Chapter 9

Dawn kept on tossing around her bed. A day has passed ever since she confessed to Kenny. No matter how much she denied it, she was still downright hurting. The pain she felt however, wasn't foreign to her.

It was the first time she ever confessed to anyone in her seventeen years of living. It was her first time getting turned down. Yet the kind of pain she felt wasn't new to her. It was the kind of pain that had awakened after years of slumber inside her.

The kind of heartbreak she felt wasn't just painful.

It was nostalgic, the depressing kind of nostalgia. She didn't know why.

She turned to the side one more time before deciding to sit up. She looked past her windows and saw how it was still dark outside. She guessed it was still some time around three or four in the morning. She pulled up her sleeves and checked her wrist watch.

3:50AM.

She couldn't remember how long she stayed awake.

Still with her blue striped pajamas, she got off of bed and decided to drink some water. She turned the knob of her bedroom door and turned her heels toward the kitchen. After taking a glass, she noticed that Paul wasn't on the sofa.

"Where did he go?" She asked herself.

Remembering how Paul have started to spend some time on the rooftop, she decided to look for him.

When Dawn arrived at the rooftop, she noticed the door to it was unlocked. She pushed it open and was met with a cold brush of daybreak air. Dawn slightly shivered.

Winter was coming afterall.

She turned her head around and looked for a certain plum head.

She didn't see him. She would have headed back when something made her quite sure that he was just somewhere around –his aroma.

She inched her nose and tried to locate where he was. She walked slowly to the middle and saw him meditating at the elevated platform. His eyes were closed in deep concentration.

She shivered again from the cold air, embraced herself and walked slowly to him.

Dawn sat right beside him and took a deep breath. She swept her navy hair to the side.

"Mind if I sit beside you?" She asked politely.

Paul opened one of his eyes and looked at her from his peripheral view. He closed it back and continued meditating. He only replied with a barely audible 'hmm'.

"Do you do this everyday Paul?" She asked again, making sure it had that polite tone earlier so he wouldn't push her away like the usual.

"Something happened with you and him?" Paul bluntly asked, not even bothering for Dawn's small talks.

"How did you know?" Dawn gulped, surprised how Paul was able to come up with such. "And it's 'Kenny', not 'him.'" She retorted.

"You went home just by yourself last night." Paul replied and slowly opened his eyes. "And not just last night, the other night also. I just guessed."

Dawn twirled a hanging lock by the side of her cheek and heaved a sigh.

"I told him that I liked him." She uttered.

She didn't know what came to herself why she admitted her problem to Paul immediately. Somehow, the pain she felt overwhelmed her that she had to get it out in some way or another. And there was no one else aside Paul right now. It could have been Zoey, but it was still Sunday. She wouldn't get to meet her until Monday.

"He turned you down?" He questioned. Paul was confused why Dawn told her this when it was something personal. "That's funny."

Dawn nodded.

"Okay." Paul breathed in and shifted a little bit. "Let's hear you talk then. I'll listen."

Dawn looked down so he wouldn't saw her heave a comforted smile, not that Paul was looking at her. Dawn had always wanted to talk to Paul, there was something about him that was alluring to her. It baffled her so much. He was aloof and distant yet this didn't stop Dawn from thinking about him. What he is and what he is not.

If the only way she could talk to him was sharing her problems, then she was more than willing to share.

"He turned me down." Dawn started. "But that's not what bothered me the most. The pain I felt that afternoon. It was something I felt before." Dawn didn't know if what she said made sense to Paul, but she tried explaining it the best she could. "It was as if confessing to him somehow made me feel something I felt before. And no, it was the first time I confessed to anyone."

"It doesn't make sense right?" She added. "And it's because of that, it keeps me awake."

A cold wind brushed past them.

Paul looked at her for a split second, Dawn didn't notice. She really was troubled.

"I wouldn't know the answer." Paul replied. He ran his hands through his velvet locks. "If you don't know it yourself, then what are my chances?"

Dawn chuckled lightly. "Of course you wouldn't. It's just exasperating though." She slowly stopped laughing and placed a hand over her throbbing chest.

"Why did he turned you down?" He asked. Paul then remembered how Kenny told him to leave. "Does he like someone else? Because it's unlikely."

"He didn't say anything." She replied, her voice almost broke. "He just said he couldn't be with me."

Paul subtly sighed.

"How long have you known each other?" Paul asked, trying to help Dawn decipher why she was feeling that way.

"Since we were kids." Dawn said. "I haven't told you yet, but I ran away from home." She followed.

