His face remained perfectly calm, composed and still. Only his eyes betrayed him — sharp, watchful, and clouded with distrust.
Truthfully, ever since they had arrived, Sylas always had a strange suspicion against Cassius which he didn't bother to hide. Since Ki Song and Epsilon had lived with him for a while before they could trust him, they thought that maybe he was just slowly adjusting, but it appears that it was much more drastic than they thought.
Confused, all Cassius could do was inquire,
"Uh... I'm sorry?"
Epsilon and Ki Song stared at him just as dumb founded, but rather than answering anything, he rocked back on his chair before kicking his feet up, and slamming them down on the table aggressively. Then, he asked,
"Don't you all think that his story is just a little bit shady?"
Epsilon looked back at Cassius, who frankly still had no clue what he was talking about. Then turning towards Sylas, he asked,
"What part of it exactly?"
Sylas just sighed, as if expecting him to have caught onto it too. Then asking Cassius,
"How about you just tell us that story again, right from the beginning?"
He gulped,
"Well.. it happened not too long after you guys left."
**
A boy walked alone through the ruins of the underground town.
The silence ancient, thick and cold, like the stone around him. Moss cling to the walls where torches once burned, their iron brackets now rusted and empty. His footsteps tapped softly across cobblestones slick with moisture, echoing faintly through long-forgotten halls.
He passed beneath arches carved with symbols whose meanings had long faded. Stalls of the old marketplace lie abandoned: a broken cart, a pile of rotted barrels, a coin green with age, while the air smelled of stone, earth, and time.
Except for the numerous amounts of Night Sleepers that surrounded this place, the boy was painfully alone.
Now laying in bed, the thin blanket wasn't enough to keep out the cold. Seeing the dust covered match box near on the side table, he thought that maybe it would be fine. He just wanted to warm his hands a bit.
That was all it took. Just that small act of being care free was more than enough to put him on the brink of death.
Subtly lighting a small spark, the match lit a fire that bloomed on the wooden stick. And is if fate was playing some cruel joke, a small piece of burnt ash drifted unnoticeably in the air, as a light gust of wind sucked it in through the slight gap in-between the sloppily placed wooden boardings.
It gently floated about aimlessly, until it landed right on top of a Night Sleeper. The small spark quickly withered and died, but by then, the damage was already done.
One small spark, that was all it took.
The quiet of the room shattered in an instant. As Cassius straightened the sheets on his bed, the far wall exploded inward with a deafening roar, stone, dust, and splinters erupting into the air like a storm unleashed. The force threw him backward, the air ripped from his lungs as choking dust swirled through the wreckage, the world reduced to sound and grey chaos.
Then, as the rumble faded and silence crept back in, the dust began to settle. Through the haze, a jagged hole yawned where the wall had been — and in its centre stood a lone figure.
Tall, motionless, framed by ruin. It's skin was onyx black, and it possessed no facial features of any kind, but even then he could feel the suggestion of its eyes glinting in the dim light.
**
"..As you can see, it brutally beat me. I thought I was a goner, but I barely escaped with my life before it left."
His broken arm, partially fractured limbs, and broken left leg were all a testament to that. It was a miracle that he even survived the encounter in the first place. Critically injured, he passed out in his hiding spot and fell into a coma. He wouldn't wake up until Epsilon brought back Gracia and the others with him.
At least, that's how the story goes.
"That's just it, a "miracle". There a no such things like that."
With disapproval deep in his voice, Sylas continued,
"So you're saying a tiny piece of lit ash managed to coincidentally slip out the house in a 1 in a million chance without being blown out, and it managed to land right on top of Night Sleeper, somehow waking it up?"
He paused, gathering his breath before finishing,
"But what you're also saying.. is that you somehow managed to survive a direct encounter with a fallen creature, on your own... but even with all those wounds, you managed to escape it, no less? Hide away for two weeks before coincidentally waking up the same day Gracia came back? Do you hear how absurd that story sounds?"
They all were also not aware of what exactly his aspect was. Only Epsilon, Sylas, and eventually Ki Song had deduced that he was withholding that info because of his flaw, so it was likely that he possessed one suitable for stealth and escape given the circumstances.
But still, even if you assumed that, it didn't explain that incredibly unlikely scenario from occurring in the first place. It was just too unbelievable.
In his defence, Epsilon spoke,
"Well, apparently I've encountered that Night Sleeper before. I was about to die, but it appeared out of nowhere and killed the Chimera Mass as well as every other Nightmare creature in that forest. It didn't leave a single one behind. I don't quite recall what happened after that, but I'm pretty sure it ignored me too."
His memory of that time was still hazy. All he saw were a few glimpses of the creature before passing out, but he knew that it was there. Thinking about it now, wouldn't bob have seen what happened more clearly? He would need to ask him when they saw each other again.
"As far as I'm aware, the behaviour of the Night sleepers have always been strange. I even saw it again fighting with the Chimera Queen too. Even if he was lying, what could you possibly be suggesting instead?"
His relaxed expression began to tighten. The calm in his features hardened into quiet seriousness. Then glaring at Cassius, he boldly accused,
"You woke it up on purpose, didn't you? You wanted to kill them."