Chapter One: Having Never Seen the Sunlight (I1B0C1)

             Chapter One: Having Never Seen the Sunlight

 

“The storm of screaming souls surrounds every thought and swallows the hollows of this hopeless world. The tempest of the damned roars on even when my eyes are closed.”

            Hatasuko stared at the monster in the sky as flames roared around him. Shouts echoed as helpless people ran through the dusty streets. He stood in the center of the panic as smoke lifted from the rooftops and shrouded the stars.

            He whispered to himself, “It is a symphony of anguished screams—an orchestra of broken souls. A storm that wages on, both when I fight and when I am most alone. I hear every shriek of those lost to this evil, and I can hear nothing else. Their misery is my curse and my fuel; it is a reminder that I am destined to end this evil.”

            Hatasuko glared through the smoky air at the demon floating over the city. Its jagged feet hovered over the burning rooftops. Its body was built from darkness and fueled by shadows. Its massive arms glowed from the reflection of fire. Its golden eyes pierced through the veil of smoke and starlight. A transparent layer of blackness blanketed the sky and shuddered every time the monster moved. Countless evacuees screamed as they ran away, but he stepped forward when the last of them had passed.

            “It is the most detestable being in the universe; it is the monster that cursed me with this symphony of screaming souls. It is the catalyst of agony and the emissary of darkness. Every heart has been scarred by its unacceptable existence. Every inch of this world has been soaked by the blood of its victims. It is the demon of flashing blades and shifting shadows—the nightmare known as the Interfectus.”

            The Interfectus twisted its massive body so that it faced a different street in the heart of the smoldering city. It lifted its arm, its golden eyes glowed for a fraction of a second, and then it unleashed the first weapon of the Interfectus. A diamond-hard blade of shadows shot forth from its body with extraordinary speed. It pierced the smoky air and struck a distant home with enough force to collapse it. And though he could not see through the smoke and the darkness, Hatasuko felt the crushing pain of a human life ending in the wreckage. He felt the tempest scream louder in his head, he saw the black layer in the sky roll like an ocean wave, and he heard the splatter of the monster ripping its blade-arm through a distant victim. Another scream echoed through the sky.

            “I’ve known from the very start that this fight is hopeless. I’ve known all along that resistance is meaningless. They say that a human cannot scratch the surface of an Interfectus, but I have to do this. I have to fight. I must end this madness so that the storm in my mind may finally fall silent. I must end this madness so I can avenge the ones I was too weak to save.”

            Though his body demanded him to turn and run away from the nightmare demon in a full-force sprint, Hatasuko refused. Instead, he sheathed his sword in the holster on his back and then ran toward the monster. His nerves screamed at him to stop running toward certain death, but his heart had defeated his brain long ago. As he ran closer to the Interfectus, he glanced to the side and saw the streets of the world as it was brought to its knees—the hopeless world he was now fighting to save. He saw candlelight pierce the smoky air in the homes behind broken glass. He saw smoke stains on the buildings which were not yet destroyed; he saw bloodstains on the walls of those which were.

            “I used to hate the tempest because I could never rest. Even in my dreams, I am haunted by the anguished voices of those who were lost. I once hated this tragic world, and I hated myself for being too weak to change it. But weakness is temporary. It will pour from me like sweat and blood as I fight on. I will defeat the Interfecti and bring peace to the storm of screaming souls. Their lifeless eyes watch from the shadows and surrender a silent reminder of what I know I have to do. So with my strength as my weapon and their screams as my curse, I will end all agony. I will fight until my last breath so that I can create a world without misery.”

            As Hatasuko charged through a dusty road toward the Interfectus, he heard the yell of a child up ahead. When he scanned the street for the child, he glanced away from the massive demon which basked in the fiery glow. A broken wagon rested on the left side of the street, just a few feet from a smoldering house that had collapsed earlier in the onslaught. The young child was pinned beneath the wagon with his skin stained by smoke and his eyes wide with terror.

Hatasuko ripped his sword from its sheath, charged up to the wagon, and knocked it off the child with a powerful slash. His sword transformed the wooden wagon into shambles; the child scrambled to his feet and then ran away. His leg was bloody and his body looked injured, but the child dashed away from the Interfectus because he had no other choice.

            “READY? FIRE!” a loud voice shouted across the rooftops of the smoldering city.

