Who are you

With less than half an hour remaining, he was walking through the door of the orphanage, but unlike usual, the place seemed eerily quiet. And as he made his way deeper, but despite the fact that all the orphans had left and it was empty, the halls were too quiet, so dropping his bag, he strolled deeper till he found himself in the kitchen, but still, Maria was nowhere to be seen.

"Maria, I'm home."

But his call got no answer.

"That's strange, she's usually home at this time."

One by one, he checked every room starting from the ground floor, but found no one and nothing out of place. This was getting even stranger now

'Did she go somewhere? No, she has never left without telling me where she was going. Maybe she...'

Interrupting his train of thought, he heard the sound of creaking floorboards from above.

"Maria..... Maria, is that you...?" but still he got no answer.

The silence that followed planted a seed of worry within him, and before he knew it, he was climbing the steps. He slowly ascended the steps till he reached the first floor. The halls were all dark and devoid of light. He reached for the switch on the wall, but no matter how many times he flipped it, the lights refused to come up, which was strange. As far as he could remember, he had never had an issue with the lighting in the building, even when he was the only child there all those years ago.

Reaching for his pocket, he took out his phone and turned on the flashlight, and the sight that followed churned his stomach. Littering the ground were the severed corpses of people and pools of blood. Mathew stared at the scene for what felt like an eternity as his mind struggled to process the reality of his situation.

He shifted his gaze to the concrete walls, which were covered with deep scorched gashes, and the doors to the rooms that had all been smashed open. Stood there utterly dumbfounded by what it was he was looking at, Theodore's mind raced with the possibilities of what exactly could have transpired in his home. But before he could formulate a map of the events, he heard the faint sound of someone's ragged breathing coming from inside his room.

"Maria...?" 

A few seconds passed, and he again got no response, but when he was about to speak once more, he heard a familiar voice call out to him.

"Theo....?"

Wasting no time as the voice sounded faint and forced, Theo dashed through the corridor and over the corpses and pools of blood. Arriving at the door, his eyes widened, and he covered his mouth as a wave of dread washed over him. Lying on his bed with a battered and injured body, Maria struggled with every breath.

Theodore rushed to her side, but when he got there, his dread only deepened as the injuries were worse than what he had first thought. Her entire body was covered in cuts and scorch marks, her two arms were broken, and her legs weren't in better shape. Reaching for her face, he found that her two faces, like her arms, were covered in scorch marks, and for some reason, she refused to open her eyes.

"Maria!" he called out in a panic. "Maria, what the hell happened here! No, first, what the hell happened to you?"

Maria's breathing was shallow, and with every gasp for air came a struggle as she lay there. Theodore's heart raced, Unsure of how to deal with or even understand the mix of fear and anger surging through him. Grabbing her shoulders, he gently shook her, desperate for any form of response.

"Maria, please! You have to be alright!"

She groaned in pain as slowly, her eyelids began fluttering open as if the effort expended to perform that simple task was too much for her battered body. With his ski against hers, he could feel the warmth of her body slowly fading as a chilling cold replaced it.

"Come on, Maria, stay with me!" he mumbled as he fumbled for his phone. His hands trembled as he called for emergency services, but the call failed to connect. With the signal unavailable and the closest medical centre being nearly half an hour away, his trial was bound to start before he would be able to get her out of the building.

But while he panicked, something strange was occurring around them.

As Maria seemed to be slipping closer and closer towards death, a pendant on her necklace began glowing, and below them, a ring of light slowly grew till it encompassed them both. Their bodies were soon covered in the radiant light, and then, in a flash of light, they both vanished.

***

The next time Theodore opened his eyes, he found himself inside a strange room. The paint on the walls was pristine, the floor was covered in marble tiles, and the door behind him looked to be made of sturdy and immaculate oak. It was all so beautiful, but he had no time to linger on that, turning back to Maria, who was now lying on a bed that looked as large as his room was, he shaped to speak, but before he could, the door behind him swung open.

From it, a group of men rushed in and towards Maria, Theodore stood in defiance between them, but before he could speak or act, a voice interrupted those thoughts.

"Hello Theo,"

Quickly turning towards the source of the voice, his gaze fell on a middle-aged man dressed in a neat suit. His hair and beard were a deep black with streaks of gray woven between, his eyes were a bright emerald, and he was wearing a watch that looked more expensive than the building he had lived in all his life.

