Shaye

I woke up, steaming hot, sweating through my clothes. My nose and lungs burned with smoke. Colorful spots obscured my vision, but I could see burning things falling of the building from the wall with the huge window. There was an ambulance and firetrucks below, but I doubted they could save any of us.

I glanced over at Allen, and in his arms was Jacob's wolf corpse, just as he was in Gabriel's illusion. His fists were clenched and his eyes still glowing, an angry scowl on his face. Further behind him, six more people suddenly appeared in the room near the wall. They were all sitting beside each other on their knees, bloody, beaten, and dirty. Their hands were chained behind their backs, and a bright silver chain was around their throats. They all had their heads bowed, there wasn't much indicating whether or not they were alive. Some of their clothes were all but ripped up. They were either vampires, werewolves, or both. They could've been test subjects like Danielle. Or they could also be illusions.

"Donovan!" I shouted. Marissa! Jamie!"

I tried to get up and run but that illusion gave me vertigo. I fell to my knees, and the magical spots in my eyes didn't make things any easier. Gabriel was sapping my power while I was in his illusion. Trying to use my powers now was risky, but I was out of options.

"Isaac!"

He turned around and looked at be, but only for a second.

"What?!" He replied back, keeping his attention on the dead vampires.

"If you aren't going to help us fight don't distract me!"

"Just look at me for one second!" I pleaded.

He swung hard at one of the dead vampires then looked back at me, breathing heavily. I sent my spheres of light into his eyes as fast as I could, damaging my own vision in the process. While I struggle to see, Isaac begins to see the real world. All the dead vampires, laying on the floor, inanimate. Donovan and the others barking at and attacking nothing.

"How long have we been doing this? Why haven't you stopped us sooner?"

"It doesn't matter." I say to him. I blink a few times. Normally, my vision would've retuned by now. My powers were progressing further than I thought.

"Get the others attention." I directed him. "Once they look into your eyes the illusion will end."

I could heard Gabriel's laughter again.
"Did you enjoy your little tour, Shaye? It sucks to be Allen, doesn't it?"

Allen started growling in the center of the room, his body trembling with rage.

"Oh, you're mad now? We'll look around. These mutts did this to you. From the day you unearthed them in the park, your life has been out of control."

"Don't listen to him Allen! You have control!" I called out, squinting at a blurry blob.

"Control... I don't have control." Allen murmured.

"Marissa tried to control me... Samantha controlled me..." He turned around, and I'm sure he was looking at me.

"You.. even you controlled me."

"No, you don't know what you're talking-"

"SHUT UP!" he roared. "I CAN SEE IT!"

I squinted as hard as I could and saw that his eyes were still glowing. He was still under Gabriel's control.

"Think about it Allen," said Gabriel.

"Danielle's family is dead because of them. And she is completely broken. She doesn't know that they're dead. She probably can't even feel grief anymore. All because you two got caught in the midst of a war between werewolves and vampires. Do you see those people over there chained up?"

Gabriel pointed towards the downtrodden people bound behind Allen.

"Werewolves. The vampires have been killing and rounding them all up, trying to stop the plague of beasts before all of humanity is killed."

"Isaac! Make eye contact with Allen and break the illusion!"

Isaac ran to Allen but got stopped dead in his tracks. Allen held Isaac up by his neck and threw him into Donovan and the others while they were changing back to human.

"MARISSA! SAMANTHA! YOU! WHO ELSE CONTROLS ME?! WHO?!"
He slammed his fist against the floor and it created a cracked that spread across the floor.

Allen looked at me for a millisecond and suddenly I was being lifted off the floor.

"Who else?" He whispered while choking me. "Red Riding Hood? The tooth Fairy? Fucking Geppetto?!!" He went back to shouting while repeatedly slamming me into the wall. Between suffocating and brain damage, I couldn't decide which death was first, when finally Jamie pulled him off me and blocked him off.

"Calm down Allen. You're not thinking straight."