            The loud crack of a catapult sounded in the distance, and in the very next moment, a boulder flew through the smoke toward the monster. Hatasuko resumed running toward the Interfectus, but it was not because this attack gave him hope. He knew from the moment he heard the catapult that this attack was worthless; he had seen people try the same thing against other Interfecti in the past.

And just before the boulder would have struck the dark body of the demon in the sky, it deployed the second weapon of the Interfectus; it summoned a sudden shield of swirling shadows. The boulder struck the shield, fell motionless, and then plummeted into the streets below. When it crashed onto the ground, a cloud of sparks and cinders flew into the sky. The boulder did no damage only because the people it crushed were already dead.

            “This world is a paradox; I learned when I was young. Men are meant to have morals, but reality only enforces pain. Only the bravest among us dare to fight the Interfectus, but defeat is the only outcome. Those who fight back are punished with death, and then the monster takes a handful of the innocent as the spoils. I’ve seen it too many times.”

            As Hatasuko ran closer to the demon, he crossed onto a street that was covered with ashes. Smoke lifted from the wreckage; cinders scattered the street. The homes and buildings were nothing more than smoldering debris. The continuous northwest wind had already spread the flames. While Hatasuko ran on, his lungs cried for clean air and his legs begged to escape the heat, but he ignored every plea. With a heartbroken grimace, he watched the Interfectus unleash its shadow blade-arm once again. Just as before, he heard a man scream into the sky, and then he heard silence. The Interfectus ripped its arm out of the man who had fired the catapult, and Hatasuko watched as blood and veins fell from the blade of shadows. His goldenrod hair was plastered to his face from a sudden rush of sweat, but he felt a coldness in his heart more powerful than the flames.

            “The brave are punished, so humankind has given up on fighting back. Long ago, when the Interfecti first appeared, we thought it was a blip. We thought these demons would disappear as easily as they came, but evil never erases itself. Everything only gets worse with time unless we do something to stop it. I’d like to say that I will sacrifice everything to save these souls, but the reality is that I had nothing to lose all along,” Hatasuko said, just to give himself the strength to keep running.

            In just seconds, Hatasuko ran beyond the edge of the smoldering buildings. He was now so close to the Interfectus that every nearby building had been flattened. He could see sparks and cinders fly through the gusty air at a high speed, just beneath the monster’s feet. Its dark surface flashed between orange and blue because of the fiery reflections. The heat felt excruciating, but Hatasuko knew that he had reached the perfect place to launch his attack.

Without wasting a moment, he holstered his sword in the sheath on his back. As he heard the crackle of buildings burning and collapsing, he pulled his bow off his strong right arm and clenched it with his left hand. He pulled out an arrow and stuck it to the bowstring by its nock, but he was too slow. The transparent layer of blackness in the sky started churning; the body of the Interfectus glowed. With a deafening crash of noise, the demon unleashed the third weapon of the Interfectus—its scattershot of shadow spheres.

            Several spheres of darkness appeared in front of the massive monster’s chest; these spheres were untouched by the glow of fire beneath them. With a swift movement, the entire cluster of shadow balls shot across the sky. They blasted through the smoky air and into the distance with unbelievable speed. When the scattershot struck the outskirts of the city, where all the helpless citizens tried to flee, every shadow sphere detonated with a blast of blue fire.

Hatasuko felt a score of souls fall silent in reality and then awaken in the tempest; their cries empowered the symphony of screams in his head. He could feel their misery take the form of a tear that rolled down his ash-stained cheek.

            “Please… give me your strength,” Hatasuko whispered as he pulled back his arrow.

            As he stared down the shaft of the arrow, Hatasuko tilted his body and aimed at the golden eye of the Interfectus. He kept his arms flexed so that he could sustain the force of his powerful bow, and once he was ready, he took the shot by releasing the arrow. His shot would have been perfect, but the Interfectus was simply too tall. The northwest wind blew the arrow off course before it reached the monster’s eye. It instead struck the hard surface of the demon’s body and broke without a scratch. Hatasuko winced because this miss was critical. The Interfectus now knew that someone had attacked, and its golden eyes pierced through the smoky air until it found him.

            “I don’t have time for failure. I have to hit its eye!” Hatasuko said as urgency overtook his shaking body.

