Under the Moon and the Sun

Nightmares Hoof was the secret services of the Commonwealth of Chiropterra for nightmare knows how many years. They were created by at the time warmaster Auburn Breeze sometime in the 10th century with its primary goal of preparing for Operation Moonshine. Since Moonshine’s success and the return of her imperial majesty it has been repurposed into a more defensive role of protecting Chiropterra from external forces beneath the shadows.

Their Headquarters are situated not far from the Imperial Palace, on Auilix Street, the second largest road in the entire Capital. The Building was a modern skyscraper, built with glass and steel. The characteristics was the structure itself which reached a total of 442 meters of altitude.

Considered one of the largest buildings in the entire world, with its outer surface covered in glass. With modern interiors and rooms where suspects can be interrogated with cutting-edge equipment.

For these particular details Shining knew that he wasn't in the skyscraper.

K and T escorted Shining through the Plaza, reaching in the end an old blue van without writing , probably an older model of 10 years. Old and rusty but for sure comes in handy in case of long trips.

They invited Shining to enter it, K said that they were escorting him to a safe place, waiting for the situation to calm down and Shining trusted them, they showed him their badges after all, and so entered the van, confident and calm… And then only darkness.

He woke up again with a bucket of cold water, tied up with a chair. His head was throbbing from the pain, probably hit with a blunt object. Shining looked around in panic, breathing heavily.

The room was naked, the old wallpaper, ruined and dirty, exuded humidity and the only objects in that room was the chair Shining was sitting on and a light bulb that illuminated the room.

T and K talked to him about what he did, what his ‘Heroic Act’ will generate once She will know about the fate of the plot. At that point, Shining knew that the 2 weren't agents of the Nightmare’s Hoof, but he didn't understand anything clearly, he was still stunned.

Still Shining tried to ask who was their boss, why they decided to kidnap him, what their goal was. He hoped that the two would tell him something, an explanation, an apology maybe.

He shouldn't have done that.

For K’s response he decided to use Shining as a punching bag, pouring his anger into each punch, harder than the last. He wasn't trying to kill Shining but he still managed to have Shining’s strength reeling to the point that talking would be impossible.

After that the 2 left the room, locking the door and leaving Shining spitting blood, on his now torn and dirty uniform. no longer as shiny as it was a few hours or perhaps even days ago.

Still, even if very slowly, Shining managed to fall asleep again, he didn't have the lucidity to think of a plan, something, to escape from that place.

Maybe the next day…

Present…

Shining was torn from sleep with a bucket of water against his face.

Not a good start.

He coughed, struggling to breathe, almost drowning, he slowly opened his eyes only to see again K and T looking at him.

“Hello again mister Night!”, K said with a childish tone. He was smiling, and Shining didn't like it, something big was about to happen and he wasn't sure he wanted to see what.

“Why are you doing this?!”

In response he received another bucket of freezing water.

“You aren't in the position to ask any question right now, and you should thank your Nightmare that you are not dead yet.”, T said with a hint of anger that betrayed his joking tone.

“Now… we did some insight into you, mister Night. You were born in the year 1002 ALB, you fought in the Second North Zebrican War in the year 1020 at 1ge 18. You assisted in putting down the labourer revolt in Tobuck at age 20

Where did they find my file?!

“You fought in the Chiropterrian – Colthagian War after the betrayal of the Sufrit. And for your actions you received a promotion. Is this correct corporal major?”, said T.

If I don't answer it will be worse. Better if I indulge them, I need to preserve every inch of strength remaining if I want to escape.

“Correct”, Shining said in a flat tone gritting his teeth.

“Your parents died during a terrorist attack in New Ayacachtli when you were only 4, for this and for some anger issues you ended up with no friends. Mister Night you are indeed the perfect test subject! If this works we will be famous in every country of our nation and we will be rewarded!”, T seemed excited.

For the love of the Nightmare…

“T! Please pass me the handbag, we don't have much time left since our first chance to satisfy our boss was killed by mister Night just 3 days ago”

T vanished for a second before reappearing with a black handbag, handing it to K.

K opened it. Inside there was a syringe with a transparent liquid inside, connected to a container through a small tube. The container itself had various toxic danger warnings written on it. The language was unknown.

They know I'm already vaccinated?

“T, hold him still”

T obeyed, blocking Shining with his hoofs. He tried to resist and to wriggle out but K was too strong even for him,

“Now let's see if it works…”, K injected the mixture in Shining’s neck.

Pain rapidly reached Shining, he fought the urge to start screaming, he didn't want to give any satisfaction to K and T. The mixture slowly left the syringe into Shining’s neck, it felt as if ice was injected into his body.

“Don't worry mister Night, for the first 10, maybe 20, minutes nothing will happen to you”, K said in an excited tone.

“And after… that time has passed?”

“It could end up in 2 ways mister Night, your body will accept the mixture with all of his privileges and advantages, or you will die.”, T said with a tone that left no room for doubt.

“What was inside that mixture?”

“You should be honoured mister Night. This is something more big than you, me and anyone. This is the beginning of Paradise.”, K made a crooked smile.

He is insane, they’re both insane! I need to get out, and quickly too. Or the Nightmare knows what will happen to me.

In the distance a phone rang, T looked at K as he went to check who it was calling them. K meanwhile grabbed the handbag and started to refill the syringe.

