A set of dreams that are forgotten, the words that never connected, I want to save your memories… and you mine.
•••
Lucille, a young noble girl with a rough upbringing, was about to prove her worth for the first time.
She laid inside a steaming bath but she felt nothing. A man, tall with blonde hair just like Lucille's, stood with his hands crossed behind his back in the shadows.
"Remember Lucille, bring a replacement to your brother, and he shall be freed." He said from a distance.
Two maids with pained expressions were surrounding the bath, "Be strong, milady." Tears dropped from their eyes as Lucille nodded and they were forced to submerge her in the water.
Steam released from her submersion and covered the room, she lost consciousness and when the steam finally vanished, the girl was no longer there.
•••
"Lucille… you will be great! If anything bothers you, just come and tell me, your older brother is capable of anything."
The darkness of slumber had been burned bright by the light of Lucille's memories. Stood in her memories was her older brother who had brimming hair just like hers and despite being a few years older than her, Lucille felt they were decades apart. He wore a huge smile.
She extended her tiny hands to his back, reaching for his black uniform which had gold lines and symbols signifying their Orville heritage.
Just as she was about to touch, the light swept him away.
Drop!
The sound of water dropping echoed in her ears and the scene switched from her bright yard to a dark room. Gladius, Lucille's older brother was no longer smiling and had a scrutinizing look that constantly dug into Lucille's fragile heart.
They were surrounded by armors, weapons and things of that nature. The scent of steel was especially strong.
"You're already an acolyte, act like one."
Lucille clutched her chest, unable to restrain her emotions as she lashed out to her brother who she was just sparring with… and lost.
"What am I supposed to do!? I'm not strong or talented like you, I am lost!"
Gladius gave her a hard glare then threw her the wooden sparring sword. It clattered on the ground before it stopped on the ground where Lucille's hand held her up.
He towered over her, overwhelming her with his mere presence. "Don't insult my hard work by calling it talent, Lucille."
Lucille's eyes, hands and lips twitched but all she could do was listen.
Gladius extended his hand, his behavior softening after a glance at Lucille's face tormented by sorrow.
Shaking his head, he kneeled and pulled Lucille into a comforting hug and told her, "I'm sorry… You shouldn't be the outlet of my anger. Forgive your foolish brother."
Lucille broke into tears, soaking his shoulder wet.
Gladius patted her head and reassured, "You aren't lost… just follow the colors—your heart."
"I'm sorry…" She wept, Gladius gently comforting her.
Suddenly the door kicked open, her tears came to an abrupt stop. And Gladius anxiously turned around, pushing her back.
Three men came in, all dressed in guard uniform except one, in the middle was their step-father, Lumien Orville. He had an imminent scar that extended from above his right eye to below his left.
"So this is where you hide, wuss!" Lumien sneered.
Gladius put his hand in front of Lucille, "Don't lay a finger on her, scumbag!"
Lumien chuckled… then laughed hysterically. "Are you dense? The girl's about the only thing worthwhile left by my brother, you think I'd do anything to her? Worry about yourself."
He nodded his head and the guards ran to capture Gladius. He struggled but it was no use.
"Unhand me… you need me, Lumien! Unhand me-" One of the guards that currently held him covered his mouth, he kicked his feet in the air but that was about all he could do when in hold of two gigantic guards.
Eventually, the guards and Gladius left her sight, she heard their footsteps disappear upstairs.
Lumien walked over to her and kneeled down on one side, his hand went to her left cheek then under her hair where her ear was.
He rubbed her face, her tears with his thumb and said. "You're a wonderful girl, Lucille. Much useful… you will be of splendid nature, my girl."
Lucille saw his vile crimson colors and her heart ached but she remained silent.
For such reasons, she was sent to a foreign land. In order to save her own brother…
Darkness enveloped her vision and she woke up. Her room was dark, cold and scary.
Her face was wet, and so was the furniture she laid upon.
A red color wove like threads before her eyes shot through the window. For the first time, she felt the color actually had a presence which left her eyes wide open.
The color zig zagged and traveled from left to right, forming Lucille a path to follow.
She wanted to jump off the window but realized she wasn't physically capable and her stomach was grumbling.
An apple glimmered beside her, she took that and a jacket on the hanger while jolting out her room and running through the empty and dark hall of the hospital.
She realized that the place she had appeared was a hospital and by the time she left it, only the core of the apple had remained.
Despite having been fed before the ritual, she felt herself weakened and hungry but the apple had restored some of her strength.
