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!"

and strong, full of arrogant confidence…

saying another word, the Lost left, once

and glanced at the

he threw his

thought I'll

the blue glow of the runes, two

their shape

***

of a synthetic paste that had the consistency of mud and tasted about the same. Still, this vile invention was cheap to produce and supposed to contain all the nutrients

missed the damned

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

Such irony...

tired and weak without the essence sustaining their bodies, they

space in the center of the cage was so small that Sunny and Cassie had to settle with their backs against

and chilly, but at

silence for a while, trying to

however,

"Sunny…"

was

she doing? Do you

remained silent for a few moments, then said

great. She is a devil already. Now stop

didn't say anything

— 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 feel the blind girl's

then turned around

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

not knowing what to

and that like most of her visions, this one was painful and terrifying. Was he supposed to wake her

Her chest

and tried to feel her

them, making Cassie flinch,

it. You're in

to his iron grip. After a while, Cassie

"...I'm alright."

her go, picked up the mostly

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