"Now I understand you must be a little confused by all this, but I assure you, these men are here for nothing but to help Maria."

"How do I know you're not here to kill her like the bastards that did this...?"

The man chuckled inwardly as he raised a hand, and something materialized from sparks of light.

"Well, you have a point there, I can't prove it." In his hand was a pipe; he placed it in his mouth, and in that instant, whatever was in it lit up. " But if you leave her like that, she's going to die anyway."

Theo looked back at Maria, who was getting closer and closer to the border, then back to the man, and despite his better judgement, he stepped aside and let the men through. While they worked to help her, the man ushered Theo out of the room.

Stood in front of the door, Theodore racked his brain trying to understand.

'Who were those people? What was it they wanted with me? Or even with Maria? No, a more important question is what were people like that even doing in the outer district?'

None of it made sense to Theodore, but with everything having already happened, he could do nothing but accept and hope Maria survived. Speaking of the topic, his gaze shifted to the man standing a few steps away with a smoking pipe in his hand.

"Are you done rationalizing? Or at least that is what it looked like you were doing."

Theodore stared at the man for a while with his expression shifting from unsure and confused to one filled with suspicion.

"Who are you?"

"Well, Theo, that question has many answers."

"Stop bullshitting me old man, answer the damn question!"

"Old man! I will have you know I am still middle-aged aged you brat."

"I don't care! Just answer me."

"You're an impatient one, I see. Well, after everything, it doesn't surprise me, but I believe you have something more important than me to worry about right now."

"What are you..."

Stopping mid-sentence, Theo understood what it was he meant and immediately looked to his index reader, and his eyes opened wide.

[Ether core- Dormant]

[Core rank- None]

[Core Saturation- 65%] 

'Sixty.... five... percent?'

The realization of what that absurdly high number meant for him dawned on him, and his mind was soon filled with premonitions, and not any good ones. But that was not where it stopped, as his eyes widened even more at what followed.

[Core Saturation- 74%] 

Normally, by this time, a person's core would have been fully saturated and would only need to be awakened, but unlike his peers, who were preparing for their first trial, Theodore's core saturation only continued to rise.

[Core Saturation- 82%] 

With every passing second, it rose higher and higher, and as it continued to rise, his anxiety rose with it as well as his trial's difficulty. Quickly turning to the man, Theo barely spoke cohesively as he asked.

"T... t... time! What time is it?"

At the sight of Theo's anxious expression, a smile grew on his face.

"Now you ask."

Theo scowled at the sight of his smile.

"What is the damn time?"

The man chuckled.

"Don't worry, Theo, you still have about ten minutes till your trial."

"How did you..."

"It's nearly time for the winter solstice to begin. What else could you be worried about, kid? But that isn't the main problem, is it? How's your saturation rating, is it over 70% yet?"

Theo stared at the man, dumbfounded at his words.

"No, I guess it should have surpassed that by now, I guess you're pushing ninety then."

A moment of silence hung between the two but was soon broken. Taking a step back toward the door and having a hostile expression, Theo balled his fists and stood ready for anything, as unknowingly, a small wave of bloodlust radiated from him.

"Who are you?!"

Seeing Theo's increasing hostility and rising level of bloodlust put a smile on the man's face, and in the blink of an eye, he vanished from his sight, dissipating into a whisp of darkness. Theo searched frantically, looking down the halls, but found nothing until he felt an overwhelming pressure fall on his shoulders. He wanted nothing more than to move his legs as fast as he could and run for dear life, but at the same time that thought emerged, the image of Maria smiling popped into his mind.

With that fuelling his drive, he clenched his fists tighter, swivelled on his heel, and swung his fist as hard as he could. Before he knew it, his strike collided with something solid. The impact reverberated and travelled back into his arm, sending a jolt of pain up to his shoulder. He nearly stumbled back, but felt his fist being grasped, and when he looked up, his eyes widened with shock as he took in the sight of his fist being effortlessly held tight in his grasp.

The man's form had shifted, and now he looked like nothing but a black mass in the shape of a man, with the only recognizable traits being his crimson eyes and two rows of sharp teeth. The inhuman silhouette leaned forward, and Theodore felt his entire body tremble. All thoughts instantly vanished as the silhouette only grew larger and larger till it was the only thing in his field of view.

"That was a nice one, boy," the figure said with a menacing grin as it leaned even closer. "But as a herald candidate, that was weak."