Void

Sequel to Unexpected Shadows

The laughing puppet master has fallen, but shattered everything in the process. Picking up the pieces will be no walk in the park; A foe dear to them will reveal themselves soon.

PROLOGUE

Everything was unreal. Like a bath where the water is luke-warm, but still captivates the senses all the same.

The ethereal city loomed outside the streaked glass, the skyscrapers pulling forth the tears of heaven; those above ashamed of what had begun.

A war. A war that four had tried to end. But what they had ended, was only the Prologue.

Welcome. Welcome to... The Void.

---

He sighed, pushing the stringy black hair from his unearthly ametheyst eyes. Twenty-four years in this city and he still didn't feel as though he belonged there. Someone was rambling on and on in the distance, but he could afford to not listen. Recently someone had diagnosed him with some sort of disorder, though he hadn't payed much attention to them.

Tahn Kurai's attention wasn't important to those in the meeting, just his presence was. The meeting ended, and they were released. Realeased into the unfamilliarly familiar paved streets, traffic jams and streetlights. The same roads that people saw other day were not those that Kurai felt he should be seeing. Each time he stepped from that building he felt as though he should fall into the past, where the streets were cobbled and villages cared for their people, not the money that this city coveted.

Unfamiliar faces, Familiar places. They always blended together in his head. People who he described as jewels, citrine, amethyst, sapphire... and sand. It was the sand that always filled his heart with longing, but for what he did not know.

Concentrate Kurai. He reminded himself, willing his mind to see the impersonal expressions that each pedestrian wore. He longed for a time where he could stop and speak to every person on this street, there would be fewer in that time, but they would be real. These false people that he had grown up around were just as fake to him as the illusions he described to them.

Soon he'd quit his dead end job, and more people might appreciate his 'idle fantasies'. Soon, Soon his manuscript would return from his editor. Hopefully the royalties he would collect once it was published would enable him to quit that job of his. If not, he did see a few friendly looking homeless people on the street.

This world was messed up. How he wished he could sink into the world of his dreams, with demons and puppet masters that made no more sense than this one. That world felt like home.

This one didn't.

Citrine and Topaz eyes stared at the board with a unanimous expression of boredom. Taho sighed and Haku dropped an eraser off his desk. This was boring. This city was boring. This world was boring.

Bored beyond belief, Haku reached into his desk and pulled free a worn-looking sketchbook. The drawings within were crude, grade-school quality, yet they were good for their age. The story within was fantasy, entirely fictional to the audience that they had created. Yet, to the twins, there was some semblance of truth hidden within their rough sketches and tired dialogue.

Kato chewed on the end of his glasses, brows furrowed together in frustration as his sandy eyes read and re-read the manuscript he had been presented with. His job as an editor hadn't brought him this close to those he was searching for until today. "The rain hadn't stopped for the past few weeks, and the town was suffering." He read it aloud, making sure it said what he thought. Not just what he wanted it to say.

How long has it been raining in this city? Kato asked himself, removing himself from his desk to pace. Sharp dress shoes clacked in time with the tics of the clock as the brown-haired man muttered to himself. "What am I not getting!?" Kato cried, punching the wall in frustration. "There... There has to be something more!" He sunk to the floor. "Just... What is it?"

"In due time. You will find out. Beware, the dogs of war are vicious."