Allen swung and Jamie caught his fist.

"I'm not thinking straight? Screw you! All of you. You've ruined our lives, and so many else's. Did you know you turned people into monsters just by being near them?!"

"We didn't find out until after we had visited Danielle's parents. This, whatever it is, is completely new to us. We didn't know what was happening to the people with left behind."

This only made Allen angrier. He roared and his wolf man form took over, punching Jamie in his stomach and sending him flying upwards towards the ceiling. The tiles broke and the light fixture fell on top of him, buzzing and sparking randomly.

"Maybe I should kill all of you and end this disgusting infestation." He spoke, in his actual wolf man form this time, properly. "Especially you three. Danielle's family is dead because of you. They treated me like family. She deserves revenge. They all do."

I got to my feet just as Gabriel snapped his fingers.

"That's what I was waiting for." He smiled at me then spoke in my head.

That's how you do it Shaye. A little control, a little manipulation, and voila, you just created a tool, an instrument you can bend to your will. I'd say take notes, but you won't be surviving this one.

He turned away from me and walked towards the door.

"WAIT!" I demanded. "You haven't defeated me. You haven't fought anyone on your level. Come at me!" I taunted him.

"You won't be leaving after what you've done."

"You're right!" He said, putting on a fake smile once again.

"I forgot to do this." He snapped his fingers and looked in Danielle's direction.

"Danielle... Go."

The glow in her eyes faded and she got to her feet, moving slowly towards Donovan and Marissa.

"Guys, watch out!"

Donovan was already making his way toward Allen, but Danielle darted towards Marissa and started trying to tear her apart. Marissa blocked not of the hits but still got hurt. She transformed into her wolf form and kicked Danielle off of her, howling with rage.

I ignored my pain and walked towards Gabriel, who had stopped trying to run away. There was a tired look in his eyes, like he was too fatigued to do anything. Before I could talk his eyes glowed and little spheres flew out, surrounding us.

"Can you still see me?" He asked, clearly aware of my condition.

"Yes." I responded. "And my powers still work, so you won't be getting out of here."

"Why though?" He asked. "We should work together. There aren't that many mages that study this magic. We should help each other-"

"Shut up." I told him. "You can see the possible directions the future will take. You know that if we both fight, neither one of us will leave this building."

Gabriel swallowed. "Yes, I know. So why should we risk that?"

"Because I want to." I told him.

He chuckled then made a tsk tsk sound.

"Well I don't."

Gabriel took off running through the door, and I ran after him. It in the hallway, everything was burning, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. I heard people yelling all over the place and saw two people, screaming and on fire.

Gabriel knew this building like the back of his hand, bobbing and weaving in and out rooms, running through random people. My chest was burning, it felt like knives were in my side but I couldn't give up. If I did, Gabriel could do the same to more people, or he could get away completely free.

I continued to chase him until we reached the top floor. I recognized the area, we were close to Avery's office. I heard sounds of a struggle amid the roar of the flames. I tried to follow him through a door and a bunch of screeching bats flew directly in my face. I fell backwards trying to avoid them and hit my head against the wall.

I saw pure darkness for a few seconds, but once I realized I was still conscious I got up and staggered into the room. Gabriel had stopped and was staring at something in the far end. I looked over and saw some vampire I'd never seen before. He was scarred all over, hair missing with burns and patches all over his body. His left arm ended in a bloody stump at the elbow, and it looked as if it was burned to cauterize the wound. I wasn't sure why, because vampires can reconnect their limbs if they aren't too badly damaged. In his good arm he held up a rotten looking revenant, severely burned by the flames. It's appearance was vaguely female and it's left arm was also missing. It was clearly a very recent kill because blood poured from a fist sized hole in her throat.

"How about that, huh?" said the vampire to Gabriel.

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

He dropped the corpse on the floor, and I finally realized who it was. Avery.

"There isn't anything I can do about this place," said the vampire, surveying the room. "But it doesn't matter. I'll let it collapse. It was a monument to her and her father's failure anyways."

