Darkness filled Kassius’ surroundings as far as the eye can see. He felt solid beneath his feet, which meant that he wasn’t flying or floating, however, he couldn’t see ground, dirt or stones. He started walking to see if he could find anything that could give him an idea of where he was.

  “Hello?” he yelled.

  No answer was given to him, only echoes of his own voice. As he walked along the emptiness of the dark, a shining light caught his eye as it became visible way ahead of him. He jogged towards the shining light, eager to see what it was and whether it could help. When he reached the light, he found a necklace, a golden necklace with an eagle medallion. It was his birthday gift from Ms. Jean. He picked it up gently and stared at it longingly, wishing for the warmth and kindness he had gotten from her.

  “You have done well.” a voice whispered into his ear.

  He turned frantically but saw no one around him. The necklace began to glow and rise from his hands and became a ball of pure white light, nearly blinding him with its radiance. Kassius was speechless at such a majestic sight, for some reason he couldn’t think of anything to say but

  “Am I…dead?”.

  “No, child.” Kassius wasn’t really expecting an answer to his question but that gave him his footing to ask about where he was or what happened to him.

  “Am I alive?” he asked. The light was silent for a moment, as if to contemplate.

  “Not for the moment.” she finally replied.

  Kassius didn’t know what to say to how the light was answering his questions. It was answering him directly and yet it sounded more vague than anything.

  “Either give him the answer he seeks or out with you.” a deeper, more aggressive voice said. Kassius turned to his right and saw a sword engulfed in dark flames.

  The dark aura of the blade gave a cold feel around Kassius’ body, despite the flames burning intensely.

  “You, boy, are pathetic and reckless.” the sword said strictly.

  Whether the statement was meant to be an insult or a challenge, Kassius didn’t feel any strong emotion towards it. He took a moment to look at the two mysterious things before him. He tried to search his mind for an explanation but he found none for a floating ball of light coming from his locket, and an aggressive burning black sword.

  “What are you?” he asked the two mysterious objects in front of him.

  “Where am I?”

  “We are yours.” the two objects answered in unison. Kassius looked perplexed, beginning to be annoyed at their cryptic manner of answering.

  “What do you mean “you are mine”?” he asked, trying to keep his patience.

  “We belong to you.” the two answered in unison once more.

  Kassius sighed in frustration and turned his back on the two objects, trying to stop himself from doing something stupid.

  “I am what you humans call anger and rage, I am you at this very moment.” the sword said.

  Kassius looked at the sword and contemplated what it said. The more he thought about what it said, the more familiar the voice became to him.

  “Have we talked before?’ Kassius asked.

  The sword didn’t respond before it threw itself to Kassius’ hands. As the sword touched Kassius’ saw flashes of images, or videos. He saw Fenris battered and weary, Gwin sobbing right next to him. Behind them were Hazel and Peony, wounded and bruised, and on the ground was an unconscious Adonis. All of them were looking at Kassius, their sad expressions and fearful glares. He never saw them look at him so grimmly, not since his time in the infirmary.

  His eyes widened as he realized what he saw.

  “You…” he struggled to say.

  “You were the one who took over my body in the game.” he looked down at the black sword in his hand. It left his hand and returned to the side of the ball of light.

  “I am anger, and rage.” it said in a strong voice.

  “I am the passion of your emotion.”

  “More importantly, I am yours.”. Kassius thought intently about its word and he understood what it meant.

  “You’re my anger?” he said.

  “My rage? My passion?”

  “Yes, boy.”. It said, in a more respectful manner than any of its previous comments and statements.

  “I am your compassion, and love.”

  “I am the temperance of your heart, and the drive of your mind.”

  “And I am yours.”. Kassius was already familiar with the voice, it had been the one that spoke to him during his fight with Professor Kalahan.

  “You were the one who saved me? When I was dying?” Kassius asked, his voice becoming softer and gentler than before.

