August 2016
The warm Middle Eastern winds dance around the trees. The soothing quietness of this small town is suddenly broken by the sound of an ambulance. A bystander puts his cup of tea down.
"Oh my, what could've possibly happened?" he said to his wife, who's sitting right in front of him.
The ambulance arrives at the hospital and is ready to take in the injured people. The annoying sound of the bed's wheels scraping across the rugged floor of the hallway wakes up one of the injured.
"Where am I? What's going on?" murmured the boy, who was out of it for quite a bit and doesn't recall much. All he remembers is an attack. The nurse taking him to the emergency room puts a hand on his forehead and slowly shakes her head.
"It's depressing. Why does this world have to be so terrible towards the young ones?" the nurse whispered to himself.
The other injured person, a girl, lies on a different hospital bed, still on the move to an emergency room. The appearance of her radiating green eyes and black hair is interrupted by a line of blood forming like a river across her face, reaching from one ear to the other. She is barely alive, with a machine breathing for her.
***
The mother of the 2 kids has started blaming herself, thinking that she should've looked after them instead of letting them get lost and get attacked by those monstrous creatures. She calms down a little and looks over to a young woman.
"Thank you so much for looking after Sa-iq and Sara, Normine." The mother said desperately. Normine looks to the side to avoid eye contact with the mother.
"Don't apologize, I should've done better and stopped all of this from happening." She said quietly.
It wasn't the first time that Normine helped this family, however it has never gotten this bad, and being a high-ranking Agent makes Normine get even more dissatisfied with the results of this short attack.
2023
It's a peaceful and quiet day, the skies are so blue you would think it was a canvas that got painted on. On the steep street sits a neighborhood that is safer than any other, and in there is a typical Middle Eastern house. While it might not look great on the outside, it is amazing on the inside.
Sa-iq sits on the couch, making his presence known around the house. He is excited, and he definitely can't hide it.
"Why are you excited? This isn't a good thing," Sara said, crossing her arms. Sa-iq turned towards her, his smile revealing a missing front tooth.
"'Cause I can finally use my abilities without having some agent from the Agency nagging me 24/7," he said. Sara took a closer look at him.
"You should let your hair grow out. A buzz cut doesn't suit you now, and it never will," she said. Sa-iq looked back at the TV screen.
"I couldn't care less about what other people think of my hair, so I might as well go for a buzz cut and stay comfortable," he replied. Sara then turned back and left the living room.
"Tsk, just because she cares about how she looks so much doesn't mean she can come after me, but I guess that's natural for someone who has a big scar running across their face," he whispered to himself.
The house is almost fully quiet, the only background noise coming from the show Sa-iq is watching. Suddenly, Sa-iq hears a notification sound from his phone. He immediately checks it out and smiles at the message he's gotten.
"E-rank demon located 3km away from your current location," read the notification.
Sa-iq pressed on it to read more. "An E-ranked demon, ability unknown. Should get rid of it with another agent to reduce risk."
"Sara!" yelled Sa-iq across the house.
"I saw the notification. I'm ready," she said, already standing at the front door and putting her shoes on.
They were ready to go after the demon, but shortly before they left, Sa-iq looked back one last time. His mom was standing behind them watching them, and Sa-iq couldn't tell if she was mad or if that was her old age making her look naturally angry. She didn't say anything, but it's not like Sa-iq cared anyway. She barely talked to him or asked about him. His mom favored Sara a lot more, and Sa-iq knows if that were Sara standing in his place, she probably would've said something along the lines of: "Come back home safely!" He closed the door, and they started running towards the demon's location.
"I still think it's insane they accepted us while we're only 13," Sara told Sa-iq while they were on the move.
"Heh, it's not all that surprising. They said it themselves—we're special!" said Sa-iq proudly.
***
Demons have existed for a long time, but their existence has only been confirmed by the world's governments around 80 years ago. However, demonic-like creatures have been recorded all the way back to 800 years ago.
A Dermine is someone who possesses a special gene called the "DER-Gene." Holders of this gene have superpower-like abilities as they are able to produce Dark Energy (DER). People, plants animals and all other life beings are only able to produce Light Energy (LER). On their own, DER and LER are both unable to do anything unusual; LER is nothing more than a type of life-energy, however combining DER with LER is what makes someone powerful. Not only does this combination give one superpowers, but it also makes it so that one cannot get hurt by 1 single type of Energy; for example a knife that only has LER on it cannot pierce someone who is combining DER and LER to protect themselves, the knife must also have the 2 energy types to hurt them. Because normal humans only able to produce LER, possessors of the DER-gene are considered superhumans. Demons and Dermines are almost alike, with only 4 big differences.
They are completely white, as white as snow, while Dermines look normal.All Demons have the DER-Gene.Demons eat people, however, they prefer to eat someone containing a DER-Gene to get more powerful.Demons reside in the Shadow Realm, while humans reside in the Light Realm.