"You left your parents? Siblings?"

"I'm an only child. And I only have my mother." Dawn said. "I don't know if I have a father though. This is the reason why I left her in Twinleaf Town."

"What happened?" Paul asked. "Why would you leave your mother alone?"

"I constantly asked her about my father. Who, where and how he was. She would never answer me. And we just grew apart. House slowly turned to just a house. I slowly lost a home." Dawn looked away. "If it was going down to that, I might as well leave. So I did. I was able to make it this far because of Kenny."

It took Paul a couple of seconds to think of something to reply. He never expected Dawn to have this kind of story. She was always cheerful that it automatically made him think that she was one of those people who never had it rough.

This side of her story was an an eye-opener for him.

He fell silent.

Dawn continued the conversation. With all those visions that flooded her mind the past weeks, she thought that this was the perfect chance for her to know Paul a bit more.

"How about you? Where's your family?" Despite asking a personal question, she was surprised that Paul answered.

"I don't have one." He answered flatly. "I mean not anymore."

And before she could ask why, Paul spoke ahead of her. "They're all dead."

He breathed in deeply and shared his own story. "I was born in Veilstone, a neighboring city. The picture you saw in my pocket, she was my mother. She died giving birth to me."

"Oh.." Was all Dawn could retort.

"Soon after that, my father also died." Paul continued. "I don't know how or why. But after that incident someone raised me. I also don't know who it was, this person doesn't want me to find out. Then I was left at foster care about five." Paul summarized. "They say it was my fault that my parents died."

Paul looked at his hands, they were quite shaking. Whether it was because of the fact that he remembered how many family had died adopting him, or the cold breeze of daybreak, he didn't know. He hid them inside his pockets so she wouldn't see them.

Dawn was about to disagree about it when she remembered how Paul easily murdered two guys who were after her that night. His parents might have fallen the same path as those guys after her, but she didn't want to believe it. Not just yet.

Rather than believing that Paul was a devil, she wanted to believe that he's something else other than a devil. Anything but that.

Paul didn't said the fact that three succeeding families that tried to adopt him all died as well. It was an information that was deemed unnecessary. He believed his point was made clear to her – he wasn't meant to have something like a family. It was all that mattered.

"I also ran away from foster care because I find it useless to stay somewhere I'm not wanted." Paul finished. "Like you said 'house slowly turned to just a house, I slowly lost a home'."

"Not that I had a home to begin with."

Dawn sighed.

"So, uhm.." Dawn stared at the night sky. "We're both lost then?"

"What are you even saying troublesome." Paul stood up and stretched his back. "You're not lost. You still have him. Whatever is this reason he's hiding, you deserve to know it."

"But, but, I don't want to force it on him.."

Paul looked down and stared at her. Dawn was petrified for a moment, he stared at her with his beautiful lilacs. He never stared at her before.

"Because the reason why you're hurting right now is because he's treating you like how your mother did." He replied. "And you said it yourself." Paul looked away and stared at the rising sun in front of them. "If he's the only one, if he's the only home you have right now. Then you wouldn't want to go running away again. You'll have nobody else."

Dawn's eye glistened from the cold early morning breeze. The realization Paul surfaced to her greatly shook her.

"You're right.." She whispered to herself.

Kenny was everything Dawn have right now, and she couldn't let go of him. Not at this crucial part of her life.

Dawn breathed in deeply and also stared at the rising sun.

She never knew the sunrise version of the golden hour could just be as beautiful as the sunset one. She smiled to herself and thanked Paul mentally.

But despite what Paul said, he bit his own lips.

'You'll have nobody else.'

His own words echoed in his thoughts along a certain chartreuse haired lady he left back at Veilstone City.

"I'm one to talk, aren't I?" He thought.

...

"Wow. Dawn." Zoey flatly applauded. "Never knew you wished to be a demnologist."

Dawn decided to ignore the bored redhead laying on the floor.

After that early morning talk Dawn had with Paul, she pumped herself up and knocked on Kenny's door. She was nervous but Paul had talked sense to her. She needed to clear things out between her and Kenny. But she received no answer, Kenny wasn't in his room. He might have gone out.

She was about to contact him when Zoey called and invited her in her apartment room which was a first ever since they became friends. Apparently Zoey called her to hang out. And now they were doing Koga's assignment.

Zoey's apartment was located just across the school.

"You don't find it interesting?" Dawn asked. She scribbled some notes on her notepad as she scanned through the texts. "And it's due next week."

