2: Taken

Adam let out a sigh. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

His dorm room, his new sanctum for the coming school year, was about as prepared as he was willing to make it on the first day. His stuff had been moved in. His clothes were in the dresser that came with the room. The one bed in the room was made neat and tidy. His laptop was plugged in on the desk. The walls were still bare and bland but he'd managed to hang up a half-length mirror on the back of the door.

Move-in hadn't taken that long, maybe two hours to get everything situated. From there, his mother left him with a heartfelt goodbye after extracting a promise that he would call.

And… that was it. It was official now. He was on his own, striking out into the proving ground that was Hallowed University. The world was opening up to him (in a very limited sense) but Adam couldn't muster the enthusiasm to do anything about it tonight.

He wasn't one for parties or drinking or anything that drew additional attention to him, really. While he was completely sure the big sororities would be throwing big 'First Day' bashes to try and attract vulnerable freshmen boys, that wasn't his scene.

So after an entirely mediocre dinner at the campus cafeteria, Adam was more than ready to turn in for the night. He spent the rest of the night cooped up in his room, putting off any social obligations until tomorrow. Thankfully, nothing disturbed his introverted evening, and at around 11 o'clock, Adam went to sleep.

He didn't dream but he slept peacefully. It seemed like nothing would interrupt his rest and he would wake up refreshed and ready to face a new day. Then just before 2 A.M., Adam's door swung open as if the electronic lock on it didn't even exist.

Still, Adam didn't stir. Even as a damp cloth was secured over his mouth to ensure he stayed unconscious for what was to come… Adam's kidnappers slipped away into the darkness of night with his insensate body in tow. Such was their discretion that of the girls who watched him earlier in the day, only half noticed Adam was even missing.

The silver-eyed reaper was fast asleep, trying to muster the courage she would need tomorrow in her dreams. The priestess of Death was on Hallow's Sorority Row, attending one of the 'First Day' parties and watching her sisters get wasted on cheap alcohol.

Only the two more esoteric and ethereal souls noticed when Adam was stolen from his bed. Impotent rage seethed under an emotionless woman's shell, accompanied by a budding anticipation that her soulmate would finally be whole. A sadistic Spirit giggled in between the folds of time, content to simply observe for now, "Ara ara~"

While Adam was currently oblivious to their watching eyes and everything else happening in the waking world, his kidnappers were not so ignorant. They knew about the target and those who already were and would be interested in him. They'd been planning this for way too long to leave anything to chance…

And so, Adam was spirited away to an undisclosed location. Surprisingly, his kidnappers did not have any outright malicious intentions. Their plan would change Adam's life forever but they weren't going to harm him directly.

Two men stepped into a dimly lit room, carrying an unconscious body between them. There were no windows to let in the moonlight. The only things lighting the room were strange lines and concentric circles carved into the room's floor that glowed with dim silver light.

The lines lit up as the men and their cargo crossed them as if they were reacting to something. In the center of all of the circles and lines was a short stone altar, about waist-high in height. As one, more men stepped out from the shadows around the room's edges.

Normally, this many men gathering in the same place would have been an anomaly. For the Cult of Man, it was a typical Saturday night. Except not quite so typical in this case. This night would be the culmination of all their work and preparation, everything their organization strived for.

Adam's limp body was laid on the altar almost tenderly. The room filled with a ringing, ethereal hum as soon as his back touched the stone. His kidnappers did their best to make sure he was comfortable, treating him with almost worshipful care that didn't seem to mesh with his forced and unknowing abduction.

The remaining members of the Cult of Man gathered around the altar, forming a loose circle. Adam's two kidnappers soon joined them, slotting effortlessly into place. The cult was a diverse group of men, so diverse that it ventured easily into the impossible.

A tall, lanky man with a deathly pale complexion smiled almost fondly, baring a pair of fangs that didn't belong on any Human. A red-skinned demon with four yellow eyes smiled cruelly, relishing one of the few times he could let his true form show. A bear of a man stood with barely concealed tension as if he was a big predatory cat ready to pounce, a pair of cat ears twitched with expectation atop his head.

A cowardly, poor excuse for a werewolf practically shivered where he stood, tightly clutching what looked like a stick at his side as if it was his lifeline. A black priest with a wicked 'fro and perpetually serious scowl on his face held a bible loosely to his chest. A genial bald man in a wheelchair watched the proceedings as if he already knew everything going through the minds of his peers.

