In France...

The day ended for the city of Chartres, and people were returning home, as the first colors of the new twilight were born in the sky. The winter cold was more than present. But it was not the cold that would prevent Hella and Mana from continuing their mission. Being still both invisible by the camouflage created by Magnum, the two monsters stood in the shadow of a lane wedged between two buildings, and watched with attention. On the sidewalk opposite, was a modest bar, The Jungle Café, where the concert of the band of Mathias was to take place. Some young people came in front of the hall and came in, all wearing metalhead clothes. Hella watched attentively, but did not see Mathias coming. Maybe he was already inside, at least she hoped.

Hella and Mana heard quiet footsteps approaching them from the end of the alley and turned. They saw that it was Otus, who had decided to join them to see what was going on, but having no camouflage system, had to stay in the darkness of the alley so as not to be seen by people.

_ "What are we doing now?" Mana asked, arms crossed and back against a wall.

_ "We can not risk to all go in the bar. If humans spot us, it will be panic." Otus added.

_ "I'll go alone, to see what happens. I'll let you know when it's over." Hella decided.

The two other monsters seemed to agree with the idea of the scarbie and decided to let her do it. Trusting her camouflage, Hella began to cross the street towards the bar, while Mana and Otus returned to hide in the shadows, waiting for the signal.

Hella was able to pass without problem in front of other people and entered the bar without being spotted. Inside, a good atmosphere prevailed. At the bottom of the bar, the metalheads were gathered around a small wooden stage, and waiting for the beginning, chatting with each other while drinking beers. In order to have a good overview, Hella went up on a hedge of the upper floor, which fortunately was deserted from any presence except her. She observed all these young people, who were not aware about what was on the spot for the survival of this world, and it was better they don't know it, even if time was running out.

A few minutes passed, then finally, Mathias, Aurélien and Mathilde arrived on the small stage, on the shouts and some applause of the small public come to see them. Mathias always wore his outfit with his jacket and hat, and his bass in his hands, checked the microphone in front of him. Mathilde was dressed in a black skull t-shirt, black trousers with a studded belt, and checked the connections of her guitar. Behind them, Aurélien, finishing his cigarette, wearing a sleeveless denim jacket and leather mitts on his hands, sat behind the drums and gave a few taps to check the tone of the drums. All three had put on make-up, their faces painted greyish white and covered with black veinlets and fake blood traces. Hella raised an eyebrow at such a thing. After checking, playing a few bass notes to test, Mathias asked the others if everything was good for them, then began to talk in the microphone.

_ "Good evening everyone, I hope you're all right! Thanks to each of you for coming tonight to see our first concert! We are the Dark Souls, and tonight we're going to devour yours!"

The audience shouted with force and enthusiasm. Hella found it both strange and amusing at the same time. She looked at Mathias with a smile, seeing that he looked more assured than the last time and again, flet her heart beating more when she looked at him. The band began the first notes of their first song, which Mathias had named "All I know is who I am". Aurélien began to hit the drums in a rhythm that was both powerful and of a slow cadence, accompanied by the thundering sounds of the guitar and the bass. The audience began to headbang, shaking their heads and hair in all directions, while raising their hands and making the sign of the devil's horns. Mathilde, while playing the guitar, shook her head rhythmically too. Mathias smiled as he looked at his two friends, then turned to the microphone to start singing in a throat singing, while pinching the strings of his bass, slow, powerful music of what sounded like post-black metal, echoing through the bar.

_ "Wherever I have been served for nothing

Otherwise get me into trouble

Everybody rejected me for no reason

So I told them to go to hell

I could have chosen to finish

To stick me a bullet in the skull

But it was giving them the victory

So I chose to live, to piss them off..."

