The beginning

"What's wrong with you?" Nee sighed while sliding down next to the boy with ease. "Don't you know the city is filled with hungry monsters? What happened out there?"
She walked over and picked up the box, looking at it suspiciously. "What's this?"

"Don't touch that!" Rafeal screamed and jumped for the box, knocking it to the ground.

"Hey, you're going to break it," Nee snapped with irritation. "What's the deal, kid?"
When she bent over to pick up the box, she saw something squirm inside and push the top off. "Holy crap..." she whispered, seeing the baby corpse roll out. "This is a coffin! Oh my god, that thing is moving!"

"It's not a thing!" The baby was tightly swaddled in medical wraps and its face was covered with bandages. Rafeal pushed the woman away and put the body back in the box.

"That's why they're after you, isn't it? That... that baby is a Miser baby!" Nee stepped back and looked around cautiously, suddenly paranoid. "I didn't know that zombie-human monsters could have babies... Wouldn't they eat it or something. Oh, crap... this is just really really bad."

Isolde came over to the top of the hill and stopped before the drop. "What's going on?" she asked.

"This kid has a dead baby!" Nee wailed, still backing up. "In a tiny baby coffin! And it's moving!"

"She's not dead!" screamed Rafeal as he held the baby close. "Just leave!"

"I'm fine with leaving him here!" Nee told Isolde. "The baby... It's creeping me out."

Without waiting for a decision, Rafeal held the baby in one arm and ran into the city, hiding in the first abandoned building he could squeeze in. "Mom..." he whimpered and held the flailing baby close. "Dad... I don't know what to do-"
His body tensed when the floor above him started to stir and dust cascade from above. "Misers..." he whispered.

"The city is waking up," Raith thought out loud. He sat on the tenth floor of an old office building on a rolling chair that was falling apart. He saw the women and the boy and set down his flute neatly on the desk. "Too bad. The dream was always better."
He stood at the edge of the floor and tipped slowly forward, letting his weight guide him towards the ground. Near the fifth floor, a small whirling wind formed under his feet, slowing his landing until his feet touched the ground gently.
He walked towards the young man that fled into the Miser's nest and put his palm against the wall. "I'm coming in," he said to no one, but inside, the Misers on the upper level moved away and coward in a far corner. The wall under Raith's hand crumbled slowly like wet sand and rested on either side of the fresh hole.
Raith stepped inside and looked around the little room and found the young man with the baby alone. "That baby," Raith started. He paused and knelt before speaking again. "You're protecting her even though she's a Miser?"

"She's my sister," Rafeal sputtered. "She-" He swallowed. "She wasn't always like this. She needs help. The exorcist."

"An exorcist." Raith looked behind him and took a deep breath. "I'll show you something better than an exorcism." He crossed the room slowly, holding his hand out and stopping a few feet from the young man. "Let me see her. I won't hurt her. Like she, I'm know what it's like to be misunderstood."

Hesitantly, Rafeal held the baby out and cautiously watched the man. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to give her the choice no one else would." A ribbon of bandage fell to the floor as he unwrapped the baby. He placed a hand on her chest and hummed quietly for a few moments until the baby stopped moving. "You see, we make the choice to be Misers or Lost, eventually, but sometimes the innocent are tricked young into thinking they have no choice."
Raith knelt for the young man to see his sister. "What is on the inside is often very different from the outside. Your sister isn't a Miser. She's a Lost. The wicked Misers poisoned her skin to make her sick. The more of The Lost there are, the less Misers there will be. The Lost have the ability to control the darkness is the lesser Misers and make them empty again, but after time, they'll fill with darkness again and return to their queen. Your sister would have healed herself, if the humans didn't kill her first."

"They tried..." Rafeal mumbled. "We tried to find the exorcist, but he wasn't in Lost Valley. The Misers found us and... killed my mother and father..." He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "And. Our guards."

"If you have to cry, don't stop yourself," Raith explained gently. "There's few things more noble than showing honest emotion." Carefully, he touched the young man's shoulder. "Your sister will be healthy by morning. You don't have to suffer silently anymore."

Rafeal felt a quake in his body before his eyes blurred. He stumbled into the man and sobbed loudly. "I can't go back to the Imperial City. They won't let me live alone and they'll take Kristi. I have no money and the safe camps are ruled by Imperial now." He choked and covered his face with his hands.

"You are free to stay with me until we find other arrangements," Raith offered. "I'm Raith DeMonte and a guardian of the city. It will listen to me."

Cala began walking ahead, desiring a soft bed and a quiet room. "Soren, sir? Are you coming?"

Isolde quietly followed the boy and watched silently from outside the building. She returned to Neenja, shaking slightly. "Nee... The man in that building is the Shadow Lord. I'm sure of it."

"Of course." Soren looked away from where the protector and her companion disappeared and joined Cala. "You must be exhausted after today's events," he noted.

Seth slid to a halt behind Athen. "Man, you can't fight the demon queen right here," he said quietly. "There are Misers all over the city... They'll come out-" He stopped. "Wait, why haven't they already? Something's not right, man... It's really wrong."

Grabbing a few more scraps, Moa slinked away behind the nearest building and slowly sneaked through sleepy hoards of his siblings. Outside the city, he shivered at a wave of energy coming from a nearby building and decided not to waste time with the two women standing alone and unguarded. He leaped over the two lost and hurried to Tira, more curious than protective or dutiful. Offering an ear to her, he ignored the others. "Here, it's Bion's. An immortal blew him up. It was beautiful."

Zander lead the way up a high hill covered in debris outside the barricades and looked out at the wastelands around the city.
"There," he whispered, pointing towards the group outside the city while crouching low. "There are Misers there."