“Breaking from dark pits despair, and breathing in a gulp of air.

You found calming waters cleanse your strife, and solid ground to build your life.

With foundation built your will turned steel, with a burning passion none could steal.

To find the light that shines within, or lose your fight to demon king.” - By Davis Dallas, one of the four founders.

May

Before he could dirty his hands further, she must pass judgment.

With that one thought in her mind, May ran desperately through the dense forest. Looming branches blocked what little moonlight left to her on this fateful night, making the near-black forest grounds a treacherous place to run through had it not been for her purple right eye. Her special eye. She saw light spectrums on planes beyond normal people. May could see the obstacles even in total darkness. Highlighted in a hue of purple, May closed her brown left eye and ran for all she was worth using her special sight. She just needed to be on time. For once she needed to-

Off towards the distance, smoke rose to the snapping burning wood. Screams of people’s suffering echoed in the far distance. May’s jaw hung open.

I’m too late. Unable to will her legs any faster, May gripped a white-knuckled hand over her Katana.

Racing through thick vines and lopsided branches, her short black coat waved in the wind, short skirt brisked against her thigh at the sheer speed. Through dense thickets, she could soon see specks of individual light through the layers of dimly highlighted trees. They were people. Her purple eye highlighted them much like it did the trees, except the light that came from them was an all-encompassing glow like a full-blown silhouette of light. It was thanks to this that they could be seen through the lesser glowing inanimate objects. Trees, rocks, and walls, though seeing through some at other things was possible looking past too many still objects, got diminishing returns. Like seeing something through too many layers of slightly foggy glass. She ran past men and women who pushed past another to reach the pitch-black forests. Not having an eye like hers that could see in the pitch-black did not stop them one bit. Even though they were far enough from the flaming building they ran like how a pack of deer would run from a predator’s presence.

Off to her right, May saw one man who became impatient with the pace of another older man just ahead of him and tossed him to one side, only to run headfirst into a fallen tree at full speed. He hit the thing with so much force, somersaulted over himself, and landed right on his neck with a horrid crack. As he gave a last twitch, the older man simply got up, gave the dead man a befuddled glare before timidly ducking under the tree that killed him and feeling his way deeper into the forest.

May watched it all unfold with a shiver. She noticed that her hand was half outstretched, as if to warn them. She almost had spoken up. Thankfully, her better senses won over. Emotions aside, there was a good reason not to lend a hand out to these people. One proof being their white lab coats. That tipped her off on who they were, what sick and vile experiments they had done under Father’s blessing. The other reason was a more personal one that was harder to explain. It did not help that she herself was working out how she knew this, but through her right eye (her special eye) both men had glowed a crimson red.

Besides some animals who came up as pure white, only people came out in more than one color through her right eye. Those colors were blue, red, and green. From her understanding, blue meant a good soul, green meant…something, but she was not yet too sure. But red meant evil. All those who runaways before her were tinted. Men and women trying to escape from their crimes, people who do not earn her sympathy... it was the only explanation Specks of red ran every witch and way, but to her, it hardly mattered. Their base of operations set ablaze. Their dark schemes brought to light in cleansing flames. Part of May felt relieved for justice had been served. Another part of her, however, felt conflicted at who had dropped the guillotine to serve such a sentence.

It’s my fault. I caused all of this. Her heart ran cold at the thought. Recalling his warm smile. His stupidly optimistic take on bad odds. She’d not known him for long, but she could not imagine Spriiko being able to cause such destruction. He was grieving his brother’s loss, but revenge in such a way would kill who he was.

Hearing an explosion followed by gunshots, May looked up to the top of the nine-story building. Most of its floors were aflame with the roof, only now seeming to burn. The great red cross that stood at the very top of the building toppled to one side and fell down to the earth in an engulfing inferno. Feeling beads of sweat appear on her face from the sheer heat, May shielded her eyes from the flame’s glow. The fires came out as a glowing silver-white in her special eye, as imposing and intense a sight as though her normal one. But through that sheet of flaming silver, through the layers of hazy purple walls and ceiling, May could just about make out three specks of light on the roof. Blue, green, and red. Though she could hardly make them out as people, she knew exactly who they were.

