Lia, finally letting the awestruck Myles out of her embrace, gently stands out of the bed and looks in the direction of the hole in the wall. Suddenly, the broken pieces of the wall start shaking on the ground. They move into place like pieces of a puzzle, and suddenly the wall looks as good as new. Myles gulps.
Lia sighs, holds her hand up to her forehead to concentrate, and suddenly the room is lined with what appears to be purple light."There, now we have privacy," she says airily.
This makes Myles a little nervous. He unconsciously pulls the blanket over his bandage-covered body. Lia giggles. She slowly crawls onto the bed, inching ever closer to him. She stops when they are in whispering distance. Myles' heart pounds violently in his chest. Flustered, terrified, and anxious, he manages to stutter out,"Wh... wh... what a... are you g-g-going t... to d-do?"
He gulps after he lets the statement out. Lia giggles again and leans in for what appears to be a kiss. Myles closes his eyes in submission. Their foreheads touch instead of their lips, and Myles lets out a relieved and slightly disappointed sigh.
Lia giggles again, and suddenly, there is a gentle purple light between their heads. Myles opens his eyes after the phenomenon. He sees a familiar ceiling, the same thing for the window and the alarm clock. He sits up on the bed."Guess it was a dream after all," he says to himself in a disappointed tone. He buries his head in his right palm."What a crazy dream," he whispers.
He looks at the clock again. It is 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning. He then proceeds to the shower. Under the cold wash, Lia's eyes plague his mind. He slams his fist into the wall and breaks a tile. This doesn't shock him—he has spent most of his life training to be strong."It was just a dream," he says to himself quietly.
His mind clear, Myles continues his routine and ends up jogging to his neighborhood's park. At the park, he notices a new pathway and takes it. The path eventually leads to a well-lit tunnel, which he stops in front of. Myles smiles to himself,"They sure do work fast," referring to the new revolutionary build-bots, as he proceeds to run into the tunnel.
Just when he sees the end of the tunnel, it goes completely dark.
Myles screams, but he can't hear his voice—and he can't feel anything either. Suddenly, he hears Lia's voice."That must be it," she says softly in his head.
Suddenly, they are back in the purple light-lined room, sitting opposite each other. Myles stares at her, relieved, shocked, and rattled."There is more you need to see."
Lia leans in again. This time, Myles leaves his eyes open and looks at the dark-skinned beauty's face as her head touches his. He is interrupted by the light again. But this time it was different; he wasn't himself. He had no control of the body he was in—it was Lia's—and he was seeing things from her point of view.
"Wait, does that mean..." Myles begins to think, before his thought is almost immediately interrupted by Lia's.
The landscape looked nothing like those he saw in his memories. The most apparent change was that Lia looked smaller. She was being held by what appeared to be humanoid monsters. She let out a small but powerful shriek, and suddenly, like clockwork, the surrounding area was engulfed in black flames. From the smoke emerged a dark figure in strange clothes—at least strange to Lia. Crimson eyes, black curly hair, standing at six feet two inches, and a menacing presence that startled Lia's assailants. He stretched his arm out, spread his palm wide open, then clenched his fist. Just then, they all split blood and fell. Soon after, he fainted. Lia rushed to his aid. She carried him like a bride would carry her groom.
It ends there, and they are back facing each other.
Myles looks at Lia with new eyes. His opinion of her, however, remains the same—simply perfect."You are the one I fell for—well, part of you~," she whispers and smiles at Myles with teary eyes.
Myles is starstruck. How could a girl like her love a guy like him? And why?
It didn't really matter. He liked her too—but it was too early to call it love. They just met, after all.
Lia interrupted his thoughts with,"This part of you I have never known. I am sure I would love it too. I hope it does the same for me."
She pulls away from Myles. As she walks away, she opens her mouth."For as long as it takes," she says, looking over her shoulder in a defeated voice.
Soon after, the room door closes behind her. The purple light disappears. Myles is left alone with his thoughts.
He realized he had been away from home for two years. He wondered how his parents and sister were taking it. He jumped out of bed and got dressed. Something felt off. Not only did his tracksuit look different—it looked new—it also felt lighter and fit perfectly, even though he was taller and had more muscle than before. It was as if it had grown with him.
As soon as he was dressed, though, he was greeted by a purple-haired girl a bit shorter than him. Her eyes were closed, but they looked sharp. Her body was voluptuous, her skin was tan and looked delicate. She was rather cute—but she had a stern look on her face.
She pokes Myles."We are leaving, and so you need to leave the room," she says with a surprisingly soft and gentle voice.
Myles responds by heading toward the door, but she holds him back."That will take too long."
She then throws him through the wall.
Myles is now falling from an 800-meter height. Even while falling from the side of what appears to be a cliff riddled with windows, he is strangely calm. He crosses his arms and takes a breath. It turns out the calm is Myles' brain's way of dealing with the predicament.
The purple-haired girl jumps after him and reaches out to both him and the side of the cliff. Suddenly, all the windows disappear, and what appears to be a vial appears in her hand. Myles is pulled toward the lady, and she holds him by the collar. The speed of their fall reduces significantly, and it almost appears as if they are flying.
Now relatively safe, Myles passes out due to mental exhaustion. The recent events were a little too much for him to process all at once.
"What? No—open your eyes, you'll fall!" the purple-haired girl yells at Myles.
Terrene, another one of Lia's sisters, relies only on Criole and thus doesn't share their strength. In spite of this, she boasts an indestructible body and a high affinity for Criole use and control.
It just so happens that Myles has a plethora of Criole, but for some reason, she couldn't touch it unless indirectly—and only while his mind was conscious. To make someone else fly like her, she would either manipulate the Criole inside or around them.
Terrene puts away the vial and goes beneath the falling Myles. Since she can't stop his fall, she would slow and break it. It would hurt—but she is indestructible, after all.
She looks down to the ground beneath them. It's dark. Terrene's eyes are always closed, but she sees more than the average person, demon, angel, or demonkin.
A Criole cluster.
They were usually found in places with low activity by beings. Terrene shrieks. The Criole cluster will do her no harm—but it makes her more sensitive to stimuli.
The sound wakes the unconscious Myles.
He is confused as to how they haven't hit the ground yet. They had been falling for two minutes. He notices the rattled Terrene holding on to him, but she is beneath him.
"Is she... trying to protect me?" he thinks. If she is, it makes him feel bad. He can feel her heart race against his back.
Myles gently releases himself from her embrace and pushes her away.
Terrene watches as he falls. She is speechless.
"Wait—Criole clusters mean... MONSTERS."
Terrene thinks in horror. Powerful monsters were usually attracted by these clusters because they used them to create sub-mons—monsters created by the powerful ones to find food and do their bidding.
Without contemplation, she immediately flies in after him.
It is dark, quiet, and cold.
Myles lies on the floor. Broken. His body is a mess.
.