Well, okay, Jim. I'll kill you quickly because I'm not the type to make people suffer, deal? I'll make your death well worth the award."

Twirling around in my chair, I decided to check up on my soldiers. Earlier, I sent them away to retrieve the box of evil, but I'm afraid it's taking longer than usual. I made sure that Jim was well-bound to his chair because I have no control over my body while I'm using telepathy. In other words, I become a lifeless doll; it'd be fatal for me if he escaped. After tightening the rope around him, I laid down on the doctor's table and eased my eyes closed. Who's mind should I connect to first? I thought. Tone, Blaize, Leyah, or Able?

I sighed deeply, almost laughing at myself. Silly me... Why not all of them at once?

_...--== Author's Note ==--..._

Hello, person! Or... are you a person...? Hmm... hummm...

Any-the-ways, THANKS A BUTT-LOAD FOR READING!!!!!!!! It means the world to me!!! Tell me what you think about it! And if you enjoyed, then please abuse that vote button~

This story is based off of my friends and myself because of several random events! And, yes, I'm the main character, Nicia. And I'm also Cain... Aren't I so awesome? You know, controlling darkness and stuffs...

Well, vote, comment, and follow if you had not done that already~! See you in the next one!

Bye~

-!Ri$

*This story is brought to you by Ina, Annabelle, Elizabeth, Haylee, Benito, Matthew, and Maddie*
*If you like this story, then mentally thank them... and me, for writing it, of course*