"Meh." Zoey responded, suppressing a yawn. She picked up the photocopy of the prophecy and read it inside her mind.

Two separate world, two separate race
Strife and wars on endless days
One in darkness, the other in daylight
A suffering of pride and blight

The king of daylight
With gift of enormous might
The emperor of darkness
Cloaked in eldritch blackness

A clash of power, a clash of will
With no other way but to kill
One drives to end competition.
One for extinction.

The fallen darkness, brings rain
While the risen light brings bane
What once thought to bring peace
Suffering and fear didn't cease

The old-aged war will be reborn
With the fruit of mourning and scorn
The chosen one of light
And the chosen one of night

In a tragic string of fate
Loss of hundred lives for love and hate
How it all started and began
The same tragedy will now reveal the hidden son.

"Well, obviously." Zoey pointed a finger at the piece of paper she held. "'Two separate race' here meant humans and devils, and the first stanza is about them at constant war."

"And." Dawn cut in. "Each race had their own sort of leader." Dawn scrunched her eyebrows. "But one of them wants to erase the other and one does not?"

"Probably?" Zoey sat up and grunted. "This is your first time inside my apartment, and instead of having some awesome time like watching a movie or playing games, we're answering this godawful assignment." Zoey sighed. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"This stupid piece of thing doesn't even tell anything." Zoey groaned. "A total waste of time."

Dawn ignored her and continued reading the prophecy, she was totally immersed on the homework.

I don't think you understand this life you're living right now Zoey. Remember, you are living in borrowed time. Mess up one more time and your life will be taken back in a snap of a finger.

Remembering what Karen told her, Zoey bit the insides of her cheek.

You wanna see him again right? Then do your job.

"Hey Dawn.."

"Uh, yeah?" Dawn replied, not looking at her.

"This is weird..and totally random." Zoey exhaled. "But, what would you do if you know you could die any moment?"

Dawn dropped her pen and looked at Zoey down on the floor.

"Where is this coming from?" She asked solemnly.

Zoey chuckled, trying to lighten up the mood she accidentally tilt. "Nothing, just asking."

"Well.." Dawn pondered. "I'd do whatever I want, be honest and upfront with everybody." She laughed. "And maybe spend most of my time with the person I like."

"But what if you don't have that person to spend your remaining time with?" Zoey retorted.

"Wait a minute." Dawn frowned. "Are you sure you're okay and this is totally not related to some personal reflection of something you're secretly undergoing?"

Zoey laughed heartily. "You really are unbelievable."

"I am not even joking Zoey McMillan. Don't laugh."

Zoey threw herself at Dawn. They both fell on the floor laughing.

They both slowly stopped laughing and stared at the ceiling fan. They both gasped for air.

"I'd totally let you scourge me if you were a devil." Zoey heaved a lengthy exhale.

"Guess I'd let you scourge me too if you were a devil." Dawn replied.

Zoey rolled over and positioned herself on top of Dawn. Zoey stared at Dawn for quite a while. Dawn's words registered slowly inside her mind.

"If I were really a devil? Not even one million dollars would make me scourge you." She stuck her tongue out. "Sorry."

Dawn stared fondly back at her. "Two million?"

"I'll think about it."

"You're horrible then." Dawn laughed. Zoey helped her stood up. They sat back on their chairs.

Dawn's mobile suddenly rang. She immediately sat up and walked towards Zoey's bed where her shoulder bag was. She scurried through it and fished out her phone. She chatted for a while before placing it back inside her bag, Dawn looked back at Zoey.

"Sorry Zoey but I need to get going." Dawn excused herself and picked up her bag.

"Sure." Zoey squat down and smiled. "Next time though we should watch movies or play games. This is totally not worth it."

Dawn laughed. "This coming winter break?"

"This coming winter break." Zoey replied.

Dawn grinned as she closed the door behind her.

"You'll let me scourge you huh?" Zoey thought and threw herself at her bed. Her sheet wrinkled under her tightening grip.

"Why must things end up like this.."

She asked herself as the painful memory of Friday settled inside her clogged mind.

...

Zoey anxiously hid her hands in her pockets.

She slowly walked toward the Dean's room at the topmost floor of the central building. She felt bad for lying to Dawn about late club activities. She was never going back to the gymnasium, but here instead. The most hellish place inside the school – Dean's Office, the den of the most vile abomination.

She checked her watch.

5:00PM.

She bit the inside of her cheeks in anxiety.

Williams Anima, the dean of the university, had been arranging a lot of meetings with her lately.

