Everything halts as two figures reveal themselves behind the door, lurching Raiden's heart like a train in a narrow tunnel.

Springing off his bed, Raiden snuggles under the bed's musty space, planking his back to the floor. He drags it sideways to peek over the bed.

They've left the door. Now stalking around the room with their branch-like arms stretched and twig-like fingers grazing surfaces. Also bare feet as terrifying as Bigfoot's.

What are these people? Why haunting one's room in midnight without words or violence?

A figure half the door's height appears, announcing her haughtiness through a phone call. "I was the one who stole the onyx from the cave. So it's mine."

Raiden has to repeatedly blink to adjust his sore eyes to the surroundings above him.

A headline from the local paper struts into his head, blinking a giant sentence. 'The Sixth Jewel Missing in A Week, Coincidence?'. The latest site to be ransacked is the local glow-worm cave, Kirminai.

Is this woman the thief who has set the city's detectives raging in tantrums?

Does she aim to heist over Saba's hidden jewels, shall he possess some?

Raiden shrugs off the anxiety worming in his nerves. He tightens his grip of himself while curling smaller, despite his brain's attempts to force him fleeing the site.

"No," the woman hushes, "The six heists were all my schemes. Divide the useless five jewels for yourselves, but this onyx is mine." Emphasis. A shove into a zipped purse, followed by a huff. "Bèn dàn."

Stupid egg. Fool. Idiot. Moron. That iconic Chinese insult is often thrown to his face by a specific girl.

His longing heart concludes the woman's identity, but his logic states the opposite.

"He's not here. But I saw someone." One of the men's voice resembles a fish's gurgle. A slam bounces off a surface, indicating a tremendous force, or frustration, applied to it.

"Search one more time. He's escaped from us and alerted the whole shelter about it. Such a troublemaker, curse. We should hunt him."

Where did Saba run away from? There weren't any signs that he left the shelter last night, according to the sleepless.

What has Saba gotten himself into?

A pair of knees crouch near the bed, checking underneath. The short distance of their breath hurtles realization to Raiden's frozen state.

Flames ignite within his limbs when the man's shock mirrors his.

Raiden lets out a stream of pants as he claws sideways, out of the hideout.

The men strike Raiden's thrashing legs with scratches and pounces. Mimicking a foal which is against its constraint, his physique riots.

However, his offense is anything but useful.

A recognized face peers over the gap gawking under his thrashing toes.

Damp bangs, slit-like eyes, bony cheeks, dimple-less skin.

He knows well who this girl is, after straining his neck to its maximum extent. He knows her by a name. And that can't be a jewel thief's name. "Ece?"

"I should've guessed my luck. You're that man's replacement, aren't you?"

The momentum's used to free him from his hideout, exposed to the glares of the intruders. The bed's interiors also take turns in grazing his injuries.

Soon, he's on his knees, neck folding inward like a punished sinner.

He curses at how it only needs the men's mere strength to yank him from sprawling on the floor and bind his arms together behind his back.

He also curses his long lost sister. "What have you done to that Bangladeshi and me?"

"I've done what I should do." The answer arrives like winter after stormy autumn. "You're not involved. Stay out of this."

"You freaking left the house! You left me!" It's easy to mistake his accusations as a canine's howl. "Where were you, Ece?"

"Stop asking questions you'll regret."

His brain never commands the chuckle. His self-pity does. "So, that's it? You ran away, settled somewhere, and steal? What are you? A twisted version of Jack Sparrow?"

A thunder cackles above, spectating the siblings' arguments with mischief.

"You should've helped me! Not minding your own business! Not this cryptic either! Don't you even pity our current economic circumstances?"

The thunder explodes once more, like spectators on a tribune. On the contrary, the two direct bystanders remain voiceless, still with grips cuffing Raiden's wrists.

"I can save other people. I can be a hero. A significant someone. Not just any someone like you." The words send a dagger plummeting into Raiden's mental barrier. Insults and curses line up within his brain, ready to be unleashed through his stumbling lips.

However, no words dare to challenge the fierce girl who was once his sister.

How stupid of him to even consider admitting his longing of her earlier.

"There's an unknown, mysteriously dark plague infecting the wealthiest of the society. A friend of mine was a victim. I couldn't just sit back and witness their death after being entirely consumed by that plague. That onyx was a solution to save the society."

Despite his lowering consciousness and unsteady state of mind, a puzzle piece just suits itself within Raiden's incomplete board. Ece meant Tayana.

"The onyx took half of someone's entire soul. It can heal someone. While the one with its half lost remained alive, though unconscious."

His saliva tastes like parchment when he spits it out. "You're not Robin Hood."

"I am. Specializing in the dark arts and health trades. The society's savior." Ece retreats, farther beyond Raiden's access. Each step quickens from the previous. "Take him back to our place. He can't be a sudden news anchor like that Bangladeshi."

A push shoves his back forward. His feet scramble for support while the men grab his upper arms. Their whizzes bristle his nape, and it confirms his suspicion of their inhumane misbehaviors.

"I'm sorry, Raiden. But I have to—"

Click. Clock. Click. Another hassle welcomes itself into the corridor's darkness. Another set of unmuffled footsteps, rigid with splashes daunting its rhythm.

Ece's untrained poker face makes it difficult to leave her shock unnoticed.

