Chapter one: BEAUTIFUL DARK

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Oct.1,
"Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.' The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, is one of my favourite poems. It features a man who laments the loss of his late wife Lenore and is greeted by a rather interesting visitor in the form of a strange raven. The curious bird perches atop the man's door and refuses to leave, haunting him with one word for the rest of the night.
You know, I've always found it odd that he would engage a bird in conversation expecting it to respond the way a person would, then again, who am I to question what a man deems rational when he's at the edge of his sanity? What do you think Jenn, was he mad or was that bird really there responding to his questions?"
The tall dark figure rose up from out Nick's shadow that was cast against the cliff on which he was laying relaxed. He had both hands behind his head gazing beyond the deep blue, and into the cosmos filled with the flickering lights from distant stars.
"Anyone human who thinks he can talk to birds just like that has obviously lost it," said the dark ethereal mass that had now accumulated and morphed into the very voluptuous being Nick knew only as, 'Jenn.'
"What do you mean, 'just like that?" said Nick.
"Well," said Jenn as she walked over to him, extending those long legs of hers. Her stride ended just short of his elbow, "I've heard about people who were capable of such things"they however, were either born with the ability or developed it via some sort of magic ritual, usually involving human sacrifice, the bludgeoning of the genitals, and quite a bit of blood. Very nasty stuff as you might've imagine."
"Genital bludgeoning'? Seems a bit much just to be able to talk to birds," said Nick.
Jenn stood over Nick, looking down at him with those familiar purple coloured eyes of hers. Each contour was lined with what resembled kohl. Nick had often wondered if that was just for aesthetics, however when asked, she told him it wasn't and that she was in fact 'born this way'.
"Who knows why the old gods desire such cruelty in exchange for their gifts. Perhaps they're sadists?" said Jenn.
There were many strange things about Jenn"from her beautiful and flawless skin that never showed any signs of aging, to her ability to slip in and out the shadows, and the fact that she knew so much about Nick's world even though she claims she'd never ventured into his realm before. Jenn also had this weird ability, where she would sometimes respond to what he was about to say even before he'd said it.
Perhaps not as weird but still rather curious was an embroidered, black head scarf that she always seemed to be wearing, be it around her neck or over her hair which, when Nick first met her made him ask if it was of any religious significance but she informed him that it wasn't. Apparently someone, a long time ago, had given her the scarf but she just couldn't recall who it was or what they even looked like, in fact, there really wasn't much that Jenn could remember of her past but sometimes, when she didn't notice Nick looking, she held on to that scarf of hers like it was her very soul. Perhaps it was the last remnant of her life before she had arrived in Limbo, at least, that was Nick's theory.
Still, these strange facts about Jenn made her more interesting"not that her chaotic personality didn't have that covered already.
"What do you think?" said Jenn.
Nick had very little friends but he was glad that he could count Jenn among them. She was also the one he was most comfortable speaking with. He could tell her anything, and this helped him to feel normal. This was probably one of the major reasons he fell in love with her.
"Hey, are you listening to me?" said Jenn.
Sometimes he wished he could just stay in Limbo with her for the rest of his life.
Jenn smiled putting one hand on her hip, "What are you staring at?"
"Nothing really, I was just""
"So I'm nothing now?" said Jenn, looking pretty much unimpressed with what just came out his mouth.
"Of course not!" said Nick quickly sitting up, "Wait that... didn't come out right."
Jenn's look went from unimpressed to irritated, and before he knew what to say next, she was already squinting her eyes and staring directly into his face.
"Oh don't look at me like that, you know what I meant... right?" said Nick as he started to sweat.
"No I don't know what you mean, care to clarify why you think I'm, 'nothing'?" said Jenn.
"I-I," Nick stuttered and sighed.
Should I respond or should I just keep quiet? This was Nick's dilemma. It was one of those times where you put your foot in your mouth and each time you try to get it out it only gets worse. All the while the breath-taking scenery had begun to change. The bright blue and sun-kissed sky had gradually become dark, dull and cluttered with storm clouds, and lightning bolts shot out into the distance. Nick's attempt at pacifying the situation wasn't going so well.