  “No, child. I merely gave you the strength to fight your fate.”

  Contrary to his initial impressions of the two objects, he now found himself able to respect the two, even grow some sort of attachment with both of them.

  “Why am I here?” Kassius asked.

  The two remained silent, hovering over Kassius.

  “How are you talking to me?” he asked, a little more eager.

  “We are the duality inside you, warring for dominance and control.” they began.

  “We are the harmony inside you, balancing the edges of your strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Which are you?” he asked, as they ascended slowly.

  “That is your choice.” they said in unison.

  “Your journey has only begun.” A bright light shone across the dark space around him, blinding him.

  Kassius awoke to a bright yellow light in a room full of beds at his sides and across from him. He saw bandages on his arms and felt bandages around his stomach. He tried to bring himself up but he felt a sharp pain all over his body.

  “My dear, boy. You should not be moving.” a woman said, going over to Kassius’ bed.

  Kassius looked up and saw a very beautiful woman with long blonde locks, with curls at the end. She wore a pair of thin oval framed glasses, a brown gown with a small shield under the left shoulder with a white flower in the middle of it. The school insignia of Baelvaire. The woman was the school’s head nurse, Miss Juniper.

  “You should stay in bed and rest, otherwise the wounds would open up again.” she said, smiling with care.

  Kassius silently obliged as he was speechless from her beauty, while it was not as dazzling as Eva’s beauty, she was still a very beautiful sight to see, like an angel in the bright rays of the sun as you wake up.

  “I will call Miss Irene and Sir Auralius, they will want to know that you’ve woken.” she said with a bright smile. Kassius shook his head and looked to his sides, looking for signs of his friends.

  “Kassius,calm yourself.” Miss Juniper said in a more serene tone, calming Kassius down almost immediately.

  “W-Where are my friends?” Kassius asked softly.

  “They are all safe, Kassius.” she said, keeping her kind demeanor.

  “Fenris fully recovered just yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” Kassius asked, perplexed.

  “You were unconscious for a whole week, my dear.” Miss Juniper said a slight frown appeared on her expression.

  Kassius wasn’t fazed at the news, to Miss Juniper's surprise. He sighed in relief at the news that his friends were safe, and Fenris was able to recover from his experience in the ruins.

  Kassius lay in bed for a few more hours, contemplating what happened in the ruins, what happened in the games, and what happened in his dream. He wondered what the two meant about his choice. The choice between duality and harmony, “what was he supposed to choose?”, “what journey was he meant to go on?”, “why did he have that dream?”. These were some out of numerous questions he had about everything, he had been hoping he would have his questions answered when he went to the altar and explored the ruins, instead he was left with more questions, and not a single answer.

  The doors opened, with Miss Irene, with her scarlet robe, and Auralius, in his black cloak and ragged shirt, walking through together. Miss Irene approached Miss Juniper and they had a conversation away from Kassius, and Auralius approached Kassius.

  “How are you feeling?” he said in his deep stoic voice, as he sat in a chair next to Kassius’ bed.

  “Um…I’m alright, Sir–”

  “Kassius, just call me Auralius” he said with a gentle smile.

  “Um, I’m alright, Aurelius.” Kassius said, with a small smile.

  “I hope I didn’t scare you, showing up out of the blue.” Aurelius said.

  “What do you mean?’ Kassius asked. Aurelius looked at him confused.

  “Do you remember what happened in the ruins?” Auralius asked. Kassius thought for a moment, back to the ruins, but he couldn’t remember what had happened when he saw Auralius.

  Auralius put his hand on Kassius' shoulder, minding his wounds.

  “Don’t worry yourself about it.” he said with a reassuring smile.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “What matters is that you’re safe now.”. Kassius did feel relieved that Auralius came to save him in the ruins, and his reassurance gave a warm feeling in Kassius’ heart.

  Auralius stood up from the chair and patted Kassius on the head.

  “Professor Kalahan has been dealt with, you don’t need to worry about him.”

