INCENDION

2.

We called ourselves Demais.

I had never been to a gathering of people like me before. When I was younger, I was too young to attend them. And well, when I got older, being caged up in a dungeon didn't really give me the freedom to experience such.

But here I was. At the community square, watching the beauty of the ceremony as the chancellor was being sworn in.

They had released me quickly after I received the necessary treatment to keep me from not dying.

We were given neat blue dresses. Plain, compared to what the other beautiful girls and women were wearing, not that I was complaining.

The stitchings of the dress looked like they couldn't care less if we actually went stack naked.

The boys wore plain black pants and blue shirts the same shade as ours.

They sat us together at a different corner far off from where everyone else sat to watch the performances and still be able to look at our new Chancellor.

Hopefully he was going to be nicer than the one who got me locked up for nothing.

My dad's best friend. What a betrayal.

Had he passed away already?

I didn't want to say I wished that upon him, although a part of me really wanted him dead.

Actually I wanted to kill him myself.

But I guess he was already dead. I could live with that.

We, the criminals, got alert and sat up when we saw one of the head guards walking up to our section.

"The Chancellor requests your presence at the dance floor," he spoke to us all as he came to a halt, hands folded behind his back like a soldier.

"If any of you even think about escaping, you will be hunted down and slaughtered like animals. And you will be fed to the Dratians," he added just as people were starting to get excited.

Now everyone fell silent.

And I looked around at the glares on my people's faces as the unlocked the chains on our ankles that restricted our movement.

The Dratians were our constant rivalries. They looked like half dragons and half bats... in human form.

The point is they were disgusting and ruthless. And they fed on human beings, but should a Demai cross them, they wouldn't hesitate to rip them about with their feet.

I had never seen one before. But I heard about a lot of stories from people who had.

Once we were all free to move around, we got up and slowly but surely began walking to the center, filled with people with pretty dresses, and nice suits.

I felt someone grab my hand and almost retaliated quite violently, until I turned to see little Amoriel.

She was shy. And afraid.

I mean why wouldn't she? Especially with the way people were looking at us, like we didn't even deserve to live.

In fact, as we got to the center, some people walked back to their seats while others moved away from us.

I could only imagine the way Amoriel would be feeling.

She got locked up because she was like me. Her powers started showing already before she turned ten.

It was seen as dark magic or so they called it. They called us evil and people wanted us burned on a stick... like it was our fault or something.