She breathed in deeply as her pulse started to race. She could feel her heartbeat ringing so loudly in her ears.

They weren't exactly meetings despite what Williams termed them himself. For Zoey, they were more of threats than just mere meetings or arrangements. The only thing a monster like him was capable of doing.

The knob turned slowly and the cold lemon scented air gushed against her like a wave. Her stomach churned uncomfortably.

She hated that scent.

"You haven't scourged Berlitz yet, haven't you?" The familiar voice of the cold hearted murderer rang around the silent and enclosed room. Aside from her rampaging heartbeat, the only noise she could hear was the low hum of the air conditioner.

As much as how she hated him, she was deeply afraid of Will.

The knob clicked behind her.

In front of her was a large glass table with piles of papers and folders stacked neatly beside each other, beside the table was an empty small grey plastic trash bin. The shutters of his windows were all closed. The room had low visibility which furthermore increased her anxiety.

The place was really a befitting den for an insidious evil such as Williams Anima.

Will sat on his huge office chair facing the opposite side. He wasn't even facing her yet his mere presence was enough to make Zoey's knees turn jelly. Zoey knew well enough that she didn't need to see his face to know how furious he was at her right now.

His chair made a squeak as he spun around and faced her. Her purple hair traced the corners of his cheeks. He was wearing his usual suit, magenta colored slacks and long-sleeve polo topped with a black vest with two pairs of golden colored buttons at the center.

And his signature black-framed masquerade mask with translucent lens covering his eyes.

Masks were supposed to hide faces for fun. But his mask was more than just for fun, it made him look more malicious and dangerous. His mask furthermore highlighted his pathological insanity.

Zoey tried her best to overcome her fear with hatred towards the murderer in front of her.

"N-no, sir-"

"I've grown tired of that response! Have you even tried doing it McMillan?!" Will enraged, whipping his left gloved hand for emphasis.

"I'm just waiting for the perfect timing-"

"You imbecile!" Will removed his right glove and threw it at her face. Zoey flinched. "Almost all of the students and staff here have been scourged already and you here are delaying my plan! You useless thrash!" He pushed the stacked papers off of his table in deep frustration.

Zoey could faintly see a tiny glow of red behind the translucent lens of his mask.

His eyes were glowing cerise.

She suddenly felt something taking a strong grip of her neck. As Zoey struggled for air, she realized that her feet lose hold of the ground. A malicious and invisible force was strangling her. She kicked, gagged and struggled helpless in midair, like a decapitated insect.

"Don't tell me you're getting attached to this human girl?" Will asked with a voice laced with malice. "It's been a semester already and you still haven't scourged her yet! And it was the only thing I assigned you to do! How useless can you be?!"

Zoey didn't know what kind of force he was using against her. She felt something strangling her but she couldn't touch it no matter how many times she had swatted her arms around her neck. He was choking her just by mere looking. She tried looking around and realized that her head had almost touched the ceiling. Her lack of oxygen blurred her vision and she could barely see him smirking sadistically at her suffering.

She was about to pass out from asphyxia when the force let her go. She fell back on the floor with a thud and gasped for air.

"N-no..." She coughed. "I-I'm not... I'm not attached to her..." She coughed out her words.

"THEN DO IT IMMEDIATELY!" He yelled at her. "You're really making me regret for keeping you alive all this time McMillan." He hissed. "I should have killed you together with your pathetic village and parents ten years ago!"

"I'll be on a leave on Monday to meet Prince Lance in Nether Johto. I'll be back by the end of next week and if you can't scourge or kill Berlitz by then, I'll gladly do it myself." Will finished as he rotated his seat again. "And you won't like what I'll do with you."

Zoey stood up with shaking knees. "Yes..."

"But don't think you can get away this time without punishment.." She could feel Will smirking behind the chair. A smirk full of demise and apathy. "Johnny!" He snapped the fingers of his gloveless hand as a huge figure of a man came out from the darkness right beside him. "Make sure this disobedient brat gets what I say inside her tiny mind."

At seeing the huge beastly figure stepped into the light, Zoey's blood boiled. He didn't scare her, she wasn't terrified. Instead, she was suddenly brimming with so much hate.

The huge bearded man looked at her like he was looking at some middle school child. Zoey glared back at him, unafraid, unimpressed and full of loathing. The man darkly smiled at her and raised his muscular and calloused arms. He brought it down on her tiny teenage body with a merciless force.

Zoey screamed from the pain. If only the door and windows weren't soundproof, everybody inside the school would have heard her.

