Chapter Five

The Hunter and the Hunted

The roads were quiet, swiftly leaving the sounds of the myriad sighs of the wind's soft monotone to trail across the infrastructures. Whispers and hissing from the swishing tails and chomping teeth, sneering at the sedan that drove solitarily down the barely lit street.

Within the sedan awaited Ragnar (who'd been driving.), Reuel (tapping his fingers on the seat in the passenger's chair.), Rei (gazing outside the window with somewhat of a zoned demeanor.), Bekah (trying to enlighten Rei how to use guns, but barely able to break her way through Rei's contemplations.), all four whom were armed-or preparing to do so-ready for heading into the hospital to retrieve Xaden, Uri and the others.

Nickoli was notified to watch out of the shelter, while Teji had taken the path ahead of them, gone before they had a chance to take out the sedan. The bended legs of the Galahad beating the atmosphere like a vibrant grasshopper. They didn't get a chance to watch him depart into the night fog, breaking through the dense foliage of the black forest, designated for the city ahead. He'd known his way around Neo Angeles like the back of his head, thus heeding him no prevail.

Even the cold, red gazing eyes from the bushes didn't stop Ragnar. Rei had been turned to the window, watching something, her emerald eyes narrowing intently at something, though nobody was quite sure what just yet. Bekah stared at Rei, vigilantly keeping her under personal surveillance. Not one had any notion as to what was turning in the girl's mind as she stared outside, watching with her mouth slightly agape. They were sure that it couldn't have been something good, that was for sure. There was one thing that was running through her mind as she surveyed the girl, and that was the contemplation of trying to position her in a precise mental category Bekah had of her own.

To Bekah Berlington there were specifically there are three types of quarries that rule over this world. Crossing her arms, she turned to look out the other side of the window as she contemplated over these lists displayed in her head, frequently shifting her gaze towards the girl, studying her as she resumes her thoughts. Prey who fight at their very last whim. Prey that prefer to hold up a chase, and prey that rolled over and allowed themselves to die. More than likely there are more following scenarios, but those were the best that she could currently come up with. Rei had to have fallen into the category of the prey that sought out for their own death, tossing their bodies over and waiting for their hunter to come to deprive them of their lives.

Sooner or later, as Bekah had predicted, Rei would become a prey. She would be hunted down by these beasts that hunted them back as well. But what will she do? Be the beast that rancorously snaps back, a defiant yet proud creature? See through the cowardice eyes of a snake whom scrutinizes these events from a distance? Or will she be the kind of prey to roll over and allows their hunter to prod them until they beg for nonexistence?

That was the main reason for Ragnar wanting her to tag along; So that they could be certain of what kind of hunted Rei is to be. That and to explore the extents of her competence.

Bekah eyed her as she had held up one of their most lightest firearms and the most powerful ammunition it could carry, pulling them from their black duffle bag. She almost gave Rei a pistol until she realized that it may not work as well for a beginning whose out hunting. Raising her eyebrows, Bekah loomed in over to Rei, handing her a hefty handgun as she inquired; "You do know how to use it, right?"

Rei looked at Bekah, adjusting her grip over the weapon with inconvenience. "It shouldn't be all that hard," she said, finally grappling a better hold of it, then flipped the gun by the trigger, and pointed it between Bekah's eyes, which followed the endpoint. "I just pull this trigger, right?"

A slight panic. Ragnar almost even lost control of the sedan. "Don't do-"

"Yeah, that's it," Bekah told her, "only you might want to know that if you aren't careful, you'll be pulled backwards when you fire. The bullet will come out so fast you most likely will lose you balance, so I want to make sure you keep a firm grip of it. Sometimes its best just to hold it with both hands, just for some safe keeping that you have a good hang on. Don't let it drop or else it might accidentally trigger it's own self by impact, and most of all," Bekah took the endpoint, pulling it away from Rei's grip, "don't point it at other people, you'll scare them to death, like what you did with Ragnar."

Ragnar muttered under his breath, his face screwed in a disgruntled manner as he drove on.

