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!"

of arrogant

another word, the Lost left, once again

and glanced at the food that rolled down the slope of the dome to

suddenly, he threw his head back

thought I'll be

the runes, two colorless tubes

knew their shape all too

***

mud and tasted about the same. Still, this

the

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. This was what he mostly ate before becoming an Awakened, so now, Sunny felt as though his life had come

Such irony...

the essence sustaining their

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

and chilly, but

silence for a while,

did, however, Cassie suddenly

"Sunny…"

voice was quiet and

she doing? Do you

his eyes closed and remained silent for a few moments,

is a devil already. Now stop bothering

didn't

outside — he suddenly woke up, disturbed by a sudden change in her breathing. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, he could feel the blind girl's body tense up, her

hesitated, then turned around and

glow of the runes, her delicate face seemed white and bloodless. It was contorted in a tortured grimace, with beads

not knowing what

of her visions, this one was painful and terrifying. Was he supposed to wake her up? Or would it do

with a stifled yelp. Her chest was rising

to feel her surroundings, clearly not quite remembering where she

making Cassie flinch, and said

yourself, damn it. You're in a cage in

his iron grip. After a while, Cassie took a deep breath and

"...I'm alright."

picked up the mostly

blind girl drank the last of their water and closed her eyes, her breathing slowly