My friend, a very talented writer has started writing a book. it is amazing and each chapter is a cliff hanger. you will be missing out if you don't read this. i will post each time there is an update to it. ENJOY
xx Missy
Chapter one
"I'm sorry" I screamed tears now rolling down my face, "no" he yelled. A searing pain went through my body as he kicked in my side. He kicked me again and this time an unsettling crack echoed from my rib cage. I screeched in agony. I was deeply terrified, blood now covering my hands. The pain of his mistake was being put to me as he attacked me in the night. I let out a sigh of pain as he kicked me yet again. I was now bruised all over and I was afraid.
The door rang. "I’ll finish you off when I get back", he hissed. I was scared to the point of death as I slowly crawled across the floor and turned over the carpet. Under it was a small trap door that led to the basement. I struggled with the handle but it eventually stopped its resistance and gave way. As I lowered myself down I heard him yelling into the night “there is nothing here but darkness".
His name was Jason. He was my boyfriend yet it seemed that he hated me. He had beaten me and abused me for usually no good reason or because he had done something wrong and took it out on me. He was good looking though. All of my friends thought he was perfect, but the truth was that he was far from it. He would come home drunk and try to do horrible things to me, but even then I would not dare to leave him. The reason being-not that I loved him-but that I was afraid of what he would do to me.
I lay in darkness. I lay for so long. I lay in silence and fear and solitude. I lay and I slept. In my sleep I saw a woman, no a girl. Her eyes were blue as the ocean. She was me. Her long blonde curls bounced as she walked in a long dark hallway. She was the only thing visible for the rest was black as a starless night. She walked. She walked for a long time. Then she saw a light and started running towards it. She found herself in a small room. The wallpaper was peeling at the edges and the floor was old timber. She turned around. The hallway was gone and she was in a clearing in a forest. In the centre of the clearing was a man with his back to her. "Um hello", she mumbled awkwardly, "could you tell me where I am?"
The man laughed. It was not the kind of laugh that you want to here. It was the kind of laugh that the bad guy does when he/she is about to unleash unknown terrors upon the land.
He turned to face her. She screamed in utter terror. It was Jason, but not as she knew him. He had a terrifying grin that stretched across his face. His clothes were torn and crimson with blood and his mouth was cut at the joins so that it was huge and threatening in a fixed and crazed smile. But that was nothing compared to his eyes. They were completely black. No pupil, no iris, just a terrible void of pitch.
"I'm not finished with you yet", he yelled, and ran towards the girl and drove a butcher’s knife through her chest.
I woke. I was covered in sweat and blood. I could hear Jason's footsteps upstairs. He was screaming in anger and hate, swearing at me and throwing words like darts, each one hitting a perfect bulls-eye. Though I was in the safety of the basement I could still feel all of the hurt that he wished upon me. I curled up in a ball and cried. "You stupid, stupid orphan'' he yelled. I almost screamed in anguish. It was the worst thing he could have said.
I started to cry. My tears were warm and many. They fell to the cold hard floor. My eyes began to feel sore and had run out of tears. I lay curled up on the ground and closed my eyes hoping that the fear in my heart would disappear. It didn’t.
I yawned. I was extremely tired and I needed to rest, but I was too afraid. Fear. Life could not be lived without fear. It is used to manipulate and control people until it is the only thing they know, the only thing real to them in a world that has no good points, for what is good without evil.
***
It was only when I woke that I realized that I was asleep. The floor was no longer cold. In fact it was quite warm. "It must have been my body heat" I thought to myself. Then I remembered what had happened before my soothing rest and my dream. I was puzzled. The thing that had saved me was the thing that rang the door bell, but there was nothing there but darkness. I shivered.
I remembered what Jason called me. The stupid orphan.
My parents had died when I was six years old in a car crash. I was there. I sat through the whole thing. I saw them scream and shriek in agony as there life was being cruelly taken away from them. I did not cry. How could I? The shock was too great. After this I was taken by a police officer to the Catholic Orphanage of Archvale (Archvale being the city I lived in). I ran away at the age of seven. Having all of the money of both of my parents, I was a bit of a rich child.
I used the money to get myself into school and-since the school was a boarding school-I was fed and kept clean until I was old enough to work for money. That is where I met Jason.