The girl looked like she was doing much better handling the weapon now, as Bekah had perceived from the corner of her eye. Maybe she wasn't that much of a hopeless case after all, or that was what she'd begun to think. The most she could get out of that girl was that her unrelenting habit of hiding what emotions she must be having. Surely the girl had some, she just was fairly well as concealing them behind those glassy emerald of eyes. An eerie look she had when they fell upon the world, staring as though she'd never seen it before.

Bekah looked at her curiously, then broke her gaze as they stopped by the parking lot, so that she wouldn't notice.

***

"What your supposed to do is watch my back, Uri!"

"I don't know! You tell me how can I watch your back when you keep running around like a maniac blaming those freaks around?" Uri snapped furiously at Xaden, who she could never have been mad at anymore most likely. Her nostrils were flaring most of the time, which was never a good sign. Sure, he had been putting himself on the line, taking up the space that Uri should be using to attack ahead of him, basically because she was the only one out of them that was in the best condition, but was there anything else for him to do? He refused to just stand aside and let Uri do all the work. Even the canine had done more than he should have.

Uri remained frustrated. "Okay, fine then. If I had known you were going to be like that then I would have left you by yourself and seen if you can find your way out of this place by yourself and see how easy it is," she said breathlessly. Her face was red, quite daunting. However, he couldn't help but lay out a crooked smile on his face, forgetting about the pain that ached through his broken arm. "Sure, I bet you find that really funny, don't you?"

Nook whimpered, stretching his paws and nudging his dry nose at Xaden's good hand, forcing him to stroke the dog's face. Uri watched, almost disgusted. "Maybe," Xaden said.

"Fine then, if you care more about your own ass, then I should have left you back there anyway."

"You don't mean that," Xaden said, not in the form of a question, either. It was a pure statement.

"Like hell I don't," Uri snapped. She turned around and began walking, Nook barked, continuously. It emerged to the point where it'd become finally irritating. Uri even looked like she wanted to slap the dog, until she started to hear some talking coming from down the hall, and she knew who owned those voices.

"I swear, where has that boy gone to?"

"He was frightened. I do believe that he went to the lower levels of the lobby to find his mother, though," the voice dropped, almost to the point where it became inaudible. "...somehow I get a bad feeling about his leave. Something didn't go right...."

There was blood.

"Well, isn't it a small world?" Uri said under her breath as she watched a couple of doctors walk into sight from the corner, dressed in their white overcoats. They seemed like they didn't even notice Uri and Xaden standing there until the woman shouldered Uri by the arm. "Hey people!" Uri called to them, "in case if you didn't know there are still many of those things running around."

The woman doctor spun around. "You think I wouldn't notice? We're trying to find someone and also other people around who might be injured. What about your friend over there, he's okay? His arm looks like it went through Hell and back."

"That's because it has," Xaden said.

"I don't know why your the one complaining, you were the one who started colliding yourself into all of those creatures like a mountain goat," Uri said mockingly to Xaden, not even turning to him as she said this, but allowing the intimidation to sink into his distasteful soul, "only I don't think a mountain goat would behave that stupidly."

"Ouch, that hurts," Xaden said in a drawled undertone.

Nook whimpered, limped backwards towards the wall, nursing his bloodied paws.

***

The room was dark, only with the dimmed lights of the computer monitors which shinned the way around the room; With the atmosphere being this dark, it had been just the way Kenjiro enjoyed it. He never liked being in the light, so that he could be seen by his co-workers. They feared him, of course. But they had a reason to do so. And he knew the girl was awake, and when her presence was asserted, then she will be feared by all who recognized her face just the same. Now all he needed was for her to come to him, and she'll do so when he wants her too.

"Those Henkeis better get the job done," he told Terry Merikuto, one of the workers who monitored the cameras bugged all over the exterior of the city. They tried to keep that secret confidential that they has access to just about every camera there is in Los Angeles, knowing that things wouldn't turn out so well if someone found them.

"Trust me," Merikuto said, "we'll get the girl, she can't run fast anyway. She's been asleep for eighteen years; Her muscles must be too sore for her to move. That is, unless if she has help of any sort."

"Then we're at am impasse. They haven't found her yet," Kenjiro said, irate.

Merikuto waved a hand inertly. "I know, they should have found her by now, but unless if you want to bust on in there and cause a ruckus, then we have to other choice but to stay here and watch what's going on from this view. Don't worry, the Henkeis were meant to kill everything that they see other than the girl. They know that."

