“Oh… God. How?...” Aria’s voice was quiet and small, and she stared at the glowing symbol on the trap door. Cayne hardly dared to breathe. It was the symbol of the House of Tiberius.
“Did you know this was here?” he asked, turning to her
She was quiet for a long time, before she slowly replied. “No… I didn’t.” Something in her voice told Cayne that she wasn’t being completely truthful, but before he could ask, the door ever so slowly creaked open with a metallic screech, revealing a staircase that led down as far as Cayne could see. He and Aria looked at each other for a long moment, and then Cayne, on impulse, started towards the stairs. Aria grabbed his hand.
“What are you doing!? You have no idea what’s down there!”
He looked back over his shoulder at her, and she looked uncharacteristically scared. He turned back around to face her fully. “Aria, this was what I was looking for.” He was so sure of it. There was nothing else that could have possibly been drawing him to this place.
She nervously inhaled, let go of of his hand, and shuffled her feet. “Alright. But the second that something seems off, we’re out.”
“Agreed.” Cayne nodded, and cautiously began to descend the staircase, each one creaking as his foot made contact. The stairs had obviously not been used in a very long time. He heard Aria breathing nervously behind him as they descended, and over time he noticed that the passageway was beginning to get smaller and smaller. Eventually, Cayne had to turn sideways to continue forward. It was so dark that when he looked behind him, he could only faintly see the whites of Aria’s eyes. He gulped, but suddenly, just as it seemed the passage would have become so narrow it would have crushed them both, it suddenly widened again, and if it hadn’t been for Aria grabbing his arm from behind, he would have fallen forward on his face. As it was, he stumbled into the room, dragging her with him, and as soon as his foot touched the floor, lanterns lit up all around the chamber, and he raised an arm to shield his face and closed his eyes, only opening them when he heard nothing move.
It appeared to be a study. The room was large, filled with shelves upon shelves of books, and had several other shelves holding all sorts of objects that Cayne had never seen before, as well as tables of charts and notes, and models of various creatures, most of which Cayne recognized, but some of which he had never seen before. There was one that appeared to be a legless dragon with feathered wings and a head like a snake, another had a man-like face but the body of a tiger and a scorpion tail, and there was yet another one that greatly resembled a phoenix, but was gigantic according to its model, which depicted it swooping down upon an elephant.
“Oh my…” Cayne breathed. He knew who this room must have belonged to. There couldn’t have possibly been anyone else. The detail, the maps, the intricate notes and models, the symbol on the door. It was Noctus Tiberius. The legend, the inventor, the explorer, the founder of the modern studies of magical, mythical, and miscellaneous creatures. His hero. “Aria... Aria, we found it! Do you have any idea how many people have been searching for- Aria?”
She shook her head, and had appeared to be staring in awe as well. “Y-yeah! Wow…” she mumbled, as Cayne rushed forward, drinking everything in, walking in circles around each model, and carefully reading everything noted about them. The man-tiger, it turned out, was something known as a manticore. He carefully read each detailed note aloud to Aria, who had carefully removed a book about medicinal plants from a shelf and was paging through it as if she had read it before. She probably had at some point, he reasoned. Many copies of his books were sold in libraries, after all.
“Let’s see here…” he began “The manticore… This extremely dangerous beast is found in dry desert regions, where it hunts for food using its immense strength, three rows of sharp teeth, claws, and scorpion-like tail, which fires extremely poisonous barbs up to 200 feet. These barbs become invisible at the moment of firing, and grow back almost instantly. Its poison, while not deadly to larger prey, can cause excruciating pain and paralysis, rendering them immobile so that the manticore may devour its victim… How these creatures reproduce is unknown, as only males have been observed, though it is within reasoning that they are perhaps the male counterpart to the sphinx, as their known habitats do overlap in quite a few regions... Although it has a human-like face and is capable of basic speech, it doesn’t seem to be interested in pleasant conversation. Indeed, when I chanced upon one during my travels, it seemed to see me as just another meal. Luckily, as I learned that day, nothing can pierce a dragon hide shield, not even manticore barbs... ” he read to the bottom of the parchment, and looked up, spellbound by the writing. “Aria, these are his actual notes! Isn’t this amazing!? We’re reading history!”