I shivered, though the darkness provided eerie warmth. I thought he was nice at the time. I was so wrong. I was so innocent back then. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hold back, nothing to fear. Yet I had told no-one about my parents. No-one at all. Until he first kissed me that is. Up on that rooftop, in the dark night, it was pleasantly cool and we had just come out of a nice French restaurant. We talked for a while until he leant in to me and gently pressed his lips to mine.
I remember it well. It was the happiest and worst day of my life. After that, I found out the terrors of my mistake.
I heard a noise. I couldn’t see in the dark, but I sensed something had changed. I heard another noise, but louder this time. It sounded like wind. My hair blew across my face. I went to fix it up but I was shocked by electricity. "Ow" I gasped. I tried again to tidy up my hair but I was shocked again, but this time not by electricity but a lash of fire. In the moment that the fire lit the room, I saw a shape. A dark shape. A human shape.
Then I realized, I was being hit by the elements. First air, then fire so next was…something splashed me in the face, "Water", I said. I laughed. It was pretty sad that the water element was just a splash in the face, but I knew that the next element was earth.
I heard a scratching sound like something being moved across the floor. Then I was hit by a sandstorm-how a sandstorm could fit in a small basement I did not know but obviously it had. It whipped through the air and rushed past my cheek, scraping away the skin. As a reflex I put up my hand to feel my wound and that too was blasted with the sand and was left raw and fleshy.
I did all I could to try to figure out what could be used to identify the plant threat but . . . Nothing. Until I felt a slimy long vine slide past my leg. I shuddered.
Then it all stopped. The wind, the sand, the vines, the random splashes on the face. . . All stopped.
I sighed. My heart was pumping blood rapidly through my veins, and my head was ringing. I groaned and lay on the floor; I curled up and closed my eyes. I rocked back and forward feeling fear rippling through my body.
I moaned and gasped as flashes of my past raced before my eyes. My parents’ death, my horrific childhood, my fearful time at school, the bashing, and the bleeding, and the bruises, and the pain. But the most constant thing I saw was the darkness.
As a girl the darkness was my only friend, and growing up, used to think that it would help me in tough times. One of these occasions was my first formal. I was with a really cute guy, and we were dancing innocently when he started running his hands all over me, I was scared and shy and suddenly one of the lights exploded and the room was plummeted into darkness.
Then I had time to escape from that boy’s slimy clutches. I was but fourteen, I am now eighteen. And live, actually let’s make that lived, with Jason.
I looked at my hand and sighed, one of the reasons being that I could now see a vague outline of my hand. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness. And so was my heart. I could now see that the darkness had saved me from Jason, and from all of my other life perils and deep in my heart I felt that I had always known.
Something brushed against my leg. I yelped and was afraid because I thought that the vines had come back, but that was not the kind of brushing that I felt. I felt hot air blowing against my arm and I was hyperventilating before I realised that it must be the thing that brushed against my leg and it was now breathing on to my arm.
I crossed my legs and sat patiently hoping that that I was right I felt a small soft thing pressing against my leg and then another. They were paws. "Hey gorgeous", I said and smiled. It started to purr. She was a cat. I didn’t know how I knew she was a girl, but I did.
"I will call you Secret", I said. I looked at her, her large golden eyes blinked back at my staring ones. I thought about the elemental rush I went through, then shook it off.
Secret started to purr, I reached out my hand and pat her silky fur. Then she jumped off my lap and meowed. "What is it?" I wondered. She meowed again then curled up beside me. I stroked her again and yawned.
Chapter Two
Each day was like a nightmare, I would spend my time crying and feeling afraid all the time and trying not to cry. Then my fear turned into sorrow, the sorrow turned into madness, the madness turned into extreme hatred for Jason.
The days (or nights, I could not tell which), followed like this:
I would wake up after my on-going nightmare (each night worse than the night before).
I would prey to the darkness (which I now found trust in) that everything would be alright.
I would sit and talk to Secret, to help me from getting angry.
I would scream my head off into my hands, crying and hating and letting anger control my body.
Then I would black out and wake up the next day/night to start the whole thing again.
Little did I know that I did this routine for three months straight, with no food, no water and no hope. I also didn’t know that the people that moved into the house above had carpeted over the trapdoor, leaving me stranded in the basement. When I started screaming they had been scared out of the house. It was left for sale and taken over by another family who, unlike the first, were not superstitious and were not scared off. They just went to sleep with ear-muffs on. Smart people.