            Hatasuko quickly pressed the nock of a second arrow on the bowstring. He felt the sweat on his skin evaporate from the extreme heat; sparks swirled through the smoky air as he drew back another arrow. But before he could tilt his bow and take aim, he saw that the Interfectus was ready to fight back. It summoned a cluster of shadow balls, and its eyes glared directly upon him.

Despite his urge to aim for the monster’s eye, Hatasuko chose instead to do the only thing he could to protect himself. He fired his arrow at the same moment that the Interfectus unleashed its scattershot. The arrow struck a sphere, and it detonated immediately; the burst of blue flames engulfed the other spheres and forced a massive explosion in the sky. The air in between Hatasuko and the Interfectus erupted with a bright blue inferno and a deafening roar. A series of fiery shockwaves struck them both, but the flickering flames did not harm the Interfectus. However, the same shockwaves knocked Hatasuko through the ashy street, engulfing him with sparks and smoke.

            Before he could tell where he landed, before he could stop his ears from ringing with the echo of the fiery bursts, Hatasuko rolled around in the ashy street to extinguish every flame. Though his body ached in searing pain, he stared up through a thick cloud of smoke and watched the Interfectus float overhead. It moved toward the citizens who tried helplessly to escape it.

            “I used to believe it’s a miracle that I’ve survived as long as I have, but I stopped believing in miracles somewhere along the line. I used to believe that God was protecting me so I could fulfill my destiny—so that I could free this world from misery. But somewhere along the line, I learned that my survival is no miracle. It is my penance for being too weak to save her. It is the punishment for daring to save the world from this nightmare, and my punishment is to see that nightmare again and again. My punishment is to relive the horror of the Interfectus, and to continuously relive the reality that I cannot save them, no matter how hard I try. I can only pray that it is temporary.”

            As the smoke swirled around him, Hatasuko realized that his sweat had evaporated. While struggling to climb upright, he fought through a rough episode of coughing. The powerful heat nearly singed his skin, so he dashed away from the searing flames. His legs struggled to uphold his weight, but he had no time to falter in any way. Instead, he chased after the Interfectus as quickly as he could. As he ran through the smoldering streets, Hatasuko had to continuously jump over wreckage or veer away from fiery debris, but he kept his eyes focused on the demon. He watched it fly over the city of Bartric at a speed that no human could match. The transparent layer in the sky looked as turbulent as the ocean in a storm, but the light of the stars still pierced the darkness. The starlight even pierced the pluming smoke, though it was overpowered by the glow of the burning city.

            The Interfectus suddenly stopped flying over the smoldering rooftops. Its massive feet crashed down in a street that had already been leveled earlier in the onslaught; a cloud of dust and debris flew up around its legs. A collective shout went up from distant people as they scattered to save themselves from the monster, but their bodies were weak and tired. Hatasuko knew that they had probably accepted their inevitable end. They had probably accepted it long ago. Everyone in the world of Agrideī knew that this threat loomed in the shadows; everyone knew that the darkness could take any one of them at any time.

            When the Interfectus set its feet on the ground, it unleashed a scattershot of shadow spheres. Though he saw this, Hatasuko sprinted through the ashy streets with his bow in his left hand and an arrow in his right. He managed to hook the arrow on the bowstring as he ran through the smoke. He knew that he had to take the shot as quickly as possible, so he crashed into a large wooden wagon just to slow himself down; the impact knocked the wagon onto its side.

With his golden hair glowing from the nearby flames, Hatasuko pulled back his arrow and then shot it into the sky, but he was too slow. The Interfectus had unleashed its scattershot of shadow balls at a crowd, but something miraculous happened first. A projectile struck one of the shadow spheres before it approached the civilians, and then every sphere in the sky exploded with an eruption of blue fire. A sudden flash of azure light illuminated every building. Every wide eye watched the blue flames fade away. Before the light disappeared entirely, Hatasuko saw his arrow hit the roof of a distant building.

            “I don’t know what stopped it, but this is no time to celebrate. The people will be vulnerable now more than ever. In this world of starlight, our eyes are adjusted to the darkness. Light is beautiful, but it is also dangerous. It blinds us to the reality of the darkness, so now they’ll be left to stumble with half-blind eyes in wreckage that they cannot see,” Hatasuko muttered as he forced his tired legs to dash from block to block.

