Reincarnation: Part One- Earth

Chapter 4- Civilian Soul

The cave was unnoticeable from the outside. It could only be accessed by those who already knew it was there.

Inside the cave, there was a table. It was a large conference table, and was easily able to seat twenty people. There were ten chairs, however, and each of these ten chairs was filled. The youngest occupant appeared to be thirty, and the eldest was well into their eighties. The eighty year-old stood up, commanding everybody's attention. They all looked at him, a sick excitement in the air.

"Our wish has been fulfilled! The only man in the world who knows the location of the Gate and the Key is in our hands!" The man exclaimed gleefully, his expression akin to that of a Disney villain. A cheer went up through the room, quickly turning into the starting of a party. It was at this point that their demons came out. They all quietened.

"Firstly, we must interrogate this man and find the Key and the Gate. Then we can rejoice." The demon on the oldest man's shoulder said. They all began to nod meekly.

"Bring him out!" The eldest man yelled. A person, unnoticed until that point of time, scampered out of the shadows to do the man's bidding. The ten people at the table sat. Some fidgeted nervously, some began to giggle at nothing at all, and yet others just sat still and silent, their glazed eyes staring into the distance.

A few minutes later, the person returned, this time dragging a blond haired man with wide and terrified green eyes. His hands were bound behind his back and he was gagged. He was wearing a suit on which there was a name tag that declared him to be 'Professor Anthony Zoffer'. Throwing Professor Zoffer to the ground, the man scampered back into his niche in the shadows. Professor Zoffer peered up at the men in front of him, and whimpering could be heard through his gag. The men around the table smiled back at him, gruesome and terrifying.

And then he began to scream.

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"There was activity detected from the turned ones at this location." Etios handed Dan a slip of paper with an address on it and added, "I confirmed it."

Dan nodded. He was fast walking to his car, Etios hurrying to keep up with him. The house was on red-alert. The fact that the enemies had struck within a fifty-mile radius was enough to cause most people to panic. The tension got to Etios as well. Right before Dan entered the garage, he stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Be careful." Etios said, looking into his partner's eyes. Dan's own eyes softened slightly, and he nodded, leaning in and giving Etios a quick kiss on the lips.

"I will." He murmured. Satisfied with the answer, Etios nodded and walked away, having other tasks to do. He trusted Dan to keep himself safe.

When he entered the garage, Dan saw Eresia leaning against the vehicle, and Draven standing next to her.

"Let's go." Eresia stated, turning to open the door.

"And what makes you think you're coming with me?" Dan asked, raising his eyebrow.

"I have a feeling." She told him, determination in her eyes. Dan thought for a moment. She was like a daughter to both him and Etios. They had found her abandoned on the streets as an eight-month-old and had raised her ever since. He didn't want to take her into an undoubtedly dangerous situation. But her instincts had been shown again and again to have been accurate. There had once been a team that had gone out for a routine inspection. Eresia had urged them to take extra weapons with them, to the point of telling who to take what. The team had only listened to humor her, but they had ended up running into the enemy. The weapons and their element of surprise had saved that team's lives. No one ignored Eresia's instincts after that.

Dan nodded, and then motioned for Draven and Eresia to get in. Despite his harsh criticisms of the younger man's performance that afternoon, Draven had in fact done rather well. In addition, he was a fast learner. Dan knew he wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

Dan got in, started the car, and then they were on their way.

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Rayn lay on her couch, her arm flung over her eyes. She focused on the ticking of the clocks. She could only hear one single click, but she knew there were twenty-five clocks in the room. The knowledge of their synchronization, of the fact that at the very least, this hadn't changed, brought her a small measure of comfort.

Memories of the events of the morning ran through her head over and over again. Though she had somehow kept it all together in front of the others, she was a wreck now. This war, it sounded like serious business. No, it was serious business.

'... takes over twenty of us to take down one of them...'

'... soldiers...'

Take down implied death. Soldiers implied death. They were asking her to kill random people, with no other reason than they said so! But if what they said was true... could she really be selfish and run and hide and let the world get taken over by demons? And couldn't she always just judge on her own whether or not to kill someone?

'And they aren't really asking me to kill. I have a choice. I could enter management.' Rayn thought to herself. But, somehow, there was a little voice in the back of her head that asked whether or not there was really a choice. Besides, even if she entered management, she would be condoning the killings.

But if she didn't...

But if she did...

The thoughts circled, a loop of doubting herself, of doubting them. She tossed and turned on the couch, but no position she curled into provided an escape from her thoughts, from every possible scenario that could happen.

Finally, she had had enough. She got off the couch, stomped to her closet, pulled on a coat, grabbed her car keys, and went into the garage. She needed a second opinion.

Her best friend, Anthony Zoffer, lived nearby. He had always believed her when she said she could see demons, and he had done lots of research into the subject, though she never paid all that much attention to it, and he stopped telling her about his findings. But they were still inseparably close, and she knew she could ask him about everything that had happened that day.

She chuckled, thinking about how excited Anthony would be when she came to him with all the new information she had, and carefully backed out of her driveway, heading for his house.

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The ten of them were seated back at the table, covered in blood. The eldest glanced at the mutilated corpse of Professor Anthony Zoffer, absently rubbing some of the dead man's blood between his fingers.

"Oops, we broke him." The one of the men cackled. The others joined in his mirth.

"Well, he was less useful than we thought he would be. Only knowing where the Door was and nothing at all about the Key." The eldest man spat on the mess that was once a living person,followed by the others who repeated his action.

"Brand! Go and search this excuse of a scholar's house. He could've lied to us about the Key." The eldest man spat. One of the men stood up, bowed, and ran off.