Realizing she was not too late, May hurried and unsheathed her Katana. Its silver face mirroring the dancing flames. With blade in hand, she looked up as high as she knew she could comfortably jump and focused. Energy from within coincided with energy from around and with it she locked in an image of the shape and strength of her Katana’s blade. In an instant, through her special eye, she saw a bright purple blade suspended nine feet in the air. With a leap, May landed upon this blade on one foot before summoning another at about the same distance and repeating. Although the method of channeling energy within to connect was not unheard of. The power to create ‘phantom blades’ was a skill only she could do at such a distance. And given that only she can see these summoned blades with her special eye, May gathered it must be something she can do because of the blood that her father implanted within her before she was even born.

Leaping above the rooftop, she could see the three people. They were at the tail end of an intense battle. With two of the three landing a decisive blow, the third the outnumbered one staggered back and fell to one knee. Not stopping their advance, the two’s blood-stained blades shimmered in the bright flames as they ran to land the finishing blow.

No!

Before she realized what she’d done, May had summoned a phantom blade between the two attackers, blocking their blades and making them leap back in confused caution. Taking their hesitation as an opening, May landed in front of the kneeling man she’d defended and taken a stance against the other two. The first person, an ebony-skinned young man with a deep gray hoodie and an equally gray muted trousers, stood there, his piercing eyes studying. His strange diamond sword glimmered out at his side as the dancing flames around them reached over the edges and onto the roof they stood upon. With his hoodie up, and his outfit all uniform, he looked to be the shadows themselves come walking. Only the deep red headband broke on his forehead broke the illusion. He came glowed blue in her special eye as he recognized her. Perhaps understanding the situation, he instantly snorted in dry amusement to himself before he rested his blade on his shoulder to watch.

“Now this I gotta see,” he said to himself. As much as she was relieved to not contend with Scope, his laid-back attitude in such a situation ticked her off. The other young man, however, marched towards her, seething with rage. With blade unsheathed in one hand, he waved the pistol as an ordered for May to move aside.

“If you’re going to defend him after all he’s done, then I’ll shoot you too!” he shouted. His eyes were bloodshot and, unlike Scope, he panted desperately like he’d ran a thousand miles. His sand-colored features, all bruised and blood-marked, were a tempest of anger. With a blooded navy blue coat unzipped, his chest heaved endlessly, stretching his greed shirt.

“You don’t mean that, Spriiko,” May murmured. A stab of guilt came at using his care for her as a tool-a means to shield the man he wanted dead. Pulling the gun away from her, Spriiko cursed through his teeth and walked in circles with a hand on his forehead.

“He confessed! That scumbag told me himself! He killed my blade brothers! He as good as done it with his own hands when he gave the bastards the order to stuff them in sacks and throw them over our wall!” Spriiko continued. As he looked down at his bloody hands with the gun and sword, they trembled. May could almost see that blooded sack once again.

Spriiko had stood over its packed contents, hands reddened with the life essence of his blade brother’s. Within it he pulled out a gun, the same gun he used now, along with a blooded note. The haunted look on Spriiko’s face burned into her retina. The note fell out of his trembling hand and back into the sack, giving May a look. ‘Bring back my daughter’ it read. The already blood-stained paper grew more patches of crimson as it rested on the sack’s contents. When May realized what was within them, she fell to her knees, bile rushing out of her throat in a dry, choking heave. Just thinking back on it made her sick up again, but this time she’d substituted that for a dry swallow. She forced the mind off the inhuman horror she’d seen back then and instead remembered features they once had, the people they once were.

Jonathan, Gregory… She’d already cried all her tears for them.

