REFUGEE'S CAMP 01

Falling unconscious, Christian found himself falling into an abyss of darkness and was confused, because he was damn sure he wasn't dreaming as it is.

"Am I dead?" He quietly asked, not concerned about the fact that there was no one around to reply him though.

The entire environment here was completely dark with no source of light and it seemed to go on forever, like an entire space of darkness.

He kept turning his head sideways as he felt himself falling still with no hope of coming to a halt soon as there was nothing on sight to stand or lean on.

He felt strange as a sudden sense of déjà vu hit him as if he was used to all this darkness and emptiness, like he had been here countless number of times before.

Few minutes later he was fed up as the fall felt like it had been going on forever to Christian and he became agitated and lashed out cursing his fate for leading him here when he should be out there exacting revenge on those Titans for taking his mother away from him

"is this the supposed afterlife that's meant to be a safe haven for all? Or is this my own personal hell?"

"Uhn" he scoffed then screamed outloud

"well it's no wonder no one is interested in dying, imagine having to give up being alive only to end up in a shit hole like this"

"who is it?" he asked irritably

"who is the 'ol so called mad genius that created this 'd**ned' place" he roared

"You know, if you want to leave so bad all you have a to do is simply wake up" he heard a soft crisp voice whisper to him, and for some reason it sounded familiar.

'wait a minute' he said in his thoughts. There was no way he could forget the voice he heard briefly in his head and what happened afterwards.

'the dragon' he thought to himself as his eyes went wide and his jaws slacked down opening his mouth wide

'what's it's doing here'

"Wondering why am here" he heard it say again, this time coming into view

"Uhn?" Christian asked raising his brow a bit bewildered

"Nevermind that, when you get back out, summon me out again" the dragon said circling round Christian

"What for?" Christian asked

"I thought you saw a desperate kid fighting for his life and decided to help out, how and why would I need to bring you out again?" He asked without hesitation, he even wondered why he wasn't feeling scared of the dragon like he normally would have been when seeing something as magnificent and powerful as the dragon itself. Instead he felt safe and a sense of belonging, as if the dragon was meant to be his protector and he wasn't a food source to the dragon

"Are you really this naive or are you just stupid?" The dragon said coming to a halt and a bit angered at the tiny creature that's questioning itself

"haven't you heard about contracted beasts?" it asked

"No I haven't, but what has that got to do with this?" Christian asked back looking innocent, obviously at a loss as to what the dragon meant

"You really are stupid" the dragon said turning it's back on Christian, like it was done entertaining him and opted for a rest

"just do what I say when you wake up or else I'll force my way through you and trust me that will not be good" it added

"No wait!, you said when I wake up I can leave this place right?" Christian asked hastily

"so how can I wake myself up from here please?" he asked, holding onto his last string of hope

"Did I say that" the dragon asked feigning ignorance, not that Christian could tell from it's facial expressions though

"well I suppose I did say that, but with all certainty I truly don't know how to wake up oneself from here" it added studying Christian's facial expressions as it turned sour

"Then how come you are here" Christian asked having thought of something and brightened up a bit

"You still don't get it do you?" It asked moving closer to Christian circling round his body again

"what is your ability?" It asked still circling round him

"I manipulate dark runes" Christian replied while pondering about his ability in his thoughts.

It was true that after the gifting event he didn't have an inkling or idea of what his ability is, or how to use or control his ability.

But something seemed to have short circuited in his brain when trying to protect his mother from the titans that surrounded them and he felt all the necessary information needed to use his ability poured into his brain and had understood them all immediately

Then

'click'

His eyes suddenly brightened up as the gears in his head stopped working upon the realization that he had been in one of his dark space abilities:- 'Dark realm'.

'Dark realm' acted as a form of space or more precisely a planet of space made out of nothing but pure darkness. It served as an accelerator to his absorbtion of dark runes as there was nothing else here other than infinite darkness that he could keep on absorbing for however long he wished, strengthening his dark ability runes.

Christian felt ecstatic knowing that he had an endless abyss of darkness as such he could visit whenever he wanted to strengthen his ability further and acquire more dark runes.

"Seems like you figured it out" a voice he has tagged as 'annoying' suddenly interrupted his train of thoughts and brought him back to the bitter truth earth

"But that doesn't still explain why you are here" he snapped wearing a displeased expression on his face

*Sigh*

"you are extremely dumb if you still haven't figured that out" the dragon said in a dejected tone annoying Christian further

"Anyways, you know the way contracted beasts works right?" The dragon asked again to spite Christian who shook his head fervently several times

"I already said I don't know what contracted beasts are" Christian said still looking displeased at the dragon to which it ignored and explained further

"Most contracted beast hails from another realm and are entirely different from the ultra beasts that are currently roaming about in your world, simply because we are minded beasts and are aware of the repercussions of our actions and not act out on will. Only a few of us are strong enough to cross our world's threshold to form a contract with humans here but the problem here is the heavenly energies on Earth isn't sufficient enough for our further cultivation to strengthen ourselves, so we tend to move between both realms and feed off the will of our masters. The stronger the will, the stronger we get to help fulfill that wish, also that's why we form a blood exchange ritual that bonds us together, also that we will be able to locate and travel to your destination no matter how far apart we are from each other" the dragon explained

