1 Chapter 1: The City of a Thousand Shadows

Everything I see is flaxen;

Blood and grass a melting wax in

uninviting warmth from my ineffable sin.

And yet, blue, green, and grey

barricade my hopeless only pathway;

"I just want to be a human," I say.

Go away, The Cult who wears plastic masks,

seeming as if there's something they must ask—

an emotional ideogram for a natural task.

"Rejoice!" they all say to me

Be grateful for this find/finality.

God's in his heaven;

the world is pure perfection.

Everything I see

is me.

***

In Reinen, the capital city of Vergessenheit, it was always overcast. Sunlight rarely, if ever, touched the grey pavement. It was a world devoid of ardor; it was bland, boring, and repetitive. Outsiders called this place the City of a Thousand Shadows. It was an intriguing name, despite its nature. The nickname also had a double meaning: the first is that the city was always dim; the second is that the city was crawling with shrouds.

Shrouds were a delicate subject to talk about. Most everyday people tried to avoid this topic as much as possible. Even still, every human sauntered with perpetual suspicion, since any of their friends could be a shroud in secret.

Casting a sidelong glance at the building next to him, Aster walked on a cracked sidewalk while the light rain drizzled on his hood. The two enormous smokestacks above were not producing steam like they usually did.

Aster worked in the Shroud Procurement and Countermeasures Bureau (SPCB) as a shroud hunter. His current objective was to investigate this Shroud Power Plant (SPP).

Ah, yes. SPPs. Long had passed since such a name caused a scandal. The inventor was a scientist who was often called delusional. He never denied these claims. During one interview, he was asked whether or not SPPs were ethical. He replied by saying, "Scientists like me care not for ethics, for we have already sold our soul to progress."

Currently, Aster wore a black hoodie and jeans, and he had a strawberry-flavored lollipop in his mouth. Usually, if a member of the SPCB were to be caught not wearing their uniform while on the job, they would be reprimanded immediately, but Aster was a unique case. The SPCB's president gave him free rein over many of the rules and regulations.

A few moments later, Aster passed by a light post with a poster nailed onto it. The poster depicted a gruff man with silver handcuffs that had a glowing blue design lining the side. The man also had two black horns protruding from his uneven hair. Beneath the image, there was a caption that read: Don't let them eat your kids! Report any and all shroud activity to the SPCB!

"Tch."

Aster shook his head.

[Shrouds don't even eat people.] he thought.

Aster then walked through the SPP's shattered front doors and abruptly stopped, catching himself before stepping onto a mangled corpse's blood-drenched arm. The front entrance was littered with gore.

Before Aster could proceed any further, his phone buzzed; someone was calling him. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen, which read: Yuna - Ops Director.

With a scowl, Aster answered it.

"What do you want, Yuna?"

"What's your status?"

"There's seven dead in the front. This was a coordinated attack, probably organized by Clarent."

"Understood. The other shroud hunters are on their way."

A gut-wrenching scream sounded from around the corner of the hallway up ahead. A leg plopped onto the ground, freshly ripped off. Even more sounds of ripping guts echoed on the walls.

"I've got work to do. Don't interrupt me."

Aster hung up, then went to investigate the leg. Just as he stepped within two meters of the appendage, a sudden bone-breaking punch launched him across the room. He slammed into the reception desk, dazed from the blunt impact. As his blurred vision slowly cleared, he could make out a terrifying creature walking menacingly toward him.

It stood with hunched shoulders, pitch-black fur covering its dark-grey, sinewy skin. Its body was that of an enormous ape, and its head was that of a baboon with two devilish horns.

The creature growled and spoke with a crackly sonorous voice, "Oh ho ho. What do we have here? Another one trying to escape?"

Aster wiped the blood dripping down his chin and smiled slightly. He then removed his hoodie, revealing two small horns with glowing blue veins lining it like cracks of lightning. The ape stepped backward in surprise.

"I wasn't trying to escape," Aster said.

