20 Run, Run, Run

The children directed their gaze towards the strange tall man in the room. Within their eyes laid the shadow of fear, confusion and loss. Who was this man and why were they here?

"Kasko?" Jari said in a small voice. "Ma… Pa..." Why was he here without his family? This room, he had never been here before. So why exactly was he here?

"There is no one else here. This is your new home, child." Ayoro's voice was harsh and full of malice. He had prepared some nice beds for them, and he would be feeding them for a while. Why were they being ungrateful?

Jari's eyes turned watery and the silent sobs got louder and louder until he was hysterical.

Savyrran, who was sitting behind Jari, put her small but firm hands on the boy's shoulder. Jari turned to look at who was trying to comfort him. The depressive look on his face suddenly transformed to relief, like winter turned to spring. "Saby." His cries softened upon seeing a familiar face in the room, however, his face was still puffy from crying so much.

Savyrran smiled sweetly at the child, gently telling him not to worry and that everything was going to be fine. "See, Oban is here. Everything is alright." She coaxed. Jari was not as articulate as the others due to his extremely young age. Thus, he called Savyrran, Saby and Ovandarrak, Oban. The two had however grown accustomed to these names.

Ayoro watched with disinterest as one of the children comforted another. They could cry as much as they wanted, there was nowhere to go and no one to save them. This was where they would be living until they manifested their essence. For the older ones, that would take a few months, weeks or even days. For the youngest among them, this could take another three years. They are going to be here all that while, and once their essence manifested, he would have to harvest within the next three days for himself.

His last supply was almost used up, therefore this new batch of children was very important to him. There was no doubt that with them, he would be able to reach the green essence soon.

"This is your new room. There are enough beds for all of you. You will have two meals a day, and if you misbehave or throw tantrums, you will sleep on an empty stomach. And…"

"What do you want with us?" Savyrran sharply interrupted the man. Her usually cheerful face had become unusually cold. It was not hard to miss the fury in her eyes.

Ayoro frowned upon being interrupted by an insolent little boy. "Do you have no manners? Weren't you taught to never talk back when an adult is speaking? One more word from you and you will not eat for two days."

"What do you want with us?" Savyrran repeated her question. As much as a huge storm of rage was brewing in her, she tried to keep her voice calm. It was like she was unfazed by the man's threat. Not eat for two days? Pathetic. She scoffed within herself. She did not even plan on staying here for another day. "We have nothing to offer you. Unless you plan on eating us. Do you eat children? If you do, you have to understand that we are not tasty."

"Shut up, boy."

"Leave my sister alone." Ovandarrak butted in. Ovandarrak tried to sound confident however, his voice came out a lot shakier than he had wanted. He was shivering with fear from everything happening. Still, he was not going to sit back and watch someone bully his sister. Well, there was never a time he had had to stand up for her since Savyrran could handle herself. However, today, this was different. These people who had kidnapped them looked dangerous. They were nothing like those children Savyrran could easily defeat back at home.

Even if they had only orange or red essence, they also had soul armos. Savyrran may be strong enough to defeat older children with red and orange essence but at the end of the day, she had never fought anyone with a soul armos except their father. He believed in his sister's strength, but at the same time too he believed things could go horribly wrong. When Savyrran trained with their father, the latter was not trying to kill her. But a single look in this man's cruel eyes told Ovandarrak that this man would not hesitate to kill his sister if she tried anything.

The only reason he had followed Savyrran here was because he knew that talking her out of it while everyone was in danger was a waste of time. Savyrran would not listen to reason where her family or friends were involved. And since Ovandarrak would not let her twin sister face danger by herself, he decided to come with her.

"Is Coast Town full of disrespectful children? I should teach you." With that he stormed towards the children with a darkened face. Then he grabbed the two siblings roughly by their arms.

"No." Jari cried out. His tears were back like a torrent of rain, outpouring over his small chubby face.

"Savyrran… Ovandarrak…" Markka shouted after them. She had been too shocked with fear at first that she could not say anything. But once she saw that bad man dragging her friends, she instantly found her voice again. "Please, let them go."

While Savyrran did not resist, Ovandarrak tried everything he could to wriggle out of the man's strong grasp. But the man was too strong. The sight was like a lamb fighting against a bear. "Let me go." Ovandarrak was fuming. But he felt himself too weak against the strong towering man.

Ayoro ignored the child's useless resistance and dragged them towards the door. He had to set an example to teach those children to behave. Clearly, they did not want nice beds and that could be arranged. Luckily for them, he needed them alive to extract their essence. But once he was done, he would specially toss these two over to Manamo. Even though Manamo preferred the taste of other soul armos rather then flesh, it would still love to tear these children apart from limb to limb.

When they got to the door, Ayoro pushed the children aside so roughly that Ovandarrak lost his balance. But Savyrran caught him just in time before he could crash into the cold hard wall. Ayoro warned the two to stay still while he opened the door.

Savyrran took Ovandarrak's hand and squeezed it gently. Then she smiled at him. A smile Ovandarrak knew all too well as a comforting smile. A smile which was assuring him that everything was going to be okay. But as the man was pushing the door widely open, that assuring, comforting smile slowly turned into a wide grin. A grin Ovandarrak knew all too well as mischief. A smile which was assuring him that she was up to something. Ovandarrak watched as his sister's gaze was directed to the rest of the children frozen in fright. Then her gaze came back to Ovandarrak, then went to the door, and then came back to him again. The grin widened, her shiny black eyes twinkling with merry.

Ovandarrak's mind began to race quickly. Her sister was telling him something.

"Now let's go." The furious voice of the man broke their silent communication. Savyrran subtly nodded to Ovandarrak before following the man.

"Hurry up." Ayoro snarled. He did not have time to waste on a bunch of brats. But before he could say another word, he felt himself been pushed from behind by a great force. Because he had not seen it coming, he did not have the time to stop the momentum and so his body slammed face-first into a wall, right outside the room.

Ayoro's legendary temper rose to unprecedented levels. Who had dared to put their hands on him? Had some unwanted guest somehow appeared out of nowhere in his castle?

"Run, run, run." That small voice he had grown to despise in such a short time echoed in Ayoro's ears. His head had taken most of the impact and it throbbed with pain. It was like someone had purposely hit him in the head with a massive rock.

On instinct, Ayoro's dark angry eyes became yellow and his yellow essence flared around him. It had to take everything within him to keep the oppressiveness out of his essence, else all the children would have died from such extreme pressure. If he turned his essence oppressive and the children died, all his plan would have been for naught. Right now, he had to find that damn intruder that pushed him out with such power. How is it that someone was able to sneak into his castle without sensing them?