Kenjiro shook his head. "You better be right. Make sure that she doesn't have any help, either."

He turned around, looking away from the computer screen. "What are you suggesting?"

"What I mean is that if Rei has any help from anyone, kill them."

"Yes, sir," Merikuto said, turning back to the computer screen, the monitor flickered as the entryway door in the hospital lobby had opened, and a party of four individuals walked inside the hospital parameters. From what the doctor hadn't seen, was the worker's grin, as he pressed the red switch that was located under the word "Nezame."

***

While everyone else had gone forth, all armed with firearm hanging at their shoulders and waist, Rei had managed to stay behind at the entrance of the hospital foyer, staring up. For a while she appeared to have been confused, gazing at something with the utmost intent gaze in her eyes, but the confusion then faded, and when Bekah turned to her, she almost feared that she wasn't even human.

"An eye," Rei said, almost in a whisper. "Someone watches."

"There's always someone watching. You can never escape the glass eye of the higher guards. Everywhere you go, there will always be a glass eye surveying your every move, waiting almost impatiently for a suspicious disposition to be exposed behind the walls of a monitor," Reuel said morosely, staring up at the shifting camera from above. The edge of his dark lips twitched. "I'm surprised they still work, what with the power outage."

Tossing a rifle over his shoulder, Ragnar smirked, tossing his head in a way that shifted his bangs to reveal a long scar running down the left side of his face, across his eye. That one eye was slightly clouded than the other, indicating that it had to have been lesser than normal sight, but he could still see out of it. Rei stared at that eye, before turning back to the gaping camera.

Suddenly, there was a click in Rei's head, something that she alone could hear, and the buzzing ensued afterwards. When Bekah turned to reach for her to ask about something, the girl recoiled, smacking the woman's hand away from her reach, stumbling further back so that she was pressed against the access door behind her. Her hands gripped the sides of her head, tearing into her skull with tightly clenched fingers digging through her hair.

Henkeis, said a sullen voice in her head, allowing it so that only Rei could hear it. Creatures that have been affected by the Okami cells who does not possess the Okami glands. Most of the time they'll turn rabid and against what they used to valued most beforehand, to cause total destruction towards nothing else but themselves and those around them. It's happened before, and it's all your fault. But don't worry about it, Rei....

"Look, we can't waste our time on this. We have hunting to do and-" Ragnar muttered, turning around to face her, his cynical expression had faded when he'd noticed Rei's face screwed in pain, twitching and then diminished after a while, the placid form of the young woman had retrieved control from the pain once more and gave him a lethargic glare.

"They're called Henkei," Rei muttered.

"Yes, we know," Bekah said with a nod, looking at Rei as though fearing for her sanity. "Nobody's called them that so straightforwardly in years though. The name altogether means metamorphosis in-"

"Japanese," Rei finished.

The once biddable expression Reuel had had swiftly vanished as he turned around, looking at the oblivious girl with pity. So many years she'd lost, not knowing of her surroundings. So ignorant to the realities of the world. So desperate she was to try and get away from them, and yet unable to pry herself away so that she may turn to face to outer world in which she feared-this in which Uri had sensed as well-she wasn't ready for.

Gravely, Reuel said, "A scientist after the Chicago incident had named them that, claiming them to have been a part of an experiment gone wrong. They were an accident, and that the creatures should never had gone through the state of metamorphosis in the first place. It was an accident; All of it."

"To the loss shall we pray and weep," Bekah said, lowering her head and backing away from Rei, almost trying to force out a laugh but managed to suppress herself to reform it into a small chuckle. "Sorry, I don't think it is right of us to dwell on such depressing matters."

Rei's eyes narrowed, though they were not in a sneering matter, for she gave the world such a vacant stare, uncomprehending; Rising a wall to reveal nothing but a little girl with a ragged doll in her grasp, looking up into the eyes of giants to inquire directions on how to get home. For some reason Bekah believed that she could be at the presence of an exploited person with their malevolence written on them all over, and yet she would still look them in the eye; With her doll in hand, she would return the gaze and ask for a way home. But home was far away, home never existed. Her lids closed.