Mathias stopped singing, shaking his head slightly and accompanying his friend Mathilde in rhythm, and Aurélien behind them, still hitting the drums and cymbals with all his might. The audience seemed very enthusiastic too. From the balcony Hella watched with some admiration. She, who had already heard the metal music several times in the mansion of Mr. Lordi, was beginning to love this music so special, at once so violent and yet deep and screaming with truth. In her chest, Hella felt her heart beat, and in her mind she found herself almost encouraging the band, especially Mathias. But suddenly she noticed one particular person in the bar who looked strange. The unknown man was at the back, his back leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and still staring at Mathias. But most disturbing was his outfit, which admittedly might have made a black metal fan believe, but which Hella recognized as being the same kind of black cloth that those cultists who attacked them wore.

After some riffs, Mathias returned to the microphone to start the chorus, and Mathilde sang with him for this part, still with guttural tone.

_"Cause all I know is who I am

And what I want to be

So don't let the others leading your choices

You're the only master of your life!..."

One hour later, the concert was over and most of the audience were leaving or going to the bar for a nightcap. At the back of the bar, in a small room used as a rest room, Mathias, Mathilde and Aurélien had gathered, tired and satisfied by this first concert. Aurélien was sitting in front of a small shabby mirror and was busy wiping his makeup from his face. Mathilde was sitting on a chair, her face sweating and drinking a beer.

_ "I told you it would be a fucking good evening!" Aurelien laughed with a big smile.

_ "Oh yes...damn, I wish it had lasted longer ... Next step now: find other dates." Mathilde said.

Mathias had gone a little away, cleaned his face and gathered his things to get ready to leave. Putting his bass on his back, he got up and went to his two friends.

_ "Are you coming home already?" Aurélien asked, lighting a cigarette. Mathias nodded.

_ "I have hours of sleep to catch up. And you, what are you going to do?" Mathias asked to his friends.

_ "I think we're going to have a drink and then we'll go home too. I admit that this concert has made me tired." Mathilde answered.

_ "Bah, you're so fragile." Aurélien said, his voice mocking but not mean.

They laughed together, then Mathias greeted his two friends before leaving by the back door of the bar, leading into a deserted street lit by some street lights. After the sweltering heat of the bar, the freezing cold biting Mathias' face was almost a relief. The full night had already fallen for a long time. Mathias set off for the nearest bus stop that would take him back to his neighborhood. But as he walked, he suddenly felt something very cold in his neck, as if someone had blown on the back of his neck. He turned to see that the street was completely empty of any presence except a cat who crossed the street to hide further. Perplexed, Mathias shrugged and went on the road again.

Moments later, Mathias was finally sitting warm in one of the last evening buses. Sitting alone at the end of the bus, he looked vaguely through the window, looking absent but mostly tired. Apart from him, only two other passengers were in the bus: a man in business suit who looked a little drunk, and an old lady whose Mathias wondered what she was still doing awake at that hour. The bus lights suddenly flickered all at the same time, causing snatches of darkness in a fast pace. Mathias raised an eyebrow at seeing that, but froze, his gaze fixed and his eyes wide. A human form, dressed in a big dark cloak and hood, his face hidden behind a squid mask, stood in the middle of the bus, disappearing and appearing as a image, at the same time as the lights were flickering. The form was getting closer and closer to Mathias, causing him deep concern. Then, the lights came back to normal and the shape had disappeared. Mathias remained there without moving, disturbed by what he had just seen and felt his heart beat hard in his chest. The old lady turned to him.

_ "Pretty strange this power cut, is not it?" she said to Mathias.

She, like the other passenger, did not seem to have noticed the dark shape in the bus.

_ "Yes, very strange." replied the young man, pretending to be calm, but in his neck, feeling once more a cold breath. Then, as he looked out the window again, he jumped out of fear. In the reflection of the window, the same masked figure appeared and was about to catch him. Mathias jumped back to stay away from the window.

_ "Young man, what do you have?" the old lady asked.

_ "I ... No, nothing ... It's fatigue." he said, rubbing his eyes and seeing that the form had disappeared again.

