<div class="floatleft"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><span class="bbc_u"><em>Day 1</em></span></strong></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Death Keeper</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>This one is strong.... almost.... yes, stronger than the last. There is no telling, because the last of mine had been destroyed because of it's own stupid arrogance. Arrogance.... such a.... </em>living<em> concept. Although, I'm surprised at this one. It stopped resisting much sooner than anything I've seen before. It is already one with me, this spirit. A human spirit....? Wait........ What is that? That light, it couldn't be..... no, not </em>that,<em> of all things. But.... </em>it is....</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Hiru Harada</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">He woke to the sound of wind. Like the snares of leaves tattering in a warm breeze. No, a <em>hot</em> breeze. <em>Very</em> hot. Dry hot at that, which made it even better. Or worse. His body was sluggish when it rose. The sands of the desert ripped past him like needles against his skin. Or, at least that's what it seemed it should've felt like. Instead, he felt nothing but heat, as if there were hot coals under him. There may as well have been. But this heat was coming from within, like a fire burning in his gut that was reaching out to the rest of his body, coming to a stop at.... his right shoulder? But, maybe that's where the fire was coming from.....? Well, it didn't matter. It still sucked. The sand sucks, this wind sucks the whole desert sucks. Yet, here he is, trapped upon the sands.<br/>                 A funny thing, deserts. You could be standing in the exact center of one, completely free, open space, no limitations as to which way you can go. You are free to roam in any direction you desire. Yet, it is like a prison. Those who do not know their way are already lost, doomed to lose their hearts to the unforgiving cold, their minds to the endless heat, and lastly, their bodies to the scavengers. They will be taken victim by the overseer, the scorching king who watches from above, waiting to eat their souls. On this day, one makes the exception. His name is Hiru Harada. It is not possible for his soul to be eaten, or his mind to be lost. His soul has already been taken by The Keeper of Death. Like a dream keeper, it wanders the realm of the living in search of the act of death in progress, so to stop the act before it can be completed. There Hiru lies, somewhere within the fault of life and death, yet.... not quite between it.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="floatleft"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><span class="bbc_u"><em>Day 4</em></span></strong></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Death Keeper</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><em><strong>"Four.... four they will be. Two they will fighting. Four then fight. </strong></em>Pressure.....<em> Walls of never escaping. </em>Fake.<em> An illusion all of it is...."[/b]</em></span>[/size]<br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Hiru Harada</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">For three days now, he's had to put up with this. This stupid voice in his head that keeps repeating the same words over and over and over. Every so often, the voice would resurface, repeat itself a couple times, and then vanish again. The stupid thing would even silence itself when he tried to answer it, waiting even longer to return than when he ignored it. The one thing he needed to say, he never would. He wouldn't even think it. He had survived four days straight in the desert. Four days of night and day, walking to no end. He didn't rest, didn't even slow. He was still waiting for his body to tire. After four days straight and no sign of a need for rest, he was beginning to think something might be wrong with him.</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="floatleft"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><span class="bbc_u"><em>Day 12</em></span></strong></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Death Keeper</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>"Four stand. Four then fight. Spiritual pressure. All of it-..."</em></span><br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Hiru Harada</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><strong>"Grrr..... WOULD YOU SHUT UP ALREADY?!?"</strong> He screamed out into the winds, his voice rattling his own bones, not to mention the sands themselves. It was as if an unseen source of energy was pouring out from his throat. It made him stagger and fall to his knees. He caught himself with his right fist, holding himself up. The only problem: the moment his fist hit the sand, his forearm snapped, the bone jutting out of the skin. What he saw wasn’t what he would’ve expected, had he been expecting his arm to do that in the first place. His blood had turned black. When it hit the ground, it bubbled and hissed, eating large holes in the sand before turning to vapor. Strange, but not what his attention was focused on. He felt nothing. It was as if his nerves were just… <em>dead.