Jenn was obviously in one of her 'moods' again, and that meant her pretending to be grumpy in order to get his attention so there really wasn't much he could do but wait it out until it was over but suddenly her frown propped up into a smile and the weather returned to normal.
"Just kidding," she laughed.
"Ah Jenn," Nick groaned, trying his best to look upset with her, but before that beautiful smile of her's, it never seemed to work. What's more, teasing him was something Jenn enjoyed doing and she was very good at it.
Jenn took a seat right next to Nick on the cliff and stared into his eyes as their feet dangled over the side of the mountain top. Jenn reached over to Nick, stretching her arms around his neck in an embrace and whispered softly into his ear.
"You know I love you," she said.
It lasted for only a moment but for Nick it seemed much longer. He enjoyed these little moments he had with her, though what he really wished was that he could tell her was how he truly felt about her, to his credit, he did try once"a long time ago that is, but lost his nerve at the last-minute. Pathetic? Maybe, but it's hard knowing you could potentially ruin a good friendship if things don't turn out well. Nick just didn't have it in him yet to take that risk.
Having a fractured childhood made him a bit cautious about the whole notion of love, which is probably why his relationships never seemed to last very long.
Nick had never been in love before"sure, he thought he loved her but how was he to trust that what he was feeling for her was real? What if he had just been misreading things? Or what if she couldn't think of him as anything more than just a friend? Their whole friendship could be ruined. He could do without anyone, just not her.
"I believe it's real," said Jenn out of the blue.
Nick's heart leaped into his mouth and he could feel those pesky butterflies starting to fool around in his stomach. He barely managed to get a word out.
"W-What?"
"The raven, from the poem?" said Jenn.
Jenn probably couldn't tell but Nick had just breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was like he was in a vacuum and then suddenly someone decided to let the air back in the room.
"I think he was real and also, I don't think the old man was bonkers, at least not anymore than they usually are"hey! Are you okay? Your face just turned pink all of a sudden," said Jenn placing her hand over Nick's forehead.
Nick felt his cheeks starting to go numb and began trying his best to steer the conversation away from his flushed countenance.
"H-How can you tell?" said Nick looking away nervously and trying not to make eye contact.
Jenn raised an eyebrow as if she was asking herself, what is he up to?
"Well I can't really but that's what I choose to believe. You mustn't go through life doubting everything"I mean, where's the fun in that? And who's to say I'm not a figment of your imagination?..Oh don't look so worried, I'm only joking," said Jenn.
"You really enjoy teasing me don't you?" said Nick.
Jenn closed her eyes and shrugged her shoulders, "It's how I get my kicks."
The duo erupted into laughter. For Nick, seeing her laugh and watching how the light from the setting sun graced her delicate complexion was more breathtaking than a thousand sunsets. There was really nothing Nick enjoyed more than the sight of Jenn's laughter.
Suddenly Jenn's eyes opened wide and Nick felt his shirt and his jacket tighten up around his chest as Jenn's small hands took hold of him, and with her black nail polished fingers secured, she pulled him in close.
"Oh my God," she said, "The sun is setting which means it's morning in your realm."
"Yeah... I guess it is," Nick said as he looked over at the horizon.
"You need to get going now or you'll be late for school," said Jenn urgently.
"Relax, it's just school. I can get there late... or miss a day," said Nick.
"Oh no," Jenn gasped placing both hands over her mouth, "You're getting dumber already. You need to leave right now. Shoo, off you go."
"Augh, fine!" said Nick rolling his eyes, "Well, at least I got to see the sunset with you for the first time."
"Aww," Jenn smiled but then proceeded to grab him by the ear, "Get going!" she shouted.
"Alright, alright, I'm going... see you tomorrow Jenn," said Nick just before jumping off the edge of the cliff.
