Chapter 1 -> Flash-forward

Mire suddered again in rememberence. He was snapped back to reality as an unseen force pulled him away from the shelves of books and towards the table. And that halo. Mire squinted, trying to see through the mist-like aura. [what is on that table...?] Mire allowed himself to be pulled forward a few meters, then dug his heels into the floor. [i am in control. it's all in my mind. i can control it, because it isn't real. it's inside of me. CRAIKIA, STOP IT!!]

The pull gradually died away, leaving Mire slumped over, his chest heaving from the effort.

"What is that?"

Mire whipped around, searching for the source of the worried human voice. A tall, pale skinned Human had his ear pressed against the glass window of the door. Mire flexed his claws uneasily. There were muffled shouts, accompanied by the sounds of dozens of pairs of boots, approaching from down the hallway.

Without warning a strange gravity pulled Mire towards to table again, the Hekshanian stumbling forward in surprise. [NO!] This time the energy ignored his pleas. He struggled back, his clothes and fur being pushed towards the table as if by a hurricane-force wind. Mire's teeth clenched as he reached behind him to grab hold of a support beam in the epicenter of the library. [What is HAPPENING to me?!] Mire's paws struck metal, and he gripped tight, pulling himself toward the pillar. The steel creaked loudly, sounding almost like a scream in Mire's backed ears, and he took a step away.

Mire was thrown to his knees violently by the very air around him. He dug four sets of claws into the ground as he was pulled closer to the churning, glowing sphere. Then, suddenly, everything went silent, and still. Instinctively, Mire bared his teeth and snarled. His fur rose and he ventured to rise into a low crouch.

Suddenly, a low screech echoed down the hall. gunfire. there was another shot, closer this time, and then silence again. Then, all at once, the screaming and boots runnig and shots firing rose into a cacophony of chaotic death, a few running Pagans bolting through the library into the courtyard, most not making it nearly that far. Mire simply stared in disbelief. [No. Not again.] As he was slowly, almost mournfully dragged away from the source of the gun fire and towards the mysteriously glowing table, Mire's breath caught in his throat. [Not again.]

["Left flank, fire!" A volley of bullets rang out across the small courtyard. Mire turned to stare as people he had grown up with-- his teachers, his parents' closest friends... even some of his own --dropped, collapsing and spasming under the rain of bullets cutting them down. Mire resumed running, shaking his head to get rid of the picture. The fleeing Pagans glowing red-- in Mire's mind-- then the actual red spray of blood replacing the ambiant glow.

Just as the frozen shades of death faded from his mind, Mire turned a sharp right with the rest of the fleeing crowd. A new wave of people turned bright, glowing crimson. Mire looked to his left. His parents weren't red. He looked ahead, up to the front of the crowd. Though most of them were normal, a few were red. His eyes searched for another small, child's frame. He found her. Niev was fine. Keri ren next to her.

Another wave of Reiwou students turned bright red. As bullets rained down into the crowd, Mire stopped entirely. A grenade ripped apart the asphalt-- and the would-be escapees on it-- just meters ahead of Mire. His parents were thrown forward, but otherwise unscathed. As the people behind and passing him started turning red, he resumed fleeing. A tug-- a familiar tug-- pulled him to the left. Hard. He dove, and the ring of automatic rifle fire ripped through the spot where he had been standing seconds ago.

As he jumped back to his feet, he caught sight of the contorted face of the body which had taken the bullets meant to kill him. The tug... Mire forced himself to look down at the horrified countenance, covered in snow white fur staining deep red. Mire gagged as thick black blood started spreading from the corner of the corpse's mouth.

Choking back the waves of nuasea, Mire leaned over, in passing, and slid down the wide eyelids of the cloud-hued Hekshanian. He didn't know why... it seemed somehow the only apropriate ceremony with armed troops closing in. Mire didn't want to convince himself he was more invincible than he truly was. An unpleasant reminder of that invincibility pulled him out of the way of a stray bullet. "I'm sorry, who... who ever you were. i have to do something... maybe soon, but I'm only 6 and i haven't done it yet... sorry you had to leave too soon... but you were red, you would have anyway. thank you." The eerily calm boy shut his eyes before moving on, and looked back down greatfully at his nameless, unwitting savior. And stopped.