Later, Mathias reached his neighborhood and approached his house. He thought back to the strange visions he had had on the bus, with some concern, but finally put it on his heavy fatigue. As he was about to open the portal, grim echoes were heard in the air around him, making him stop in his gesture. A shiver ran through his back, and not because of the cold. A mist had risen in the street and formed a real opaque wall. The chants seemed to come from there. As he watched, Mathias almost felt like he was seeing forms moving in the mist, and seemed to be circling around him as the echoes continued to ring. Feeling really uncomfortable, Mathias crossed the gate and hurried back home. Once the door locked, he took one last look outside. It was as if the mist had formed a veritable barrage of smoke around his house. Really very weird. Mathias stroked his cat's head, which was strangely nervous for no reason, and as he put his bass on the couch, the phone in the living room rang. Who could call at this time? Perplexed, Mathias answered.

_ "Hallo?"

No response came immediately, but a loud and strange sound of breathing, followed by words whispered by a disturbing voice in a unknown language... Mathias raised an eyebrow and blew from annoyance.

_ "Oh, give me a break! I have no time to waste for jokers who have nothing else to do with their lives!" he said, raising his voice and hung up without asking for more.

Tired after this evening concert and annoyed by this absurd phone call, Mathias decided to go to sleep a little, and this time, he thought having a good night. Curiously, the cat continued to be nervous, looking continually in several corners of the house as if he smelled something and was going to hide behind the sofa. Mathias did not care, after all, cats have their own behavior. He washed his teeth, then went up to his room, carefully extinguishing all the lights in the house. Having put a simple t-shirt and shorts to sleep, Mathias dropped on his bed, and pulled the blanket over him. He listened for a few seconds to the wind blowing hard outside, as well as the rain that was beginning to fall outside, and even the sound of thunder coming. Then, he fell asleep quickly enough.

Later, Mathias felt himself awakened by a strange sensation. He opened his eyes and sat up in bed in the darkness of his room. Without knowing why, he felt ill at ease, the atmosphere of the room having become heavy, to see disturbing. He no longer heard any noise outside. The rain and the thunder had surely passed. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to find his mobile phone on his bedside table and looked at the time on the small screen emitting a dim light. 3 o'clock in the morning? He had only slept for three hours? It surprised him. But what seemed very strange to him was that the hour seemed frozen, the minutes not passing before his eyes. Was the phone having problems? Perhaps. He got up and wanted to press the switch in the room to turn on the light. But the light did not work anymore. Yet, he remembered changing the light bulb two days ago. Perhaps the thunder had caused a power failure .... What a shit, thought Mathias blowing with annoyance. Walking in the dark, he stumbled and fell to the ground.

_ "Ah shit!" he cuss, getting up, without having hurt too much.

Lighting up with the light from his cell phone, Mathias slowly descended the stairs into the living room, feeling his heart pounding in this deadly silence that reigned. He jumped in fear when he heard his cat, who had become even more nervous, hidden under the dining room table. But Mathias was surprised to see that the mist had doubled in intensity outside, and had almost completely surrounded the house, not even allowing the outside to be seen through the windows.

But suddenly he jumped in surprise and fear as he saw, emerging from the mist and appearing behind every window, masked figures dressed in long black coats, sprawling masks on their faces, and all armed with blades. He recognized the spiral the masks wore on the forehead. Damn, it was them, this damn sect! The front door began to bang violently from behind, someone trying to force it open.

_ "No need to try to escape, Mathias. Your fate is already sealed, as was that of your parents!" a grim human voice declared from behind the door.

Mathias had barely listened and had run into his kitchen to grab a knife, a poor way to defend himself, but it was better than nothing. He also turned off the light on his phone, leaving himself voluntarily plunged into darkness and made no sound as he went to hide in a corner. He was scared, his heart was pounding, but he did everything to stay calm.

The cultists smashed the front windows to enter, as the door gave way and was violently pushed, leaving another group in, some even holding torches.