Nick turned around wanting to see Jenn as he fell. He wanted her face to be the last thing he saw before returning home to his realm. Nick spread both his arms and legs as his body ripped through the clouds. He looked at Jenn's face getting smaller and smaller, drifting into the distance as he sunk deeper and deeper into the abyss.
Nick knew she couldn't hear him but, before she had gone out of view, Nick whispered the words, "I love you."
Nick knew he was almost near the bottom now. He could see the darkness starting to envelop him till finally he fell into the thick blackness of the void, and that was it.
Nick awoke looking at the grey ceiling of his bedroom. Streaks of golden rays beamed from his partially opened window"it was morning.
Slowly turning his head to the right to look at his clock, revealed that it was just after seven. Nick rubbed his eyes, yawned and hopped out of bed dragging the covers with him unto the floor as he made his way towards the bathroom.
Nick stood in front the sink hanging his lazy head over the tap. It felt as if he had slept for three days. His hands held on to the sides of the sink to take some of the weight from off his nervous legs that seemed to have not fully awoken.
Nick exhaled and looked up at the brown eyed kid with bed head, wearing a wife beater and staring back at him in the mirror.
"Another day," Nick sighed before turning on the tap and cupping some water with his hands to wash his face.
After taking a shower and getting dressed, Nick hurried down the stairs whilst securing his single strap backpack over his shoulder, and across his chest. He then checked his digital watch"it was 'twelve minutes past seven' and his first class, History and Classical Literature, started at eight. No 'biggy,' but right after that Nick had a paper to hand in to his chemistry professor on Schrödinger's Equation for the Hydrogen Atom.
In it, he had to express the potential, or V, into (xyz) terms, in other words: x squared plus y squared plus z squared equals r squared where r is the length of the radius vector from the origin to a point which he'll then have to rewrite in spherical polar coordinates giving the wave function(psi) and the Hamiltonian operator of the electron in the aforementioned atom. Good thing hydrogen has a single 's' orbital or things would have gotten a whole lot more complicated.
Nick walked over to the refrigerator opening its doors and contemplating what the quickest thing he could make within two minutes was, but settled on guzzling down some orange juice from the carton and eating a slice of microwaved bread instead. He had terrible eating habits to say the least.
Nick got to his front door still brushing crumbs off his face. He almost managed to turn the doorknob before his O.C.D kicked in, and then he began patting himself down, wondering if he was forgetting something. Phone? Check! Wallet? Right in his back pocket, but did he remember to comb his hair? It's probably a mess but there's no time to go take a look at it now"oh wait, he just remembered, he did comb his hair right after getting dressed. Ok, ok, here we go then.
Nick finally managed to get out his front door thinking that for once he would probably show up on time for his first class of the day.
Outside was quiet, there were no birds chirping, no dogs a barking, no sprinklers a...err...sprinkling? Not even the sound of Mr. Tobin, Nick's neighbour from across the street, beating the ever-loving s**t out of his wife Mabel. Seemed a bit odd for a Monday. Nick shrugged it off and began walking down the steps thinking that this might actually be a good day.
Nick couldn't quite remember what one of those looked like, at least not in the present. All his fair-weather days lay buried in the past within distant memories so far removed from his current reality, that they seemed to have happened in another lifetime"if not another timeline. Sometimes a certain smell or some random stimuli would compel a forgotten memory forward but to Nick it felt as if he was remembering an event involving someone else, not him.
One such memory came back to him now as he headed down his stone pathway. It was a memory of himself and his father hanging out at the park on a hot summer day. It was around 5 o' clock or so it seemed. The sky looked a bit orange and tawny"the colours of the evening twilight. He and his father were laughing their heads off nearly spilling their ice cream onto the ground. Nick's dad had told him a dirty joke, something Nick's mom didn't approve of him doing since he was 'only eight.' Young Nick wasn't laughing because he understood what the joke meant, he just thought it was funny that a soldier would take a grenade out on a date and then pay it to blow him away.