He shuddered violently. "No..."

Where the contorted, agonized face had been, another was now twisted in mortal agony. "M- Mother?" Mire stared down at the familiar smile, torn apart into a scream by some unholy joke. Ripping his eyes away, Mire looked for the reassuring face of the woman who had given him life... whom he would later curse for it.

Slipping quickly through the crowd, Mire's mother approached the escape choppers lifting off from the scool's parking lot one by one. Calling out, Mire ran hard towards his parents. Mire's mother, Zara, whipped around, searching for her son. "Mire?!"

"Mama!" Mire waved his arms as he ran towards his mother.

Mire's father heard his wife's cries and turned. Mire was coming up fast behind them, but with that many Rulerist gunners... not fast enough. His father pointed, calling out to Zara as he ran back through the milling crowds, pressing forward towards the helicopters, their only chance of survival. Mire strained to look up ahead as he ran, and the nausea returned as he saw how many people were red. [Only two, maybe three of those choppers will make it.]

As if on cue, the burning wreckage of a Pagan transport helicopter landed with a deafening boom on Reiwou school's south-east battlement. The wall collapsed slowly, almost reluctant to be one of the seige's victims. For a moment, the chorus of machine gun fire and running, screaming Pagans halted, the chopper blades seemed to mute, and silence pervaded over the now unmoving crowd.

All at once, a final mushroom cloud-like explosion rose from the crash site. Mire screamed to his parents and started running again. In the next instant, the fleeing crowds and the persuing Rulerists resumed their race to the parking lot. Mire's parents slid through the escaping masses to their son, all but ignored by passers-by far more intent on what was ahead than behind.

The meter-tall hekshanian, blue-white fur matted down with sweat, ran full force towards his parents, dodging bullets from his ever-approaching attackers with supernatural intuition. Each time he sidestepped a bullet, a red-tinted body fell and passed underfoot. Ignoring the invisible threads pulling him the nearby doorways of the courtyard, he turned a sharp left toward the helicopters, leading his parents through a tunnel to the right. Bullets ricochetted from the entrance and sides of the concrete tube, and Mire drew up to a stop around the next corner. His parents emerged cautiously, and ran across the clearing to their son.

Mire peered out from around the corner. The rulerist brigade tailing thiem had dissappeared out of the courtyard into the parking lot. Mire's parents had always been good judges of time. He, too, started to run towards his parents.

Zara slowed as her son approached, her eyes glassy with tears. He ran full force towards his mother, arms opened wide in anticipation of her embrace. The seconds dragged by as the gap between them closed. Time slowed nearly to a stop as if the entire escape had been taking place submerged below the glistening ocean waves.

The shadows, in fact, cast by two helicopters colliding in mid-air, ressembled the ocean floor, hiding the clawed demons and gossimer predators of the sea.

Mire came to a sudden stop, half a dozen meters from his parents. Chains-- both invisible and intangible but more powerful than any links forged in this dimension-- snapped taught as the Pagan youth strained to reach his bewildered mother and father. Mire's grunts and cries as he strained against the pull were all that broke the silence blanketing the scene.

"NNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOO-" Mire trailed off into a choked gurgle as he strained against the invisible lines. Clutching his chest, squeezed tight by the hidden force, Mire fell back. His parents turned a blinding shade of crimson even as Mire reached one pleading arm out to his mother.

A brigade broke into view from the direction they had just come, Mire being dragged screaming into the doorway behind him in the instant that he saw them. Ripping the door behind him to splinters, Mire was held rigidly in place on one knee. As if the air around him had frozen, mire stared, his eyes stinging from not being able to blink, as the bullets meant to kill him ripped and shredded his father's body, heard his mothers tortured shreik instants before the blazing weapons were turned to her.

Wanting to sob, to run to Zara's ruined body, Mire was held fast as he watched the disgusted looking Rulerists march past the two broken forms they had just slaughtered. The last, a remorseless sneer curling his lips, stopped momentarily. He turned to the building Mire had found himself fated to. Grinnig cruelly, the pale-faced Human spit onto what was left of Mire's father. He leveled his rifle at Mire's head, fired once, and ran after his merciless compatriots.