Gabriel clenched his fists and his eyes activated.

"Do you think you're going to fight me? Avery's little army did well but I still have plenty of friends left."

He let out a soft hiss and the bats returned, transforming into badly burned, angry looking regular people.

"I don't know what this is, but I'm not done with you Gabriel. You aren't escaping me." I told him, ignoring the other vampires.

"Fine then." He said through gritted teeth. "If you think you're strong enough come at me!"
He turned around, spheres flying and eyes blazing. I counted as fast as I could and suddenly we were trapped, locked into a deadly gaze of light. My body grew warmer and the world got brighter, separating us from our surroundings. A loud whistling sound pierced my ears as I stared at Gabriel. I couldn't blink. I couldn't move. I couldn't look away

"I thought you wanted to live!" I shouted, unsure if he was experiencing the same sounds as I was."

"I will live. After I kill you." He shouted back, Intensifying his powers, trying to break my mind and blind me.

"What if that vampire kills you while we're in here?" I asked. "This as smart as you'd thought it be."

"You're an idiot." He snapped. "They can't touch us like this. Odds are, they can't even see us anymore. We are existing on an entirely different plane right now. Almost like the sky."

I began to feel a numbness in my arms. I looked over to see that they were both sparkling, breaking away from me to become part of the light surrounding us. It hadn't happened to Gabriel yet, but I saw him flinch from sympathy.

"Does it hurt?" He asks me, genuinely curious.

"No." I replied. "It doesn't hurt at all."
I felt like an idiot for attempting to stop Gabriel now. My powers were too drained from the start, this was a death wish. But now, being on this plane, higher than anyone else, I could see more things than I could before. My mind expanded and I could see the true threat. It wasn't Gabriel, the vampires or Allen, but it directly impacted everything.

"Gabriel, are you going to live through this?"

He looked at himself, he hadn't broken down at all.

"Probably, yeah." He laughed. "I'm sorry, but this place... It's amazing. I don't even feel like fighting you anymore. It's as if everything was meaningless. This... This is bliss."

"Everything is meaningless." I replied. I felt a chill creeping up all over my body. This colorful dimension didn't seem that fascinating anymore. I was starting to feel caged in.

He took a moment to stop absorbing in his surroundings and looked at me.

"Shaye... Your eyes are black."

My body jerked uncontrollably, I was freezing cold now.

"If you make it out of this, what will you do?"

Gabriel thought about it. "Nothing, guess."

"No." I told him. "The werewolf plague, the vampire curse, and magic drying out, it's all tied together. There's a powerful force that's sapping all of the forces of the supernatural to become immortal. I need you to help stop it."

"How am I supposed to do that?" He replied.

"Do what you've been doing. Manipulate. It's worked out well for so far. I failed to save Allen from your plans."

"All of that needed to happen." said Gabriel defensively. "We're stopping the spread of more werebeasts and we're ending the reign of vampires in that territory. Avery knew the whole time she'd fail to defeat them. She knew they wouldn't make a cure in time."

The cold was starting to take over my mind now, I almost wanted to sleep, but I had to make sure he would pursue the magical force.

"I couldn't care less." I replied to him. "Just make sure you help find that source of power and destroy it, otherwise no one will ever experience this again."

The colors of the world changed again, and I could tell I was disappearing more because we weren't making eye contact.

"I will."

In these last few moments of my life, I watched our world change several times. I thought about Allen and the others and an image popped up that both me and Gabriel could see. Donovan and Jamie were fighting Allen, but it was almost pointless. The magic he got from Samantha kept sustaining him, even if he wasn't trying to use it. Allen was slowing down, getting tired, but nowhere near as much as those two. Isaac was helping Marissa with Danielle. I didn't see a way where they all walked away from this.

"Did you ever reach the highest peak?" Gabriel asked. "Did your powers ever get that high?"

I looked down to see most of my body had vanished.

"I wouldn't be able to see you if I did.