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Prologue

[Noel]

    Tall trees and birds flying high. Falling leaves and the sound of water flowing in the nearby creek. Gasping for air as I run desperately to escape the danger that lies behind me. I hear their growling and footsteps closing in. I jumped over a broken branch, over a slippery pond, and got scratched by some little hanging branches near my face as I kept running.

"How much longer do I have to keep this up?"

Almost yelling at them on the transmitter in my ear. Then suddenly I heard a loud bang and another one after the other. I took a peek behind me to see the creatures lying on the ground with tranquilizer bullets on their necks and took the chance to catch my breath.

"Took you long enough!" I shouted as I was frustrated at them. One, two, three of those creatures could've taken my life if they had been late for just a few seconds.

    The others jumped down from the trees where they hid. There are three of us in total: Rei, Cedrick, and me. Rei walked up to me and gives me a small bottle of water. I nodded to show that I'm thankful and drank the whole thing that's in it.

    Rei is a girl, I think. She has short hair but not too short, big brown deadly gazes, and based on the rumors I hear, she is always in a bad mood and also a cold-blooded fighter who shows no mercy to her foes and even her colleagues. They also named her the so-called 'reaper'. Well, I guess that fits perfectly especially because she uses a big scythe when it's a deadly mission. I've only seen it once though, it was an enormous and scary looking tool.

"Great job, " she looks in my direction.

"Thanks. I guess," I said in response but deep inside I wanted to complain. I only ran! I did nothing special! But I know that I can't say that. Not if I want to die a painful death.

[Rei]

    I can tell that he is not satisfied with the assignment I gave him by the pout that is in his mouth.

"Don't worry, I'll give you more interesting missions in the future. So just wait, " I couldn't hold back my thought. He looked surprised for a second and his pout curled up into a smile.

    Noel is tall, his hair is kind of long but not long enough to be tied in a bun, a bit curly on the top and shaved at the bottom. Something that they call a mushroom cut if I'm not mistaken. He's got big brown eyes just like me, his well-fit body can be seen through his loose white plain shirt and fitted black pants.

"Ced, clean this up" I ordered as he reached the cage in his jacket's pocket.

"Do we need all of them?" he asks before he throws the little pill-like cages. It's a device that this country created for easier hunting and also for carrying the living things we can catch in them. Humans, animals, and these creatures.

"We need as much as we can, " I replied.

[Noel]

    As she ordered Cedrick, I saw a little oval thing that he threw in the direction of those creatures and it sucked them up one by one. At first, it was a white tube but now it turned black. I guess that's how it indicates that something is in it.

"What's that called again?" I mumbled to myself, but I think it was a little loud because I saw their eyes locked at me. The look of a real teacher ready to scold their student.