With the deafening bang of that single shot, the chains binding Mire shattered, and with a faint golden glimmer, the bullet dissappeared. Mire felt the air sucked from his lungs, and a pull-- this one Real-- towards the shimmering gold droplets. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the gilded shield and vacuum-pull were gone.

Stunned, Mire reached for the still shining puddle of gold on the wooden floor. Beading and thickening like mercury, single drops seemed to harden and roll. The traumitized Hellcat laid a hand over the quicksilver rivulets, and snapped it back up. The shining veins of gold gone from the floor, Mire clenched his fist in pain.

Forcing it open and in front of him, the hekshanian stared. seemingly woven into his fur and skin was the image of a golden dragon, the mythical beast of midieval Earth, tail curled up almost touching his middle claw, as if trying to reach its majestic head, mouth stretched wide in a toothy roar. The shimmering design pulsed in rythm with Mire's heartbeat, each dull internal thud sending jolts of pain up Mire's arm.

Summoning what little energy he had left, mire clawed himself up, into his paws and out the doorway. The sounds of battle still raged on, not quite distant, but far enough for comfort. Mire's weight sagged against the building's frame as he realized its purpose. A gunsmith's sign hung from above the door, suspended by gommiser threads of some silver metal. Turning to look back, Mire saw dozens upon dozens of weapons, the room laden with firearms, ammunition, and the thick stench of imminent death. Mire broke into a full run, closing his eyes as he passed the unrecognizeable corpses of his parents. Cutting through buildings and climbing over walls, Mire emerged into the parking lot battered and bleeding. He half-staggered, half-hopped towards the Pagan helicopters, his left hind paw missing its center claw. One last group of refugees burst from the gateway just meters to Mire's left, and were immediately cut down by the Rulerist gunmen who swarmed in behind them.

Running as best he could with his limp, Mire dragged himself toward the crowds filtering into escape choppers. the transports were filling up slower now, fewer people arriving at the launch pads. One transport, glowing with a red halo through Mire's eyes, lifted off half-full. Next to mire, another young child hobbled, his tail severed to almost half-length.

Only a few dozen meters from the helicopters, Mire tried ignoring the poor brown-furred child. Shutting his eyes against the pain, Mire pushed hard with his bad paw to close the gap between himself and the safety of the crowds. Then an blast of deep red fluid covered his left side. There, half a meter behind him, lay the tattered remains of the other boy. Emotionally exhausted beyond help, mire collapsed not ten meters from the last pagans loading into the transports.

Then, out of the corner of his half-opened eye, Mire saw a familiar yellow and gray face bend down, and felt himself lifted into a chopper. hardly concious, Mire heard bullets ricochet off the asphault where he had lust been, then all noise was drowned out as the pagan escape chopper's blades carried the battered and frightened hekshanians into the deceptively clear, blue -green sky.]

Dazed, centimeters from the glowing table, Mire recalled again kyotoshi's horrified eyes as he carried his burden into the helicopter. "damn it kyo..." Mire trailed off, not knowing why he felt the urge to use the old Christian curse. but then, maybe they were right after all, and this was hell.

Not bothering to resist anymore, mire felt his arm pulled into the blinding yellow glow around the table. Mire could make out the image of a book in the table, as ethereal as the aura itself, but there nonetheless. Reaching for it, he couldn't grab a hold of it. Mire turned, and a dozen humans burst into the library. He did not imagine their bright red garb, covering their skin from head to toe, nor the pure white crosses on their jumpsuits. Those who didn't hold drawn and bloodied swords, curved knives, really, had familiar rifles threatening the room's occupants. two turned and headed towards mire's dark corner of the room.

Frantic now, he threw himself into the table, trying to grab the elisuive book. His hand, though, slipped through empty air. He turned again, and felt the satisfying touch of a single page crumpling in his probing hand just before the butt of a Red Cross rifle sent him reeling into a pool of blackness.