Zoey felt the beast's knuckles dented her spine. The force was strong enough to immediately knock Zoey out. Blood trickled down from the side of her mouth.

He pulled her by her orange locks and dragged the battered unconscious teen back to where he came from.

"This is gonna be so much fun! AHA-HA-HAHA!"

Zoey heard his crazy hooligan laugh as she let her consciousness fade away.

...

Zoey slowly sat up on her bed.

Due to her devil abilities, she could regenerate faster than the normal regeneration speed. But also because of that, it became a point of abuse for Will and his henchman at her.

The late afternoon club meetings she lied to Dawn were actually nightly beatings Will did on her for not following the mission, even delaying it.

She looked at herself on her bedroom mirror across her bed.

Guess I'd let you scourge me too if you were a devil.

"I was supposed to scourge her, why I called."

She blinked her eyes. It turned to its natural and feared crimson color.

"I guess I couldn't now."

"I guess not even two million would cut it."

She walked towards her window and pulled the curtains apart, she looked down and saw Dawn walking along the pavement going back home. She smiled, then bit her lips.

"I need to get her away from that school."

...

"Kenny?" Dawn called out. She was back at Amity Square where Kenny planned to meet up with her. Kenny called her earlier that he wanted to have a talk with her. Dawn had longed plan to talk with him ever since she confessed. It had been difficult. With the passing days, it felt that they were slowly drifting away from each other.

And Dawn was having none of it. She had to find out what was happening to him and think of ways how to fix everything.

With Kenny suddenly wanting to talk to her, this was Dawn's chance.

Though there was something wrong with the tone of his voice over the phone. He sounded unusually urgent, which was unlikely since Kenny never rushed Dawn for anything.

Dawn stood near the gates as people of varying ages and gender passed her by. She kept on twirling her phone in her hands in attempt to calm herself down. With the winter clouds crowding the skies, it was hard to tell if night time was nearing.

Dawn checked her wrist watch.

5:54PM.

A couple of minutes had already passed and there was still no sign of him. Dawn thought of calling him by his mobile when she saw a familiar brunet near one of the cotton candy stall inside the park.

"Kenny!" She called out. But he soon disappeared when a couple walked past him. "Kenny!" She ran towards the booth and whipped her head around. "Where did he go?" She was hundred percent certain that what she saw was Kenny.

She saw him again by the carousel booth and ran immediately towards it. But again, he disappeared when she got there. Dawn sighed in exasperation. "Seriously?"

She saw the silhouette of the brunet again walking ahead of her. But like what happened earlier, he disappeared. Dawn was starting to get frustrated by this hide and seek Kenny was pulling off with her. She saw him appear and disappear again a couple of times.

By the moment she finally caught him, Dawn found herself in one of the dark and secluded alleys inside the amusement park. The alley was so dark and claustrophobic, it gave Dawn that fearful nostalgia of meeting Paul the first time. "Kenny?" She called out again. But this time, her voice came out fearful and distressed.

She cautiously looked around and noticed how it was darker than the usual. "Woah it's already night time? I didn't even notice."

Kenny came out of what it seemed to be a never ending path of darkness ahead of her. He had his head cocked sideways like a doll. It was funny how he came out of the darkness so smoothly as if he glided. And when Dawn realized it, it was too late.

Kenny was indeed floating in midair like he was held by invisible strings. His eye were all black. He chattered rapidly and inanimately.

Fear and terror rose tenfold inside of her. Despite the fear gnawing at her, she wanted to run towards him. But she couldn't. She was rooted on her spot. She felt her body suddenly gained a million ton.

The air around suddenly felt thick.

"Good job following this boy." Dawn heard a familiar voice of a lady behind her. Dawn wanted to look behind her, if only Dawn could move her body. Even breathing was heavily labored for her. The voice was coming from someone she'd already met.

'What's happening to me?' Dawn thought. She thought that it was the gnawing fear and panic that made her immobilized, but the lady behind disproved her.

"Don't even try to move. I have you inside my sphere of influence. Movement is futile." The lady spoke with a calm demeanor. "This wouldn't have happened if only she did her job. I guess it's my job now."

And before Dawn could even try to do anything, she was hit by something hard behind her head. Dawn almost lost consciousness and fell on the cold and stony ground. Dawn's vision hazed.

She felt herself being dragged together with Kenny further into the abyss ahead of them. She wanted to cry out for help, but her consciousness was failing her.

"Pa..paul..help."

She blacked out with warm tears on her cheeks.

Chapter 9 End: A Brewing Storm