He Who Lurks in the Shadows Holds Nothing but Secrets

Ender groaned as he buried his head in his arms, staring outside his window. The sun had long risen down, yet the ginger had to wait until midnight to start his shift. Seeing how it would be unlikely for him to get off this patrol until his superiors returned, he was going to be living an equal torture to Terrence's.

"Well don't you look overjoyed," A blonde boy piped up from behind him as they jumped onto one of the two beds provided.

The redhead sighed and glanced at his roommate. "Alf, you used to do this. Was it ever as stressful as this?"

Alf glanced at him before frowning. "I had to do this in the winter, so I was dealing with an actual hellhole every night. You're gonna be fine, Ender."

"Do you know how many mosquitoes get attracted to lantern light?" He turned his chair around to properly face the other hunter. "Not to mention it's humid, and I'm not allowed to take a break to cool myself like you did in the winter." He gestured outside the window, a panicked look etching onto his face. "And don't forget that mosquitoes and other bugs can carry diseases on them! I mean- look at that one hunter from sector 12!"

"Okay, okay I get it! It's not great in the summer either." The blonde got up and crossed his legs before leaning his head on his arm. "What can I do about it? You were the ones who got in trouble, not me." The ginger opened his mouth to speak but the other interrupted. "And, you know this too you were there at the meeting, Shozu and Feris won't be here to listen to your complaining and give you a different task for a week."

Ender groaned again, knowing he couldn't argue with that. He tried to bark out a counter response but was shut down yet again. "I'm. Not. Switching. With. You." Alf glared at his superior hunter before letting gravity push him back to the sheets. He raised his finger just when the other tried to speak yet again. "Quit acting like you have dysphoria, it's just your anxiety holding you down. Besides, it's not like you'll have to dawdle around the city, you have a route to follow. Stick to it and you'll be fine."

"You seem very confident in my ability to stay out past midnight."

"Oh I'm not. I know you're afraid of seeing something scary and going bat-shit crazy if it really was a monster like you always thought." The blonde forced his eyes to meet the redhead's before letting it drop once more. He grabbed the blankets and tucked himself in. "To be honest I'd love to see you scared but I'm not allowed. So uh, yeah. G'night!"

Ender sighed and glanced at the clock on the desk beside him. He had to go patrol now. He picked the lantern up with a box of matches and turned to the second-lieutenant showing off his finger. "See you in the morning."

The other hunter lazily glanced at him and returned the gesture. "You too buddy, you too."

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

The ginger stared through the dimly lit alleyway beside him before rubbing his temples. He had just finished strutting through a street beside his squad dorm, and he wanted out.

He was willing to go out on tiring missions, pick up a multitude of dead bodies, train the rookies- The redhead stopped and shook his head quickly. No, rookies were a hellhole, not to mention Terrence's problem, not his. He felt a small but spine-chilling breeze blow by, kissing against the shell of his left ear. He shivered and covered his ears, looking around quickly if anyone was out.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. This was merely the fault of a lack of sleep, nothing more nothing less. "I need to get over this stupid fe-"

"I was wondering who was here with a light. Are you patrolling?" A voice threw him out of his thoughts, as Ender screamed like a child and hugged the small steel lamp as tiny droplets of oil stained the old lantern glass. Without a second thought he shut his eyes and stood in front of the stranger a few more feet away than he previously was.

The stranger chuckled and waved their hand in the darkness. "Relax, I'm no harm to you." The stranger slowly walked up to him, the faded light revealing a man that looked a few years older than him, with a few small scars glowing across his face and neck. The ginger's eyes widened and he paled at the sight, knowing only one person that carried such a look amongst the hunters.

"You must come from Lieutenant-general Shozu's sector?" The stranger pointed at the redhead's uniform. "The symbol gives it away."

"G-general Kn-Knox," The hunter stuttered, struggling to keep his voice normal and his hands to stop shaking. "I-I wasn't expecting you t-to be here . . . s-so late at night . . . w-what are you doing a-at this time a-anyways?"

Knox's eyebrows raised in surprise, before falling back down as he smiled at the redhead. "So you recognize me," He scratched his cheek and looked to the ground. "I'm just taking a walk around, you know, in case you hunters miss something I don't." He looked up and walked past the lieutenant, but not before tapping the boy's shoulder. "If you need help, call me and I'll be there, okay?"

Ender nodded slowly as he too began to walk again, scuttling across the street much faster than he would "I will!" After turning a corner he sighed and looked behind him quickly, scared that the general would have followed him for acting suspicious. When he was sure that wasn't the case, he let out a heap of air he didn't realize he kept in.

"I wanna go back and sleep now," He quietly whined while walking around the streets. After that scary outbreak, the redhead didn't encounter any more horrifying moments in the dark for the next few hours.

Until he saw it.

