A Boulder, A Glass House

The air around Bazel began to tremble and shift, a haze descended in his vicinity like that of a scorching hot summer day.

The temperature in the room rose slowly but steadily, the change great enough that one could feel the heat against their skin. Alongside this sudden raise in temperature was even the melting of the reinforced metal on the ground, as it began to slowly liquify starting from where Bazel was standing and slowly spreading outward.

Three sets of eyes looked at this change incredulously, but Tiernan moved to action a split second later. Flashing from where he was standing he appeared behind Zaire and grabbed her from Bazel, then he appeared behind Neto and grabbed him with his other arm. He then jumped towards the one way mirror and kicked right through it, sending shattered glass flying everywhere, and jumped through to the other side.

Looking carefully at the changes Bazel was going through, his face adopted a grim look as he reached into his inner coat and felt for the grip of his silver pistol.

Zaira noticed this action and grabbed Tiernan's coat, looking at him with upturned eyes and whispered, "Brother, he saved me...you can't"

"He has lost control of his gift. A tall price to pay for one who has not had any guidance during his lifetime, but at this rate he will end up burning his very lifeforce and turn into destruction incarnate. Putting him down is all that we can do..."

"No, wait! I will talk to him" began Neto, but was silenced by a change in Bazel.

All around him dark black flames with a red core began to erupt from the ground, liquifying anything that they touched. These flames burned with so much force that even the air around it was set aflame from time to time, but what Neto was focused on was not these impressive and insidious looking flames but a shadow below.

The silhouette of some kind of animal grew from Bazel's very own shadow, leaving the two dimensional world it usually inhabited and standing tall in the third.

The beast was massive in size and darker than night itself, with silver eyes and skin that looked to be made of a liquid or perhaps fiery shadow that split off from it into the air only to dissipate into nothingness.

It lifted one of its massive paws up into the air and laid it on Bazel's head, causing an ancient and infinitely intricate seal to form above its paw and be reflected on the ground below it. The two seals seemed to resonate with one another, causing a shaft of darkness to raise from each side and connect with the other.

Completely hidden in the tube like seal, the darkness slowly constricted until it completely seeped into Bazel's skin thus disappearing from sight. Along with it, however, the sinister looking flames were swept back into him and presumably locked tight once more.

The aftermath of this entire process was all that was left, as well as a still frozen Bazel who started to break into a maniacal laugh.

All around Bazel the metal on the floor had turned into liquid and then back to a solid, looking like the solidified waves of ocean waves at their peak and about to crash. While the metal table and chairs in the center of the room had turned into a misshapen and almost unrecognizable lump on the ground, truly hitting home how destructive the forces that had almost been unleashed were.

Waiting for a moment to make sure that he was no longer completely volatile, Tiernan pushed Neto forward slightly and said, "He is all yours then. Break him from his current madness, a side effect of being forcibly sealed, and he will be safe. Else....it will only be a matter of time before he ends up imploding and killing himself, taking everything near him with him as collateral."

Barely understanding the situation that was beyond his means of understanding, Neto forced himself to not think of anything except on trying to calm down Bazel.

Stepping over the shattered glass on the ground and through the opening where the one way mirror used to be, Neto carefully walked over to Bazel and tried to get his attention.

"Amigo, you in there?" asked Neto slowly, approaching his friend all the while.

Bazel's insane and uncontrollable laughter ceased when he heard such words, looking at the source with a vacant look on his face but eventually recognition flashed through.

"Oh, Neto its you. Been awhile I think? I am a bit dizzy right now you know, everything is inside out and upside down. My pocket also seemed to have made some noise, I bet the sun went away again...how sad."

Neto could not make heads or tails of what his friend was saying, but kept pressing on as if he understood. "That is really something, but do you remember why you are here and what happened to you? Do you remember the duty that you have, amigo?"

"Duty?? What duty do I have, I mean I do have to go to work I guess. But I already took a week off on account of Lily you know. What a silly girl, not telling me she was in trouble for so long just to not add on to my own burden. Still, that is why I love her so even if she worries me so much. Everything worked out in the end though, I managed to get her back from that scum. Yeah where is she anyways, shouldn't she have been here by now..."

Bazel froze in his speech as well as his movements, which frightened Neto more than his babble so he sped up and hugged him close in one swift movement.

Reflexively Bazel's arm shot straight towards Neto's heart, reactively killing anything that got near him due to his instability. Yet the blow did not connect, for a tendril of shadow wrapped around his arm and stopped him from completing the act.

Neto saw none of this, though the two 'nobles' in the back did, instead he just continued to speak.