Taking off somewhat to the stairway, Reuel looked up, squinting but say nothing but darkness leading upward. An eerie buzz rang through the air. "The place is dead," he said sincerely. "With two kids, Uri whose barely armed, and a Xaden who can barely use his arm to boot," he sighed. "How can we be entirely sure that they're even here anymore?"

There was a long moment of silence, seemingly enough to hear out the surroundings. Nothing but the sound of tapping from the upper levels. No screaming, no clicking of keyboards at the front desk, no murmurs of citizens of frightened cries of children and residential. Everything was so quiet, with the simple sound of the winds whispering from behind the red tainted glass windows and doors.

"They're here...." Rei finally said, opening her eyes to look at Reuel. "...and alive. Trust me."

Reuel quirked a bushy brow, figuring she was indicating those that he'd previously been speaking of. And yet even then he gave her a disbelieving as well as his raising tone of mockery. "Trust you? And why's that?"

"Because," Rei said shortly. "You have no other choice."

"Now tell me why that is?"

She cocked her head to the side. Why was Reuel being so stubborn? They didn't have a choice because she felt that the voices that seemingly called and rang through her mind had been that of the creatures they called the Henkeis. Whatever it was that she felt, it wasn't anything human. However, she wasn't so sure if there was any way to explain it to them. Then again, perhaps she should have just kept her mouth shut to begin with. "You want to live?"

That hit Reuel. His was taken aback, provoked. He opened his mouth to lash out at her, when Ragnar decided to cut in. "Please, we shouldn't be like this," he said, then pointed to Rei. "You especially, newbie. Watch where you keep your mouth, we don't want any internal quarrels just yet."

"We should split up," Bekah suggested. "There are three ways. I'd have to say an even team, though that means we will be leaving one pathway open. I'll leave with Rei. Ragnar should go with Reuel, just so that he doesn't end up running off into affray and forgets his age," she smirked over at him as she waved tauntingly to Reuel.

"Why do I feel offended?" Reuel asked himself with a sigh.

Ragnar's permanent grin grew; throwing one of their customer assault rifle Fia had dubbed the Highlander over his shoulder, turning away but kept his gaze on Bekah. "With this baby I can conquer anything, so don't worry about me. I've got back up, just in case, anyway," he jerked his head towards Reuel.

"Ah, okay," Bekah said with a nod, then nudged Rei, gesturing to the stairs "We're heading upwards."

"Fine then, we'll go for the bottom floor," Ragnar proclaimed. "Good luck. If you meet any of the others, don't let them go. We should meet back here in a hour or two, in case if anything happens...scream." He smirked. "Always wanted to say that."

Bekah barked out a laugh. Scream? Ragnar must have ran out of things to say, or he just didn't really know what to do in case if something really did happen. Oh well, can't blame the man for trying.

The four of them set off, Rei and Bekah wandered up the stairs, while Ragnar and Reuel went off to investigate the lower levels first, failing to hear the faint sound of shadowed foes pattering their feet across the background of the lobby.

***

By the time Fia had aided Teji back onto his feet, the three (this consisted of himself, Taj, and Fia.) had decided that the Galahad was of no longer any use for them as of the moment, seeing that it had become almost completely immobile since Teji had been in the previous fight with the Henkei. They had begun to set out and head towards the car to wait for Uri and Xaden when something didn't seem right.

A clamber from the distance. Taj turned first, prior to the other two.

"What was that sound?" Fia wondered aloud, furrowing her thin brows while squinting through the unlit ashen hallways. There was a tapping that they could now hear, the sound of bones scrapping the floor and the sole of a shoe shrilling against the tiles.

Teji adjusted his sunglasses, peering through them to see deeper into the darkness. He pulled up his hand and tapped the edges of his earpiece to pull up heat vision screen on the lenses so that he could see what was before them through the obscurity. His expression that was shared with Fia had taken its own form when he saw the sight of blood dripping onto the floor, and a disemboweled body within the jaws of a catlike creature, its muscle tissue gushing out from between the upper levels of flesh to show that it had obviously grown out of its default skin. However, it appeared to have been like that for a long time; No blood.

