The leader of a tribe stands tall on a cliff’s edge above his subjects as he watches the moon rise to it’s peak. His torn cloak ripples with the still air and his long, silver hair sways with no wind, the natural occurrences of a Vampire. He waits in silence with his clan on the rocks below him as the ten chosen children are delivered by cart to the outskirts of the surrounding forest. The humans are now too afraid to get close to the village because of the breach in the wall that is now unfixable. He stares as some children start to cry for their parents and others look around for comfort from the others. The lands of this tribe are harsh and he suspects less than four will be able to survive here.
One child catches his eye, however. She is a little older than the rest and she counts as, oddly enough, the eleventh child of the group. A stowaway, he thinks to himself as he glides down from the cliff and onto the dying grass where his people wait for him. He takes a few steps forward and gestures to the humans that he sees them. Immediately after, the cart jerks out of sight and the several children that were using it for support fall to the muddy ground with a soft thump.
Suddenly, a roar that sounded like the cracking of bones and shrieking of a banshee is heard from the distance. The younger children shriek in fear and they all start running in wild directions for some sort of safety. The clan leader sighs and starts walking into the woods to round up the panicked children.
“Calm yourselves, little ones.” He commands. Immediately, the children stop running around and surround him in a circle. All, except for the eleventh. She wasn’t even in the panic. She just stands up from her spot behind a berry bush and walks up to him while holding a branch of raspberries in her grasp.
He turns to look at her and examines her closely: She isn’t wearing the Merged Tunic that the other children are wearing, instead, she wears what seems to be normal human-type clothing. Her brown hair is messy but clean except for a few leaves here and there. She is watching him with large blue eyes and a serious expression on her childish features. She looks to be the age of about ten, maybe eleven at the most while the rest of the group are around six to eight.
The smaller children look at the vampire with awe and follow his every movement. Seeing him means one thing to them: Safety. He starts to walk back towards the tribe with the ten children in tow when he hears a small shriek from the back of the group. He stops and turns and that triggers a domino effect amongst the children and they all topple over giggling. He looks around to try to identify who shrieked, “What happened?” He asks them.
“There’s a beast over there..” The eldest says while pointing at where the Vampire once stood on the cliffs. He looks up and spots what she sees: a large, skeletal drake with curved horns stands above the other vampires and is eyeing them hungrily with glowing red eyes of undead menace. What he notices as a bit odd is that half of them are looking up at the mountain, right at the drake, but they don’t seem to notice it at all.
The drake growls as it looks right at the Clan Leader. He runs through the crowd and up the cliff in a matter of moments to confront the beast that threatens his people. The moment he steps foot onto the ledge, the drake backs away and lowers to the ground in a sign of submission. “What do you want with this place?” He asks the undead drake.
The drake growls as if purring slightly and peeked a glance at the wall that exposes the people to the Void. He turns to look at it as well to see very little activity from it at the current time. He looks back at the drake and it’s standing above him now, with it’s wings spread to their full length of forty-five feet. The clan leader steps back in astonishment and starts to anticipate an attack, but an attack doesn’t come.
The drake is exposing his chest, showing that the life force that was once it’s heart is now a captured Spectral Beast’s soul. The soul, however, seems to be shrinking. “You want me to help you replenish your supply because you know we fight the beasts that enter from the Void?” He says quietly while turning to look over the cliff at the approaching children. The drake purrs and gnashes his jaws together in answer.
The vampire sighs before nodding and asking, “Will you be able to speak if I replenish your life-force?” The bone drake nods and it’s jaw creaks as it opens and shuts.

“Master Alkrain! One of the children has wandered too close to the Breach and was taken! If this keeps up, master, there will be no new generation.” The bone drake complains as he swallows a captured soul. Alkrain mumbles as he counts the remaining children as they prepare for washing, “That makes six left, Jadvir. We’re fine for now. It’s barely been a year since we’ve received them. Now be silent, Jadvir. I believe that if the children have a curiosity, they should exploit it instead of ignore it. I am nothing like those over protective elders that think the races will be going extinct in a matter of years.” His eyes linger on the oldest of the children as she starts to complain about the water being too cold. He still can’t identify why the child is so interesting to him.
“But only two of them can stay here now. If we lose any more, we might not be able to keep any of them for our tribe. It’s bad enough that Herlian died a few weeks ago..” Alkrain glares at the drake and his goes silent immediately.
“Lord Alkrian?” One of the younger children walks up to him and he scoops him up to talk to him. “Yes, Redge?” The child called Redge says in a squirrely voice, “When are me and the others gonna become like you and the rest of the tribe? We heard Lillie talking about making us like you early so we can’t die as easily or somethin’.” Alkrain puts redge down and calls the rest of the children over for a small meeting. The other five join in and sit in a semicircle around his feet. The only one that doesn’t join in is the oldest, Setsuna.
He folds his arms and explains the details of the turning ceremony for when they come of the right age. The reason they wait is so that the tribe can determine who will get to be turned and who will be sent back to their original families after the age of sixteen. Seeing that the first of the ceremonies won’t be taking place for another eight years, they have plenty of time to explore, play and forget about the responsibilities of being an adult so soon. He reminds them that the moment they are turned, they must go under rigorous training and are then sent to the frontline to battle the Spectral Beasts that constantly emerge from the Main Cracks of the Void.
Suddenly, Setsuna speaks up, “Why do we have to fight the spectral beasts, my lord? You managed to tame one. Jadvir is a Spectral Beast… well an undead one, but he still used to be one, right?” She points at Jadvir and continues talking, “They aren’t all bad beasts. I saw a bunny being turned into one by a Released Spectral Soul and the bunny just continued on with it’s day. It even hopped up to me and let me pet it!” Alkrain’s eyes go wide as he sees a small blue mark on Setsuna’s moving hand. He rushes up to her and grips her hand in his with her palm up. She yelps in pain at the sudden action and small tears stream down her cheeks as he inspects her hand.
“When did you see the ‘rabbit’, Setsuna?” he asks her slowly. She thinks a moment, “I saw it a few days before being put into the cart for going here, my lord.” He looks up from inspecting her hand in shock. “You… So, it’s been a year since that incident then?” Setsuna nods and Alkrain holds his head in his hand, “Great.” He mutters to himself while letting her hand slip from his grasp.
“Are you alright, Lord Alkrain?” Setsuna asks with a worried look. He looks into her eyes and stands up from his crouch, “Yes, little one. But, if you had told me even six months ago i would have been able to unbind the Spectre from your soul. But now you are bound to it for life until it takes control of you, Setsuna. If you discover anything new that you can do, do not do it often for it may deplete your soul’s strength and that might kill you faster.”
Setsuna stares at the blue glowing mark on her hand in awe.