"Well it does sounds familiar, but here only one family is known to be able to control beasts and not several other humans, also according to the rumours the beasts are birthed alongside them not contracted neither do they work the way you explained" Christian replied

"Uhn, that's strange, I could have sworn this was the realm they all headed" the dragon said quietly taken aback after listening to Christian speak, seemingly thinking about something

"Is that what you are to me now, a contracted beast?" Christian asked breaking the awkward silence between them

"Yes" the dragon replied absent mindedly still in its thoughts

"But we haven't done a blood exchange ritual yet, so how were you able to locate where I was?" Christian asked once more obviously delighted by the fact that he had such a powerful beast contracted under him

"I did with your dark ability" it answered nonchalantly

"we both share the same ability of manipulating dark runes, so that's why I can appear here and also travel to you through your dark runes. I decided to help you out because I haven't seen another creature or being using dark ability in all the years I've existed, coupled with your anger and intense hate, I got curious and decided to do a little exploring". It explained further as it turned away

"Wait, you are just going to leave me here alone now" Christian asked, still spoked by the idea of being here by himself

"Take a look at yourself" it said before disappearing before his eyes.

"Weirdo" he muttered taking a look towards his legs and found nothing there.

He didn't panic as he knew what was happening to him and was delighted about it.

*****

Opening his eyes, Christian felt light headed and had to blink his eyes several times before they adjusted to the brightness of the room.

Looking around, he found himself in a room painted white including the ceiling. He heard a consistent beeping sound from a machine in the room that gave him a light headache as he attempted to sit upright.

"Hey, hey, hey slow down there will ya" Sam said as he rushed into the room to help Christian settle down on the bed

"Thanks" Christian voices out feeling grateful, he didn't need an oracle to tell him first before he knew what had transpired after he blacked out.

"For what" Sam asked rhetorically

"for almost dying on me and making me go through hell and back for you?" He asked

"Guess I didn't make good on my promise" Christian said quietly

"Yeah you did, at least you are still here alive due to all my efforts" Sam said grinning widely, not noticing the somber look on Christian's face

"She died Sam, she died before my own eyes and I just stayed there watching, too weak to do anything" he said as he gripped his hands tight to the extent that his nails dug into his palms drawing blood from them as tears rushed from his eyes continuously

"Am sorry for not being there man" Sam said dejectedly as his huge grin from a while ago turned sober and a sad look appeared on his face

"I shouldn't have left you" he continued saying as tears gradually dropped from his eyes

"maybe if we had been together…"

"We wouldn't have been able to do anything also if you were there, so stop beating yourself about it. Am the one, am the one that's too weak and not able to protect the only person I ever cared about, it's all my fault!" Christian said cutting Sam short

They both cried silently and let go of all the negative emotions cooked up in them for some time before Christian broke the silence again

"Could they recover her body" he asked raising his head to look at Sam with bloodshot red eyes in anticipation

"My dad sent several soldiers to comb through the entire neighborhood and even the spot where I had found her body earlier that day but they couldn't find it no matter how hard they searched".

"How long have they been searching?" Christian asked seemingly confused as to why his mother's corpse would be missing

"About a week, but they got pulled out yesterday" Sam replied truthfully

"A week!?" Christian asked surprised with his red eyes wide open staring at Sam as he nodded his head to answer his question

"then how long have I been out?" He asked still wearing a confused expression. Because to him he had only been in the 'dark realm' for a short period of time but here on Earth that equates to a week? He was surprised and really shocked to find out he had been asleep for over seven days

"Seven days and some few hours from today" Sam replied oblivious to the torrent flow of emotions his friend was feeling

'so time moves slower in there than it does out here' Christian confirmed in his head as he stayed still looking at Sam not blinking even once

"Look, uhm Christian, do you remember or saw anything before you blacked out" Sam asked scratching the back of his head

"because I found a huge number of titans corpses piled up on multiple street closer to your home and where I saw your mom's body, so I figured you must have seen what or who was responsible for their deaths" he added because he was still troubled by the eerie scene he had saw and wanted to know what happened actually as he still haven't found a clue as to what had ended the titans lives

"I was the one that killed them all" Christian replied nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders

"Yeah and am the creator of the entire universe" Sam replied sarcastically thinking that his friend was fooling around with him before asking again "Am really serious man, just tell me what you know"

"And do I look like am kidding" Christian asked back looking serious with a dangerous look appearing in his eyes.

Sam wondered what must have changed in Christian for him to give off such vibe. He felt like the Christian he knew and the one before him now where two entirely different persons and he felt it since he walked into the room and saw him awake. He no longer has that innocent naive aura he possessed around him anymore rather in its place was one filled with resentment and danger.

"So how did you do it?" Sam asked deciding to play along in what he tagged 'christian's little mind game'

Christian raised his eyebrows when he heard the subtle mocking tone used in Sam's voice when he asked his question and knew his friend wasn't convinced. He simply shook his head instead of replying him and held out his hand to summon his dark mists.