Ears twitching, the cat dropped it's mouth, releasing the guillotined body wearing a white overcoat from its teeth. Green eyes peered through the darkness, crouching forward and started to sneak up to them, hunching the legs in a way that made it appear like it was about to make a lunge towards the three of them while they remained "blind" to the gloom.

Holding his hand out, Teji pushed Taj further back, shoving him into Fia. "Get out of here," he snapped to the two of them. "Get Taj out of here as fast as you can. They're-"

A hiss followed the screech. The silhouette of a feline figure sprung from the darkness, teeth outward and ready to sink into Teji, but he was quick enough to foresee it's attack, stumbling backwards with his arm out. The cat sunk it's teeth deep into the bone in his arm, the tooth gritting passed it and clasping around him, tearing passed the leather covering.

Wanting to scream yet fighting the urge to do so, Teji jerked himself back, trying to free himself from its hold, but it refused to let him go.

Fia took out her own weapon, but bemused over what she should do with it. Should she fire, she would risk the chance of hitting Teji, if she vacillated, she would end up losing altogether. What was worse was that she recalled never being really good with the shot in the first place, just a few episodes of target practice was proof enough of that. In fact, she had such poor eyes Bekah had bickered and told Fia never to pick up a gun again, for the sake of her own life, rather than just those around her.

The firearm in her seize quivered, prepared to release the multiple bullets, until something rushed up from the surface below their feet. Fia made a quickened movement to shove Taj from danger, and the ground beneath Teji and Fia collapsed.

***

Ragnar heaved the rifle over his shoulder, glancing over at Reuel as the two of them had sauntered down the hallway, glancing from side to side to make sure that there was nothing to be wary of. Still, nothing could be seen from left or right. No sound of snarling beasts or the clatter of a burly body slamming into the wall as a Henkei staggered down the corridor.

Not even Reuel, the one man who had the best hearing than anybody else Ragnar had ever known, had yet to discover the sound of any prior statements. Not until he heard something coming from the above.

Too heavy of steps for it to have been the Galahad, yet too light for it to have been a human. It had been Reuel's keen ears that had heard them, after Ragnar had been halted by the older man's arm, looking upward. Ragnar had full respect into the Reuel's intuition, especially when it had come down to hunting, seeing as he'd been doing such sorts for much longer than himself.

Now that he'd been caught onto the thought, Ragnar did recall that Reuel had had a family by the time he was twenty, but lost them during the aftermath of what happened in Chicago. While they were living there, Reuel had moved to work for the New York times, sending money back to his wife and son all the while. Months passed as he'd been working to gain more money to support his family, had the city been completely destroyed, following the last battle that ended the war, but the devastation of the City of Tears brought back a horrible aftermath. Most cities had been attacked, but none of them had ever been completely demolished before.

The sort of thing hadn't happened to Ragnar, unlike most of the others that worked for E.R.O.S., but Reuel always had everyone's sympathies, even though he asked for it to be taken back, nobody really paid any heed to his words.

How his eyesight had gotten so perceptive over the ears, instead of growing weaker, nobody had figured out. Reuel had obtained the ability to acute his senses as the years passed, his eyes and ears worked the best, perhaps better than anybody else of the group. It had been because of his ears that he'd heard the sound of the tapping talons smacking the floor from above.

Looking to Ragnar, he nodded, eyes narrowed, sincere as always. Ragnar complied, bringing up the launcher he held at his side throughout most of their meandering, looking up from where he saw Reuel situate his finger towards. He loaded the launcher, and fired. Quickly taking many steps back, allowing the large piles of debris as well as three staggering figures tumble down from the ceiling. The hallway was filled with an indistinctive thick smoke.

A familiar voice.

"What the hell was that for, dumbass?!" It was Teji's voice.

Ragnar looked up, just now realizing that he'd been knocked down to the ground due to the crushing blast that'd hit him from above, Reuel just getting up from beside him, rubbing the back of his head and groaned in pain. "Tej? You there?"

"Yeah! No thanks to you," Teji snapped, in his grasp was the LongShot, somewhat of a shortened rifle that Bekah had customized. Not exactly strong, but enough to stun its enemies. It was more of a tranquilizer rather than an actual killing weapon. He had taken in some difficulty in standing up, but after a few moments he managed to now hold up the LongShot and aiming it at Ragnar now with a furious glare. "Get up, Ragnar. Don't make me use this thing on you, because will."

