CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD

PROLOGUE IV

The shadows of people walked around Andrei as he stood in that grayed-out household. A taller man, and a woman about as tall as he was. Beside him, the silhouette of a young girl donning a frilly, what would have been colorful dress, followed him. At times, she tried to grab his hand... that haunting feeling which resounded in his hardened nerves sent a chill through his whole body, and he always looked down to see her standing at a distance.

Blinking and looking back up at the household around him, Andrei stood before the true form of Ra, who towered over him. Now both of the elder shadows had vanished from view, and when he turned around, the outline of the girl had hidden herself. He realized now that he was no longer in the house. The world around him was still gray, but the colors were more vivid here somehow. Before him, Ra stood, partially slumped forward. Something about him seemed... off. Andrei held out a hand, waving to Ra in the sterile, almost laboratory-like environment. "Yo, Ra. It's scarier if you aren't trying to steal my body." He muttered, doubling his volume and repeating himself when the demon did not respond.

Eventually, the demon snapped out of his trance, and stood at his full height, looking down on Andrei a slight bit. Taking a second to glance at his hands, Ra grunted. "This place... it's familiar, to both of us. You feel it, don't you?"

Looking around now, Andrei began to realize that the sterile colors were a slight bit more real than the mind-numbing monotonous gray of the house that he had fallen into the past few times he had dreamed. Standing tense, he couldn't tell why that was, but he recognized this place from... somewhere. Everything around them, both Andrei and Ra, was bathed in white light, and shadows of people in long coats wove around them, even stepping through Ra.

"What the hell-?" Andrei cut himself off as he heard the voice of a young girl, the one from the house. Her silvered form stumbled as one of the dark shadows walked through her, and he tensed up, prepared to strike the shadow out of nowhere. Instead opting to catch the girl, he stood back up, and the lab was empty. Blinking, he adjusted himself. "The nerve-... Ra, where the hell'd you take me now?" Andrei turned to the demon, his nose twisted with pent-up anger. Still, he couldn't put his finger on why.

The demon, Ra, stared into Andrei's eyes. The two exchanged something of an understanding, which they had developed through simply being stuck to one another for such a time. It was Andrei who shook himself off, uncomfortable with the thought of complacency with the thing that was in his head. "In that moment... I wanted to-" Andrei cut himself off, then glanced down at his hands as Ra had just moments ago.

"You wanted to kill them. I could feel it. The bloodlust in your eyes, it's the same as mine at times." Ra seemed to look down at the floor a slight bit, then shuddered a bit. The leathery tails on the back of his head shook in a breeze as air conditioning seemed to breathe life into a rather hot, empty laboratory floor.

"I... No, I won't." Andrei shook his head, then patted his cheeks, squishing in his face a slight bit as the shadow of the girl at his foot cowered in fear. "I can't... I don't know why, but..." Andrei locked eyes with Ra, feeling the piercing gaze of the girl's vision on him, even if he could not make out her eyes. "I won't ever kill another human. Not even if they threaten my life."

Then Andrei woke up.