“Yeah!” came Aria’s wavering voice from the next isle over. Cayne, in his excitement, practically stumbled over to the other side of the room, where a number of what were undoubtedly inventions rested on shelves. He read each label carefully. There were water purifiers made from unicorn horns, instantly lighting self-sustaining lanterns, a bowl of small glass bottles of what appeared to be some sort of repellant, a pair of goggles that were apparently imbued with magic that allowed one to see the Fair Folk even while invisible, a working metal skeletal frame of what was most definitely a dragon’s wing, and several others. Cayne felt himself shaking once again with excitement, and reached up to take one of the self-sustaining lanterns down from a high shelf. As he did though, his hand brushed between two of the stones making up the wall.
There was a very loud clicking sound, and then the noise of what almost sounded like turning gears inside the wall sprang to life, and as Cayne watched, off to his right, a part of the masonry began to separate and move, as another shelf slowly slid out of the stone. Aria, hearing the commotion, came dashing around from the bookshelves, holding a rather large model of a kitsune. “Cayne, what’re you-”
She stopped mid-sentence upon seeing what had emerged from the wall. Together, they stared. Resting delicately on the shelf was a green, opaque orb, about the size of a fist, made out of what appeared to be glass, though Cayne couldn’t be sure. Surrounding the orb in rings were bands of gold that all interlocked together in an almost star-like pattern, seeming to form a sort of protective cage around it, leaving the orb somehow suspended in mid air in the center. It was nothing like the other inventions. Just from looking at it, Cayne could tell that it had been hidden for a reason. He glanced back at Aria, and judging from her expression, she had no idea what it was either. Beside the mysterious object was a very large pile of scrap parchment, as well as what appeared to be a notebook. Cayne cautiously went to pick it up, and as soon as he did, he almost dropped it upon reading the first two words on the first page; The Others.
“Ohhhh… Oh my-” he stammered as he began to flip through the pages. “Aria, this notebook- it’s about The Others! All about them!”
There was a loud crash behind him, and he whipped around to see that the kitsune model that Aria had been holding was now on the floor, and she was staring at him with an odd, unreadable expression.
“Oops, my bad.” she said rather loudly. “A notebook you said?”
“Yeah, all about The Others. Didn’t you hear me?”
“What!?” she exclaimed, starting towards him “W-wait- let me see!”
Cayne was confused, but chose to ignore her rather sudden odd behavior. It’s Aria. Don’t question it. “Here,” said Cayne, handing it to her. “I’ll look at it later. I want to see what this weird thing is…” he seized the scraps of parchment, and began quickly rifling through them, but was still very careful not to smudge the ink of Noctus’s ever so neat handwriting. At first, all he saw were diagrams, diagrams, and more diagrams. Beginning to get frustrated, he flipped through faster, when a page filled with words caught his eye. He set the other pages down and began to read silently:

Entry 1-
So finally begins the project that I have endeavored and pondered on for several years. I have gathered all of the necessary materials, and now all that is required is the assembly, distillation of glamour magic into concentrate, and polishing. If the assembly is successful, this device should, in theory, using sunlight as its power source, be able to detect the presence of any Other in its immediate vicinity by way of luminescence.

Cayne stopped reading, and stared, wide-eyed, rereading the last part of the final sentence he had read over and over again: detect the presence of any Other in its immediate vicinity.... “Oh my god…”
“What is it?” asked Aria, who was still clutching the notebook in a vicegrip.
“This thing… It detects The Others!” Aria stared, and Cayne continued, his mind racing, “If this works- we could use it to see where they hide and how to better distinguish them! We could learn so much from this! And the notebook!” exclaimed Cayne, folding the scrap parchment, placing it in the pocket of his jacket, and stooping to pick up the device.
“Don’t turn it on!” Aria’s voice echoed around the chamber, leaving a brief, stunned silence. Cayne was taken aback. He had never heard her yell like that. Not even on their most dangerous, high-priority missions. She stood stock still, and they stared at each other for a tense moment. Then, she lowered her head slightly, and glanced away from him. “What if it… attracts them or something?”
Cayne raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Aria, I’m not that impulsive. I’m not gonna turn it on. Plus, it’s solar powered, so I couldn’t turn it on even if I wanted to. No need to be scared.”
She was quiet for another moment. “Alright…” she murmured, “Sorry for yelling, I was just-”
She was interrupted by a disturbance coming from above them, amplified by the open doorway. They both froze. It was the sound of glass breaking and multiple pairs of feet on the hard concrete floor above them. And voices. Men’s voices. “What in the world...” pondered Cayne, looking up.
