It had been your average convenience store kind of stop at first; just another neon-coloured sign polluting the night’s calm dark, preaching to passing motorists that it was some sort of oasis from the road. Miles had been whining about needing to use the restroom, and even Mystica had to admit that they could use a bite to eat. It had been nearly six hours on the road since their last stop, and all five of them had grown antsy, vibrating with some unseen energy that urged them to expand beyond the metal framework of the sedan.

While the four normal humans of the group chose to immediately head inside, Mystica stayed behind in the warm evening air to smoke a cigarette. But, hands shaking from what he would later describe as “low blood sugar,” as he pulled a smoke from the pack, it slipped from his fingers, and fell somewhere on the pitch-black concrete below. After a few moments of trying to bring up his night vision to spot the wayward tobacco product, Mystica finally gave in, issued a sigh of annoyance, and dropped into a crouch, in hopes of getting a better view in the darkness.

“Oh, where, oh, where, has my beloved gone?” he muttered in sing-song, dragging his hands along the rough blacktop in search.

Interesting thing about the dark of night: even beneath the eerie glow of some backwoods 7-11’s sign, the night finds ways to disrupt the senses. Though only 11% of the population of the United States will admit to suffering from acute Achluophobia – a fear of the dark, there exists an instinct inside each and every member of mankind that tells the mind to fear the dark, for it is the refuge of danger. Something inside us warns us to live in the light and shun the shadow, but some of us are so bold as to say they do not fear the dark. These people are lying – not only to everyone else, but to themselves. That tiny, instinctual voice at the back of their head still cries out. And sometimes, this message comes too late.

“Ah,” Mystica exclaimed, spotting the white paper of the cigarette beneath the car. With nimble, still shaking hands, he extended his arm beneath the sedan, paying absolutely no mind to the instinctual voice of Marcel LeCourt’s stolen body and brain screaming a warning of imminent danger. But by the time Mystica had closed his hand over the fallen carcinogen, it was far too late to notice the stranger standing on the opposite side of the vehicle, watching him.

Shooting back to an upright, standing position, he could swear he heard something. But when his eyes scanned the parking lot before him, nothing was there. With suspicious eyes darting to and fro, Mystica calmly lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke fluttered away and disappeared in the calm air, like a phantom in the dark.

---

Inside the convenience store, Miles took to the restroom in the back while the three girls wandered the numerous aisles aimlessly, in search of something they didn’t know they wanted yet. Somewhere in the chips and assorted snacks aisle, Jessica finally looked down at her hands. They were still coated in the ashes of the banquet hall, the black soot clinging like a lost child to her palms. She smiled. This was what it felt like to be alive; to embrace the healthy fire within. Out here, in the real world, there was no longer the hand of her family closed tight around her throat. This was freedom. This was reality. This was the world. She desired to see more of it burn.

While Jessica was busy slipping deeper into her own psychosis, Zahra found this a perfect time to chat up Annie. They hadn’t really been on close terms since Annie had joined up with Mystica’s wild troupe of madmen six months prior. Despite working so closely together, Zahra realized she had never gotten to know this demure, wide-eyed girl personally. It had been on her to-do list for quite some time, but Annie never seemed to leave Mystica’s side. Often, when Annie would cling onto her master’s every word, Zahra would simply respond with a roll of the eyes. Yes, she remembered what it was like to be nineteen and still buzzing with hormones, obsessing over whoever would offer the slightest hint of attention.

But that wasn’t the whole of what truly bothered her regarding Annie. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Annie was an interesting creature; a lackadaisical, easily-upset girl from Utah, born and raised by some weird-ass cult for which Mystica claimed he could not be held responsible. Annie was hard to get along with on the road sometimes, but by no means did it mean she was utterly unredeemable. Then, perhaps, was it jealousy? Not over the attention of Mystica, per se…

No. Unfathomable. Business came first.

Zahra had never been very good at conversation. She felt much more at home plugging command prompts into her laptop while basking in its reinvigorating glow. In terms of people, Zahra was a pariah, deeply ingrained in a self-imposed exile. When Mystica had come calling, she was forced into understanding that a life outside of society had instilled in her a misanthropy of which she had not been fully aware. But as much as she despised the majority of the human population, she could bring herself to hate the pack of lone wolves that had become her team mates. Nevertheless, she was still a somewhat odd-looking and rather awkward person. Seeking to initiate conversation, she stared a hole into the side of Annie’s head, hoping the apprentice might finally notice her gaze and say something.

“The fuck are you looking at?” asked Annie in a standoffish, if rather curious tone. Zahra’s glare shifted to the floor.

“I, um…I wanted to ask you…”

Ah, she had already dug herself into a hole – a mere two seconds into a conversation. She supposed that must be some kind of personal record. But what to say? The hole had become cavernous; Annie’s brash question had come quite at Zahra’s surprise. The air had shifted. The last few hours on the road had really worn on the lot of them.

Or maybe that wasn’t quite it. Zahra felt the world around her suddenly become heavy, as though it were moments before rain broke the cloud surface. A chill suddenly raced up her spine, and she froze in place, her eyes locked upon something just beyond Annie’s face.

“I’ll ask again,” Annie snarled. ”What the fuck are you staring at?”

Zahra did not reply, but rather, kept her gaze locked. After a moment, Annie began to feel that cool rush along her back as well. Though her better judgment told her not to look, she really couldn’t resist. She shivered, and then turned her head toward the end of the aisle.

There, in the warm glow of the fluorescent lights from above, stood a rather awkward-looking young man. He might have been completely normal, aside from his rather dated sense of fashion. And the fact that he was semi-transparent.

“Can’t I just have one day where something weird doesn’t happen?”