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!"

voice was clear and strong, full of arrogant confidence… and deep animosity toward

Lost left, once again locking the door

then slowly lowered his gaze and glanced at the food that rolled down the slope of the dome to

threw his

oh, gods! Never thought I'll

front of him, reflecting the blue glow of the runes, two colorless

knew their shape

***

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

missed the damned

food to get was called a "universal ration pack"... or simply a rat pack. It contained a tube of synthpaste, a cheap water filter, and several dry, tasteless crackers.

Such irony...

and weak without the essence sustaining their

space in the center of the cage was so small that Sunny and Cassie had to settle with their backs against each other. With nothing but two layers of thin fabric separating their skin, Sunny could feel the

cold and chilly, but at least his

a

however,

"Sunny…"

voice was quiet and

how is she doing? Do you

and remained silent for a

doing great. She is a devil already. Now stop bothering

sighed, and didn't

he suddenly woke up, disturbed by a sudden change in her breathing. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, he could feel the blind

then turned around and looked

a tortured grimace, with beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. Her eyes were

lingered, not knowing what to

a vision, and that like most of her visions, this one was painful and terrifying. Was he supposed to wake her up? Or would

yelp. Her chest was rising and falling wildly, and there was a

to feel her surroundings, clearly not

making Cassie flinch, and

You're in

a while, Cassie took a deep breath

"...I'm alright."

up the mostly empty waterskin, and put it

the last of their water and closed her eyes, her