Aria on the other hand, looked fear-stricken. “Oh no… No, it’s not-”
Then they heard a clear cut male voice whose words sent a thrill of fear through Cayne’s body: “They have to be in here somewhere. Find them! And don’t hold back just because they’re kids. You know what they are.”
Aria looked as though she had heard the voice of a demon, and grabbed Cayne’s shoulder. “Cayne… I know who those guys are.”
“Wha-”
She shook her head. “I don’t have time to explain. But I know we need to get out of this room.”
“And go right up to where they’ll be waiting for us?”
She shook her head again. “They know we’re here. If they decide to come down the stairs, we’ll be stuck with no way out. We need to get back up there as fast as we can, and hide.”
“But why are they-”
“Look, if they find us, we’ll either be captured, or they’ll kill us on the spot. Trust me on this.”
Cayne felt his heart lurch. “Kill?-”
“Come on!” Aria shouted, and made a dash towards the exit. Cayne, almost without thinking, grabbed the fey goggles, a lantern, and several bottles of repellant off the nearest shelf and stuffed them into his bag, before following Aria up and up the seemingly never-ending staircase. Why did it take so long now? It hadn’t taken nearly as long on the way down, had it? Cayne didn’t know.
Once he had finally made it to the top, the door closed almost silently behind him, and he almost ran straight into Aria, who had stopped and appeared to be scoping out her surroundings. The sun had risen higher in the sky, and the room was illuminated by the light shining through the windows. Voices echoed throughout the huge storage building, making it near impossible to tell where they were actually coming from. She spun around to face him, holding a finger to her lips in a quieting gesture, but then her face took on an aghast expression when she glanced at his hands.
“You brought that thing with you?” She hissed.
Cayne looked down, startled to see that he was still holding the mysterious Other device. He had not even realized this as he was running up the stairs. She looked furious, and just as he opened his mouth to respond, a loud pair of footsteps cut through the din, Aria’s eyes widened as she saw something behind him, and with a horrible feeling of dread, Cayne slowly, ever so slowly turned around.
Standing tall and backlit was an imposing figure of a man. He was tall. Taller than The Commander, even. Cayne couldn’t see much detail in his face, and as he squinted, he realized that he was wearing a bandanna that covered the lower half of his face, leaving only his dark grey eyes exposed.
“Ah…” his voice was relaxed and leisurely, as if he and Aria were two friends who he had lost sight of at a gathering, and he had just found them again. “There you are.” he raised his eyebrows as he saw what Cayne was holding, and then glanced to the spot in the floor where the trap door had faded. “Hm… So you found the study.”
Cayne hurriedly shoved the device under his shirt. Aria stepped forward boldly, and ushered Cayne behind her, spreading her arms out to shield him. “Stay back.” she whispered threateningly, though Cayne could hear a waver in her tone. It was one of fear.
The tall man seemed to consider her for a brief moment, then moved forward slowly, taking slow, deliberate steps, whistling, even. Cayne heard other footsteps approaching. Many other pairs of footsteps. He was signaling them… panicking, he frantically whispered Aria’s name, but she didn’t take her eyes off of the approaching man. “Didn’t you hear me? I said stay back.” Her voice was soft and deadly sounding, and for a brief moment, Cayne expected her to outright charge him, but she stayed put, arms still outstretched, planting herself firmly between him and Cayne.
The man stopped whistling and paused briefly, regarded her, and then seemed to smirk underneath the bandanna, and responded calmly, “How… pathetic. You could defend yourself so easily right now… you could kill me where I stand. What I’ve heard is true… you’ve become soft...” Cayne saw that Aria was beginning to shake, and he vaguely wondered what the hell the man was talking about, but his thoughts came to a screeching halt as his apparent reinforcements arrived. All dressed the same, there were at least thirty of them. All of them with large dark objects in their hands that appeared to be nightsticks, but… Different somehow. As he looked around at all of them, his heart almost audibly thumping in his chest, he heard the tall man gave a mirthless chuckle. “You wish to be a hero… you will never be a true savior... you’re a mere imitation. Not even that. You’re an error by nature. You are a freak.”
Cayne heard Aria’s breath catch in her throat, and she shuddered. He couldn’t directly see her face, nor did he have any idea what the man was talking about, but he could tell he had touched a nerve. Sudden rage boiled in his veins.
“Hey!” he shouted, surging forward, “The hell did you say that for!?”
