It comes like an echo, bouncing off the walls inside her skull.

Sana lunges forward in desperation but is held back by chains. Their shrill screams are overwhelming, clinging to her body. She snaps at the air, feeling her face morph into that of a monster, fangs protruding and biting. Sana tries to push herself free, tries to break the chains holding her but it’s no use. She's a trapped beast.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Dahyun tries to comfort her.

Despite hearing her, Sana continues to try and break free. After a few attempts, all she has to show for it are the slick drops of blood dripping onto the floor, melting into the gray. She huffs, annoyed, and finally looks at her partner.

As soon as she sees her, it feels like everything calms down, and Dahyun becomes the only thing important enough to care about in this world. She looks at the messy light brown hair that’s sticking out everywhere and she knows it’s from stress and self-blame. She looks at her tired eyes, and she knows they’re hiding too many tears.

“It’ll be alright,” Dahyun continues, trying to calm her down without realizing that Sana is more worried about her than herself.

Sana tries to push herself out of her chains again with a sharp movement, and this time they do break. Sana practically falls into the younger girl, envelops her in a hug.

She feels the younger girl muffle a sob on her shoulders. Sana thinks it’s because of her mom, but she wouldn’t rule out that she’s afraid.

Sana looks around now, trying to see if there's any way to escape, but there’s nothing. It’s a room with no windows, no doors, nothing except for the demon and the angel stuck within, both too human to get help from their separate factions. When she turns her head up, she sees a single entrance to the room, the stars shining right over them.

~

It’s a nightmare. Sana hears it again, someone calling for help, their screams and cries echoing in her head. She tries to climb the walls but her claws just barely scratch their surface.

“Dahyun,” she whimpers, hating how much it hurts to feel this person's pain and not be able to help.

“I’m here,” the younger girl whispers, quiet against the silence, listening, crawling towards her.

Chaeyoung whimpers when she sees the “NOW LEAVING” sign, the words seeming to scream at her to stop.

The walls, the trees, the village, even the sirens swimming by the lake- they were all her home. It wasn’t a person, it wasn’t a structure or a building; it was the wind and the sounds and the life inside her hometown. It was everything that made her feel safe, everything that felt like love, everything that took care of her no matter what happened. It was the beauty and the pain and the continued existence of a story that would never reach it's end.

And it was all gone now. The story had ended without a final chapter.

She kept running despite everything in her telling her to stop and smell the roses (like she always lovingly did) for one last time. She doesn't. She knows she can't waste a single second.

Chaeyoung didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t know where this path would lead her, if there was any promise of a happy ending for her anymore. She pushed through, each step heavier than the last, feeling like she might fall at any moment.

She trips only once in the span of two hours. The first time she landed on her side, sharp thorns stabbing through the skin of her bicep, digging deep into her flesh and making sure she knew it’ll leave a scar to follow the memory of this day. Chaeyoung tried to remove them with shaky hands as she runs, but they break into further pieces, the barbs being too deep to take out without putting her full focus on them. She felt too tired to even try, and a ghost of a thought passes through her mind, echoing at least most plants at home aren’t poisonous, but she was well aware that she wasn’t at home anymore.

It burns, the flames of it’s toxin spreading through her arm, and slowly it starts to consume her.

Chaeyoung decides to stop. She tries to scratch the wound, biting her lower lip over how much it hurts. She feels numb, her fingers shake as she tries to take out the rest of the thorn. She manages to remove its pieces, but then she felt herself being pulled away by an unseeable force and into a calming darkness before completely fading into oblivion.

An angel of death looked upon her and took mercy on her soul.

Jihyo held Chaeyoung in her arms and whispered a Guardian’s oath, breaking the destiny tied to Chaeyoung’s heart.

Momo looks at the notes on her lap. Writing scrawled half of the page, but it still seemed so… empty. She sighs, feeling rather useless. Why do I have to be on scout duty anyway? she asks herself. It’s so boring, and I’m already hungry.

“What’s up?” Momo’s current partner in crime, Jeongyeon, asks.

Momo turns to her and sees that, even though Jeongyeon is supposed to be guarding their asses and making sure that they don’t accidentally die out here, Jeongyeon put her gun down again.

“This is boring,” Momo complains, “Why do I have to be here?”

“You’re right.” Jeongyeon pats her head as if Momo was a child. “You can’t even shoot a gun.”

Momo pouts “Thanks, Jeong, that makes me feel so much better.” She turns back, looking down to the soldiers guarding their positions. “What am I even supposed to do? Nothing’s happening. Can’t that demon just break out and make things interesting?”

Jeongyeon shrugs, grabbing her gun from the floor again. “Write random observations or something.”

Momo rolls her eyes. “Like what?”

“They’re not trained,” Jeongyeon points out, looking back to the soldiers. “They’re not holding their guns correctly or anything. That guy over there is playing with the trigger." She laughs at that. "I bet they’re just a bunch of volunteers.” She turns back to Momo. “They might even be worse than you!”

“Quit it,” Momo whines, but then realizes that Jeongyeon’s actually got a good point. “That could actually work…”

Momo quickly scribbles down those observations in her neat handwriting, adding more than what Jeongyeon said. She raises her head to look back to the scene before writing another observation down. Jeongyeon can’t help but smile.

