I‘ve been walking around here all day. There hasn’t been any breaks at all today. My troups were all tired. I was tired. The king is trusting in us. He wants us to defeat the demon army. We‘ve been trying to catch up to them since weeks but they‘ve always been 5 steps ahead of us. The closest we‘ve been was when we saw the fresh foot prints with little crumbs of ember still left. We don‘t know how they always seem to feel when they need to leave. “Commander Ava? We need to make a new plan.“ says a familiar voice. I come back from within my thoughts and try to concentrate on my friend and loyal soldier - Stephen. He‘s always there when I need a recommendation on how to handle certain situations. We grew up together and sometimes I see us still as small kids with no responsibilities. “Earth to Ava?! I have news.“ he says unhappy. Oh no, that‘s usually never good in a war. I ask:“ What are those news?“ He slowly takes a deep breath. “Uhm, how should I say it? Well, there have been sightings of people with moving tattoos. The tattoos seem to have a life of their own. People with those tattoos also seem to have lost their soul to the demons. Even worse is that nobody knows how it happens and how to prevent it.“ I sigh. That is worse than I thought. Stephen looks at me with a desperate touch in his eyes. His usually bright green eyes seem dark and even his usually blonde hair has darkened out. The war probably also took his toll on him. I ask Stephen:“ Where do you have this information from?“ Right when I ask, I already notice dark lines dancing over his hands. I try not to gasp and to act normally. With my hands I take off his armor to look if I’m going crazy or not. He looks at me confused. “I‘m just checking wether you‘re hurt or not.“, I tell him. With a small grumpy sound he lets me take his armor off. And what I see there terrifies me more than anything I witnessed in this war so far. His body is covered in lines and symboles I‘ve never seen before and the worst is that they move and turn like they want to break out of his skin. I gasp and start to break out in tears. My friend is lost with no bringing back. My friend and maybe even the man I loved. He‘s gone irreversibly and now i need to kill the rest that is left of him.