Each day I lived in hatred of Jason and saw him as the figure in my dreams that haunted me at night. If I ever saw him again, I would kill him. "Secret", I called, "where are you?" I felt soft fur rub against my leg. "Merrroooow" I heard her say. I smiled; she looked up at me with her golden eyes and tilted her head. I stared at her. I could now see pretty well in the dark basement, I could tell things from other things but could not yet see colours apart from light and dark.
Secret's elegant silhouette moved around the room, resting at times. As I watched her she licked her fur and tried to catch passing dust with her paws. "You know what would help with that," I said and smiled, "Opposable thumbs." She started to purr, I grinned at her, yet again.
It was getting warmer in my small basement and I was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable in my winter clothing. As I took off my cardigan, I had to roll up my three-quarter sleeved top to stop the uncomfortable feeling. I lay on the floor, doing the equivalent of basement sunbathing and couldn’t stomp myself from the occasional giggle as Secret tried to manoeuvre her way across my stomach. I sighed in delight because it was the first time that I had been at peace with myself since the incident (as I had now started calling the night of the start of when I first was forced into the basement.)
I blinked and stared into the eyes of my cat; she looked back and liked her nose. I felt pretty good and didn’t want to change much right now. I yawned sleepily, closed my eyes, and went into a state of rest and comfort.
I dreamt in my sleep, but not the fear inducing nightmares that I was used to, a new dream. I was sitting on a swingset and slowly rocking back and forward, back and forward until the rhythm soothed me. I got off the swings and walked down a path that I knew in my dream, but not in real life. Anyway, I walked down the strangely familiar path and ended up in the clearing in which my nightmare was based, I walked into the centre of the clearing and saw not one, but two men with backs faced to me.
"I'm here" said I. the men turned around, startled. I stared at them both. One was tall with pailish complexion. He had golden brown hair, a solemn look on his face and loving looking eyes. His whole figure was over-all well looked after and topped off with eyes that were green as emeralds, he was strangely familiar yet the top half of his face was covered in a gold and crimson mask. The other was taller than myself without being too tall. His skin was naturally tanned and his hair was a black/brown colour. He wore a comical expression that made me smile. He looked at me with eyes as soft as silk but as brown as rich dark chocolate. Both men were extremely handsome.
"Who do you choose?" said the masked man. "It always has been and it always will be. . . "I paused.”Claire" said the masked man, "Alright, alright," I continued, and said something illegible to my ears. The dark man flashed perfect teeth at me in a triumphant grin. I could not help but smile back as he approached me and threaded his arms around my waist. I looked into his dark, sweet eyes and leant into him, and as our lips met, a chill ran down my spine, because it just felt too right to be real.
When I woke, I groaned because I knew that my dream was too good to be true. I had forgotten that Secret was still on my belly. I wriggled around and she leaped off. She shook her head, obviously disapproving my action and stalked off to try to catch some of her fluff-prey. I was in an all-round good mood. My sight was still limited but I could see better than I could on other days. My hair (which had been knotty with curls) was sitting perfectly on my cheeks and I wore a smile of delight that made me happy and to top it all off, in my dream I heard my name being said. Claire Forrester.
I breathed deeply and slowly relaxing my body. I was in a state of happiness and calm. I closed my eyes and saw Jason's face. Anger tore through my body and fear was its side-kick my emotions were racing and my heart was beating rapidly. When I opened my eyes I could still see the face from my nightmares, but in much more detail. Secret started hissing and as I looked into his deep black eyes and started to shake in terror. I was not yet over my fear of him, but the hatred got more and more. Salty wet tears started streaming down my cheeks but I could not look away.
My heart was still racing and I was starting to lose my consciousness. Slowly my vision started fading along with my strength. Soon all I could see was the pail demonic face of my enemy and as my last strand of sight snapped, I could see him smiling wickedly at my demise.
***
As I lay on my back, now awake, I remembered my mother. I remembered her long soft hair that fell down in ringlets on a bad day. I remember her wide smile and perfectly straight teeth that I used to envy. I remember the way that she used to look into my father’s eyes with such passion that I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would always be safe. But the thing I remembered most about my mother was her laughter. The way she laughed at my father’s terrible jokes. The way she laughed at my expression when she had said something that I did not comprehend. But mostly the way that she laughed when everything went wrong, yet she could still pull out a smile.
