Chapter One

Eleanor and the shadow creature become intertwined. Now Eleanor craves cereal with milk and raw eggs.

The heat seared my flesh as my lighter dropped to the ground. As flames leapt up the curtains a single thought pierced what remained of my consciousness… “Is this what it feels like to die?”

Then… a wave of ice fell over the room, smothering the inferno that seconds before engulfed the room. The blackened husk of a failed sacrifice.

I awoke in a cold sweat, cursing the chilling (sorry, bad pun) dream for once again impairing my ability to sleep a healthy amount. Rising from the now dampened sheets of my bunk, I silently crept down the ladder and to the cramped desk that held my creations. Careful not to wake the others, I fiddled with my latest invention: a drawing marionette designed as a miniature warrior. The wooden longsword it held looked like a harmless wooden reference, but it and the halberd strapped onto the figure’s back could be the cause of mass destruction in the wrong hands.

Oh, where are my manners! I am Eleanor Crane, a girl Thirteen years of age. I currently reside in the Meadowbrook School for Peculiar Girls,  and by that I mean an amalgamation of unusually bright or unusually idiotic girls.

As this will be important later, the school is divided into three buildings: Dormitory, special ed and gifted academy. Why they chose to facilitate both the smart and stupid, only the founder knows. The grounds are littered with parks and small shops, so it resembles a small city. The staff even went so far to create a form of currency for the place: dracharii. Dracharii are a combination of the Greek drachma and Roman denarii. 

The dream that I had mentioned had been repeating, without fail, at exactly 2am every morning for about a week and a half. After the dream, I, without fail, have not been able to get back to sleep, so now I work on my inventions from 2-5am every morning, then start to make breakfast for the rest of the girls in my dorm complex at five so we can eat at six.

Now planning the feast for the rest of the girls and our supervisor (who gave my permission to tinker and cook so early in the morning), I walk into the kitchen to see what we have. Then, in the middle of the kitchen, I spy a shadowy figure.

 Too tall to be a human but definitely trying to mimic the look of one, it crouched over the table in the center of the room eating… Frosted Flakes with milk and raw eggs? That can’t be right, even a monster has better taste than that! 

Nevertheless, the monster sat over its bowl of dubious “food”, amethyst eyes glowing like the headlights of a car. It seemed to be made of swirling shadows, a being that seemed like it was not at all solid, but then, it was eating cereal. It could have at least asked!

“HEY!” I quietly yelled to the shadow creature. I know, that was stupid. “YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST ASKED!” The shadow creature responded by setting down the spoon in the bowl and drifting closer. Then, somehow leaching into my brain, a raspy, echoing voice calmly stated, 

“I apologize for my unwarranted entrance. I had no intention of upsetting you, I just needed a meal and a host. My meal is in progress, and I have now found my host…” The word ‘host’ continued to echo through my head, a tugging sensation in my chest. Suddenly, the shadow creature was sucked through my mouth as if I were a vacuum cleaner. 

The taste of soot and death filled my mouth, along with an intense thirst. As I reached for the nearest clean glass a voice in my head swelled with pride “Ha. Now you can never get rid of me,” Scrambling around the kitchen, I started to cook, directing some unsavory thoughts about the creature’s mother at the shadow gremlin’s consciousness.

Author's Note

please be considerate, but constructive criticism would be nice.