            As Hatasuko ran through the dirt street while glaring at the motionless monster up ahead, he saw something at the corner of the next block. The building at this corner had collapsed earlier in the onslaught. As Hatasuko ran past it, his golden eyes stared into the home and saw splashes of blood stained across the walls and floor. There was a mother on the ground, holding her bloody child in her arms. Both bodies barely looked human in this state. Even in death, he could feel their anguish. Even in death, he could hear their lost screams.

            “They are my curse and also my fuel,” he whispered as he ran.

            A shout of terror echoed through the sky as the Interfectus levitated its feet off the ground. Waves of darkness rolled across the transparent plane in the sky. At the end of the block up ahead, two brothers hid in the street behind a wooden wagon, though their curious eyes watched the demon of flashing blades and shifting shadows. Hatasuko ran past the brothers and hooked another arrow onto his bowstring, but he chose not to shoot it now. If he did, he risked endangering the nearby boys.

            “No, honey, please! Please get up! Get out of the street,” yelled the frantic voice of a woman, just a couple blocks ahead.

            Before he could even see these people, Hatasuko watched the Interfectus unleash its first weapon—the blade-arm of shadows. It shot down faster than an arrow and dismembered the woman in a single strike. Hatasuko felt rage and anguish flood his heart, but the Interfectus did not stop here; it then slashed its blade through the man she called after with a lethal speed. Just before the monster could retract its blade, it was struck by a high-speed arrow that harmlessly bounced off.

The Interfectus turned and glared at Hatasuko with its piercing golden eyes. Though bruises and ashes scattered his body, Hatasuko fired a second arrow straight at the eye of his enemy. This time, he had accounted for the northwest wind and the monster’s height, but the Interfectus blocked with its second weapon; it summoned a shield of swirling shadows.

            “It saw me!” he yelped.

            Hatasuko felt the symphony of screaming souls inside his head fall quiet. Every lost spirit was paralyzed by the tension. A new layer of sweat arose on his skin as he came to understand that he had no way to fight back. He had nowhere to hide. He was at the mercy of the Interfectus.

            “Do whatever it takes to survive. You are the only weapon that humankind has left,” whispered a quiet voice from the heart of the tempest in his head.

            Hatasuko was stunned because he had hardly ever heard coherent words from the voices in the abyss. He had never heard anything but screams. As he stood in the ashes with smoke all around him, he glanced up at the Interfectus with a defiant stare; their golden eyes glared into each other. But as soon as the Interfectus started to glow, a small object flew by his face and startled him from the certainty of his inevitable death.

            “GRAB ON IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!” shouted a nearby voice.

            Without looking for an explanation, Hatasuko grabbed onto the rope-like object in front of his face. It was his only chance for survival. As soon as he grabbed on, he felt a powerful yank in the rope; it pulled his body away just before the blade-arm of shadows struck the ashy ground. Hatasuko was stunned by how close he had come to dying, but then his feet hit the ground, and he crash-landed with a roll. After rolling once through the ashes, he stopped at the feet of the two people who had saved him. He gazed through the ashy air and saw a glimpse of a woman holding a whip—the same whip that had pulled him to safety.

            “Lazaro, look out!” said the woman, though her voice was quiet and shaky.

            The blade of shadows suddenly slashed through the smoky air and accelerated at the woman, but a large man stepped in the way and blocked the attack with a shield. He used it to deflect the high-speed blade, protecting all three of them at the last moment. But as the Interfectus retracted its arm of shadows, Hatasuko stared at his saviors with wide eyes.

            “They say that its shadow blade can pierce anything! How did you manage to deflect it?” Hatasuko asked as he stumbled onto his feet.

            “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know if you can survive this, boy,” answered the large man as he glared at the Interfectus.

            Instead of attacking again, the Interfectus turned and accelerated toward the crowd of frightened runners. Through the glow of fire, Hatasuko saw that the helpless people ran toward the forest south of the city, but they would never make it at this rate. At the same time, the large man and the quiet girl both took off running after the demon.

Still stunned by how close he had come to dying, Hatasuko stood for a moment and watched them run. The taller one was a monster of a man; every muscle in his body flexed with each step. He clenched a shield in his right hand and a warhammer in his left. They both held a whip and a strange-looking sack at their sides, though the woman had two short swords holstered on her back.

            Before they got too far, Hatasuko forced himself into motion. Despite the damage he had taken, he ran through the dusty streets and chased after the two who had saved him. He could tell just by the way they ran that this was not their first encounter with the monster. They were here for the same reason as him; they had come to fight against the Interfectus. They had endured the Interfectus. So with every scream in the tempest fueling his bloody body, Hatasuko chased them through the smoldering blocks. He ran toward the Interfectus just as he had so many times before, but this time for a different purpose.