  “Now, I need to check on the Sentinels and make some more calls to the Union.” He turned to Ms. Irene and bid her farewell.

  “Recover, boy. You will need to train more in the coming months.” as he said that, he gave Kassius one last assuring smile and left the room.

  At that moment, Kassius wondered why he had mistrusted Auralius in the beginning. In that moment he saw how much Auralius did care for him, even when he was a baby. Kassius felt a warm, fuzzy feeling, something he hadn’t felt in awhile.

  After her conversation with Miss Juniper, Miss Irene approached Kassius standing at the left side of his bed.

  “How are you feeling, Kassius?” she asked him kindly, slightly strict as well.

  “Um I’m alright, Miss Irene.” Kassius still wasn’t used to talking to the headmistress so casually even if she had personally called to meet him twice now.

  “What you did was reckless.” she said, hardening her expression. Kassius bent his head, feeling like he should be shameful, even though he didn't regret what he did.

  “In normal circumstances, you would be expelled from the school.” she said strictly and firmly.

  Kassius felt his heart drop, he wanted to beg and plead for them to reconsider, but at the moment he couldn’t even raise his head. Keeping his frustration and anger in, he crumpled the sheets of the bed. There was a pause for a long while before Kassius felt something warm on his chin. His head was gestured up by Miss Irene, and he saw her smiling brightly.

  “However, in light of some events, this will not be those normal circumstances.” Kassius curled his eyebrow, confused.

  “But Miss, I–”

  “Violate rules, yes.” Miss Irene interrupted Kassius.

  “Put yourselves in danger, yes.”

  “However, above all, for the sake of the school, for the world even, you risked yourselves to save it.” she said, smiling brightly, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  Kassius was still comprehending the fact he wasn’t expelled, let alone the fact that the headmistress was commending him for breaking school rules.

  “May I?” she gestured to Kassius' bed, asking for permission to sit.

  “Oh, um sure.” he moved slightly to give her a little room to sit beside him.

  “I may need to apologize to you, Kassius.” she said guiltily.

  “What do you mean, miss?” he asked, getting even more confused by the second.

  “I was the reason you were put in such a difficult situation.” Kassius looked at her, still not knowing what she meant.

  “I had my suspicions about Professor Kalahan.” she began explaining.

  “The day he applied to work here, he only offered his services to be a caretaker.”

  “With his skillset, he would have been able to easily qualify as one of our professors.” Kassius agreed, with his fighting skills and prowess at magic he could’ve easily filled in Auralius’ shoes.

  “However, he was very insistent on only being a caretaker of the grounds.”

  “Due to this suspicion, we searched the islands for anything of value, to confirm whether he was searching for something here. That was when we found the Catalyst.”

  “I knew of its value a long time ago, which is why I enlisted Aurelius’ help and made a gamble. Using the Catalyst as bait, through you.” Kassius was able to keep up with what Miss Irene was saying, barely. He thought that he would resent Miss Irene, for using him as bait, but he found himself unable to do so, in fact he felt slightly thankful for it. If it hadn’t been for the bait He wouldn’t have met the two things. Although he still wasn’t sure if that was real, however, his experiences with them were real enough.

  “But I don’t understand, why me? Or why us?” Kassius asked. Miss Irene gave a smile, Kasisus couldn’t tell what it meant.

  “Like I said, Kassius. It was a gamble.” she said with a confident smile.

  Kassius thought that she had other intentions on why she picked him as bait, he didn’t get an uneasy feeling like how he distrusted Auralius, but he felt like she had something to hide. Whether it involved him, he wasn’t sure.

  “Don’t worry about it, Kassius.” she said. Before she could continue with whatever she was gonna say, the door burst open.

  “Kassius!” Gwin yelled, with Eva right behind her, and Fenris following.

  They ran towards Kassius giving him a huge group bear hug, opening some of his wounds in his arms and legs.