The Shadow Realm is almost identical to the Light Realm. The only 3 differences are:
the color scheme of the Shadow Realm is inverted.the inhabitants of the Shadow Realm are dark, as dark as the night sky can get in fact.Lastly, the Shadow Realm is full of Dark Energy.
DER and LER should not be found in each other's realms as they should stay on their own, which is why the existence of Dermines and Demons confuse researchers. Dermines are also more special because they are, quite literally, ordinary people capable of producing DER. They look exactly like everyone else. The 'Mine' in Dermine refers to cave mines, as Dermines are looked upon as producents of DER.
***
"Shh, I see it." Sara whispered after taking her hand out to stop Sa-iq. they were hiding behind a wall observing the demon. It stood inside a dark and cold alleyway. They were almost unable to see anything in there other than a shadowy figure.
The only reason they knew it was a demon was because of its abnormally long nails which is what demons use as their weapons, like swords.
Sa-iq and Saras green eyes reflected back, and it almost looked like the demon had heard them, soon afterwards it got back to digging through the trash. A terrible smell shocked the pair of twins.
"Is it digging through a dead body? What is that smell?" Sara managed to whisper, she was barely able to breathe without gagging.
"It looks like some dead animal.", whispered Sa-iq back, the smell didn't bother him all that much, but a look of disgust was clear on his face, nonetheless.
"My Dermine is Lightning, I'll be able to kill it quickly." whispered Sa-iq to Sara, Sara was surprised by Sa-iq's choice of words.
Kill? But that-" Sara was quickly cut off.
"Those things aren't human, if a human does something wrong, they can always become better, demons will come back to do worse if you give them the chance, don't look at them as humans when killing them, because they aren't, they deserve death." He said menacingly. he started getting ready to rush at the demon. Saras hair started rising up, a sign that Sa-iq is charging electricity.
He blasted towards it, and the loud sound of lightning followed right after. As he was blasting, he pointed his sword right at it to pierce through it. While gripping tensely on his sword handle, his eyebrows rose up in shock as he saw his sword slide off the demon. He barely managed to stop himself from collapsing into the building at the end of the alleyway, he looked back in confusion and saw the demons face, the pale white skin interrupted by a crimson look around its mouth, he also saw Sara who just saw him completely slide off of it.
"What the hell is your deal!" Yelled Sa-iq suddenly while pointing at the demon.
"You're so slippery! It is not normal to be that sweaty even for demons." He kept rambling. The demons mouth suddenly rose from ear to ear revealing an eerie smile so terrifying it even made Sa-iqs spine tremble a little.
"You can't hit me, that's what my ability is, everything that tried to make contact with me slides off unless I allow it." Said the demon in a raspy voice. In a blink of an eye, it was already right in front of Sa-iq, read to punch him right into the wall, Sara luckily got involved just in time to hold it down.
Saras ability is Wind, which means she is able to control wind in a way that makes her able to fly or hold down others. However, even when she is able to control air, no matter how strong her grip on the demon is, it will slide off. She held Sa-iq and decided to make him float.
"That was too reckless! Next time we strike together!" Said Sara, however, her voice wasn't too clear due to the air rushing by them.
"The demon isn't lying, I can't even hold it down with my wind control." She said while looking down at the demon, which was staring right back up. Sara then let loose of Sa-iq, making him fall back to the ground. A small crater was made in the process, but Sa-iq ultimately came out unharmed. The demon saw the dust coming from the landing and decided to use it for its own use, and while Sa-iq was blind, the demon rushed it and slashed Sa-iqs left waist ripping a piece of his cloth off.
It stood right behind Sa-iq ready to kill him; however, it stopped when Sa-iq started laughing a little.
"You fell for it!" He said before he let out an electric explosion, killing the demon in process. He was able to control the explosion to not hurt Sara as well. Sara then got back down to the ground; the smell of roasted meat mingled in their nose.
"Let's get rid of it before it activates self-destruct." Said Sara.
***
Demons have a weird habit of explosion, 10 minutes after their death they explode and damage anyone in the radius, in the process any proof of their existence is removed from the world. Demons can also activate this on purpose. This has troubled some researchers at the Agency, because of this they are not able to study the demonic body, both dead and alive ones explode if they try to research them. This also means that Dermine Agents have to get rid of the body, so the explosion doesn't hurt anyone.
***
The sun was starting to set, and the sound of an automated door opening is heard, Sa-iq breaks his eye contact with the sunset, and looks behind to see Sara coming out with some medicine.
"This should help with your injury, sorry I couldn't prevent it." She said. Sa-iq could hear regret in her voice.
"Don't worry it's no big deal, the cut wasn't too deep luckily." Said Sa-iq in response. They then walked back home, Sa-iqs injury wriggled a little bit, however he couldn't feel it.