Ragnar was now able to sustain his swaying balance now, crouching over the heap of rubble that was left of the ceiling. There was a piece of black metal sticking out of the heap, and when Ragnar pulled it out, that's all it was. The explosive rifle that he'd used against the ceiling was destroyed, as he saw more pieces here and there of the weapon.

Teji frowned. "That wasn't the Highlander, was it?"

"Yeah," he said shortly.

"Hey! That was mine!" Fia's voice came from the parting smoke, skipping over the countless piles of rubble and making her way over to the three men, then snagged the metal from Ragnar's hand and looked down on it with a disappointed expression. "You killed it!"

Ragnar forced out a smile. "Or on the other case, the floor too," he would have laughed if it weren't for the articulation Fia held on her face. He scratched the back of his head with an apologetic toothy smirk, trying to look as contrite as he could. "Sorry."

"Sorry won't cut it. I've had that thing planned for months, and during its plan had it managed to take a lot of money out of Xaden in buying the metalwork, as well," Fia agitatedly snapped. She sighed, trying to keep herself as calm as she is usually always seen, though by the red coloration in her face, it was easy to tell that she was bad at doing so.

It had been obvious to everyone that Fia had never had much of a reason to be happy exactly all the time. As a matter in fact, they've all seen her evils. She frequently tends to get flustered over the smallest matters, and it wasn't quite understood why. If it was something that belonged to Fia and her personal belongings, namely a gun, then she always took her outcome reaction individually with every attempt.

Fia continued with an exasperated sigh. "Well, I guess we're all stuck together for now. Hey Taj," she looked up, "come down here, we're startin' from scratch again."

She called, but there was no reply.

"Taj?"

Nothing.

"I'm going up," Teji said, and before anybody could made a word, Teji had quickly taken one of the pipes that stuck from the edges of the whole, swaying just a bit as he kicked his feet over the wall until he allowed himself to stylishly climb over without difficulty. By the time anybody could tell him anything else, Teji had vanished.

"Should we go after him?"

Fia shrugged. "How? You know what Teji can do, he won't be needing our help. Come on, we have to get out of here, maybe we can go to the Humvee and see if there are anything else we can use," she looked down at what was left of the Highlander, a single stick. Fia looked like she was going to cry. "A whole three months of designing and putting together goes down the crapper. All because of one screw-up."

"That's cold."

Fia glared. She was in no mood to take any kind of biff from Ragnar.

***

There was no way Teji was going to let his little brother wander the hospital by himself. The last thing he wanted to have happened was to see Taj get hurt, or worse. He'll have to fight anything that gets in his way. He'll even kill if he has to. It's not like it wasn't anything new. Sure, he's killed before, and even more than those monsters.

Knowing Taj, however, he must have wandered off because he wanted to hunt. Or maybe he was captured? Now that was a stupid thought. What would anyone want with Taj? No, there was no particular reason that he was able to think of. Teji tried to shake those thoughts out of his head. He didn't want to think of Taj as dead either, or that anything bad has happened to him.

Walk on don't let it distract you.

Taj must have just wandered off at some point. He was such an idiot, he always acted like a child. Sure, Teji would act like that at times, but it wasn't like he ever thought of these things as a game. He sighed, keeping his eye out for the kid.

His quickened walk had turned into a full sprinting down the blood-stained hallway. Taj ran because Teji fell, he just remembered! Taj ran probably to go find help, he didn't know if they were being attacked. Great, just another reason to have to find him faster. There was no way in hell Teji was going to let Taj be dead. Not if he could help it. Seemingly it had all brought him back down to the days where he had first been burdened with the thought that he needed to take care of him. Teji didn't want it, but he was obligated to do so with the loss of their father and their mother's lack of decent employment.

Taj won't die I refuse to see him die Lord forgive me if he does please don't take him.

Lord please don't take him away from me just like dad.