Nick smiled, placed both hands in his pocket, looked up at the sky and inhaled deeply.
"Happy birthday dad," he whispered.
Nick continued walking towards the street. It was a five minute walk down the road and a quick look at his watch showed that he was still right on time at fourteen minutes past seven.
Nick strolled passed the Tobin residence admiring how well kept their roses were despite the grass looking patched and a slightly dry in certain areas, like the fur on a mangy dog. Such well kept flora was no doubt due to Mabel's caring and attentive gardening skills. Usually she'd be out about this time smelling her "little ones" as she called them and checking the soil if needs be, however this morning she wasn't, also her husband's car was still in their driveway.
People often slept in, no big deal, though in all the years that Nick had known that woman she never once failed to get up at the crack of dawn. She was one of those 'A type' personalities with a hint of 'morning person,' thrown in. Just the thought of her industrious attitude made the poor sluggard Nick cringe and groan with bewilderment. 
"Why do you do it?" he would ask her, "You don't have a job, you don't have any kids, so why not sleep in? That's what I'd do..."
And in her light brown gardening gear, apron, boots, gloves, and a sunhat that looked more like she was heading out on safari, she would reply, "What do you mean I don't have a job? Taking care of my little ones is a full time job, and I'm glad to do it."
This was usually followed by a big radiant smile and a voice that sounded like she was carrying a melody whenever she spoke too loud. It made Nick uncomfortable. Luckily she was blond, blue-eyed and beautiful enough to make her weirdness kind of quirky and cute.
"You're not going to start singing now are you?" Nick asked.
"Perhaps? Why? You don't like my singing?Ooooh! Let me tell you bout' mah roses, they'reee-"
"Yeah! I've got to go now, see you later May," said Nick.
He usually left before Mabel started singing, not because she sucked at it, or had an unpleasant voice"nope! It was to avoid all the weird stuff that sometimes accompanied it, such as little blue birds perching atop her shoulders and hat, and any and all animals in the nearby vicinity coming up to her and Nick swore he saw a deer peeking out from behind a tree in the woods behind their property one time.
"O-Oh... Well, okay then," she would say waving goodbye and seeing him off with one of her signature smiles.
She would always try to look happy no matter how disappointed she felt when he left.
She became a bride at a very young age"fourteen, was what she had told Nick, while her 'loving' husband was thirty-five. They'd been married for exactly ten years when they first moved in to the neighbourhood. Nick was the first and the last person to greet her since they came to Oak Street.
Whenever her husband got violent she would head over to Nick's house to get the wales on her back looked after. Her husband was a clever monster choosing to spare her face and anywhere else on her body which could be seen whilst she was attired.
Mabel would wait out at Nick's house, playing cards or watching TV, until her husband's fury had subsided. As for what set him off, it would be something as simple as her putting too much salt on his eggs to not responding right away when he called her, probably due to him slapping her one too many times across the ears. She told Nick he choked her out one time because he supposedly caught her looking at another man.
The only reason Mr. Tobin allowed her to go over to Nick's house was because, as he saw it, Nick was just a 'dumb teenager'"completely harmless. Mr. Tobin had no reason to suspect that his battered wife would seek comfort in the arms of a sixteen year old boy or, for that matter, that his wife was planning to leave him"something he thought she'd be too scared and too stupid to accomplish.
Nick's plan was to continue walking, and if it was just a matter of Mabel not coming out when she normally would, he would've done so, but he couldn't shake the trepidation in his gut, or ignore the fact that their front door appeared to be slightly opened with a hand print of something faint red smeared at the bottom. Could it be blood?
Nick ran over to the window, accidentally stepping on some of Mabel's roses along the way. He noticed the glass in the sliding window was broken and on the ground below the fragments were covered in blood. Did a burglar get in? But if so, why was the glass out here on the lawn instead of on the inside?