_ "Find him! He must not escape!" indicated one of them who appeared to be the leader, his mask showing traces of dried blood unlike the others.

The masked men began to scatter around the house, looking around very carefully. the cat ran upstairs to hide, and they ignored it.

Mathias waited, almost holding his breath, for one of those bastards to come closer to his position, and suddenly emerged from the darkness and stabbed him violently in the shoulder. The man screamed in pain as he backed up, and Mathias pushed him back with a violent kick in the stomach.

The other men arrived at once, sighting Mathias a few yards from them, and without a weapon.

_ "He's here! Catch him!" yelled the leader pointing his finger at the target.

Completely stuck, Mathias had no other choice. He ran and jumped through the living room window, completely exploding the glass. Mathias rolled in the grass and half stunned, straightened up as quickly as possible, passing the gate and began to run in the street, pursued by the group of men. The cold of the winter was felt and bit the bare skin of Mathias, but he tried to hold on. He was in pain and saw a thin bloody cut on one of his shoulders, because of a piece of glass. Damn, what a bad luck, he told himself. He ran, his bare feet on the frozen bitumen, fighting pain and panic.

_ "IS THERE SOMEONE? COME AND HELP ME! PLEASE !" Mathias called in the street while fleeing, seeing no one and had no answer.

He started to think very hard for any help, with all his heart, he prayed for a miracle.

He finally arrived on the side of the small neighboring park and decided to hide in it. He climbed, with difficulty, the steel portal and arrived on the green grass. The park was closed public, but the trees would provide a good hiding place, at least he hoped. He looked down at his slightly injured shoulder, but saw that drops of blood had spilled onto the ground, almost forming a line. Shit, it was like pointing them straight to him. In addition, barking was heard in the night, coming closer.

_ "Oh shit, they have dogs!" Decidedly, it's getting better." Mathias sighed heavily with a bad ironic tone.

Leaning as much as he could on his injured shoulder to avoid bleeding, he ran back into the trees and bushes, trying to get away to the back of the park and escape the dogs. He could hear them. They had crossed the gate and were guided by their hunting dogs. Mathias could not continue to run otherwise he would be found for sure. He started to climb the nearest tree, hardly with his shoulder, but he clenched his teeth and managed to climb one of the larger branches. Mathias lay down on the branch to disappear as best he could from their view. The group of men came to the foot of the tree and looked everywhere around them with the light of their flaming torches.

_ "Find him! He can not be far!" ordered their leader.

The others obeyed and dispersed. Mathias watched them quietly and was relieved. But while he believed himself hidden, his ankle was brutally grabbed by a gloved hand and pulled him out of the tree. Mathias did not have time to react as he fell violently on his back in the grass. Suffering from the back, he saw one of the masked men standing in front of him, holding in his hand a sharp dagger. He called his accomplices, telling them he had found him. Mathias took advantage of this moment of inattention to give a violent kick in the balls of the man, who froze in a mute cry, breathless, and collapsed to the ground. Mathias stood up, but too late, the other men appeared and surrounded him completely. The dogs, threatening Dobermans, barked ferociously, restrained by their masters. The leader stepped forward confidently.

_ "The hunt is over, young fool." said the cultist leader, escorted by two of his men. "You could have avoided all of this, if you hadn't poked your nose into what is none of your business. You are as stupid as your parents were, to think you could stop us."

_ "But who the hell are you and what do you want from me?" Mathias asked, ready to defend himself.

_ "It doesn't matter who we are." said the fanatic. "We are but tiny dust serving excellence. For millennia our order has been preparing for the return of the true gods, the only ones that exist. The war between monsters and demons two years ago has forced us to delay our plans, but in the end nothing has changed. This Monsterman and this young human girl may have saved the world, but this time they will not be able to anything. As for you, you will no longer be there to contemplate our ascension in cosmic order."

He spoke like a possessed, convinced of what he is saying. He looked at all his accomplices with a crazy smile.

