Sitting in the dark, Motus played with a small item in his hands, a palm-sized necklace of sorts; the moonlight peeking through the windows glinted off the item, giving it a peculiar metallic sheen, like freshly cut steel, dipped in silver. It was his medallion, freshly retrieved from its location on the floor as soon as Motus realized where it had gone. The medallion featured a bright golden gem in its center. It sharply contrasted the exterior, which was typically silver, dark, and cold, usually. After that strange surge of energy, that rush he felt some odd hours ago, it seemed to almost hum now. The strangest thing about the piece of jewelry was that—and unless he was losing it, something he heavily suspected—it was pulsing in time to his heartbeat.

  That didn’t make sense, though, considering it was just a hunk of metal. And even if it were more than that, which it wasn’t—Mr. Mansion would never let him keep it if it were worth even a dollar. The gem wasn’t valuable either. Mr. Mansion had checked it the day he adopted him, ripping it from a much younger s hands the second the shine of polished metal caught his eye. Motus dragged his hands down his face to bring himself out of his mutterings and spoke softly to himself.

  “I need to go for a jog, clear my head maybe.”

  Motus began rummaging through his dresser and pulled out a black, baggy, short-sleeved hoodie with the number ‘13’ printed and stylized on the front, the wording and number both in a vibrant green. He pulled it on over his gray long-sleeved shirt and walked briskly down the stairs of the shop.

  “Mr. Mansion, Sir! I’m going for a jog, i-is that alright?”

  After waiting for several minutes with no answer, Motus deemed it okay, justifying it to himself over and over again with the reasoning that even Mr.Mansion couldn’t be mad that he wanted some exercise. With his resolve steeled due to his little mantra, the boy slipped his shoes on and was across the threshold of the store’s boundary in moments. A dull click signified the locking of the front door.

  Motus had been jogging around for what he felt was an hour, ever since that strange sensation the night before in the shop, things had felt disarmingly normal. Though he did find something odd, he’d jogged well over seven miles without feeling more than slightly winded.

  “I’m not exactly the most athletic person,” he murmured self-deprecatingly. He shrugged it off, thinking maybe today was just a good day for him. God knows he needed more of those. Motus took one long glance at the once bright blue sky that was slowly being painted a beautifully vibrant gold, and quickly realized he needed to start making his way home before Mr. Mansion got back from wherever he was. Motus set about jogging back up the path he’d taken from the shop.

  The path had led him into a heavily wooded area, which, while beautiful, wasn’t doing him any favors in terms of getting home—or getting anywhere for that matter. He had been jogging back down what seemed to be the correct path and making his way along the trail when another sudden rush flooded through his system; it moved with all the grace of a battering ram. That rush made the bronze-skinned boy collapse to his knees, and his golden eyes pulsed an electric blue. Motus stared around frantically, his eyes never quite managing to stay in one area for long; his vision blurred and cleared every time he closed his eyes. He finally settled on the shape of a bird suspended in the air, its wings caught in the middle of a flap, bending in a way that should have sent it plummeting to the ground, yet seemingly frozen. Another anomaly was faintly noted somewhere in the back of Motus’s mind, not unlike a distant whisper, or a sound heard underwater—the edges of his vision seemed to be tinting blue.

  “Okay, I know I’m not dreaming this time,” Motus muttered to himself before the world suddenly resumed as if someone had remembered to press play on a remote. The bird shot forward with practiced grace. Motus wavered for a moment, as a brief but no less potent sense of weakness and hunger flitted through him. “I might be hallucinating, though.”

  Struggling to shake off what he had just seen, Motus continued his walk on the path he thought would lead him to his house. One particularly hard blink later, however, saw him quickly realizing he was in no way near his home, nor was he even on the right path. In fact, if the way the trees were getting thicker or that he was in a forest clearing was anything to go by, he was farther away from his house than he had started. Motus groaned to himself as his golden eyes swept around his environment, taking a seat on the ground and leaning against a sturdy tree, the scent of bark filling his nose. Motus began to think of possible excuses to use as a first line of defense for his tardiness; excuses that would spare him from the majority of Mr.Mansion’s irate rage. Then an odd sound reached his ears—sounds rather, one nearly immediately following the other.

  The first was the unique sound of straining wood; next came the distinct sound of something snapping. At first, he wrote it off as something small, perhaps a woodland creature. It made sense, given his current area, after all, maybe a fox and the breaking of a twig of some sort?

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  However, that didn’t feel quite right; something was putting him on edge, gnawing at the back of his mind. The boy’s heart was racing, his eyes were shifting around, trying to find what made the air feel so wrong. It clung to the back of his throat, cold, as if meaning to strangle him. Each labored breath he managed to gulp down was a fight, one he was not sure he was truly on the winning side of. At first, he thought maybe he was overreacting; it wasn’t even that dark, and it wasn’t like there were any large animals in the area. However, the feeling wouldn’t fade, stubborn in its looming gloom.