</em></span><br/><br/><br/><br/><div class="floatleft"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong><span class="bbc_u"><em>Day 27</em></span></strong></span></div><div align="center"><strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;"><span class="bbc_u">Hiru Harada</span></span></strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 8pt;">Fifteen days without hearing a single word from the demon. Just as well, he didn’t miss it one bit. Fifteen days with his arm… After the third day, the bottom half of his forearm fell off. It turned to black, melting into the same liquid that had poured from the wound. He didn’t look back. Instead, he assumed that it would evaporate just like the rest of it after eating a man-sized hole in the sand. After a good wind passes through, however, the hole will be covered right back up. No traces of him will be left behind.<br/>                 As Hiru walked, he had started to hum to himself. His voice was growing stronger. The more he hummed, the more his body seemed to fall to pieces. Well, if it was going to happen, then let it happen. Why not? It’s not like he could feel it anyway. He wanted to rip the whole arm off. The voice in his head was talking again, telling him to do it, but he ignored the stupid thing. All he could do was keep walking… walking… walking… stop.<br/>                 In the distance, he could see. A large wall rising up from the sand. It was… strange. But what wasn’t strange at this point? Still, that wall… it had a peculiar presence about it that was putting him off. Still, there might be something here he could use. Like water, maybe? <em>Water…</em> what a dream that would be. There had to be something behind this wall, right? But, he was so tired, so thirsty, he didn’t want to move any further. He felt weak. Finally, after 27 days of walking, he had found something. He knew exactly how many days he’d been walking, too. When you don’t sleep, and you have nothing else to think about – besides the voice in your own head – you start counting things. One thing Hiru hadn’t counted on, however, was this giant wall in the middle of nowhere.<br/>                 He approached the wall, staring at the top for a moment before it dawned on him that, perhaps if he walked around, he might find a door somewhere. Or like, a hole in the wall? Something? So he scaled the outside of the giant structure in search of something. By the time he finally reached a door, his shoes were mush. His feet felt like applesauce inside them. When he bent over to poke one of his feet, his fingers were hanging limply like a plastic glove with water inside of it. When the tip of his finger hit the top of his shoe, it crumbled to dust, leaving his left leg with a stump to stand on. His hand ripped down the center, spilling more black liquid onto the sand. If he could still smell, the substance would probably be the most putrid thing he’d ever smelled in his life. But his senses were gone. All but hearing and seeing were lost to him.<br/>                 He looked up to the giant double doors as his body continued to decay in front of the door. For the last moments of his body, he had a thought: if his body were this fragile, he could simply destroy himself right here, couldn’t he? It was worth a shot. The one thing he wasn’t thinking about was the necklace. What would happen to his mother’s crystal if his body was destroyed? Would it be eaten by the black substance inside of him like the sand? It would be better off destroyed than picked up by some random thing Like a human, for example. He shuddered to think of that. Before he could hesitate any further, or he lost his vision completely, he leaned back, the force of his weight crushing his other foot into the sand. With the last ounce of energy he had, he pushed forward, knocking his paper-thin shell against the door. The black substance splashed out over the sand, but it fell off the door, draining into the puddle in the sand. The hole that was eaten by the substance was massive. But, the force of his body knocking against the doors had somehow triggered them into opening.<br/>                 There he was, his spirit, floating idly in front of the giant double-doors as they opened wide to allow his entry into the structure. It was immaculate, what he saw. By the traces of energy, the sheer density of spiritual pressure, he could tell all of this was fake. Who would construct such a place was only a small detail at this point. What mattered was, he was free. Liberated from his old shell. But… umm, well I guess the only question at this point is… ‘now what?’ Well, now he sees that the voice in his head – what the hell ever that was – was actually right. There were four of them. But, they were off in the distance. He wondered, in the spectral form he was in, would they even see him? Like many things in this world, there’s only one way to find out. Then again, if one of them <em>could</em> see him, would they also be able to see the large, red, glowing skull that was hovering ominously behind him? Either way, even a human would probably sense the cold chill in the air brought on by the presence of a demon as it approached.</span>