Looking up at Spriiko, she saw the rage in his eye. It burned all the more intensely that day as they buried the remains of the blade brothers. They raged with a flame that made heated furnaces look frozen. That flame in him was smaller now, colder. As if manifesting its raging embers into reality had pulled it all out of him. As he looked at his bloodied hands filled with weapons, May saw the spark of horrid realization wash over him. She could almost see the faces of his victims flash before his eyes. A cold shade washed over his features. He slipped away, and it almost broke her. It was Spriiko that helped save her and, in doing so, changed her fate. He’d often said that he’ll change the world with those hands someday. She could not explain why, but something about that stupidly corny line struck a chord within. Maybe it was because of how straight-laced he was. But ever since, she’d vowed to remain by his side, hoping to see what change he will bring in the world. In a world where people she’d once loved and trusted were not who they’d say they were. In a world she’d almost lost her sanity in, she’d prayed that he’d be the ship and anchor that could show her a better way of living than she knew from her old life. But she underestimated the vile and twisted reach the people of her old life had and now Spriiko, the one who saved her and the blade kin that took her in thereafter, had suffered because of it. And now the unwavering Spriiko looked adrift. She’d wanted to walk over to him and take a hold of his hands and squeeze them. To help anchor him back to the now for her assurance, if not for his own. But that was not her role here. Uncle Wu said that he’d not grieved yet. Maybe that was all he needed.

“We could have avoided this if only you’d let me continue my original operation. But here we are now, cleaning up a dog’s dinner of a show when it could have been no messy as squashing a bug.” Scope said with a yawn.

Spriiko glared at Scope as if he was about to round on him. That was when the third person behind her shifted, making Spriiko leap into stance. May’s breath got lodged in her throat.

“You came back, my child,” Father said.

Closing her eyes tightly, May slowly released the breath she was holding. She avoided looking over her shoulder at the man before her, for she knew it would tarnish what precious memories that she had left of him. He was her past, a part of her. And as things stood right here and now, she did not have the luxury to be weak with the sentiment.

“Step away from him, May!” Spriiko ordered. May simply shook her head.

“It’s ok Spriiko,” she said, her voice was calm and controlled. “I just want to ask him one question,”

“I had faith... that you’d return to me,” the old man said between breaths behind her. May’s throat became bone dry. Recollections of all the time he’d come and visit her ran across her mind as fresh as yesterday’s memories. She was not ready for what she had to do, and yet she had to be.

“Father,” she turned around to him slowly. The flames behind him made the dark silhouette she saw look like that of a deformed creature. He had wings, or at least had the look of what could be the freakish makings of wings, except that this one was free of its feathers. Half deformed flesh stretched its way around some parts whilst other parts exposed muscles and tendons in what could only be explained as transparent flesh.

His clean and devout robes torn and burnt in places where he’d either transformed into the thing he was now or it resulted from the battle he had with Spriiko and Scope. Arms barely looked that of a human either, a blade-like claw that protruded though one robe was cut short where his wrist would be, an affliction one in the battle. All over him were the signs of an ugly creature in the midst of being cut down. Only his face held the semblance of the man she once knew as her father. In her special right eye, he came out as red, as evil. He had always been evil.

It has to be the case! It just has to!

“He has no right to the title after what he’s done!” Spriiko growled at Father.

“I know,” May said.

“He killed my blade brothers and then some! He has long earned what’s coming to him. If tell me to show him mercy I’ll-”

“-I’ll kill him myself once I get my answer,” May said.

That stunned Spriiko, silent. Scope just whistled to himself. Had she not been in so much pain, then she would have laughed at getting a surprised face out of him. She’d said it now. There was no turning back. For the sake of justice, for the sake of keeping Spriiko from tainting his hands in vengeance any further, she was about to kill her father. Worst yet was how her father looked at her. His warm and gentle and understanding smile, a vast contrast to the monstrosity that he’d now become.

“And what would you like to ask, my child?” his soothing voice, the same one that helped rally hundreds-thousands to his cause. A voice that was the light in her dark days. Had she only known how dark a shadow that light cast. Seeing first hand that the man she’d loved and this monster she’d realized him to be were indeed the same people all along only broke her all the more. It took all she had to hold back tears. She won’t cry, not now.

Just one question, oh but by the cycles this was hard. She swallowed a lump before she dared to continue.

“Back when I was younger, you’d constantly said that I was your ‘perfect girl’ and that you’ve ‘Finally found me’. I used to just think that they were incidental words of kindness. But now I know better. Having now seen more of the world you sheltered me from, I’m now more sure than ever that there is not one incidental thing about you. The people you work for were not incidental. My mother’s death was not incidental. Whatever changes you made in me, you were trying to recreate in others.” She held a hand out towards her special right eye. it came out a deep purple.