Sana holds the younger girl, feeling like Dahyun just might break in her hands. Dahyun lifts her head up from her shoulder, noticing the little scars at the sides of Sana’s cheeks.

“Where are these from?” the younger girl asks, her voice quiet, a thumb gently caressing the skin.

Sana lifts her hand up to touch the scar, wanting to know what Dahyun’s referring to. “Oh, those are normal. I get them if I go full-demon too much.” Sana presses Dahyun’s hand on the scar and, to Dahyun’s surprise, it heals underneath her hand. The rugged skin smooths itself out, as if the scar was nothing but the ink of makeup that just needed to be rubbed off.

They both hear a rumbling outside and Sana immediately gets up, getting in front of Dahyun, ready to protect her. She hides a low growl as one of the walls lift up, temporarily blind from the sudden lighting.

“Sorry for that,” a woman greets them, the features of her face darkened due to being against the light of the outside world. “We weren’t able to get here until now.”

“Who are you?” Dahyun asks, pulling herself away from Sana’s grasp and taking a hesitant step forwards.

“Myoi Mina,” the woman answers with a smile.

The guard stared at the night with a grim expression on his face, bored and reaching the edge of his sanity.

He turns away, his back against the cold dark, before reaching into his jacket pocket. He takes out a leathery cloth and, pulling the fabric up, reveals a dagger. He studies the weapon in his hands before quickly hiding it once again. He likes to see the dagger whenever he’s feeling hopeless, because it represents everything that’s still keeping him alive.

“I miss you,” he mumbles in his loneliness. “You said you’d come back, but you’re still not here.”

Come back to me soon, he thinks. Please.

You promised.

Please.

His pleads don’t go unheard of, though, for Tzuyu is quietly hiding behind the wall, waiting for the right moment. With a sympathetic smile, Tzuyu points her gun at the back of his head and aims. She hesitates for a moment, feeling bad for the poor guy. Tzuyu reaches into her pocket, pulling out a little bag. She digs her index finger into the bag and then brings it up the her lips, coating them with the red color of its magic. She's done this trick many times before. It pull her voice away from herself so that her enemies aren't able to tell where she is.

Stay quiet, she sends right into the middle of the guard’s head.

The guard’s eyes widen, but he stays silent and continues staring at the dagger in his hands, fear coursing through his veins.

Tell me your name, Tzuyu orders.

“I’ve been here so long,” he stammers, trying to explain, “I don’t- I don’t remember anymore.” A pause. “But you must be Jayoo.”

The corner of Tzuyu’s mouth lifts up in a little smirk.

Do you know where I am?  she asks.

Tzuyu knows the answer but awaits the guard’s reply.

“...no,” he shifts uncomfortably, looking around.

Are you prepared? Tzuyu continues with an odd sense of amusement.

“No.”

The guard’s answer causes Tzuyu tilt her head to the side, perplexed.

“I don’t have to be,” he continues. “There is nothing to be prepared for. All I can do is tell you that I am not your enemy and hope that you’ll believe me.”

You’re not scared, Tzuyu points out curiously. She lowers her gun a little, but she can still shoot at him if need be.

“I want to join you,” he admits with odd excitement. “I’ve heard so many stories about you and your team, and I want to help.” A pause. “If that’s okay.”

Tzuyu can’t help but laugh a little at that. Pathetic.

“Let me see you,” the guard continues with too much confidence, and it sounds like a demand. “Let me know how you look, Jayoo. Are you as beautiful as they say you are?”

If you wish to know who I am, Tzuyu starts with, pulling the trigger and hitting the guard’s hand with a silent bullet, making him almost drop the dagger if he didn't manage to catch it with his other hand. She aims and shoots at his arm. Then know that my name is not Jayoo.

The guard drops to the floor, clutching his arm in pain. “Please!” he cries. “I just want to join what you stand for!”

The guard’s head bobs forward with a bullet that did not come from Tzuyu’s gun.

Tzuyu scoffs in annoyance. “It was just getting good,” she says out loud, watching as the guard’s body drops forwards, blood dripping off the back of his head.

And behind him is Jihyo, looking down at her most recent kill with satisfaction in her eyes.

Tzuyu immediately goes to rub off the red from her lips, embarrassed at how the magic must be making her look. Jihyo walks towards the guard while Tzuyu is still trying to fix her appearance.

“You look pretty,” the angel of death tells her, smiling that lovely smile of hers.

“Hi, unnie,” Tzuyu says a little awkwardly, shifting around nervously. She hadn’t expected to see her again so soon.

Jihyo takes out a gray handkerchief and leans down, grabbing the dagger from the guard’s still hand. “What’s this?” she asks out loud.

Tzuyu bites her lower lip, trying to think up of a reason. “Uh, his item of hope, maybe?”

Jihyo nods, inspecting it. The edges are visibly dull from overuse, the hilt being slightly dirty, but otherwise it hasn’t been used that often lately. Jihyo folds the cloth over it to keep it hidden.

“He knew who I was,” Tzuyu mentions, a bit uncomfortable with the silence.

Jihyo laughs good-naturedly, and it sounds like music. “Almost everyone does, sweetheart.”

Tzuyu can’t help but smile, feeling almost proud of it, but then Jihyo’s gone with the dagger. “Have a good night, unnie,” Tzuyu says quietly, hoping that the words reach her but knowing that they probably won’t.

You too, Jihyo answers.