Long Journey || ATEEZ

A Sanctuary For The Shunned

And so, like that, a week passed, and the Ghost Queen didn't seem to be showing any signs of doing any harm to Yeosang. In fact, the pirates aboard the ATINY barely saw her, and when they asked around for the notorious investor at her base, her subordinates claimed she was away on business.

As the week progressed, the mild early-May sun changed, transforming into a raging inferno of intense heat that would inflict the most agonising of pains upon those foolish enough to dare challenge it. By Eterna, the late spring of Tilina was harsh.

The sun was hot on Hongjoong and San's backs as they weaved through masses of people that were on their way to the beach down the coast. The sky was cloudless, the sun agonisingly hot; it was the worst day for those with long or dark hair – or a mullet, in the two pirates' case.

They'd been wandering through the town for the best part of the afternoon, seeking out a hairdresser, but had been rejected by all they had visited, with a lot of the hairdressers claiming vehemently they would never want to even want to lay a finger on a damned demon's hair. Even the trainee and hairdresser that had done Yeosang's hair had reeled away in disgust when they'd been told of this fact.

They'd just exited their fifth (gods, there were so many salons in this city), once again met with a shamelessly aggressive rejection.

"Hyungnim," San said as the older demon began to type in 'salon' into the map app on his home for the sixth time. "Why do people hate us so much? Demons, I mean. And literally any other Dark Creature. What gives them the right to hate us so much?"

"There's a lot of reasons, actually," Hongjoong said, as he shoved his phone back in his pocket and started to walk off. "One of the key ones is the fact that we're set apart from the rest of the Children of Magik. We have Dark Energy."

"But how does that justify anything? Not that their hatred of us is justified at all, of course."

"Ah," Hongjoong said, grimacing slightly as they turned a corner. "It's the origin of our type of Magik that's why they hate us."

"Huh?"

"Have you heard of the Shiver?"

San shook his head.

"Oh, did they not read some of the stories from the Mythica texts to you in the orphanage?"

"No," the demon said. "They didn't have that kind of money. They were barely keeping the place together."

"Oh."

San shrugged.

"Can you tell me what happened, then?"

"Well...basically, a long, long time ago, there was a god. We don't know how Ancient or if they were Major or not, but what we do know is that they soon grew tired of their life as a god. Eventually, for reasons we do not know, it grew bitter and resentful of the gods, and the world they had created. They tried to rebel, but of course, Eterna did not just stand by and watch.

'In the end, it was banished down to Lucidia, with the intention of being put in a weaker state, but just before that happened, in a burst of godly power, it completely changed forms, before the gods could intervene. This caused three minigods – Fear, Hatred and Anger – to manifest, and as well as that, the essence of the Shiver, as the stories now call it, entered, or a lot of people like to say 'infected' a bunch of Children of Magik. And that's how the stories say Dark Creatures originated." The captain shrugged. "I don't really believe in it, nor care, but apparently when Dark Creatures were first created, they were nothing more than empty shells of the Shiver's rage. They were like primitive beasts that attacked anything that moved. Of course, we evolved over time – but either way, resentment and prejudice has been building up for centuries, from stories passed down by peoples' ancestors or whatever, and the result is what we have today."