Act One: Issue #4-Chapter 8

When the monsters charged their claws after Dilara and Rhydian, they both casted their spells against their enemies. Relieved with the monsters gone in black dust, they sighed and scanned their surroundings.

Dilara and Rhydian were about to get out of here at first, yet they then saw more monsters coming after them, roaring at them with their fangs out; this time those monsters were all skinny land monsters that were black furred and red eyes, kinda like the beast Dilara encountered in the woods earlier.

There were a lot of them too; there were, in fact, so many of them that Dilara and Rhydian couldn't even count. Dilara sighed and aimed her palm with her other hand supporting it, while Rhydian just raised her arm and grinned without a problem with purple electricity surrounding and swirling around her hand, hearing her chuckle a bit.

Oh, great more enemies to deal with! Jus' when I was 'bout to go home, and this is what we have to deal with! Ugh!

Once the monsters dashed their way against Dilara and Rhydian, they casted their spells against their nemeses. While Dilara's spell took out a group of those things at a time, she chanted her spell to cast it against them. Rhydian, however, was able to cast her spells against her enemies without even chanting them, which is unusual in Castoria, let alone Aniva.

Nonetheless, Dilara assisted Rhydian cast magic spells against them since Rhydian could only cast her spell at one enemy at a time. After they fought against two new, large groups of those same monsters a couple more times, Dilara grew tired of fighting them already.

No matter how many times Dilara and Rhydian fought against those monsters, their nemeses kept coming after them to attack them. They wondered when will this shit end as there were too many of those nemeses.

Dilara's magic powers were beginning to weaken through and through; her arm grew tired of casting magic that she stopped holding her arm to aim her palm straight. She tried everything to make it work, yet the magic spell still wouldn't even help her.

When Dilara chanted her magic spell, only very little white light flickered from her palm, dimly lighting its surroundings. She frowned at her arm when her magic spell had no effect on them.

As the monster got closer to Dilara, it smiled and grinned at her, chuckling a bit. She chanted her spell and it no longer responded to her chants, so I took a couple steps back and shivered a bit, gritting my teeth. After fighting her enemies so well, she now couldn't fight them anymore. She wondered what she was supposed to do now.

Dilara looked everywhere for something useful to fight against that thing, yet she couldn't find any, no matter how hard her heart pushed her to help Rhydian. Rhydian noticed it before the monster decided to be on the offensive. Dilara screamed from the top of my lungs.

Yet Rhydian slid to the side and cast her lighting spell at the monster and it screamed in pain, disappearing in black dust. She then turned to Dilara when more of these things charged right at Dilara and her. "Go!" She shouted in demand.

Dilara turned to Rhydian with her shocked eyes. "But Rhydian, I-"

"Go!" Rhydian shouted once more. "Your powers are weakening from all this fighting, and besides"-Rhydian turned back to her enemies-"Your family needs you and are worried sick about you. At least better go check on them and see that they're okay. I'll catch up with you later. Right now, I'll distract them while you go fetch your family."

Dilara felt guilty that she almost forgot about her family. Frowning, Dilara shook her head at Rhydian. "Alright, I'll go, I guess…"

As soon as Dilara turned around, she immediately ran for her life, to escape from Castoria by herself. She looked back and forth with her continuous frown.

She felt guilty for failing to fight with Rhydian like she should have, yet it didn't stop her from escaping out of Castoria alive. She wished her powers would've lasted much longer to fight with Rhydian, yet she knew right then and there that there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing at all.

While she survived her way out of the burning kingdom, she scanned her surroundings to find corpses of both civilians and soldiers alike slightly outnumbered the monsters, both flying and land. She couldn't believe it in her own eyes of what she just saw.

Although the remaining soldiers failed to defend the civilians from those things, Dilara was lucky enough to not have beasts attacking her. She hoped her family was still alive and out of the castle, as she couldn't even imagine wanting to reenter the kingdom to search for them again.

Dilara finally managed to leave the kingdom, she studied her environment only to find soldiers escorting the civilians to safety in the woods with the torches guiding them. She searched for her family and they were nowhere to be found.

Then one of the guards spotted her and walked his way towards her. "Ma'am!" He shouted.

Hearing his footsteps inching closer to her, Dilara turned to the soldier and asked, "Yes, sir?"

"Are you alright? I just saw you exiting the kingdom a few seconds ago," the guard said.

"Yes, I'm fine. I'm looking for my family. I told them to escape out of the kingdom while I distracted the monsters. Have you seen them?"

"Oh? Well, I might have seen them. Can you describe what they look like for me?"

Dilara shook her head. "Sure, no problem, sir."

After she described their appearances, the soldier shook his head back. "Ah, I've seen them. They were escorted from here a while ago."

Dilara sighed out of relief and looked up at the sky.

Oh, thank the gods, they're still alive!

"Please take me to them," Dilara said.

"Well, I can't take you to them, ma'am, due to helping my comrades escorting civilians away from Castoria, but"-the soldier turned to the other guards-"if you follow their lead, they should take you to the sanctuary camp. That's where you should find them."

Dilara turned to the soldiers escorting the civilians, then back at the soldier near her. "Thank you, sir, for everything."

"No problem, ma'am. Take care." The soldier waved at Dilara and walked his way back to his colleagues.

"You too!" Dilara waved back as she began to head for the sanctuary camp with the soldiers' guidance throughout the woods, hoping to find her family there. She wished she would never experience that ever again in the future.