A blazing blue light surrounded Aster, and in an instant, his skin turned pitch-black. A dagger-tipped tail emerged from his lower back, his face became that of a slit-pupiled imp, his hands gained razor-sharp claws, his scimitar horns tripled in size, and even smaller horns emerged around his head, forming a crown. Aster was small in stature, but fear etched the other creature's face.

"Another shroud?" the ape said. "Why are you—"

But Aster lunged before the enemy could finish his sentence. The ape blocked Aster's claws, but the piercing edges still managed to draw blood despite the steel-like fur.

The enemy shroud then went in for a counterattack. Aster dashed to the side before the ape could land a blow, and then slashed the ape's leg with his claws, causing the ape to stumble. Aster then used that opportunity to plunge his hand into the enemy shroud's chest, ripping out his heart. The entire fight lasted less than ten seconds.

The ape collapsed onto the ground, lifeless, his blood smearing on the nearby wall. The heart continued to beat in Aster's hand a few times before it stopped. He then placed it into his mouth and devoured it in one bite. As he chewed, the blood and the fresh muscle sloshed like a rubbery cocktail. As much as he despised the taste, it was something he was ordered to do.

"Ugh. How disgusting."

Aster swallowed the chewed-up heart, trying to keep down his stomach's bile. He had already eaten hundreds of shroud hearts, but he was still not used to it.

Below, the ape gradually shrunk as it dispersed a thin, blueish-black smoke into the surrounding air. The name of the smoke was miasma. After a minute, the ape had returned to its original humanoid form.

The man wore a hoodie and jogging pants. If this was an ordinary day and somebody saw him walking down the street, nobody would have suspected him of being a shroud. The same thing went for Aster. There were few differences between humans and shrouds. One noticeable difference was that shrouds had horns on their heads that they had to periodically file to blend into society. Other minor differences included the fact that shrouds often had dark-blue eyes and extremely pale skin. But the main distinction was that shrouds could transform into monstrous creatures.

When a shroud transforms, their body doesn't actually change. Instead, their miasma coalesces and solidifies around them, forming a sinewy exoskeleton with the main body piloting from the center. This was called the demonic form, and it varies from each different shroud.

Aster continued down the hall, remaining in his demonic form. Voices resounded from up ahead.

"Did you hear that noise?"

"Yeah. It came from out in the hall."

"You think Mark ran into somebody?"

"I dunno. Did you guys check the cameras?"

"Nah. I wasn't paying attention."

"Me neither."

"I guess I'll go check it out."

A lanky man emerged from a doorway on the side. Before the man could react, Aster leaped forward like a bullet, crossing the hall in an instant. He grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him against the wall, instantly snapping his neck. Aster ripped out the man's heart and devoured it. He then burst into the room from which the man came from. Inside, there were three people. Upon entering, Aster instantly decapitated two of the terrorists at the same time with a swift slash from his claws. The last remaining terrorist leaned back against the command console, too frozen by shock and fear to shift into demonic form. Aster dashed toward the man and attached specialized inhibitor handcuffs, preventing him from using miasma, and thereby preventing him from transforming. In a futile attempt to resist, the man tried to press a button on the console, but Aster kicked him to the ground. If Aster had been too slow, the man would have freed all of the shrouds being used in the SPP. Just to make sure nothing happened, Aster checked the surveillance monitors for the miasma extraction room. The screens depicted over a hundred rows of beds with a shroud strapped to each one.

"Who the hell are you?!" the cuffed man yelled. "Why is a shroud killing other shrouds?"

"Shut up," Aster said, glaring at the terrorist. He then sliced off one of the man's fingers, causing him to screech in pain. "One more word out of you, and you're gonna lose more than just that."

Aster walked back to the console.

"Were there only five of you?"

The man nodded.

Aster scanned the rest of the monitors just to make sure. Sure enough, there were no other living bodies in the power plant. Then, motion from one of the exterior cameras caught his eye. SPCB vans were pulling up.

"Hmph. They're always late."

Pulling out his phone, Aster called Yuna. She answered after a few seconds.