_ "Hail to them who was, are and will be...Hail to them who transcends life and death... Hail to our gods of the absolute abyss!"

The other fanatics together repeat this strange sentence.

_"Go fuck yourself!" Mathias yelled with anger.

But the leader did not listen. He snapped his fingers, sending his men to grab the target. Mathias found a simple piece of wood on the floor and used it to hit the first man in the face, opening his cheek. But the two other men, such as rugby players, managed to tackle Mathias in the grass and immobilize him.

_ "Let me go! You fucking bastards, let me go!" Mathias struggled angrily, trying to hit them, but they blocked his arms and legs. They hit him a few times, lifted him by force, kneeling him in the grass and holding him firmly by the arms. A little stunned by the blows, Mathias saw the leader put one knee on the ground and stand in front of him, gripping him by the hair.

_ "Do you have any last word?"

Mathias looked at him with contempt, chose not to say anything, and spat in the man's mask, who wiped the cheek with his glove. He seemed amused at this reaction and took his dagger to his belt, smiling with all his teeth.

_ "I'm going to do this very slowly, just for my own pleasure."

What an asshole! Mathias struggled a little, but held firmly by the henchmen. This time he was screwed up. The cold blade of the dagger settled against the skin of his throat, ready to tear it and let the blood flow afloat. The eyes of Mathias and the leader met. Mathias chooses not to show his fear, he would not give him that pleasure.

But suddenly, snowflakes began to fall all around the men, while in the sky, no cloud was visible and showed the arrival of a snowfall. Mathias and the cultists have observed this with astonishment. Dogs, on the other hand, started to get nervous and bark for no reason.

From the night and the mist, three dark and humanoid forms appeared at high speed, which without a word launched an attack on the group of cultists caught off guard. Released and pushed to one side, Mathias watched in amazement at what was going on, seeing these three forms slaughtering the cultists. One of the forms, female, was armed with a sawed-off shotgun and detonated the cult leader's head with a precise shot.

When all the men were dead, bathing in pools of blood, the three shadows turned to Mathias and walked up to him, emerging from the darkness and coming into the moonlight, revealing themselves to him. Mathias opened wide eyes, his heart leaping in his chest.

The first was dressed in black, like a churchman with long hair, but had insect mandibles on his cheeks. The second was a bald, reptilian humanoid, dressed as a sort of butcher in a horror movie. But it was the third one that caught Mathias' attention the most. She was a living doll-like woman, with a cracked face, long blonde hair, two-tone eyes, and dressed with some sort of metal plate on her body, pink and black shorts, and matching boots. She put the shotgun behind her back and the butcher's knife in her belt.

Mathias couldn't believe it, but ... were these some of those monsters that lived on the other continent? Surely. He had never seen them, but had heard of them.

The living doll moved towards him, her gaze fixed on his. As soon as he saw it, Mathias, despite a great feeling of fear, also felt his heart feel a strange sensation, which he could not explain. At the same time he was afraid of her, but in another sense, he almost felt reassured to see her. Really very strange.

Hella, smiling and looking at the young man without hostility.

_ "So we finally meet." she said in a friendly, even loving tone.

_ "Who ... who are you?" Mathias asked, not daring to move.

Hella leaned forward without making a sudden move, bringing her face closer to his and touching his cheek and hair with her fingers. Mathias was perplexed, letting her do it. She was looking at him with such passion and when she touched him, Mathias could feel his heartbeat and this strange sensation growing and going through his whole body. For a moment, he even thought he guessed that this monster woman felt the same way.

_ "I finally found you ..." she whispered in his ear then, with affection, without him knowing what she meant by that.

Meanwhile, from a distant vantage point and with the help of binoculars, a hidden figure had watched the entire scene, now watching Hella approaching Mathias and looking at him with grear interest.

_ "Oh-ho, but this is very interesting ... Enjoy, my little Hella, because soon you will beg me on your knees ..." sneered the person behind the binoculars.