Once Dilara arrived at the sanctuary camp, her eyes began searching for her family. She wondered where they were.

Numerous chatter and cries only echoed into Dilara's ears alongside crickets; in fact, lots of women cried for their loved ones with the comfort of others around them near the tents, knowing that they'll never see them again. While some soldiers patrol around the camp, others comforted some of the panicked survivors that ever lived.

A lot of tents were lit and glowed inside. The cold wind hitted her skin and the smell of fresh air pleased her nose. She needed to find her family fast, reminding herself of what that soldier told her earlier. They had to be here somewhere. They had to be. She was sure of it.

Dilara searched the majority of the camp for her family, but couldn't find them anywhere. She frowned when she fought through the crowd. Wondering where her family was, she desperately searched for them as she didn't want to return to Castoria to look for them again.

Dilara looked up at the gloomy night sky and nervously breathed quicker. The silver moon felt bad for the people below her. She begged for her family to be here in this camp.

Then someone shouted Dilara's name, someone familiar to Dilara. "Huh?" Dilara asked. "Is that-?"

Hearing someone shouting her name again, Dilara when she turned to her left. She saw Ingrid waving at her.

"Over here, stupid head!" Ingrid shouted further.

Oh, here we go again with this bullshit after savin' her ass! I-

Mother and Shakila exited the tent and smiled when their relieved eyes caught Dilara, gasping. Dilara smiled and waved back at them.

"Oh, thank the gods, you're safe!" Mother declared as she rushed to hug Dilara. "I knew you'd come back! I thought I lost my servant girl!"

Ingrid stood there and crossed her arms. "Hmm…turns out sending those guards after her was useless after all."

"Right?" Shakila agreed as she walked towards her sister and also crossed her arms, watching Mother and Dilara hug one another. "We thought you could've been dead along with those guards."

After a while, Dilara and Mother broke up their hug and Mother placed her hands onto Dilara's arms, when she looked Dilara in the eyes. "Come now, Dilara. There's something I want to say to you."

"Oh, okay," Dilara said, following Mother's lead. Dilara and Mother also followed Shakila and Ingrid once they turned around and walked back to their tent. She wondered if it was a reward or not, and she curious to see what it was.

Once Dilara and her family returned to the tent, Mother turned back to her and swung her hand against her cheek hard, making her head turn to one side. Dilara confusedly looked at Mother's face when she touched her cheek and turned back to Mother's attention.

"Have you gone mad, servant girl?!" Mother roared while she glared at Dilara, "Do you have any idea what happens to us when you die?! You could have us all died and have someone take your place, which pulls money out of my pocket!

"Why the hell did you even leave the mansion anyway?! You could've stayed there and wait for our return!"

Still feeling unappreciative, Dilara glared back at Mother and stood up from the ground. "'Wait for your return?!' You and"-Dilara turned to her sisters, then back at Mother-"your stupid ass daughters couldn't even-"

While Shakila and Ingrid gasped at Dilara for cursing, Mother slapped Dilara so hard that she knocked her down to the ground. But that didn't bother Dilara to the slightest, as she just couldn't take Mother's abuse any longer.

"How dare you curse at me, child! I shall have you-" Mother continued to roar.

"What, Mother? Report me to the authorities?" Dilara looked up at Mother and stood up from the ground. "What about payin' your replacement servants? You hate paying servants so much that you got rid of them and used me as your free of charge slave, so you wouldn't pay me except to run errands for you when I was a little girl, remember?

"If I didn't arrive at the ball, you and your daughters wouldn't even escape from that burning ball with that monster inside, would you? So I was right to arrive there tonight. Yet this is how you repay me?! Seriously?! Maybe you're right, Mother. Maybe I should've remained at the mansion instead of saving your asses."

Even though Mother was more annoyed with Dilara cursing at her, she let it slide that time. People around Dilara and Mother watched them fought and gossipped one another while the guards arrived at the scene.

"Excuse me, ladies," one guard interrupted. "What seems to be a problem here?"

"Oh, I was just disciplining my servant girl over here," Mother responded, turning to Dilara and the guards back and forth.

"Do you want us to take her?" Another guard asked.

"Oh, no, sir. I got it under control. No need to arrest her for that," Mother responded, shaking her head sideways.

"Are you sure?" Another guard asked.

"I'm positive, sir. Everything's going to plan," Mother said.

"Well, if you say so," one guard said, turning to Dilara and Mother back and forth. "Let us know if she's still causing you trouble and we'll have her arrested."

"Oh, don't worry, sir. I will. Have a good night," Mother said as she waved at the guards and the guards waved back at Mother. Once those guards left, Mother turned back to Dilara with a hard glare while Shakila and Ingrid viciously grinned at Dilara and chuckled for a bit.

"And I shall punish you later," Mother whispered.

"Monsters incoming!" The soldier's voice shouted from afar.

The monsters' roars vibrated across the night sky. Alerting the guards, they headed for that voice's direction with their guns ready and fired them at the flying monsters up in the air.

Dilara and her family looked up at the sky and gasped out of shock, gazing at it for a moment. They couldn't believe the monsters were here at the camp.

Frightened, every civilian screamed and ran for their lives out of the camps to find a new sanctuary, anywhere to hide from those monsters as they crashed the tents and set them on fire. Dilara and her family never knew how those monsters managed to find the remaining survivors, yet they were determined to escape.