“All I did was to-” Father started before May shut him down.

“I don’t want to hear your reasons! No amount of them will excuse the blood you’ve spilled.” His reasonings, her family’s messed up history, the innocent blood on his hands. They can all rot with his death. What mattered right now was the present. What she could do right now was try to break the cycle, try to cut a line in the sand, and save the ones who’d survived the tragedy. “Just one question father, is there another like me? And if so, where can I find them?”

“That’s two questions, but really, who’s counting?” Scope said with a casual sniff.

She glared daggers at Scope that she’d never had before and Scope had the courtesy to freeze a moment before sighing to himself and walking back defeated. She caught Spriiko mouthing the word ‘others’ to himself before father spoke as if Scope did not exist.

“You’d deducted so much from what little I’d said. As expected of my daughter,” Her mouth just fell open. He’d sounded more proud than she had ever heard him. Her lips quivered.

“If you’re buying time, then-” May stopped abruptly when Father shook his head.

“My journey ends here. I climbed the path I believed in as best I could. Shown the light to others the only way I knew how. Sacrificed body, blood, and soul to help pioneer the future of humanity. If the cycles will it so then let it be enough. I’ve sewn all the seeds I could sow. If I must lay blood atop the field for there to be fruit. Then so be it.” he said. He looked at her with a content nod.

May swallowed a lump. Father’s way with words was so cryptic and captivating. It made her unsure of herself once again.

“He’s playing you. You do realize that, right?” Scope said. With an arrogant snort, he stabbed his sword into the floor and rested his arms on it to regard her father with a grin. “Had a mark on you and your cult for months now. I mean, really, you guys? ‘Callers of the Wind’? Please,” he chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “Honestly, your forefathers would weep.”

Father regarded Scope silently as he went on. He went to great length if you’d let him. Was he born tone-deaf?! By the cycles, but she could not stand the guy.

“I’ve been to your so-called sermons too. Was passing though Leathenan from the east when I had the great displeasure. I mean, it was real rancid stuff.” he waved a hand across his face as if to clear away a foul smell. “I think the only thing you and the ‘real’ Callers of Wind meany years back have in common is the gas you held between your ass cheeks. The only difference there is when it came time to talk they knew to use their top mouth over their bottom.”

Father simply gave him an amused nod in approval.

“Had I known one such as you were on my tail then I might have done things differently.”

“Wouldn’t have changed much,” Scope replied.

“Perhaps not, but now that we are here, who’s to say really,” Father said. That seemed to stop Scope for a moment. He was not used to someone having a comeback for him. “Your strength is as impressive as I’d imagined. A shame that pure evil itself fueled it.”

“Ironic coming from one who’d juiced himself up with the same stuff. Don’t deny it. There’s no other way to explain the fancy demonic look you got going.” Scope looked Father’s monstrous look up and down, which drew father’s mouth in a line.

“All I’d done was in service to my children,”

“I’d say all you’ve done was out of jealous of our power, but sure, keep telling yourself that.”

“Enough!” May snapped. Her jaw had been getting tighter with each passing second. To her surprise, everyone listened. It took May a moment to make a neutral face. Plums of smoke rose out from all ends of the building, covering the roof in a comb of darkness. With breathing getting harder, she turned to her father to ask again.

“I need to know if I am the only one out there that survived what you’d done to me.” she failed to add in ‘if he’d care for her like her daughter, she owed him that much. But the better part of her bit off the words. She couldn’t muddle her emotions on this any further. The Father who looked at her a moment, nodded. She felt as though he could read her thoughts and emotions, and it numbed her. Glancing up at the smoked-covered sky, he looked like a man waiting for the rain to descend upon him. Or one waiting for the gallows to drop.

“My child, do you recall my promise to give you a sibling?” Father started after a short while. That for May, tilting her head to one side, baffled until her mind went blank. Something about that rang as familiar. Perhaps something he’d said during one of his many visits to her room. But…

A sharp pain stabbed her mind and chest and for a second, all that was in front of her vanished. In a flash, she saw a face-a young one that has silver hair and… glasses? Blinking and shaking her mind, it finished, and she came to, to the sound of Spriiko worriedly approaching until she ordered him to back away.

