Shadow Slave

He sat back down, waited for a while, and then turned to Cassie:

"Did you take a look at her Attributes?"

She sat down, too, and sighed.

"Yes. Her, the four Lost with her. Sir Pierce, too. I also saw the name and Rank of their Aspects."

Sunny frowned.

"What? Since when can you read Aspects, too?"

The blind girl shrugged.

"Since my Awakening."

He stared at her for a bit.

'What a useful Ability…'

In worse news, if she had not known some of his secrets before, she surely knew them now.

'...How infuriating.'

Sunny grimaced, lingered for a bit, and then said:

"Good. Chances are, we'll need that information before all of this is over."

He didn't press her for answers yet, since there was a lot he had to think about.

Some more time passed with both of them remaining silent. After a while, the door of the chamber opened once more, and the familiar four Lost entered. The one with a bandaged head was carrying a tray of food and a waterskin.

He studied them for a few moments, a cold expression on his handsome face, and then threw the food and the waterskin through the iron bars without approaching the cage.

Sunny suppressed his anger and opened his mouth, assuming the persona of a cowardly researcher:

"Hey! Sir… uh… sir Awakened! Can you tell us what is going on? Please, we don't even know what is wrong!"

The sentinel glanced at him darkly and spat in a commanding tone:

"Silence!"

full of arrogant confidence… and deep animosity toward the

another word, the Lost left, once again locking the door behind

slowly lowered his gaze and glanced at the food that rolled down

threw his head

I'll be eating this crap

reflecting the blue glow of the runes, two colorless tubes of

shape

***

of mud and tasted about the same. Still, this vile

not missed the

rat pack. It contained a tube of synthpaste, a cheap water filter, and several dry, tasteless crackers. This was what he mostly ate before becoming an Awakened,

Such irony...

weak without the essence sustaining

settle with their backs against each other. With

but at

in silence for a while, trying

they did, however, Cassie

"Sunny…"

voice was

is she doing?

silent for a few moments, then said with

She is a devil already. Now stop bothering

and didn't say anything

night — if it was night outside — he suddenly woke up, disturbed by a sudden change in her breathing. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, he could

turned around and looked

face seemed white and bloodless. It was contorted in a tortured grimace, with beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. Her eyes were

knowing what

was obvious that Cassie was having a vision, and that like most of her visions, this one was painful and terrifying. Was he supposed to wake her

a stifled yelp. Her chest

and tried to feel her surroundings,

them, making Cassie flinch, and said

hold of yourself, damn it. You're in a cage in Night

After a while, Cassie took a deep

"...I'm alright."

go, picked up the mostly empty waterskin, and put it

water and closed her eyes, her