“Oi, Death,” the reaper came closer and had not dared touch the purple aura tracing my body “take everybody far from here.”

“But…” my glare stopped him. He nodded and spread his wings again. “Be careful.”

“Hurry up,” Jaejoong on the other hand was keen on killing me – or at least do something equally disturbing. He waved his sword and struck forward, only for the purple aura to stand in the way and create a shield strong enough to push him away. He swung in air before his wings fixed him back on a straight line towards me.

With my arms crossed over, the shield grew bigger and broke Jaejoong’s sword in half. He clung to it and tried to break inside, screaming and revealing his own indigo aura mixing with mine. I couldn’t understand how it succeeding in shattering the shield and in a blink, Jaejoong’s face was near mine with a disturbing grin.

“I’ve told you,” he grabbed my throat like before and pinned me against a tower. Claws sank at my neck while he readied the other hand in front of my stomach “…you’re a traitor.” Blood gushed when he ed his hand forward “…and traitors die!”

“Yo, face,” he slowly turned his head behind “…I’m right here.”

Making a replica of myself, enough to fool Jaejoong into believing the Sooyoung he put against the tower was I, felt fantastic. Creating shields that weren’t transparent also made a difference in tricking the enemy.

One punch perfectly decorated the tower with a new set of wings.

It wasn’t so hard after all. Good old punches did the trick better than anything supernatural. Until he reappeared from the ruins, panting and ready to punch me back.

The shield made his punches useless… or I was moving too fast for him to aim well. Either way, before I knew it, we were above the Black Ocean, him hitting at every occasion and I moving out of the way until I finally got to punch him again and sent him leaping over the water surface like a flat stone.

I ran after him and grabbed at his collar.

“Traitor,” he spat “die!”

“Hasn’t your mother taught you it’s not nice to say that?” he stopped and stared at me before slowly lifting his head. His mouth touched my earlobe.

“I’ll teach your child how to die instead.”

“WHY YOU LITTLE---”

“Sooyoung…,” frozen on spot, Jaejoong’s smirk widened. His body morphed into wisps of smoke between my fingers. Slowly, I regained my composure and got back on my feet. Not far from where I stood, Daesung welcomed me with a weary smile. His right hand clutched at his bleeding left arm. Bruises and scratches, torn clothes and puffy-red eyes completed his look. Changmin was by his side, biting on his lower lip before he started crying loudly. No matter how much he tried to heal the blond, it didn’t work. “Ah, stop it,” Daesung pleaded his child and gave him an equally tired smile.

“Daesung…” Changmin turned his head in my direction and dashed through the sand while crying out ‘mommy!’. Before he could reach me, Jaejoong swept him in air and held the child in a strong grasp Changmin stopped crying right away and stared afraid at us. Daesung managed to crawl in the meantime at my side and watched both with a dreadful expression wiping away his happy persona.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered on the verge of sobbing “I’m so sorry I couldn’t better protect him.”

He collapsed again. Embracing him before he’d fully hit the sand, he buried his head at my chest and shed tears. I slowly pet his head, wishing the white light that healed him before came back.

Only purple flames covered my skin and brought shrieks of pain from Daesung. I stopped them and trembled with rage.

“That’s low, head,” Jaejoong seemed unimpressed with my threat. He placed his hand over Changmin’s mouth and whispered something at his ear. His words flooded my brain too in a faraway echo I couldn’t completely understand.

“Why don’t you kill her?”

What the heck is he talking about? I don’t care what Changmin is, I raised that boy better than that.

“Sooyoung,” Daesung lightly shook my shoulder “I need to tell you something.”

“Shut up,” I hugged him tighter “I forgive you for doing a crappy job, but right now I’m busy, it will have to wait.”

“Changmin is---”

“I said shut up!” yelling at Daesung didn’t feel as good as before. His eyes dropped to the ground. He slowly, he got back on his feet, his left arm still numb and dangling by his side.

I knew what he wanted to say. I felt betrayed for a second that he had known all along. At the same time, I felt grateful, for hiding the truth from me. I might have never accepted Changmin or I could have even given him away… worse, after all that had happened before, I might have taken his life for being a monster.

However, the true monster wasn’t Changmin or Jaejoong. Monsters weren’t the reapers, the demons, the fairies or any other creature. Monsters weren’t humans or ghosts travelling between the three worlds.

Monsters were never something you could see, something you could describe in detail when somebody asked you how it looked.

They are never visible.

Even when they are right in front of us, taunting us, forcing us to make decisions we would later regret.

Monsters are nothing more than what we make them to be.

And the monster in me called out for vengeance.

“Mommy…” Changmin whimpered.

“It’s alright baby,” the purple aura shot to the sky in a tower of light “Mommy is here.”