"I'm afraid I have to restrain you now, Ece. You're under arrest." The speaker must be a soulless woman. There's barely energy in that obligation. Ece won't kneel to that.

"Who are you?"

"Hadassah Marisol, CSI's Senior Forensic Scientist. I'm here to arrest you, scamp."

"I won't go anywhere." Ece's voice rises an octave, full with jumbled emotions and unspoken tones as she unravels her shaking, now-amethyst palm. Is that the onyx she prides on?

The grips holding Raiden back in place begin to slightly loosen themselves. Even his once clutched knuckles are now dangling like jaws. Their concentrations are sucked by the confrontation ahead of them.

Now is Raiden's first chance to strike. Taking down two skinny yet rigid men may be a mission impossible, but it's still worth the try.

After Ece lures his ever-growing rage out, it's a reckless advantage he should utilize.

Numbing his poised shoulders, his leg shoots backward, colliding with one's knee. A brute grunt resounds, shredding the previous tranquility.

An elbow misshapen his jaw hard when he turns back, and it stings through his bones, begging for relocation.

The punches and hooks come rapidly from one while the other's mourning over his injured knee. Raiden tries dodging with his arms, shakily forming an X shield in front of his face.

But the fish-voiced man attacks his middle instead.

Thud! His back groans while pecking the floor.

The muscles in his wrists burn as he scrambles backward. Voices race through his ears.

The aggressive man reaches for his collar, but Raiden avoids aside, taking the momentum to sweep the floor and impacts the man's feet.

Though the man still stands tall, it throws his balance alarmed for a while.

Raiden hoists himself upward upon reaching the door frame. Pain webs on his middle and face, blocking his navigation ability for a while. Add it with his discarded glasses next to the bed, forgotten.

The man lunges forward again, two knuckles on combat. Anger contorts his meatless face, accentuating his bulky cheekbones.

Bam! He scars the wallpaper.

Bam! Raiden's arm cracks and numbness seizes his movements. His X shield is damaged, and a force flings him to another wall, this time the corridor's.

"I won't let you go, Ece." A shrill wisp slashes the air, and something sharp-tipped flies past Raiden's earlobe, missing it by millimeters. Buried on the wall is a group of pinky-sized darts.

Are they supposed to assassinate Ece?

A battle ensues on his left. A combination between amethyst hues and streaks of hovering darts, also sneaky side-steps and hideous maneuvers.

This isn't the sister he's raised for years. She may be rebellious at times, but never this aggressive or forlorn.

Since when has she changed?

Splack! The candelabra breaks into splinters next to his face, burying pieces to his cheeks. His cry pierces the air like scissors. Blood gushes out like a pool out of their vessels, in sync with the approaching chuckle of men.

The healthier-kneed stares at the broken candelabra with a vibrant smirk.

Raiden's punches are mediocre. And his wriggles prove to be nothing but a child's limbless struggle, as he's shoved through the shoulders by the tree-like man.

The floor zones in and out as they move, opposite of the battle.

The pained man from before has lit a candle, enough to brighten a few steps ahead of them while they're descending the staircases. The paused cackles from his incomplete teeth promise demise for Raiden.

Their shadows follow them like stalkers.

Ece's grunts and the scientist's cries develop chaos for the available ears. Along with the aftermath—thuds, stabs, and whizzes. It mustn't be their first encounter if savagery has contributed to their attacks.

What are these people's connections to Ece?

These men never refer to her as 'boss'. They never call her name.

But that woman—Hadassah Marisol, was it?—seems to be after Ece. Her pouchful of darts and fluency during combat are why.

What has his sister done besides being a thief? What can the onyx do?

And what did Saba experience? Was he attacked? To 'health trades', like Ece quoted?

Nothing makes sense. He shouldn't have gotten involved in this. Ece was right.

Slumber dominates the building until Ece's high-pitched scream, along with a snippet of Chinese insult, scar the air. The blunt thud immediately stops Raiden's oxygen intakes.

However, his aching physique obliges him to remain glued in place. Staring at nothing but the long halls and the chilly eruption of the midnight breeze.

The thunder claps once more, announcing the turnout of events.

Raiden looks backward, noticing the shoves have stopped bugging him forward.

Those two men are frozen like figurines. One's with a finger touching Raiden's shoulder blade, and one's still holding the candle. Both with motionless pupils and invisible breathing.

They've stopped living shortly after Ece silences the night's events.

The temperature of the rooms around him, wherever he is, minuses itself. Unlocked windows allow the breeze to deliver him terror. A few hesitating footsteps, including the clacking of heels from the upper floor, send a wave of horror into his heart, penetrating like a syringe.

Whatever's happening to Ece mustn't be good. Or else, the scientist's low groans will be the one which echoed. Not Ece's childlike cry.

Doors begin to creak from both upstairs and downstairs. While the upper one sounds distant and heavy, the lower one is closer and hastened.

Tobacco contaminates the previously fresh air. Chocolate interferes it. A pair of scleras glare at him from the stair's end.

A familiar silhouette reshapes itself out of the darkness. With a feather above the head and silenced jingles. Also, a ceramic-white mask which covers half the face.

The unfriendly woman he met at the crossing yesterday shortly after he met the hurried woman...who was possibly Hadassah Marisol?

"You'll come with me instead. Hurry."