Blessed by Night

They were all naked, covered in a questionable yellow crust and shivering from the cold metal floors they had no choice but to rest on.

They had been given only the barest of possible comforts.

A couple of thin blankets that had to be shared, a few pieces of shoddily cut meat of questionable origin, and four buckets that were taken and dumped out everyday only to be brought back a few minutes later.

In the middle of the room, a man and a woman were lying side by side each other, equally broken and not saying a word.

Their hands were just centimeters away from each other, with both of them wanting to touch each other and yet both feeling as though they couldn't.

The wonderful thing about expressing physical affection with the one you love is that you are able to allow them a closeness with you that you would not normally afford other people.

It has a self afforded 'authenticity'.

But when your body is forcibly taken from you, it becomes difficult for some to share that same kind of intimacy as freely as before.

Suddenly it is as if you are offering your partner something that is 'dirty' or 'tainted'.

A flawed line of thinking, but an undeniably common trait in those who have lived through abuse.

And for those who are still living in their hell with no ending in sight, these traits only seem to worsen.

To escape this seemingly destitute and hopeless fate, nothing short of miracles are required for salvation.

Suddenly, the doors to the storage facility were kicked open and a ray of light shone from outside.

Instinctively, the humans inside huddled into corners and tried to avoid looking their captors in the eye.

The last thing that they wanted to do was look more pitiful than they already felt and send their depraved captors' instincts into overdrive.

"Mom! There are more over here!"

The eyes of the captors flashed open with renewed delerium.

Looking up, they found two young women standing side by side in the doorway.

One was a young, pink haired girl with a slightly dumb-yet well meaning roguish demeanor behind her.

The other was a dark skinned girl with long grey hair and empathetic black eyes.

"You poor souls… I can smell death all around you."

"A-Aubrey, don't be rude!"

"Ah! T-That's not what I was saying, Serana! I mean that people have actually died in this room."

"Oh, right."

"You girls are going to make us look bad..."

Another woman stepped into view of the refugees inside the room and her very presence sent waves of relief throughout every person inside.

Even though they did not fully understand why.

The woman was a vision that only comes around once in a lifetime.

She was a bit older with a soft, motherly figure that seemed to embody femininity and grace through unintentional nonconformity.

Her long, dark brown hair was like a flowing waterfall from a very famous children's movie.

Her eyes were entirely aglow in the most radiant silver coloring, and just staring into them could put an unguarded mortal soul into blissful sleep.

The closer she got to the captives, the more pronounced that this feeling became.

By the time that she had kneeled in front of the young couple, they were already struggling to keep their eyes open and their bodies upright.

"You've all suffered quite a bit now. Please rest peacefully, and know that when you wake up you will be in a much better place than you are now."

With the last of their worries slipping away, the weary couple closed their eyes at the same time and fell back onto the floor, believing in this woman whom they had never even seen before without understanding why.

Once everyone in the room was asleep, the dreamy mature beauty rose back to her feet and snaked her hand into her pocket.

Pulling out her phone, she dialed the number of the first contact in her phone and held it up to her ear.

"…Hey, honey? You aren't busy are you? … Yes, we found a few more here and we need an extraction please… Oh, okay."

Silently, Sei levitated a couple of inches off of the ground so that her feet were not touching the floor.

At the next second, her shadow expanded and opened up so that it was covering every inch of the storage facility.

Like drops of rain falling down from the sky, the sleeping humans fell into the bottomless black hole below, with no visible sign that they would ever reach the bottom.

Once the floor went back to normal, Sei let her feet grace the ground once again.

"Thank you, honey… I love you too."

""Blegh!"" Aubrey and Serana made twin gestures like they were sticking their fingers down their throats.

Sei put her phone away and rolled her eyes as she grabbed both girls by the ears.

"I'm surprised at you two! You should be glad that your family members are in a happy and committed relationship."

Aubrey : "We are, but…"

Serana : "Do you two have to be so happy all over the damn place?"

"Yes? He is my true love."

""Blegh!""

"Whatever!"

Sei led both girls outside of the storage facility by the ears and they walked into a rather morbid scene.

In an abandoned office building, over fifty abominations of all different types and sizes were out cold on the ground.

Members of Sei's squad were going around with their weapons and stabbing the creatures in either the hearts or the carotid to give them quick deaths.

They never even had a chance to put up a decent fight to begin with.

"…" Out of the corner of her eye, Sei saw something that made her come to a relatively short pause.

Releasing the girls' ears, she drifted over to a somewhat troubled member of her squad.

Clarissa Hall was the youngest member of Immortal Moon before it disbanded.

She was a cute, well mannered young girl who was looked at by all of the members as something of a little sister to the group.

Due to the fact that she had gotten her blessing from a Celtic god at the ripe age of sixteen, she had a tendency to be rather childish and was looked after by everyone in nightfall almost as much as Cami was.

And now, this very same young girl was repeatedly stabbing the same corpse over and over again, a very faraway look on her face.

Almost as if she wasn't really all there.

Sei drew closer towards the young girl and caught her sword by the pommel before she could mutillate the corpse even further.

"A-Ah, Squad Leader?"

"Clarissa dear… this one is already gone. There is no need to continue this any further."

The young girl looked down at the macerated pile of meat underneath her and she became slightly sick.

"I-I… I don't know what happened I was just thinking about all of this stuff and I.."

"I get it." Sei delicately took Clarissa's sword from her grasp and embraced her as closely as possible.

"This would be incredibly hard for anyone, needless to say someone as young as yourself. Would you like us to arrange a transport back to base for you?"

"N-No ma'am, I can keep going. I want to keep saving people… I'm sorry I lost my head."

"Sweet girl, you don't need to apologize… I just want you to take a beat for a bit and stick close to me for some time. Will you do that for me?"

Clarissa was finally released from her place between Sei's heavenly breasts and she lowered her head respectfully.

"Yes, Mrs. Saint. I will stay close by."

"…Ehehe…hehehehe.."

"..?"

Clarissa watched as Sei went from a respectable leader and maternal figure to a giggling high school girl with pink cheeks and twinkly eyes.

"Mrs. Saint, huh..? I always imagined that it would sound wonderful and it's honestly better than I could have hoped..! I-I can't wait to see him again and tell him!"

"Damn it, shrimp! You broke my mom!" Serana took her mother under her wing and tried to stop her from spiraling further into a fit of delirium.

"D-Don't call me, shrimp, washboard! I was just trying to be respectful!"

Serana growled as she folded her arms across her chest out of a mild sense of inferiority.

In the middle of their argument, the sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out from the window, and a large stony projectile came flying through the window.