***

Ticking sounds. A sound that Rei had failed to pay heed to. It meant nothing to her, not of the moment. It followed her and irritated her ears as she walked beside Bekah down the blackened hallway, so obscure that she could merely see the outline of the other woman from the frequent flashes of dimming lights from the outer barriers from the windows. Even from what little light they'd obtained, the burning sensation of glaring eyes gazing at her from her spine was something unavoidable for Rei. Apparently Bekah hadn't realized it, so maybe it wasn't much to worry about?

Bekah had asked her some questions. Like how old she was, Rei told her. Approximately she should be about twenty-five or six, or that was what she'd estimated. Her questions ensued onto different levels, of course. She'd asked her more about her family, and Rei resumed the same answer as she'd told the nurse and Uri at the hospital. Honestly, Rei didn't know if they were alive or dead, just a strong twist in her stomach, the light headedness in her mind that made her feel so dizzy that she felt herself on the verge of passing out when the need to remember was brought upon her. After a while, Rei decided that it just wasn't worth the effort anymore.

"Do you know the causes?" she asked after the long, awkward moment of silence.

"Huh?" Rei turned to Bekah, blinking vacantly. "Cause of what?"

"Of your comatose," Bekah smiled, looking at her as though she'd expected Rei to know simply, like it were obvious as to what she'd been talking about. "You obviously couldn't have been in a coma for a while and not have been told at least."

Still blinking, Rei sighed and shook her head. "They didn't say."

As though outraged, Bekah leaned over to her, like she was inspecting to find a hint of truth upon Rei's demeanor. Yet it seemed as though it'd come down to the point where she had given up, not even an indication of emotion was reveled from Rei Emiko. Shrugging, Rei managed to keep the same expression, a cold mask. It felt like she didn't even have any emotions anymore, that they were dried up a long time ago. However, she'd been telling the truth nonetheless, seeing that the nurse had no knowledge as to what'd been happening to Rei over the passing years that Rei'd remained unconscious.

"No records in the databases? Didn't they have some sort of surname on your identification that was matched up to a living family? Close relatives or anything?" Bekah continued, not exactly getting the notion that Rei had no distinct idea.

"All Uri did was sign some release papers," Rei said, almost sounding irked. "That's all I know. They didn't even think about matching the records up to someone else. I don't know why...perhaps it just didn't occur to the nurse who released me. All I cared about was getting out of there. This place was noisy. But its not noisy anymore."

Rei halted.

Bekah stopped as well, taking a few steps ahead before stopping as well, turning to the concerning Rei who was looking around; Left, right, down, up.... Yet she couldn't quite figure out what she was searching for. Her eyes narrowed, watching her for a moment, wondering what Rei was searching for.

"Someone's watching again."

"I doubt it," Bekah said reassuringly. "There shouldn't be any cameras located in these hallway sections. If I'm not mistaken, this is the staff sector, and they don't use security around these areas."

"No...." Rei shook her head. "No, its different. Like eyes," she turned around, her face turning to Bekah. "Eyes burning into the flesh, tearing through the skin like hot beams," she closed her eyes. "I can smell the stench of rotting tissue. There is a corpse not too far from here.... Human blood. Many of it. People have died here."

Bekah's mouth opened, aghast. She'd smelt nothing, felt nothing, whether alone heard or seen anything. What was with this girl, anyway, that she'd been able to percept these before herself? "Maybe we should keep going-"

Once more had Rei shaken her head in withdrawal of Bekah's conception. "We will only find the dead that way. The sight will be unbearable," her eyes shifted and then narrowed, squinting through the darkness, still searching. "Something will come soon. There is the metallic sound from afar, just down there."

And with that, a bare of lustrous, almond shapes glistened through the shadows, staring at the girl whom been gazing right back at it. The shimmering reflection of white teeth flickered on and off as the lights from the windows had flashed from across it, lines from the shuttered windows fragmenting its appearance, rough, unkempt fur jabbing from the flesh, wrinkled flesh rolling over skin to form bumpy muscle tissue, making up the exact form of a wolf kin, inching its way through the hallways silently.

Rei saw it, and stared it directly into its orange eyes, not receding, but not exactly advancing towards an attack, even with the handgun that was given to her held tightly in her grasp now. For some means, she felt like there had been no use of it. Bekah had seen it, and panicked. She wasn't hesitant to take Rei by the shoulder and began to pull her back, further towards the gloom, away from the creeping shadow dweller.