Nick took out his phone and started to dial the cops but ended the call just as the operator came on. What if he was wrong? He didn't want to risk making a scene, and Mabel would've been over his house by now if something did happen...or maybe she couldn't! That was it.
Nick took off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand to protect it from the broken glass and did a one handed maneuver by balancing his weight on one arm while hopping through the window. His landing was soft, which was great for him considering he was essentially breaking and entering.
Nick got to his feet and assessed the dimly lit room. There were a couple of couches, a television set, and a decorative lamp in the form of a rose resting atop a table. Nick was standing in the living room of the Tobins. It was Nick's first time being inside the residence, Mabel had invited him over many times but Nick always refused for obvious reasons. Mabel's husband, Jake, was a software engineer who worked long hours for the government and on occasion he'd be gone for a day or two. Nick remembered Mabel asking him to keep her company while her husband was away.
"Pleaseeee! He'll be gone for the whole night and won't be back for at least three days," said Mabel giving Nick her puppy eyes.
"No! Mabel, I don't want the neighbours getting any ideas about us, least of all your husband. It could get very bad for yo...it could get very bad for the both of us," said Nick firmly as Mabel hung her head in disappointment.
He knew being alone with him was something that she was really looking forward to, but it was important that she knew that spending time in another man's house with his wife while he was away was a line he just could not cross.
Nick's attention suddenly shifted from accessing the living room to the light shining in his peripheral. It appeared to be coming from the next room past the kitchen. Nick carefully walked towards the source of the light, stepping down into the kitchen and around the corner. His nostrils began picking up the smell of something putrid and as he got to the room he saw what it was.
In the middle of the room was the rope bound and bloodied body of a what appeared to be a dog"a terrier in fact, tied to an upside down cross. The base of the cross stood within a goat head drawn in blood around which a pentagram was also sketched. Ten large, twelve inch black candles were lit up around the room. Upon the walls was an incomprehensible language, some characters resembled Latin, while others Amharic, and some Nick didn't even recognized.
Nick quickly tied his shirt around his face to prevent anymore of the disgusting scent from diffusing into his nostrils and to stop himself from possibly gagging. It was then that he noticed the familiar star shaped dog collar around the animal's neck. It wasn't a stray, and as Nick leaned in closer he realized the dead Terrier was actually 'Cherry', Mr and Mrs Chen's, Nick's neighbours from up the street, missing dog.
The Chens had come home one evening from a party to find their back door wide open but strangely enough, all their valuables were left intact. Nothing was taken or so they thought until they noticed that their pet dog was missing. Mr. Chen was the chief surgeon at the city's hospital and his wife was a very successful business lawyer whose clients included several of the city's top business leaders. It wouldn't be incorrect to say that they were well off, so they assumed that their dog being stolen was just another case of kidnapping and ransom, and immediately contacted the police who told them that they would be investigating the matter and that the couple should expect to be contacted by the kidnappers very soon with a ransom figure. But after posting up flyers, offering a one hundred thousand dollar reward, and waiting two months with no word, the Chen's gave up on any hope of finding their beloved Cherry ever again.
To find the neighbours' missing pet inside Mabel's home and in its current condition no less, Nick had only one thought on his mind: 'What the hell was going on?'
Animal cruelty and the ritualizing of killing was just one of the many things on the serial killer check list that Mabel's husband ticked. Nick's mind was now filled with macabre thoughts of what might've happened to Mabel. He pictured her bound, gagged and bloodied while her murderous husband plunged a knife deep inside of her repeatedly.
Nick's heart raced with worry and he stepped away from the depraved sight of the dog hanging on a cross to continue his search for Mabel.
At the end of the room Nick came upon a pair of sliding doors. He tried to pull them to the side but halted as he felt something akin to an electric charge run down his spine and he quickly let go. Nick staggered back, holding the side of his head which felt like it was expanding. He was beginning to feel light headed like he had just awoken from a long sleep. Before Nick knew what was happening a strange feeling of dread came over him. Nick began to feel heavy as if gravity had increased in the room, and yet his movements were unhindered. How strange. The only times Nick would experience such gravitational anomalies was when he and his friend, Alex, were out on the job dealing with any manner of ghost or demonic entity, but why was he experiencing this feeling now? Mabel and Mr. Tobin had been his neighbours for over a year, and in all that time not once did his paranormal senses go off. Even If they were not of this world, it's not like they could hide from him.