Looking back at father it baffled her to realize that he’d just stood there still half kneeling and watching her with an unreadable expression. Only the fact that he had stopped talking clued May in that Father noticed anything at all. Blinking the last of the dizziness away, she nodded for him to go on.

“I remember,” she said. She did now, but only just. She could not remember what it was that she was doing in most of them except asking when she will have a sibling.

“I’d searched long and hard for one who was to become your kin by the cycle. And although we gathered many who’d held the chance to embrace the purity, they all failed to meet the first step to divinity and died.”

The rumble of thunder overhead dramatized his words. May stood their pole axed.

All the children he’d experimented on had died? May thought Father continued.

“So there’s no one? No survivors.” May asked in a raspy whisper.

“Not that I was looking, but all burned to ash from this floor upward. If there is anyone here, then is too late now.” Scope said.

“There was, however, one that showed great promise of surviving the purity process. Sadly, Just an hour before you came I got word that she’d passed.

That was it, her chance to salvage anything from this mess gone with the winds. She hardly felt the jolt from falling to her knees. Everything just became a white haze to her. She hardly realized just now tightly she was holding onto the hopes that there would be someone else like herself out there until they took it from her. She ignorantly asked when she would have a brother or sister. All the half-truths and lies. All the fancy wordplay and manipulation. He was insane, her father was insane and although she’d been had been sheltered most of her life, May felt stupid for not seeing the signs.

Cycles above, what does that say about me!?

Just then, she felt a hand gently pat her on her forehead.

“Father?” he’d turned back to his human form now. One of his arms was missing and the blood that was only showing out of his torn robes began to overflow. His breathing became weak once more.

“You look just like your mother.” That only made his smile widen all the more. “I should have known… trying to improve perfection was asking too much. But I’m sure one such as you will surpass me in my pursuits in any case. After all, you are the future of mankind. The fusion of man and divinity rolled into one. Whatever choice you make will be the right one.” His face darkened, however, as he looked to one side in regret. “Being the vanguard of a new world order is lonely. I’m sorry it couldn’t grant you your wish.”

The grip on May’s sword slackened. He was trying to manipulate her again. Though her special right eye showed her father glowing an angry red, everything that he said twisted her gut into knots. She tried to back away from the gentle hold he had on her head but her body felt weak to the thought of moving away. Chest tightening and tears rolling down her cheek she shook her head. ‘Mother?’ How dear he bring her up now!

“Whatever it is that you hope I’d do, it won’t happen. I’ll become nothing like you! I’ll renown and bury your name. After today, nobody will ever mention you ever again except in scorn! And as for mother, where you’re going, you’ll never see her again!”

Father nodded.

“Perhaps,” he began. “Whether you follow the path that I’d hoped for or not. You will still be the only thing that I needed you to be, my daughter.”

She remembered her sword hilt hitting the center of his chest as the sensation of cold metal passing through ribs and flesh ran down her palm. As her mind split into numb fractions, she’d screamed herself for all her worth. She had a sore throat to prove it the next time she’d come to.

Beyond that, May barely remembered what happened after killing her father. Only three instances came back to her when she tried to in the day and years that passed since then. That Spriiko pulled her away from Father’s corpse as she kicked and screamed, that Scope stayed on top of the flaming roof for a moment longer, his back to them and sword outstretched towards the heavens as he and it glowed in a blinding light. And the thunderous boom as the whole flaming hospital was obliterated by something May could only describe as a tower-sized sword made of pure light crashed down blade first into the building itself before shattering into crystallized fragments of energy and dissipating in a breath. Rumble’s thunder and rain came soon after as she and the others fled the scene... beyond that point, all she remembered doing was crying. Crying and praying. Praying that there was nobody else out there suffering and hurt because of her father.

She’d prayed that her sin today would mark the end of her father’s twisted vision poisoning this world. She’d prayed that she’d continue to have kith and kin to guide and hold her steady wherever she finds herself. Most of all, she prayed that she’d not look back on this day with more regrets than she already had.