“Cayne, wait!-” Aria stammered, grabbing his arm. “Don’t get too close!” The other men were beginning to advance towards them as she spoke, and the tall one in front of them slowly removed a nightstick from behind his back. He pressed some sort of button on the handle, and the entire weapon lit up with power. Aria’s eyes widened, and suddenly plunged a hand into Cayne’s bag.
“What-”
She pulled out one of the self-lighting lanterns out of the bag, pushed Cayne behind her once again, and with a twinge of regret crossing her face, threw the lantern at the ground as hard as she could. It exploded with a loud pop, and a column of purple smoke erupted between them and their adversaries. Cayne closed his eyes, heard the men’s shouts, and felt Aria’s familiar hand on his wrist, she was steering him off in the opposite direction. He cracked his eyes open, and immediately shut them again as the smoke entered them and stung. He teared up coughed. He had to trust that Aria would know where to go. She pulled him sharply to the left, and then pulled him downward. He landed hard against what felt like a crate, and heard Aria panting next to him. After what felt like several minutes, she spoke in a low whisper. “You can open your eyes…”
Cayne slowly let his eyes drift open. Most of the smoke had cleared, but he could still smell it, and his eyes still stung. Aria hovered over him, looking concerned. For some reason, the smoke didn’t seem to have affected her. At least not as much as him. She looked around swiftly.
“That bought some time…” She sighed and refocused on him. “Cayne, we have to get out of this building.”
Cayne coughed between replies “No-” (cough) “s***-” (cough). He took a deep breath, and blinked up on her “Aria, who are these people?”
She shook her head, and continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “The exit is probably blocked… If we could just find that window… but that’d take too long…”
“Aria, did you hear me!?”
She help up a hand to signal him to be quiet, and then dragged him farther between two crates, one of which was open. “Okay… Think Aria. Think...” Cayne slowly removed the Other device from beneath his shirt, and stared at it uncomprehendingly. He had dragged her along with him, just to get this… was it worth it? To put the both of them in danger like this? He swallowed hard, trying to suppress his dread.
“S***…” Said Aria “No no no…” She checked around the corner, making sure nobody had seen them before clutching despairingly at her face.  “The one time we don’t bring our weapons!… We’re screwed…” She looked at him with wide eyes. “Cayne… We can’t hide from them here for long, We need to-”
She was interrupted by a small ping as the detector in Cayne’s hands activated. The sunlight streaming in from the windows had charged it up at last. Her eyes widened and Cayne watched as a horrified expression crept over her face. It was the most terrified he had ever seen her look. At first, he felt only confusion. “Aria?...”
It began to glow with a bluish light. It lit up slowly, little by little. The glow grew so bright that Cayne couldn’t even look directly at it, and instead looked up at Aria, who gazed back at him, with that same horrified expression. With a start, Cayne realized she was crying. Her tears were flowing freely, leaving streaks through the grime covering her face. S***. He thought. Shoving the still-glowing detector back into his bag, he whispered in the best comforting tone he could manage. “Listen, Aria. It’ll be fine! We’re going to live, alright?” He was shaking slightly now, talking moreso to himself than to her. “It might go after them instead of us! We just need to find a good place to hide, and be really quiet. It might not find us-”
“...It already knows where we are Cayne.”
“What?”
“... It’s here…” Aria sniffed, reaching up to hug herself, and looked down at her knees.
“Aria, what are you talking about!?” Cayne grabbed her shoulders, now in a full-fledged panic. “Aria, talk to me! You’re freaking me out! What do you mean ‘it’s here’!?”
She didn’t answer. She merely looked up at him, still crying. To Cayne’s surprise, her expression was not one of fear anymore, but rather one of guilt… “Aria? What’s-”
It all came together.
Cayne suddenly felt a terrible numbness begin to creep from his core into his limbs. No... No, that’s not right. It can’t be. It’s impossible. That thing must be faulty. Aria’s not one of… them. She can’t be.
And yet… All of those times that she had seemingly just appeared from nowhere, somehow knowing where he was, despite him never telling her where he was going… how she was able to take hits and fall from heights that would have easily killed a normal person, and just chalked it up to “luck”... Her general nonchalance whenever The Others were brought up… and her suspicious unease when they discovered the study… He stared uncomprehendingly. “No…”
“Cayne… I’m so sorry…” Aria’s voice trembled. “I… I was going to tell you… I just couldn’t figure out how-”
“Hey! I think I heard something!” The voice of one of the grunts cut through Aria’s tearful confession, “Sounded like the girl! Over this way! Come on!”