  “Oww! I’m fine. I’m fine.” he said quickly to try and get them off of him.

  “Children, behave yourselves.” Miss Juniper strictly said.

  They turned and saw Miss Irene was sitting across from them, smiling at them. They stepped back and tensed up, as they realized what they had done.

  “We’re sorry.” Gwin said, bending her head down. Kassius couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his friends tensing up.

  They all had pink faces as they bent their heads to hide embarrassment in front of Miss Irene, even Fenris blushed.

  “That’s alright all of you, no need to apologize for hugging a dear friend of yours.” Miss Irene said warmly. She rose from Kassius’ bedside smiling at him and his friends.

  “I will leave you all to catch up.” She walked towards the door and stopped as she opened it.

  “Do rest up, Kassius. I have high hopes for you in the years to come.” she said confidently, and left the room.

  As she left, Kassius felt his body relax, even though he didn’t feel himself tense up before. He turned to his friends and saw them do the same. When they had their moment to catch their breaths, they resumed to crowd Kassius, Gwin and Eva leapt to give Kassius another bear hug. Kassius cried in pain, Fenris laughed and the girls didn’t even notice. When the girls let go of him, Gwin hit Kassius in the shoulder, with an annoyed expression.

  “What was that for?” Kassius said, annoyed and caressing his shoulder.

  “When I said “come back”, I didn’t mean bleeding!” Gwin yelled at Kassius.

  “Calm down, Gwin.” Fenris argued.

  “He’s lucky he just ended up in a coma.” he said casually.

  “He made us worry! Again!” Gwin said seemingly enraged and quickly lowered herself, losing her angered expression and replaced it with a tearful one.

  “We were worried, you idiot.” Gwin said, tears flowing down her face as she leaned in for a more gentle hug. Kassius hugged her back smiling.

  “I’m sorry.” he said softly.

  “You don’t need to be sorry, Kas.” Fenris said with a smirk.

  “You’re alive and back, and you kicked the hell out of that professor.” He commended Kassius patting him in the back.

  “It was amazing, Kassius.” Eva said, breaking her silence.

  “How did you do it? If I may ask.” Eva said, kindly.

  His friends looked at him, curious to hear how he fought Professor Kalahan, a man who could rival Auralius in combat, according to Miss Irene. He told them about how he was easily defeated in the fight, how he almost died, how he was saved by something he couldn’t explain, and his dream. They stood silent and shocked by everything that Kassius had said. Kassius could see a hint of fear on their faces, especially Gwin. He knew that she was terrified about what happened during the games, so he expected Gwin to be afraid when he told them about his fight.

  “You ‘re either very lucky or unlucky to experience all of that.” Fenris said.

  “What happens to you is certainly very…..impossible.” Eva said curling her brow. Gwin remained silent and her expression still showed immense worry.

  Kassius wanted to say something, to ease her mind about all of this, to ease all of their minds, but he didn’t know what to say. Even he was trying to comprehend everything that he had experienced.

  “So were you expelled?” Fenris asked, breaking the silence among them.

  “No, weirdly.” Kassius said, still perplexed at the thought.

  “I guess you are lucky.” Fenris said, letting out a few chuckles, lightening the mood by a small amount.

  “Hey, what matters is we’re all fine.” Fenris said, pulling them all into an embrace.

  “And this idiot wasn’t some monster.” he gestured to Kasisus. Fenris made very good points, so much so that Kassius and the girls agreed and proceeded to laugh, happy that they were back together.

  —-

  The next few days passed by in an instant to Kassius, with a few moments he could remember. Along with Fenris and the girls, Hazel and Peony visited Kassius with them. As per usual, Hazel was oozing joy and enthusiasm, a little bit more than Kassius could handle, and a lot more than Fenris could tolerate. Peony could barely look at Kassius, due to being squeamish at Kassius bandages and wounds. Fenris was tempted to unbandage Kassius and show her the wounds, to see if she would faint. Kassius was tempted as well, but out of his kindness, and Gwin and Eva’s glare, he didn’t indulge his curiosity.