The world itself carried a certain frequency, specifically a tune, called the 'Reality Resonance Frequency' also known as the 'Rift.' But otherworldly creatures such as Jinns also carried their own unique frequencies so that if they should venture into Nick's realm their presence would create a very noticeable disharmony that Nick's spirit was able to detect. The fact that he was now sensing a disharmony in the Rift only made matters worse. It meant that some demonic entity had managed to breach the barrier that he had placed over his neighborhood, something that Nick thought would be impossible.
This was no longer just a bad situation but quite possibly a dangerous supernatural threat. Nick took his shirt from around his face and placed it back over his body. He began catching a whiff of the dead dog odour once again but that would soon subside as Nick closed his eyes and steadied himself, placing both hands on the door once more. The feeling of shock wasn't as intense as it was before and gradually it went away as Nick began channeling energy from out his core and disseminating it around his body, blocking out the evil energy surrounding the door"as well as the putrid scent.
The air around Nick's body glowed briefly as his spirit energy charged the air creating a plasmatic shield of static charge and ionic particles. Nick's plasma shield was now three inches thick and generating a reflective force. Anything that came into contact with it with a force less than three thousands foot pounds would not be able to break through.
Nick parted the doors and was instantly greeted by the sound of howling wind and a cloud of black fog. The smog surrounded him but quickly retracted back inside the room in a serpentine manner. It appeared almost sentient and Nick knew why. Very powerful Jinns left a trail of dark kinetic energy that often resembled smoke or, in this case, fog. Whatever the source of the fog was, Nick knew that following it's trail of dark vapour would probably be his best bet of finding out what happened to Mabel.
Nick proceeded into the room. Again there was hardly any visibility, the room's only source of light came from a single window over in the corner and directly below that was a giant goat headed doll with a rather curious appearance. The strange doll had the forelegs of a panther, the hind legs of a goat, a black king asp for a tail, and menacing yellow eyes that seemed almost alive, at the bottom of the peculiar doll was a name tag with the same name as Mabel's husband, titled: 'Jake the Chimera'.
Sitting on either side of the unusually life like doll were four small Teddy-bears each missing a specific body part: one was devoid of an eye, another an ear, another had it's mouth removed and sewn shut, and the last one on the right was armless. Half the room was filled with stuffed animals but upon the wall shelves sat dozens of little girl dolls with bows in their hair and plastic eyes exhibiting heterochromia iridum. There was no sign of the fog, at least not yet.
The room ended in a passageway on the left that led downstairs into the basement, and at a staircase to the right that lead up to the second floor, where Nick assumed the Tobin's bedroom would be located and quite possibly Mabel. The only thing left to decide now was which path to take. Suddenly the temperature in the room fell sharply and Nick began sensing a shift in the Rift once more, something inhuman was coming.
Out from the basement came a blast of cold air followed by a stifling darkness that engulfed Nick's frame before receding down below. Nick clenched his fists and began gathering energy around them. The matter around his arms distorted while giving off a low moaning sound. The energy eventually morphed until it took the form of two blood red gauntlets on Nick's arms, which ended in five thick claws on both hands. Nick held up his right hand as one did when catching a single drop of rain. He focused on it briefly and from out his crimson palm came a very bright, ultraviolet light like a flame lit by unseen hands, it flickered and danced much like an actual flame would but it was too tall and so Nick put his focus on it once more and the flame shrank, then grew, then shrank once more to about half its original size. Nick exhaled after finally managing to gauge the fire correctly.
"Here we go," said Nick.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before beginning his descent into the basement.

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[Rainheart]

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