            “Hey! I never got the chance to thank you. Both of you!” Hatasuko yelled out as he started to catch up.

            Hatasuko had not noticed it before, but as he peered through the dim glow of distant flames, he saw that deep scars scattered the right side of the woman’s body. Her face was blocked by the flapping of her dark hair. She tilted her head slightly toward him, but she continued running toward the monster.

            The large man asked him, “You thought you could fight the Interfectus, didn’t you?”

            But before Hatasuko had the chance to respond, the Interfectus suddenly stopped moving and deployed its third weapon. It created several shadow spheres in front of its body, but Hatasuko was too far away to stop it. The demon was several blocks up ahead. The large man and the scarred woman both stopped running when they saw this, like a silent surrender to the monster’s lethality.

            As their wide eyes all watched with horror, the Interfectus unleashed its scattershot down upon the evacuees who scrambled through the smoky streets. Every sphere erupted with a burst of blue fire, and every explosion claimed the life of another innocent person. Every death unleashed an anguished soul, and every death added to the misery of those still left alive. Hatasuko stopped running at that moment, but it was not because of pain. It was not because of fatigue. It was because the anguish only added to the symphony of sorrow in his head, and the weight became too much for his legs to carry.

            “But you can’t just fight the Interfectus. It’s all for nothing. Wasted effort. There is no winning, and there can be no winning. The Interfectus is undefeatable, and all we can do is try our best to survive,” said the large man as his weapons shimmered from the flicker of fuchsia flames.

            “You can say what you want, but this is my destiny. I am the one who will end the whole concept of tragedy. I am the one meant to crush the Interfecti, as a hopeless bloodstained apology to the souls I couldn’t save. So that I can stop more from joining those souls.”

            “You are naïve, but it’s a nice reminder of something we lost long ago,” muttered the large man, and then he started jogging away.

            “I wish you the best,” said the scarred woman with a weak smile, and then she ran away as well.

            Though the scattershot of shadow spheres had just obliterated a scattered crowd, the two warriors ran toward the smoke and the screams. Hatasuko wanted to join them, but he knew that he would simply get in their way; he understood that he was an amateur compared to them. The large man possessed a shield that could block the blade-arm of the Interfectus—a blade which could supposedly pierce any substance in the world.

            “If nothing else, I can distract the Interfectus. I can draw its fire away from the people,” Hatasuko whispered.

            Without hesitation, Hatasuko hooked an arrow onto his bowstring and then charged toward the shadow demon. As it levitated over smoldering rooftops, the Interfectus started to slowly spin its ugly head. He knew that everyone watched its golden eyes, fearing that the demon would turn its attention toward them.

Even as people ran through the ashy streets toward the forest, they also watched the monster. But before it had the chance to attack, an arrow struck the black surface of its stomach. The Interfectus swerved to face Hatasuko with a swiftness he had not expected.

            A sudden rush of terror surged through his veins when he drew the monster’s eye. Hatasuko was just as defenseless as the ordinary citizens, and therefore he finally obeyed the one command that his brain had given all along. He threw his bow onto the street and then ran away; he used the numbing force of adrenaline to overcome his fatigue. He burst into motion so quickly that the Interfectus missed; its blade of piercing shadows struck the street behind him with a jolt. Hatasuko ran away from the blade at full speed, but when he heard the swish of movement, he threw himself into the ashes with a somersault. By doing this, he narrowly dodged a swift slash of the blade.

            But when Hatasuko rolled to his feet, he glanced at the sky and saw that the Interfectus had summoned a scattershot of shadow spheres. They shot forth from the darkness with terrifying speed, but he had nowhere to hide. He had no way to block it. Hatasuko forced himself to run as quickly as his body allowed, but even this was not enough. A shadow ball struck the building beside him as he sprinted through the street; it detonated with a blue blast of fiery debris. The shockwave of sparks and shrapnel swallowed Hatasuko and slammed him onto the ground; he felt his body skidding to a stop just before he lost consciousness.

But even in the depths of his tortured mind, he could not escape the abyss of lost souls. They screamed together as a choir for freedom from their misery.

(Note: I am re-releasing this book with post-proofreading text and hand-drawn artwork (on Procreate))