I had the classic dad. Bad jokes, terrible cook (except BBQ), and a big heart. He used to tell me the jokes like "What's orange and sounds like a Parrot? A Carrot!" and they used to make me laugh just because they were hopeless. He used to take me to the annual town fair and would always come on the teacups ride. I would always sit on his lap and he would bounce me around while I was laughing like a lunatic. I loved both my parents with every strand of my heart.
As I sat on my piece of ground, I saw the faces of my parents flash before me. I saw them smile like I had never seen before. I saw their faces filled with some amazing joy that I had never experienced, so I curled up in a ball and knew that I could never trust another person, and as I did this I realized that I never really had anyone in the first place. But as I was thinking these thoughts, I didn’t focus my mind of the sound of a roaring wind.
Then a thunderbolt cracked through the room, blinding me momentarily. Fear shuddered through my body as I had a vague comprehension of what would happen next. Gigantic flames leapt before me and engulfed the room. They started licking the walls and floor with their scorching tongues of flame. And as this lit the room I saw Secret purring as if nothing was happening.
"Secret" I yelled, just moments before I was slapped by a giant ocean wave. I was being carried around by the swarming sea in the basement like I was a rag doll being carried around by a little girl's brother. When the sea died down I had only seconds to catch my breath before I heard crashing and was buffeted by rocks the size of boulders. They crashed into the walls and the floor making the room shake. As it slowly calmed I was shaking because it was all too much, too quickly. As tears started rolling down my face the cement floor gave a shuddering CRACK and out of the cracks came huge Venus fly-traps. Their mouths were agape and were dripping with gooey saliva. They hissed and splattered and surrounded something that I could not see and then, they were gone. All of it. Gone.
The sudden abrupt ending to it all was what did it. Not the terror, not the pain, just the ending. The way that all of it happened, and I felt every second of it but then… puff, gone. I let out a glass shattering scream and let all of the air trail out of my lungs, and when I finished, I knew it was all over.
My eyes sprouted fresh tears and I was still shaking. I started to breath loudly and heavily and was terrified to the point of fainting, and so, I did. But just before I lost my conciseness I heard three words. "I am darkness".
Chapter Three
CHAPTER 3
The voice was kind, it was trustworthy and helpful, not the voice of a bad man, not the voice of an evil villain. When I woke I looked around for the source of the voice, not seeing the man sitting in the corner patiently with a small smile of contempt on his face. I deemed that I had been dreaming too early because as soon as I stopped looking, I felt a soft hand link with my own. I jumped with a silent squeal. "Who are you?" I waited. "I am darkness" he said. My heart leaped into my throat as I remembered those words. "Who are you" I repeated slowly. I sat down, and so did he. "My name is Shadow." I paused. I had but one thing that I knew, either I was mad, or I was dead. Nothing could have come in to my basement while I was here, and I was sure that I was the only one in here to start with. I came to the conclusion that I had lost my mind. So I talked to him, and told him everything.
As we talked he held my hand and Secret sat by my side, and he listened. He did not flinch, or gasp or even blink. He just listened, and when it was over and I was catching my breath, he let a small smile brush across his lips and said softly, "I know you, now you shall know me."
I sat cross-legged on the floor and listened. I listened as he told me everything. He was darkness. He physically was darkness. His biological makeup was human, yet he wasn’t. "The darkness made me for you. It first created your companion, Secret, to be a friend. Then it made me." I looked into his eyes and asked the question that was tingling on my lips. "Why?" he gave a faint smile. "Because you love."
I was caught up in the moment. I didn’t mean to. It was just the right place, at the right time. I kissed him. It was a shy, gentle kiss. No tongue, no extreme movements, just a kiss. And it was perfect. When we stopped I was in a state of shock. "I'm sorry" I mumbled.
He wore a victorious expression, mixed with surprise. "I forgive you," he smiled. "I'm sure you do" I laughed. We continued talking about nothing in particular, and smiled and laughed. It was the best day I had ever experienced, but when it was over, we just ay on the floor and played children's games like eye-spy. I didn’t want to sleep, but I did, hoping he would still be here in the morning.