"Blood Wolves," Bekah told Rei to her ear, pulling her close beside her so that if the wolf decided to retaliate, then it would assault Bekah first. "One of the higher classes of the Henkei. Best to stay away from while we have belittled weapons right now. They're ears are keen, though their sight is poorer than their hearing.

Nodding, Rei took in the information, she opened her mouth to speak of something, before she felt a large mass of weight sink down onto her, pushing her down onto the ground. Large feet dug into her spine, sunk in until she was winded and could no longer be able to breathe.

"Shit!" was Bekah's first reaction, spinning around to face Rei, facing the massive beast dominating its superiority over Rei enough by now. It left her on the ground, her body stuck there like a rag doll.

Twisted scorpion tails, deep black eyes, large front paws but tiny hind legs, their ribs stuck out of their chest, and most of all, it was the way they walked, the way the leaped and the way they fought. They could kill just about anything with the nine-inch claws they possessed, habitually dug through the skin of their prey, ripping them apart with their large teeth and remained torturing them with their hind legs, kicking them repeatedly with their back claws.

Only for some reason, this time was different: the Red Blood Wolf didn't try to kill Rei, but instead took her by the shoulder, digging it's teeth straight into her, who clenched her teeth in pain but didn't scream. Rei whined (In which Bekah couldn't really blame her. That looked way too excruciating for her way of liking just by merely watching it.) feebly as the teeth sunk into the leather coat Fia had given to her, though it had been because of that jacket that made the result of the pain somewhat less than what it would have been.

As though it had been completely oblivious to Bekah's presence, seeing that it allowed the single shot to be fired through the air and having it sink into its skull. In the aftereffect, had caused it to jerk and fly backwards, releasing Rei from its deadly claws.

With difficulty, Rei had rolled over onto her side, staggering to get back onto her feet with the help of Bekah, who had taken her by the wrist and aided the girl upright. Rei whimpered, trembling while clasping her fist over the bleeding wound over her shoulder, looking over at it in horror. She didn't seem to know whether or not to scream or what, seeing the horrific gaze in her eyes that led Bekah to believe that she would like nothing more than to turn and run while tearing out her hair.

"It...."

Pain.

Bekah nodded, then took her arm and pulled her back, further from the stunned body and pulled Rei violently into the darkness of the hallway. The Blood Wolves would sense their kin's blood and know of his death, and with that, they will seek to avenge their demise.

She wished she hadn't thought that either, because right then she heard the clicking sound of the talons from the Cold Blood Hounds. Bekah took a step back, pulling Rei further into the darkness of the hallway, trying to be as quiet as she could possible. They're faces soon manifested within the obscure embrace, pulling them both in so that they could not be seen.

There were four, this was seen as the Cold Blood Hounds rushed in, smelling the dead meat from the ground. They exchanged looks and then back down to the bloodied mess on the ground, smelling it and then they gnawed on the flesh, digging their teeth into it until there was the faint sound of crunching bones. Bekah felt like she was going to be ill, while Rei felt a sickening twist in her gut. She wanted to find a place to vomit, should she had not received the need to be as stealth as Bekah had wanted her to be. She had sensed Rei's fear and put a hand over her shoulder, trying to put her at ease so that Rei could keep silence for just a little while longer at the vile sight of cannibalism.

"Disgusting wrenches...." said a dismayed voice from afar, down the hallway. A gun now cocked from the corner, Bekah squinted her eyes to get a better look but could not entirely see who was standing at the end of the vestibule. "Of all the kinds of things that had to taint this already nauseating planet, it had to have been consisted of such appalling beasts such as yourselves."

All four of the Cold Blood Hounds backed away from their freshened meat, baring their teethes at the silhouette of the young man standing in the glooms.

"We already have burden ourselves with enough. Why do you persist to prolong demise? What have we ever done to your kind that has been so dire to make you thirst for human blood? What?" He stepped from the shadows, revealing his stoic demeanor. "No, it doesn't matter."

The anonymous gunner had been the one person whom Bekah had least expected it to have been, even though she'd known the voice, she refused to believe it mentally. She just too ignorant to the possibilities to believe it.