Lucille threw the core and moved forward. Unbeknownst to her, behind, the core sprouted a caliginous tree that flaked black smoke.
She was too focused on the thread the color of red to notice anything else.
As she ran through allies, she started to become more aware of her surroundings. The cackling windows, the whispering wind and sets strange, inhumane eyes silently watching her, like a predator waiting for its prey to be vulnerable.
However, her years of training weren't totally useless, the times Gladius would sneak her out to train her despite their parent's disapproval was paying off.
She could handle herself against an enemy or two despite looking so fragile. Lucille's heart grew heavier, she could only thank her brother under her breath.
The cold was cruel, it felt like Lucille was walking on uneven ice, her feet were injured with splinters and tiny rocks stabbing and leaving her flesh for others of their kind to replace them. It was bloody.
Threads of red grew even brighter the further Lucille ran, eventually it led her to a building. It was quiet, cold and oddly windy, even more than outside.
Every apartment had closed doors but the staring eyes, they were still remnant. The higher she climbed the stairs, the stronger the smell of danger grew and the heavier her heart beat.
Lucille reached the rooftop and the wind returned to normal. She saw buildings both shorter and taller than the one she was on.
The thread of red extended as high as she could see until she noticed many such dark colors convulse in the sky, it shook many shapes, circular, triangular, rectangular and from that, they extended into an indefinite line.
Then out of nowhere, the color of red disappeared from the sky and left Lucille unable to react before she felt an icy hand grab her shoulder.
She froze in place, her heart skipping several beats. She felt the air near her shoulder getting vacuumed as the unknown being sniffed the scent of her fear.
Instinctively her eyes looked in that direction and her breathing came to a halt. She saw something that she only read about, the being had radiant white hair that covered its face but its skin was as dark as it could be. Its skin was purely smoke but the wood like texture of it was still showing.
It drew a foul smelling breath and Lucille's gaze returned forward, her nerves acted on their own to prevent her from seeing something abominable.
"So this… is the flesh my son craves… marvelous." It had a deep, hoarse and husky voice that felt like molten being poured down her ear.
Its jaws opened wide, spiky sets of teeth that were all uneven but evenly sharp. Lucille clenched her fists while consciously accepting her fate.
Its teeth were about to carve into her flesh until it came to an abrupt start. Lucille was snatched away from it and she felt herself in the air, a sudden warm on her neck and legs.
She opened her eyes and another set of white hair, radiating the moon. But this one, it had a human face and a brighter color.
Lucille's lips trembled before she could say, "Are you…?"
The man tightened his grasp on Lucille before stepping on the edge of another building and propelling himself forward.
The same happened a few times, eventually leading Lucille to wrap her arms around his neck. She wasn't fond of heights.
Thread of Red followed them wherever they went, but its speed was surprisingly slower than the man with a warming aura was.
They eventually arrived at a certain place, Lucille realized that when the mysterious man stopped and put her on the ground.
She felt dizzy and struggled to stay on her feet. The man grabbed her hand and ran.
Soon after, Lucille found herself somewhere isolated. A small cavern with walls in her front and back, her left and right extended a long way showing glimmers of street lights on either way.
Just then, the man loosened his hold on her hand and let go of her. He looked left and right, his hand on the sword on his waist, trembling, clattering.
The clattering came to a stop when he unsheathed his medium length sword with letter engravings that were foreign to Lucille. The butt of the sword was round and its tip sharp, like a needle.
"Who-who are you?" Lucille asked while startled. The cold finally caught up to her, her fingertips red and almost swollen.
The man swung his right arm downward and the tip of his sword reached his knee. "A demon hunter."
Lucille narrowed her brows, wondering if this was the scholar candidate she was supposed to look for. After all, the scholars she knew and read about were all honorable people unbothered by the act of hunting or killing, they merely served to uphold the balance containing the world in place.
But this strange place left no time for anyone to just 'think' because that was also considered preparation before battle, the same as packing weapons and resources.
Several threads of ominous colors creeped in the area from everyone, left, right, up and down. The colors consisted of a few red, even fewer black and some dark blue.
Hands crawled from the ground and creatures with disfigured faces, some had backward limbs and some had feet like an animal's. What they all shared in common was their ominous presence that quickened the girl's heartbeat.
The demon hunter marched right and slashed one, two, three and continued slashing and piercing whoever he could.
He picked a bottle of water from his waist and poured it on his weapon quickly before striking another enemy.