A great red dragon in Human form with curved horns, clawed crimson gauntlets, and red scales marring his cheeks rolled his eyes as if he was already bored of all this. A mad-scientist-turned-android's mind raced as he dedicated only a fraction of his attention and genius intellect to the upcoming ritual. Many more colorful characters filled in the circle of more than two dozen. Species straight out of myths and legends and men from every walk of life had come together for a common purpose…

And at the head of the circle stood an unassuming but handsome man who despite his purely Human nature, was perhaps the most dangerous person in the cult, if only for his unpredictability.

He smiled the unhinged smile of a showman, "Yo! What's up, folks! You all know me so I won't bother with introductions! I'll be your host for this ritual, bringing you the hottest paradigm shift this world has ever seen!"

The seven-foot-tall cat-man sighed, "Chris, is this really necessary? No one else is here and the ritual room had been warded against all peeping eyes."

"Yes, get on with it, ~McLean~" the red-skinned demon growled.

The cult leader just chuckled, unthreatened even by the physical form of a demon lord. He clapped his hands and the ritual commenced. Chanting filled the room, starting low but quickly rising to a fever pitch as the voices of powerful men harmonized.

The silver lines on the floor pulsed with power. One by one, the light from those lines began to wink out. The coming darkness progressed from the outside in, slowly cloaking everything in the room in black. The members of the Cult of Man were plunged into darkness as well but they didn't stop chanting. This ritual wasn't about them. It was about bringing something greater into this world once more.

Eventually, only the stone altar that Adam laid upon remained lit. Lines of silver power climbed up the sides of the stone altar as if they had minds of their own. The lines slowly made their way onto Adam's body, burning away what clothes he'd gone to bed in and lining his bare skin with silver veins.

Light poured out of the silver veins as more and more power was poured into Adam's body by the ritual. It built and built until it wasn't just silver anymore. It was a fiery gold, the color of molten metal at the heart of a crucible.

Then, as the ritual reached its climax, a speck of darkness, somehow blacker than the shadows that cloaked the room, manifested out of thin air above Adam's chest. The speck of black grew as whatever it represented was called, pulled from… beyond.

The darkness writhed and morphed painfully into a form that mirrored Adam's unconscious body. The chanting stopped and the world seemed to hold its breath. Then with a piercing yowl of pain that echoed through the sealed ritual room, the darkness fell.

Adam's eyes shot open with a gasp just in time to see his own shadow descend upon his body. It infused his whole being, fighting with the molten-gold veins that lined his skin. When the struggle stopped, light and darkness fell into perfect harmony within Adam.

As much as Adam tried, he found that he couldn't move. Nothing was tying him down. Nothing limited or restricted him. His body just wouldn't respond to his mind. All he could do was dart his eyes around the dark room that he'd found himself in, somehow knowing that this wasn't where he'd fallen asleep.

He could just barely make out figures at the edge of his vision. The shadows wouldn't allow him to see more. He felt something settle into his gut. A fire, a desire, a power, a purpose, and so much more. For the first time in his life, Adam felt whole.

His consciousness ebbed and flowed as the fire within him reforged his body into its own image. One second, he was fully awake. The next, he was sinking into the warm embrace of impossibly lucid and uncharacteristic dreams. He couldn't even tell what was real and what wasn't. Adam was stuck as a passenger in his own body, unable to even struggle as his whole being was rewritten.

In one of his moments of faded consciousness, Adam dreamed of Ruby. In another, he dreamed of an emotionless girl he didn't know but who invoked a strange sense of nostalgia for a life long since lost. In a moment of reality, he heard masculine voices whispering, though he couldn't make out what was said. In another, he saw a handsome face with an unsettling grin looming over his head.

Nothing made sense and yet everything did. The fire in his soul seemed just as confused as he was. It was only Adam who was lost and set adrift on an unknown sea. And even though it fought with all its being, the fire poured itself into the hole in his metaphysical being, knitting shut and changing his physical body so drastically that Adam would barely recognize himself.

The creepily handsome man finally whispered something that Adam could barely make out, "We're expecting big things, Prince Adam… You will be lost and confused… You will be different… But you will be great… We are always watching… Show the world Man's Messiah…"

Though Adam heard the words, his mind couldn't process language at the moment. Everything he was was being overtaken by fire, desire, and power. Darkness burned like the sun and light cooled like the shade. All he knew for sure was that he was whole.

And with that revelation, Adam's consciousness faded for the final time that night. Darkness clouded his vision. His Shadow coated his soul. All Adam could do was hope he would wake up in his bed in the morning…