chapter one: Nicholas

It was a bright afternoon, the sky was blue and the huge, black ominous looking rift in the sky was the same way it had been since it had first appeared ten years ago.

In the abandoned part of Arax city, on a poorly maintained road, a young man in tattered clothes quietly walked down the road. His short black hair swayed sideways as he looked around and his beautiful grey eyes scanned the surroundings. He was moving cautiously, sometimes hiding in the unstable and rundown buildings by the road side or moving from one building to another when he saw people or scary monsters.

After sometime he had reached his destination, it was a long and dark alleyway between two tall but partially collapsed buildings.

"Hope it caught something today, eating those rats is better than nothing," the boy said as he looked around to make sure that he wasn't followed then entered the alley.

The alley was long and filled with debris of the collapsed buildings. It took a few minutes for him to navigate his way through but he made it. At the end of the alley was wall but a large chunk of it was missing as if something had chewed or clawed it's way through and in front of this hole was a metal contraption which had two loose metal jaws that were lined with sharp metal teeth. In that metal jaw was the dead body of a 1 meter long rat like creature, it was covered in red fur that had most parts of it painted black by it's own blood, it had long claws and a long red spiked tail. It's lifeless body was sprawled on the floor with it's head caught in the teeth of the metal trap as it had clamped down the moment the rat was about to pass through.

Walking towards the lifeless creature, Nicholas grunted as he bent down and tried to lift the upper part of the trap but to no avail, he couldn't.

"Seems like you've forgotten how heavy that thing is huh?" A voice came from behind Nicholas.

"No I haven't Micheal, now stop standing over there and give me a hand with this," Nicholas replied to the person behind him without turning his head.

Micheal walked over to Nicholas' side and together they lifted the steel jaw and pulled out the dead creature from under it.

"Phew..."

Nicholas breathed and looked at Micheal whose long blond hair was fluttering as the wind blew past them.

"The wind is picking up again we better hurry and get out of here," Micheal said as he picked up the dead creature slung it over his shoulder and began walking out of the alley.

The duo hadn't gone far when they were suddenly stopped by a group of four people.

"Ahhh, my two favorite people. Didn't expect to find you here. Oh and that's a nice thing you have there, why don't you hand it over and run off," one of them said with a smile. He was 6.3 feet tall with brown skin and short white hair and the grin on his face made Nicholas frown.

"I'm sorry I can't do that," Micheal said with a grim expression.

While still maintaining eye contact with the large man, Micheal used his free hand to push Nicholas behind him while saying in a voice only they could hear.

"Be prepared to run."

"That's some nerve boy," the large man said as he began walking towards them slowly, still smiling.

The moment the large man took his first step, Micheal immediately stomped his feet on the ground and took off running followed by Nicholas. The man and his partners although they were surprised it didn't last long as they immediately gave chase.

Micheal and Nicholas were trying their best to get away from the other group but it seemed impossible even more so as the other group was closing in fast.

"Nicholas What do we do?" Micheal asked as he looked back to see the men holding metallic weapons.

"Give me the beast then move in the opposite direction," Nicholas replied calmly.

"But... but..."

"Do as I say you idiot, we don't have much time they'll catch up any minute."

And so without stopping Micheal threw the beast at Nicholas and then they ran separate ways when they got to a turning point.

While using the collapsing buildings and huge debris as cover Micheal and Nicholas split up.

Nicholas stumbled under the weight of the beast for a bit but continued running, this time he moved to the left.

The large man and his gang seeing this came to a stop as they looked both ways.

"It's cute seeing them run, thinking they can escape," The man said with a smirk then continued;

"You two follow the blonde, you with me."

After giving out orders the group split. Two going after Micheal and the large man with another member were going after Nicholas.

Nicholas continued running, the weight of the beast was slowing him down and making him tired so moved into a partially collapsed building and hid, the inside of the building was pretty much the same as the outside, the roof had holes same with the floors. There were pieces of iron sticking out from the floor, some looked like it had been chewed on, some looked as if it had been torn.

'They'll be here soon I have to be fast.'

Nicholas began patting him self all over until he found the small pouch he had hidden under his clothes. Once he had found it, he took out a small bottle that was filled with black liquid and emptied the liquid into the wound on the creatures neck and smiled sinisterly as he sat on the floor and waited for his pursuers.

It didn't take long for the large man's partner to find Nicholas then alerted his boss.

"There you are, thought you could hide from us eh?" The large man said still, smiling.

"Nope, didn't think I could," Nicholas said as he stood up to look the large man in the eyes.

"Thanks for the gift by the way," the large man said gesturing to the dead creature Nicholas was with while still maintaining the eyes contact.

"Dan go pick it up," the man said to his partner.

"Don't you dare," Nicholas said through gritted teeth.

The large man hearing what Nicholas said squinted his eyes and began walking towards him and only stopping when he was directly in front of Nicholas and looked down at him, the smile on his face had vanished.

The atmosphere was tense, Nicholas had challenged the large man and he didn't like it one bit.

On a normal day Nicholas wouldn't have done something like that because; one, this person was stronger, bigger and more skilled than him. Two, this person had the backing of an entire gang while he was a simple street rat, but now he had done it and he didn't know what gave him the confidence. The staring contest continued until the large man smirked and said, "I'm sure the boss would like to see you."

The man then punched Nicholas in the face making him pass out immediately.