  No, instead, the uneasy feeling of foreboding that made him sick to his stomach seemed to be growing. The sound of more snapping wood made him jump, his body instinctively lurching behind the tree he was resting against. The sinking feeling in his chest was almost palpable now; his heart was beating rapidly, hammering against his ribs—he could hear it, feel it moving in his chest like he had just finished running a marathon.

  A quick and uncoordinated beating sound that reminded him of a marching band in the middle of summer, messy and loud. Four seconds, four tense seconds of silence that had dragged on for what felt like hours to him, had passed without incident before he finally started to calm down, truly believing he had ‘jumped the gun’ and overreacted.

  He was nearly there, steadily calming himself down. Right on the edge of recuperating enough to be comfortable braving the forest until he found his way out, he was oh so close, until a sound echoed throughout the previously eerily silent forest.

  A sound that shook him to his very core, it turned his mouth and throat into a dry wasteland that could rival the Sahara and made his eyes go wide with horror, as he was stricken with fear; a fear that ran so deep he could almost taste it, lounging in the back of his throat like a lump of sand.

  The sound of breathing filled the forest—deep, heavy breathing. It sounded primal, almost animalistic in nature. Despite every cell in his body screaming at him not to do what he was thinking of, to simply stay put in hopes that whatever was in the clearing behind him would leave, Motus started to lean out from his place of hiding ever so slightly, just enough to see what was behind him.

  The ravenette had never regretted a decision as quickly as he just did. What he saw made him freeze in place, staring wide-eyed at the monstrosity that stood before him. There in the forest, crouched down, its very presence was ominous, and its stature imposing; it left Motus playing the part of a deer caught in the headlights of a massive truck.

  As he stared in fear, his body shaking, Motus could not help but better observe the creature after noticing he did not have its attention. Yet, the longer he looked at it, the more it confused him. In his fear, he was almost hyper-aware. His body had a choice between fight or flight, and had slammed so violently down on flight that he had gone full circle and was rooted to his position, simply observing the subject of many nightmares to come.

  Its lower half seemed distinctly reptilian, with powerful lizard-like legs covered in deep brown interlocking scales, and black talons at the end of each digit on the creature’s four-toed feet. Yet despite this reptile-like deposition, it was undeniably bipedal, with only two legs keeping it upright.

  Its upper half could almost pass for human, with its long black hair, pale skin, and hauntingly human-like face. Unfortunately, there were some startling differences. Pointed ears that were almost elfish, clawed hands, scale-covered shoulders, glowing red pits for eyes that lacked any visible pupil, and when it opened its mouth to breathe, he caught glimpses of rows of teeth filling its mouth.

  Teeth much sharper than Motus was comfortable with, along with a long, thick tail. The tip was spade-shaped and seemed to shine almost like metal. This culminated in what to him seemed powerful, terrifying, and utterly unnatural.

  The creature sniffed the air in one solid drag of air through flared nostrils and turned suddenly and violently to fully face Motus. It seemed to know exactly where he hid. Just the thought alone had his blood running cold, like ice moving through his veins. The creature took one more long sniff of the air before it let out an inhuman roar, the sound rattling Motus from his hiding place, forcing him to the ground, left clutching his ears.

  Now with his place of hiding removed and his form exposed, Motus felt more terrified than he ever had before. Especially when he saw the muscles in the monster’s leg tense. The scale-covered creature rushed forward, claws extended, primed and ready to impale him. Fear left him paralyzed. Motus shut his eyes and turned away.

  He had already begun accepting his fate, knowing there was no way he could ever hope to evade the abomination that was coming his way. It was nearly upon him when an odd sound resounded through the forest. It was the sound of something, things rather, sprouting from the ground. A ‘twuck’ reverberated throughout the forest. It was such an odd, out-of-place sound that it made Motus open his eyes, and the sight he was greeted with was a confusing one, to say the least. The monster was wrapped in multiple thick green vines that rose from the ground around it. The protrusions seemed to be straining, yet they held, containing the monster mere inches from Motus’s face. Its pointed claws nearly grazed his eyes. The sound of amused laughter bubbled up in the clearing, as a voice spoke up before slowly coming out into the dimming sunlight.

  “Whew—this one’s a strong one, a bit below one of Lord Va’ Co-Zak’s kids…one of the weaker ones anyway.” The figure said with an even more amused tone of voice before fully stepping out of the shadows and into the light.

  It was a boy, a boy with deep brown hair that flowed down onto his shoulders, and glowing, forest-green eyes. A brown jacket with its sleeves cuffed sat atop his shoulders. His eyes pierced through the dim light of the darkening forest as he stared intently at the thrashing creature, which still struggled against its bindings. Motus took note that the older boy held his hand by his side in an odd, claw-like position. The strange, plant-like protrusions that rose from the ground seemed to shift with each subtle movement of that claw-shaped hand. The boy raised an eyebrow, smirking at the confused face of Motus.

  “What, no thank you? I’m offended.” He said, his smile warm, glowing eyes shining brightly.