"Aye, Lily the little angel. She is in trouble and needs her older brother to stand strong so when she is found the support she so desperately needs is there. What would she think if she learned upon her return that her most important thing was lost because of her plight, how full of guilt she would be. You have to be strong Bazel, for both your sakes."

He then stepped back and looked into the eyes of his friend, staring straight at him in hopes to see the shroud of madness fade away.

"All is not lost, but you will lose before you even have a chance to fight if you falter here. Wake up and get a hold of yourself before it's too late!"

Ending with a passionate yell, he stepped back and prayed to every god he could think of...prayed that his words reached his friend.

--

Sitting on the floor of a dark room was a dirty child, who was thin due to the lack of food but heavy with despair.

In his hands he held a small knife, one that looked like a toy at first glance but a careful look would reveal the sharpness of its edge. With shaky hands he brought it up towards his throat while muttering, "I have had enough...I have had enough...this is too much...anything is better than this...it's too hard...it hurts," over and over again like a broken record.

Just as he was about to plunge the knife into his throat a hand manifested from the shadows, revealing a man to be standing behind the child. He had plain short black hair but warm brown eyes, and if one looked closely they would see silver highlights in the man's hair. Curiously enough, the boy below greatly resembled the man above him.

"Do not be so hasty now, else you will surely come to regret it" said the man.

The child continued to try to wrench the knife free, so that he could once more end it all forevermore. Unable to break his hand free from the grasp of the adult above him, the child deflated completely in despair.

"Why? My life is pain. My life is suffering. But worst of all...my life is loneliness. Pain lasts for but a moment, suffering is something I can get used to...but loneliness eats away at me every second of every day" said the child, oddly articulate for his age.

The older man laughed and explained, "I know it well, but with time comes the possibility of change. So long as there is life...everything is on the table. What would you do if the cure to your loneliness was just around the corner, that if you simply survived another day everything would finally fix itself? If you die right here, right now, what would you think if you learned of such a thing in the world beyond?"

The man then let go of the knife, his hand a bloody mess but he paid it no attention.

The child immediately went for his throat once more, but the seed of doubt had already been planted which temporarily stayed his hand.

The seed quickly sprouted, causing the child to ask, "Is that...is that really true mister? Is there really salvation just around the corner."

The adult man smiled a bright and sunny smile and said reassuradly, "Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is just beyond the door right there in fact. Perhaps all you must do is muster up the courage to walk up to it, open it, and step on through. The courage to meet your future head on and the courage to fully open up your heart to another."

The sprouting seed grew quickly, rapidly turning into a lush and vibrant tree of possibility.

The boy dropped the knife and stood up unsteadily, almost falling several times due to the weakness of his bony legs. He did not know why, but he believed the words that the man had said to him...or maybe he just wanted to believe himself, that he he truly could still be rescued from his pain.

He slowly made his way towards the door that the man had pointed out, picking up his speed until he was sprinting with all he could towards it.

Finally reaching the door, he opened it with all his might and was immediately bathed in a golden light.

In the distance he saw what he could only assume was his salvation, a young girl with golden hair and pure blue eyes. When he stepped through the door the girl laid eyes on him, and smiled a pure smile full of innocence. The girl reached out her hand towards the boy, the chasm between the two of them shortening almost instantly...one bathed in filth and pure darkness, the other bathed in a clean and purifying light.

Their hands joined and with it, the tormented and anguished expression of the boy eased up and the perpetual darkness that shrouded his figure was lifted fully. His silver hair and pitch black eyes were revealed, as he walked into the distance with an expression of muted happiness...perhaps out of embarrassment.

The door then closed once more, with a loud bang and the clicking of several locks closing rang out.

The man sighed, looking at his hands that were disintegrating before his very eyes. He sat on the bed, looking around at a room that was steeped in nostalgia.

"Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted" thought the man, as his eye-lids slowly closed and his breathing stilled.

...

....

...

Yet unknown to all, a small shadowy cat appeared from under the bed. Walking out and onto the bed, the cat meowed at the now still man, almost sounding sorrowful. It paused for a moment, doing nothing, but then it suddenly leapt into the air and the shadows that made up its body expanded rapidly.

Eventually it completely encompassed the fast disintegrating man on the bed, absorbing him completely into itself.

The shadows receded back into a single point, forming the same cat from before. Landing on the bed it meowed once more, looking at the door that had closed and was locked tight with a tilt of its head.

The cat was noticeably bigger now, looking more like a small leopard if anything else, but that was not the most striking change. If one were to look closely into its eyes at that very moment, they would no doubt be surprised to see what appeared to be a flash of intelligence...of recognition beyond what a normal feline should be able to have.

Alas, no one was present. And eventually the cat jumped off of the bed and began to meld into the darkness of the room, eventually completely disappearing.