Chapter 1
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Darkness. It’s not just the state of something, it’s not just the absence of light, not just the things that kids fear at night, but something far more than that. It’s an enemy, something that could eat you up, something that could haunt your world and tease at a neverending nightmare. And sometimes, it could take the form of a person, an ordinary woman, an ordinary man, only they weren’t so ordinary, they were here to play a game of joy and destruction.
**
“Mal, can you wake the kids, breakfast’s ready” she talks across the counter island and into the living room, under the tone of a scream but just loud enough for her husband to hear through the loud bubbling of the kettle.
“I’m kinda busy right now ” is forwarded back in a snappy annoyed sound and she closes her eyes for a minute and lets out a deep hard sigh. I’m fine, everything’s fine she says to herself over and over again, but even that couldn’t keep her from the truth that it wasn’t, everything wasn’t fine.
It was as if her life had gone up in flames, nothing ever happened, it was a continuous circle of the boring life around her and by now she could draw out her entire future. Tomorrow Mal would make up for it but it would never last, he hates her then he loves her, and round and round the circle goes. But the love he sometimes shows never feels real, it doesn’t feel like it should, it's not romantic or caring in any way, but still, she stays, because where else would she go.
“Ariel, Nicky, breakfast’s done”
The halls echo with an empty silence, the footsteps of her kids never coming any closer. She shakes her head and goes back to grab her coffee, sitting on the edge of the living room sofa, staring out into the world through the small window that allowed some light to shine across the wooden smooth floor.
Within seconds, her coffee is discarded on the living room table and her hands cover over her reddened tired eyes that flow tears of dread. Her nose sniffling and her legs shivering.
A small call alerts her and she quickly rises up from her seat and wipes the tears from her cheeks with one quicken motion, assuming the noise was one of her children or maybe Mal. But she looks up at an empty room, silent overdrawing again before a voice comes again, she walks over to where she senses the sound echoing from before her foot collides into something that leaves her tumbling to the floor.
She sniffs and darts her head to the floor in the place in which causes her to fall. Ugh, Nicky’s board games. Her eyes avert to something sparkling on the ground, a dice, faced up, telling a story of six black dots, she reaches for it and holds it in her palm, and the shining stops.
Where am I, What just happened, whose clothes are these? She looks around and takes in the new setting that surrounded her. A royal bed, beneath her, were velvet white sheets, she was dressed in a black nightdress that was definitely not hers, but it was beautiful, both in fabric and looks. She feels a tease of fingertips tracing at her back and at that she gasps and pulls away before a calm voice soothes her by her name.
“Alina”