The hunter felt his body stiffen at the sight. Oh god, he wasn't hallucinating was he? Perhaps he was, what time was it? For a moment he believed he saw a bloody figure zoom past him in the distance. Despite his uneasiness, he crept towards the area where he saw the person. He remained so focused on his surroundings he didn't realize he nearly slipped in a puddle of water.

He looked down to complain but shut up the moment his field of vision revealed to him that he, in fact, was not in a puddle of water.

No, it was a puddle of blood. And dear god was it a lot as the trail grew bigger on his right, while the left shrunk little by little.

He was about to continue to the left side to see who it was when he heard an animalistic growl coming from there. All his instincts told him to run off, call the general Knox, to throw his lantern and find somewhere to hide- to do something, anything, to keep him safe from that noise.

It sounded so distorted, like a broken radio as the voices came out in scraps and chops. Slowly, he lifted his lantern in the direction of the noise, and nearly dropped the damn thing.

Leaning against the wall was a woman, her right arm torn off ruthlessly as blood kept dripping out of it like water coming out of a tap. There were so many scratches on her, the infinite amount of blood on her hiding which sector she came from. Ender forced himself to go closer and check on this dying hunter before they rejoined the other fallen fighters.

As the dim light began to show more and more of the hunter, he tried to stomach the sight of her face. Her left eye was shattered- no, it was gone. No eye, no eyelids only a trail of blood pouring down that side. Her only arm clenched onto her stomach, growling and releasing those godly terrifying noises.

The ginger slowly crouched beside her, gently putting the lantern down. "M-miss . . . ? Ar-are you still alive?" The female hunter glanced at him, encouraging Ender to continue. "We need to get you to the infirmary quickly, th-there should be a few doctors awake-"

The woman grabbed his arm and locked him in place. He yelped and winced at the feeling, good lord she was strong even during her final moments. She whispered something as she tightened her grip on him. "W-what?"

She pulled him closer and whispered once more into his ear, sending shivers down his spine at the feeling. "Leave the city . . ." Her voice sounded so raspy, as if she hadn't been given anything to drink the past few days. "Find the gates . . ." The redhead looked at her uniform to see which sector she came from.

"Find the gates and change our future . . ." His eyes travelled everywhere until it stopped on the woman's left side chest. The grotesque symbol of a wolf howling gleamed in the light like a ruby, making the lieutenant's face pale at the sight. This was Willow, the major-general of Sector 48.

"Change it, lest the elders force us back to hell as they always have . . ." She forced those words out of her mouth before collapsing onto him. He couldn't move, regardless of the extra weight on him.

He went over those words again and again, his mind tuning out the sound of other hunters arriving at the scene and checking on both of them. Gates? What gates was she talking about? The city gates? Change our future? "Lest the elders force us back to hell . . ." He whispered to himself.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched. He looked up to see general Oriko looking at him with a grim expression, and yet pity sparked in his eyes and he bent down to talk to the other hunter properly.

"Ender, if you could, go back to your sector," The white-haired boy glanced at the boy while the others were checking to see if it was alive. "You won't be punished by Shozu since I issued the order. You've done enough tonight." Oriko stood up and turned around. "And do keep this to yourself until we've figured out the situation, alright?"

Ender didn't bother answering and got up, picking up the lantern beside him and walking back to sector 29, silently closing the door behind him and covering his face with his hands. Keep this to himself? That- that whole moment, the blood, the hunter, the words, he had to hold onto them until they knew what they were dealing with? He slowly let go of his face and stared at his shaking hands, noticing the thick red liquid staining on his skin. He looked in the mirror in panic and almost screamed in fear as he saw blood quickly drying up across his cheeks, his mouth, his nose, around his eyes.

Flashes of Willow's face appeared across the mirror and he made a run for the bathroom, not hesitating to remove the blood off of his skin. He tried to control his breathing as he kept remembering the sight, the sound, the smell, the feeling. Good god, the feeling. Not once had he ever had to face such a gruesome scene, and realized how much he took that as granted.

The ginger kept splashing water on his face until he was sure there was no more blood on his skin. He stared at his clothes as they too, were drenched in the same blood.

Seeing those scratches on her body, he was sure there were a few chunks of meat missing from her legs and waist. His breathing began to quicken even more.

He ran up to his room and headed back to the bathroom after grabbing his clothes to take a long, warm bath. He needed to ignore it, ignore the moment. Find the gates, change our future, like hell he would do that.

As water poured down on him like harsh rain, his mind kept replaying that small fragment of time over and over and over again, almost matching the number of burning water droplets he felt on his back.

He quickly dried himself and put on his clothes before throwing his clothes in the garbage. Keeping them would do him no good, and he wanted to forget tonight as soon as he could. He hugged himself as he hid under his blanket, trying his hardest to sleep, just sleep and forget about tonight.

And yet no matter how many times he tried, his mind leaned back to that memory. Ender covered his mouth and struggled in not screaming every time he thought about it. He continued to keep his shallow breaths loud enough for his ears and his alone.

And as the sun began to stretch across the walls of the city, for the first time in centuries, Ender began to cry.