Aria’s head snapped toward the sound and she stood up instantly. Cayne merely stared, still in shock, attempting to process everything that had just happened. Aria glared in the direction towards the far corner of the room and let out a low growl. Cayne jumped slightly. And suddenly, in one swift motion, Aria lifted him up as if he weighed nothing, and in the next second, she had made a leap that no human could naturally achieve, to the top of one of the nearest crate towers, landing so hard that Cayne felt the wood splinter beneath her feet, yet they seemed to have barely made a sound. He looked up at her, she was slowly turning her head, first to the left, then to the right, observing her surroundings beneath her. In that brief moment, Cayne finally remembered to breathe.
She shook her head and looked down at him as if she had only just remembered she was carrying him. Her already-iron grip tightened even more and Cayne felt a sickening wave of fear that came with the realization that she could kill him so easily in this moment. So swiftly. In the blink of an eye. But then Aria merely jumped down onto a lower crate, running across the top, then leaping onto another, then another, and finally to the floor. They were now clear on the other side of the massive room, away from the hostile voices. Aria set Cayne down, looking around once more to make sure the coast was clear. Her eyes were wide, wider than he had ever seen them, so large that it looked… Unnatural to say the least. She peeked around the corner of a beam and stood completely still for several long, agonizing seconds. Cayne swallowed the urge to turn the other way and run far, far away from her. She would catch up to him anyway if he did. There was no means of escape… Then there suddenly came a small voice in corner corner of his brain.
What are you thinking!? That’s still Aira! She’s still your friend!
Cayne shuddered slightly and shook his head. How do I know that? How do I know she hasn’t been lying to me this whole time?
You don’t. But just think. Be calm. The voice in his head replied, seeming to come from both in his mind and the outside at the same time. She had so many opportunities where she could have killed you, but she didn’t. She’s on your side.
How do I know?
Almost on cue, Aria whipped around to face him. He jumped and backed away slightly, but her look… It was still her. Cayne swallowed hard and took a step slightly forward. “So?...” He took a deep breath. “All this time?...”
She looked down, ashamed. “You want to run away from me. I can tell.”
“Aria-”
“No. I don’t blame you. I mean, it’s not every day someone finds out that they’re friends with… With an abomination.” She clenched her fists, but it wasn’t in anger. It looked more like she was about to break, and was desperately trying to keep herself together. “I really was going to tell you… I was. But how do you tell someone something like that?” She sighed. “Now we’re stuck here, no weapons, and no other way... I have no other choice” She peeked around the corner once more, then turned back to directly face him- “… I’m sorry Cayne.”
“Sorry?” Cayne could not keep the fearful quaver out of his voice.
Aria looked up at him once more. For a moment, she seemed to consider something, then her face took on a pained and regretful expression, and faster than Cayne could register, he found himself being thrown, or had he been pushed?- into one of the crates. Adrenaline kicking in, he immediately started to get up, but before he could even haul himself up to a kneeling position, she closed the door, and he heard the lock click.
He threw himself against the door. “Aria, what are you doing?”
Silence for a moment, and then he heard her voice through the woodwork. “I’m so sorry Cayne…” she apologized again. “It’s for your own good. I don’t want you to see…”
“See!? See what!?”
“... Don’t come looking for me.”
“What!? Aria? Aria!” Cayne pounded on the door, but it was no use. Listening closely, he heard the faint sounds of their enemies closing in, and then a pair of footsteps- Aria’s, swiftly heading away from him.
It was dark in the crate, save for the holes near the top of the door, where a few meager beams of light streamed in. At first, Cayne heard nothing. But after several long moments, straining his ear against the door, he heard one of the men exclaim “Look! There!”, before… Several seemingly panicked shouts, then the sound of something, growing, cracking, ripping… distorting… And then, the scream. It was quiet at first. So quiet that Cayne could barely hear it. Then it grew, and grew, and grew into something that sounded so wrong. It was everything that shouldn’t be, yet was, and yet… There was something so horribly, undeniably human about that scream. It drilled into his brain, tunneled through his thoughts, consumed his courage. Cayne threw himself against the far wall of the crate, mouth open to scream but unable to make a sound, head pounding, hands over his ears, but that could not block out the horrible cacophony just outside. Now, he could hear the men panicking, trying to rally, but it would be no use. Cayne somehow knew they would not survive. Next came the distorted screaming, gurgling, tearing and rending, the sounds of large objects falling and worse… The sound of dripping fluid. And then, just as he felt his mind would collapse, that everything would end- there was silence.