  A few of the teachers came to visit Kassius as well, some to commend his bravery, some only to let him know that he would be exempted from some school work the following week. When he was told this he could feel and imagine his friend’s stone cold glare at this news, all of them except Gwin, who would be glaring at him with an expression that says

  “Don’t relax too much or I will murder you for falling behind.”.

  When Kassius was finally let out of the infirmary, his friends took him to the lake where they all became friends, and brought Cecil and Ashe along with them. They sat around the lake, relaxing under the sun, and taking in the fresh smell of natural air and flowers. Ashe played around, chasing the butterflies around the lake, Cecil remained wrapped around Fenris. Eva sat without Gwin’s potion disguising her, Kassius was glad to see her relax fully. Gwin sat on a rock under the rays of the sun reading her book. Kassius sat under the sun, along with Gwin, to read the book he received from Auralius.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to spray yourself, Eva?” Gwin asked. Eva shook her head.

  “It’s just you guys, I'll be alright.” she said confidently, trying to reassure Gwin.

  It dawned on Kassius that he had gotten used to Eva’s beautiful appearance, so much so that he had forgotten that he hadn’t been looking at Eva’s true appearance, he had even forgotten that Gwin had been making the disguising potion for her so that none of the people in school knew about her.

  “Relax, Gwin.” Fenris said casually.

  “She’s right, and besides, if anyone was coming, Ashe and Cecil would let us know.” Ashe screeched happily, and Cecil nodded his head and hissed.

  “Isn’t there a more permanent way to help her?” Kassius asked, immediately regretting it as he saw Eva’s reaction.

  “I–I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Kassius struggled.

  Eva shook her head and smiled kindly, making him feel even more guilty.

  “If there is, I'll find a way.” Gwin said eagerly, and met Eva’s face.

  “I promise.” Kassius looked at the two girls and felt himself smile at the sight of his friends so close. He could almost hardly believe that Gwin hated Eva when they started out.

  Gwin looked away immediately, Kassius noticed a slight pink color appear in her cheeks. He raised his brow, wondering why she was embarrassed.

  “Awww, our bookworm has a heart of gold.” Fenris teased making faces at Gwin.

  “You're one to talk, Snowflake.” Gwin responded, with a chuckle. Eva and Kassius laughed as the two started another one of their usual friendly spats. Kassius looked at his friends, content and once again glad he had them as friends. He turned his attention to his book, but found himself deep in thought rather than reading the page he was on. His thoughts drifted to his conversation with his anger and his compassion, and the choice he needed to make. In the past few days, he had been trying to keep it off his mind, he kept telling himself that it wasn’t as important as it seemed to be. That didn’t stop him from thinking about it. “It could’ve simply been a very realistic dream.” he thought to himself, however, what happened in his fight in the ruins proved the existence of the two deities that he saw, even if it didn’t explain what they really were.

  “Kas.” Kassius looked up, hearing his name being called.

  “You gonna join us? We’re going to the edge of the island and explore around.” Fenris said, standing next to Kassius, with the girls behind him.

  Ashe rubbed his head on Kassius’ free hand and looked up at him happily.

  “Are you sure we’re allowed to do that?” Gwin asked, concerned.

  “No, but who said anyone would know?” Fenris said, mischievously. Eva smiled and chuckled, while Gwin pouted, looking reluctant to go.

  “You coming?” Fenris asked.

  Kassius smiled, and felt his chest and body become warm.

  “Always.” he responded happily.

  His friends smiled and walked to the forest, with Kassius following and Ashe close to his side. At that moment, Kassius was happy where he was. He felt that whatever the future had in store, he was confident that he could face it. At that moment, he was eager to go on this journey he needed to take. For the first time in his life, he was looking forward to his future in his new home.

  —END—-