But even that effort wasn't enough, the ones from the left and all the remaining areas headed straight to Lucille, none of them seemed interested in the demon hunter, even the ones on the right.
Lucille grabbed one thread after the other and pulled or cut them with her hands but all it did was barely slow them down.
Even the demon hunter who was physically stronger than her was tiring out, his movements becoming sluggish and slower by the second.
During that moment, a desperate idea crossed her mind and she continued to severe one thread after the other while taking steady steps back. Eventually, her back pressed against the hunter's and she cut one last thread before turning herself and the hunter to face each other.
Her cold and soft hands pressed against the hunter's cheeks, she had the determined eyes of a child as she stared him up in the eyes and asked, "Mr. Hunter, do you trust me?"
He was baffled and confused on whether doing that would be wise or not. He could not utter a word and the dark creatures drew nearer, surrounding them from everywhere, some grabbing their feet.
"Ugh, there's no time, fine!" He gripped his sword stronger just in case and waited for the girl to do as she supposedly planned.
Lucille closed her eyes and her hair floated as if she was underwater. "Calamity: Castle Of Colors…" Then the colors began appearing to him as well, whirling around them, all of them connected to the creatures and some brighter colors coming from Lucille and the windows from nearby buildings.
The colors whirled, lifting them in the air and shooting left and right, eventually weaving walls surrounding them then within the large colorful domain, a garden weaved, then pillars, floors and eventually a castle.
The castle, despite being dark and grim, had beautiful colors brightening it. It was like a beautiful portrait that the hunter couldn't believe was real.
The two stood on air before Lucille grabbed his hand and stepped on invisible stairs and headed down. The stairs stopped right in front of the castle gate.
The two stopped and took deep breaths. The Hunter finally sheathed his weapon and calmed down, he didn't feel any ominous presence nearby.
"What did you do, What's a calamity?" He asked calmly, his guard slightly loosened.
Lucille's wounds and swollen fingertips stinged then eventually healed, allowing her to stand properly without twitching.
"Have you heard of Scholars?"
The Hunter nodded, recalling all he remembered about the Scholars revered worldwide, it was hard not to know of them than otherwise.
"I possess powers similar to them, I am an acolyte. I wield the power of influence, Anthology, and this is the result!" Lucille seemed enthusiastic, almost proud.
She suddenly recalled the Scholars once more, she remembered that she did not know anything about any of them at all, their backgrounds were more mysterious than they were. Knowing that, then maybe the man before her was truly the one she was sent to seek.
"Say, Good Hunter. Are you interested in harnessing such power?"
The Hunter, although amused. Didn't completely trust her yet, so he simply shook his head. "Not yet, not until we're out of this mess."
Lucille sighed and posed another question. "Then, why is it that you hunt?" She never understood hunters, not in the fiction, and not in the stories she read and certainly not in real life.
Is an unfamiliar life so invaluable that they deserve to die? She always questioned herself, even that of demons.
The Hunter didn't take time to answer, he was always certain on what his path was and what needed to be done. "I kill to live, hunt to survive and extinguish evil so I don't have to fear it."
He looked forward to the castle contrasting with beautiful colors and continued, "Every second I spend could be used to purge them, and I do accordingly. If I have to die tomorrow, then I'll hunt as many of them as I can today."
Finally turned and looked back at Lucille who attentively listened. "Now, get us out of here."
Lucille closed her eyes and nodded, she raised her hands and brought them closer to join them but just as her hands were about to touch, a strong wind passed and an invisible force grabbed Lucille.
Before the hunter could act, Lucille had already been dragged inside the castle.
The Hunter's compass vibrated in his coat's pocket and suddenly stopped.
He was about to take a step forward but came to an abrupt stop as he felt his surroundings crumble and within the blink of an eye, all the color vanished and he returned to the colorless reality.
He felt the vibration on his stomach again, he took out his compass and looked at it.
Creak. Creak. The compass needle thrashed violently.
Tucking it back inside his pocket, he slicked his white hair back and looked at the building before him. A luxurious villa, surrounded by black iron fences—each spear-tipped like a warrior's lance.
The reaction from his compass confirmed an imminent threat. Though afraid, The Hunter—Walker Soliraine knew better than to run away. In fact, he wanted this to be his end, just like any other hunt he conducted.
The sanctified water bottles on his waist made a harmonious melody clashing against each other and his resolver's cage rolled as he checked if he was ready.
His sword—an extended gladius that he carried on the other side of his waist. All things considered, Walker was prepared.
"Here goes nothing."