When I woke, all was silent. No sound or noise. I could not see or hear him at all, and now that you mention it, I couldn’t hear Secret any more as well. I sat up and listened to the silence. Once I listened hard, it wasn’t silent at all. I could hear the padded feet of my cat’s paws softly moving against the floor, I heard the breath of the man I had met the night before, I heard the slight chattering of insects outside of my basement, and I heard my heart beat. Something I hadn't heard in far too long.
When Shadow came out, he was smiling. I liked it when he smiled, it made me feel good, warm inside. His eyes were calm and bright, with a sparkle that I hadn't noticed earlier. We smiled pointlessly at each other for who knows how long and as our gaze began to flicker, we started to talk. He told me of darkness. "It is not what light leaves in shadow, it is more than that. It is beauty, and fear and mystery. It creates love and magic, and is the god of the nocturnal." he said his voice never quivering or faltering. He looks at me. "Humans are born in darkness and die in darkness; they use the darkness as cover, or escape, and use it for romance and fear."
I stared at him, my expression blank, but my heart burning. . I closed my eyes, and felt the dark. Before creation, darkness roamed free. As if it was alive, and it was friends with the light, they were one. But the light saw that the dark was too strong, it turned on the darkness and tried to take the power for itself, but it failed and backfired. The light became blinding and horrific. Too much so, that the darkness hid in the shadows. And the light took over. In the lights rage, parts of its energy broke away and formed the stars. The darkness was afraid. It was hit by many stars and the planets were formed from a mix of the light and dark. The light lost control and let go, being cursed by its power to never extinguish. And the darkness saw this and helped the light. He shrouded the light with dark to hide the anguish of the light, making it beautiful. He then hid, as he was afraid that the light would come back to its horrific power.
I opened my eyes. "There can never be light without dark. Light does not create dark. Light only opposes dark." the words had come out of my own mouth. I glanced at my hands and then at Shadow. "I am in Love with the Darkness," he nodded and said," ever since you were a girl." I let a tear fall.
"Why are you here?" I asked, my voice shaky. "I am here for you. You love the darkness, and the darkness loves you, it created me, and Secret, to be your companions. Yet I am not just created by darkness. I am Darkness" I looked up. I could see clearly. I saw him fully. His skin was naturally tan and his hair was extremely black. He had eyes that were deep brown, like dark chocolate and, he was beautiful.
I was getting sleepy, and my eyelids were like weights, pulling to close, so I said goodnight to Secret and Shadow and I went to sleep.
***
I saw his face. Again, and again. That dark crazed smile. Those black eyes. My heart raced as I dreamed. I was walking through the snow, it was cold. I walked with Secret beside me, but she was not her usual self, she was a panther almost as big as a horse. With wings. And we were walking in the cold and I saw him.
He was sitting cross-legged on a cliff edge, a sword on his lap, he looked to be frowning, almost worried, even with his cut mouth. His black eyes, gazing over the landscape, looking for something, or someone. He picked the sword up by the blade and cuts his hands, as he watched the blood, drop down about ten meters to the ground then saw me. The worried expression left, and was replaced by an anger of untold magnitude. He jumped off the cliff and landed, on his feet, right in front of me, his blood melting the snow around him. I could feel his breath as he walked towards me and he asked, "Claire, where did you go?"
He tilted his head and clasped his bloodied hand around the handle of the sword. He lifted it up and pointed the tip of the blade at my throat. "I challenge you to a duel."
I smiled a little as I remembered that line from a book I had once read, but in that book, the speaker was drunk. I don’t think that Jason is drunk, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I drew a long blade. The handle was diamond crested and crimson with a silver snake wrapped around the handle to be the grip. The blade was a black so pure that the darkness looked like snow with a flame pattern running up the blade. I touched my blade and shivers went down my spine. It was light weight and extremely sharp, sharp enough to cut through bone.
I held it up to y face, as to show that my face was halved by the blade. Jason lowered his sword and jabbed at me. I blocked it. Once we had gotten into the rhythm our fight became graceful. Forehand, backhand, thrust, block, backhand, block ect.
The music of our ringing blades echoed across the ice. Then he started to laugh at me. Hatred bubbled with a new emotion. Victory. It was getting warmer and the snow was melting to reveal… the clearing. I gasped and a fear came into me. This clearing made him, Jason, more powerful and his horrific grin stretched across his face and he started winning. My fear swirled around me as a purple light and I struggled to defeat this enemy. My eyes sprouted tears of crimson blood and I kept fighting, no longer for revenge, but to stay alive.