The knots tying Shining weren't tied properly, "A beginner's knot" his trainer at the Academy would say if he could see them. Everything that Shining needed was to not get caught by K, who now seemed concentrated on the handbag and not caring about his prisoner.

Shining fiddled with the knot, trying to be as discreet as possible, if K had noticed who knows what he would have done to him. He would probably have been the victim of other experiments.

Come on… untie damnit!

The knot became weaker and weaker, Shining remembered the training and the knot didn't offer too much resistance to his hoofs. Eventually it broke up and Shining was free again, in all this K had almost finished refilling the syringe and checking that the tank was working correctly.

Now or never, may the Nightmare help me.

Shining sprinted forward.

K heard the noise, but he barely had time to turn around before Shining was on top of him, the handbag was pushed away while the two tumbled to the floor battling while grabbing each other's neck.

Shining had noticed before, K wasn't as strong as T, and he definitely wasn't trained to fight. The black thestral tried to free himself from Shining’s grip, who was trying to drown him with an assassin like fury.

“You don't understand the honor we are doing to you! You are the key!”, K answered, in pure rage while trying to liberate Shining's hoofs.

“What there was in the mixture?!”, Shining was losing his patience, the noise they were making will for sure not be ignored.

“Ha! You think I will answer your questions? It's too late anyway, kill me if you want! I won't betray Him!”, K laughed. Shining was tired, sleepless, hungry and angry, angry at his tormentors.

“Fine!”, and he broke K’s neck with a decisive blow.

Shining separated from the corpse, heavily breathing. He needed to get out of there, run away from that place, but first he needed to find T. As long as T wasn't already returning. He gave a last sign at K before raising up slowly.

He couldn't hope to fight T in his pitiful condition, he simply had to escape and find a safe place where he could inform the police. He opened the door and looked outside.

The door led onto a short, dimly lit corridor, it looked like a basement, and it probably was, the walls were worn and this was the only room there. The end of the corridor led to a flight of stairs.

Shining rushed through the corridor, up on the stairs. There was a door blocking the way. Shining turned the handle…

And the door didn’t open.

Of course the door is locked!

Shining took a deep breath, he needed to calm down, otherwise he would have a panic attack, T would have found him and only the Nightmare knows what would have happened to him in that situation.

Instead, he did some step backs and looked around, trying to find a vent, so he could just sneak in and escape from the prison where he was in. Unfortunately there was nothing.

In the corridor there was no ventilation system but in its place there was an old cabinet, it was semi-open. Shining rushed to open it, the inside featured clothes and disguises. He checked inside them hoping for something, anything, but found nothing.

That's when he heard noises outside the door, T was coming back, and Shining could hear him fiddling with the lock on the door. Time was up, Shining threw himself into the closet and closed it behind him. leaving a little space to breathe and see what T was doing.

The door opened, and T came out, still dressed as when they had kidnapped Shining, he had a pinched expression, like that of an employee who has been told to speed up his work. He was walking down the corridor fiddling with a pack of cigarettes, the brand wasn't visible to Shining but the color of the pack suggested they were imported.

He passed the closet without sparing it a glance. Shining's heart was beating wildly, he was waiting for the right moment to escape from there.

A few more steps...

"So K, how's it going with our subject?"

He stopped in front of the entrance, motionless as he stared at the corpse of his colleague, with his head bent in an unnatural position and with the empty chair next to him, the handbag thrown to the corner of the room.

Now

Shining came out of the closet and ran against T. The agent turned but Shining kicked him and threw him into the room. T was getting up but Shining was faster and closed the door to the room leaving T trapped inside.

He's pissed off, better get out of here before he breaks down the door.

Shining turned, ignoring T's angry screams, and ran through the hallway to the stairs leading to the exit.

He quickly got on them and got out of them, fortunately T had closed them but not with a key, he hadn't expected Shining to have freed himself and evidently hadn't even considered such an option.

The door opened onto a small, narrower passage, some of the tiles on the walls showed signs of wear, no one had been to that place in a long time except K, T and him. Shining ran along it, passed a couple of open rooms, where he recognized what looked like a kitchen and some sort of laboratory.

He reached the door, and opened it.

The wide tunnel and tracks were the first thing that struck him.

I'm inside the subway tunnels!

Shining left what had been his prison until then and walked through the subway tunnels, hoping to find a station as soon as possible.

After minutes that felt like hours, he finally noticed a light at the end of the tunnel. Shining couldn't believe it, he had risked being hit by a tram twice and felt a great pain coming from his left wing, despite this he ignored the pain.

He finally reached what turned out to be the station of Moonspeaker Temple, the great temple at the center of the Nightmare cult. There were many people waiting for the train to arrive.

And even more were what they indicated a Shining, limping, reaching the tracks and climbing over them. Some rushed to help the Corporal Major but stopped when they noticed something.

Shining stopped, what had blocked them? What made them look so terrified?

And it was at that point that he saw his wing.

Even if the wing itself no longer had anything to identify it as such.

The flesh was no longer present, only the shape remained. In its place there was something Shining had never seen before. A dark substance, a sort of shadow, black as night, had taken the place of the flesh and tissue, the blood, sucked from it, was no longer present, yet the pain persisted, uncontrollable and continuous.

Panic crept into Shining's mind and at the same time his adrenaline began to wane, it was too much, too much to process in these conditions. Shining fell, no longer able to walk, no longer able to think, and the darkness took hold of him again.