"Yes?" Yuna said.

"I've accomplished my task."

"Good. Did you capture any alive?"

"One."

"Understood."

Aster hung up, then sauntered over to the other two dead bodies, and ate their hearts, force-feeding himself. This was the only way to fulfill his goal: by eating the hearts of other shrouds. Aster soon finished and walked out of the room.

"Tastes like shit."

***

"Nathaniel Horton. Male. Thirty-three-years-old. You've been living in Reinen for three years now, but you've been moving from city-to-city in Vergessenheit every couple of years. You're also a member of Clarent, a shroud terrorist organization known for attacking SPPs, communication towers, trade routes, and even civilian buildings."

Yuna sat across Nathaniel in an interrogation room. A one-way mirror allowed Aster to observe from the outside. A few meters to his left stood two guards and one other shroud hunter by the name of Lorred, who had brown hair with the tips dyed green. He wore a perfectly-fitting SPCB uniform that would have exuded professionalism if it wasn't for his obnoxiously-colored hair.

This interrogation room was all deep underground on the third floor of Chaldeus, a high-security prison meant for housing shrouds. Though most shrouds were sent to SPPs to be used as batteries, some shrouds were kept alive in Chaldeus for interrogations, especially if they were vital informants. More often, though, shrouds were simply sent here for experimentation.

"We're not a terrorist organization," Nathaniel said.

On his head, there were two small but noticeable horns. He must not have been shortening them. All shrouds were naturally born with two black horns on their head, and most shrouds would use a filer to help them blend into society. When shrouds shift into demonic form, these horns will grow to an immense size, then shrink back down when they return to humanoid form. The more a shroud uses their miasma to transform, the faster their horns grow.

Unlike most shrouds, Aster refused to file his horns. Because of the inflamed veins as a result of eating shroud hearts, any attempt to reduce their size would result in tremendous pain. Despite Aster's constant fighting, he still avoided pain as much as possible. No matter how much someone experiences it, pain is always painful. Luckily, Aster's horns were naturally small in size, so he could easily conceal them with his hood.

Yuna adjusted her glasses and leaned forward. "Is that so? In that case, what would you call yourselves?"

"Freedom fighters. Knights of Justice."

Yuna let out an emotionless snicker. She had a smile on her face, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. "How cheesy. If you are a so-called Knight of Justice, why would you go around killing civilians?"

"Death is mercy compared to what you humans do to us shrouds. I don't want to kill innocent people, but violence is the only way to get things done. Cecile may be cruel in her ways, but we'll topple Vergessenheit and free all shrouds!"

"Mhmm. Clarent is nothing more than an annoying gnat. But it is annoying, nonetheless. Anyway, you mentioned Cecile earlier. She's the new leader of Clarent, is she not?"

"She is."

"Have you seen her face?"

"No."

"Do you, by any chance, know the location of Clarent's headquarters?"

"Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you anything."

"Hm. Very well."

Yuna picked up her papers and left the interrogation room. After exiting, She walked over to where Aster and the others were standing.

"That's it?" Lorred asked. "You barely questioned him."

"Clarent is an organization that's run in the shadows. Only Cecile or one of her trusted officers would know anything important. It would be a waste of time to question him further."

Yuna then turned to the guards.

"Take Mr. Horton to an SPP."

The guards entered the interrogation room and escorted Nathaniel out. As they passed by, Yuna handed Aster a paper.

"This has everything you need. I want you to go to the specified address and take out his family."

After skimming through the piece of paper, Aster folded it and placed it in his pocket.

"Wait! No!" Nathaniel screamed. He lunged at Yuna, but the guards kept him back. "Leave my family out of this! They didn't do anything!

The guards dragged Nathaniel out of the room before he could say anything else. Aster headed out as well, but Lorred stopped him.

"What do you want?"

"I'm coming with you. We're partners, remember?"

Aster turned and waved his hand back. "Do what you want."

He left the room.

[You're only my partner when it's convenient.]