Hamlet

For a few days the talk of the school - or at least the drama club - has been about the play the high school is going to see. The play is Hamlet and it's the biggest production the school has ever taken a field trip to. Glin knows a few people in the drama club and knows how excited some of them are to go see it. Glin knows it's a big deal and wants to be excited but it's hard to feel anything when she's under control of the shadows.

It's been two weeks now since the shadows abducted Glin, and she feels as if she's nowhere near feeling comfortable being their slave. They visit her every day after school when her mother is at work. Sometimes they'll transmit dreams to her. Some of them have made her laugh - even at the most inappropriate time - and some have made her cry. Some have even caused her pain and the more she lets the shadows give her these visions, these dreams, the more pain she's in when they finally leave her.

She knows it's wrong, she knows it's unhealthy. Over the past two weeks she's slowly come to her senses but not completely. She still feels as though the two legs she stands on every day are now provided by the shadows. Like her energy is a gift from them. Two weeks ago she thought the shadows were a blessing and now . . . she knows there's something wrong.

Not only is she still attached to the shadows, but she doesn't have the strength and knowledge to fight them. She doesn't know when this chaos will end, when the pain will go away, but, now, she wants it to be soon.

Two weeks ago she would have never wanted it to end but now she's having second thoughts, knowing these shadows mean harm. No good will come in the end.

Does Glin feel ashamed that it took her this long to realize this? Yes, yes, she feels very ashamed. But how could she have known? The shadows were compelling her, telling her right from wrong. They got inside her mind and controlled her. They've let down their guard now because they trust her more, but that doesn't mean they'll completely let her go.

She has to fight them.

But she's still afraid.

~~~

Liam sits in class quietly while the rest of the students mingle with their classmates. It's the last few minutes of class and teacher is letting the students roam around the class freely to chat with their friends.

But Liam sits in his seat alone. Thinking of Glin.

She seemed so . . . robotic these past few weeks. Liam knows there's a simple explanation for it but doesn't want to believe it.

Could the Dreamers have possibly gotten to her? But how? Glin has never had a connection to the Dreamers or any of these things directly. They've never connected with her before. Why now?

But he knows the answer to that as well. A month ago it was her sixteenth birthday.

What about the necklace? Liam has seen her wearing it every day, she's wearing it even when the Dreamers have taken over her. They haven't reached her nerves, the part of her brain that controls her movements. They've just controlled her thoughts. But obviously not enough to make her think the necklace is bad.

Then what are they up to?

She must mean something of importance to them if they allow her to still wear the necklace. The necklace protects her, it wards off any compulsion to make her go to the Dark Ones world. But it doesn't protect her from their control. Osilim could control her, do anything to her to make her listen to him, but he couldn't make her join his side.

And that's the most important thing. That, and her safety. But Liam wasn't too sure about her safety anymore.

~~~

The next day Glin walks onto the bus to go to Hamlet at another school's theater. She sits next to Kaylee with a sigh, "I feel like falling asleep." She says as her eyelids begin to get heavier. 

Kaylee looks at her suspiciously, as if searching for a deeper meaning to her statement. She frowns at Glin but then shakes her head and looks out the window. "Take a nap on the way there then."

For the past few days, Glin feels like Kaylee hasn't cared but about her and has been purposely giving her short answers and with a sharp attitude. But Glin has no idea what she could have done wrong. She hadn't told anyone about the shadows, they won't let her. Is Glin's sudden change in state as easily seen as she feared? She tried to hide it but how well of a job had she done?

Glin is getting more and more sure that the shadows were far from anything good.

She sighed again and watched as everyone else took their seat and the bus began its trip to the theater. 

Glin and Liam's relationship has gotten better. She still wears his necklace and feels as if she's been getting closer to it. She still talks to him but only when Kaylee is around. But Glin feels as though she's been pulling away from Kaylee and Liam, afraid that they'll find out about the shadows. 

Glin wishes she could go back to how her life was before all this. Before her sixteenth birthday, before the shadows. What happened on her birthday that made all this happen? Her birthday was the day she first saw the shadows, the first day she fell under their spell. And it's been going down hill since then. Or maybe things were getting better. Glin couldn't tell the difference between up and down anymore.

The bus finally reaches the theater and all the students file out, chatting and mingling with each other like any other day. Glin wished she could be the same as she was before her birthday, before all this happened. She would be hanging out with Liam and Kaylee, having a good time, with a normal life.

Instead, she feels compelled, trapped, and contained. Too afraid to go against the shadows but knowing she should. Throughout the whole walk to the theater from the bus Kaylee stares at Glin as if she were an alien. Feeling exposed and unwanted, Glin takes a seat in the theater away from Kaylee and Liam. She wants to cut herself off from everyone else as much as possible, so she sits on the furthest side and in the back corner.

Others sit next to her but not anyone who would talk to her. She feels more safe now than she did with her friends. Part of her wishes she could always feel like this around them. Part of her wants to just pull away from Kaylee and Liam all together.

The play eventually begins as the lights go down and the chatter of the audience disappears. Lights shine on the stage and actors take their places. As the play goes on, Glin struggles to pay attention. Thoughts cloud her mind at that moment more than they ever have. Thoughts of her mother and father - the death of her father, how it effected Glin and her family. The effect on her mother and her finance. All of it.

Glin began to tear up when she thought about the day her father was killed. The look on her mother's face, the feeling Glin got. The fear, depression, nervousness, pity, and emptiness. All those emotions mashed up into one moment, one day, one person. It's still, to this day, too much for Glin to handle.

Glin starts to wonder why her father had to die. Why him, and not someone else? Why on that day? Why couldn't there have been one thing, one small thing to have prevented it? Why did it have to happen? To Glin's father, of all people. Why did he die?

The play kept going, but Glin found it harder and harder to concentrate on what was happening on stage. Rather what was happening around her. The darkness felt deeper and darker than ordinary darkness. It felt full of secrets and danger. Glin couldn't quite get herself to keep her eyes from shifting to the deepest corners of the auditorium, where the eerie, quiet darkness crept closer. 

Suddenly Glin noticed a a sharp movement in the shadows and flinched in her seat. The other students around her gave her confused looks but she just ignored them. The movements kept coming, and whatever was making them was getting closer. Glin knew in the back of her mind what they were, but she would never dare admit it. 

Then a scream broke out across the auditorium. Everyone looked around to see where it came from, if it was on of the students or teachers, but then one of the lights from the ceiling fell onto the stage and knocked over a candle that was set up as a prop. A person, probably a crew member for the play, fell down with the lights. And then all Hell broke loose.

The candle lit a fire on one of the performer's dress and on the wooden table it was standing on before. Apparently an electric fire started as well from the light's electrical wires connecting to the wrong places, and the candle's fire spreading too fast. All over the stage, chaos flew around and students began panicking and getting up from their seats. Suddenly a voice on a microphone alerted everyone that the fire was dangerous and they needed to evacuated.

But then the fire spread off the stage and onto the first row of seats. The students up front began screaming even louder and climbed over each other to get away. The sprinklers on the ceiling gave way, and small droplets of water sprayed the floor. The scent of burning wood filled the room, along with the shriek of people as they ran for the door. 

Glin couldn't react quick enough. Not only was she too shocked to move, but suddenly her eyes flew to the thing in the darkness that had her so hypnotized earlier. Glin slowly got out of her seat, ignoring the other students running passed her, and stared into the dark corner as the shadows began to shrink. The lights were coming on, and the fire was illuminating the room as well.

Even after all the darkness from that corner had retreated, one lone shadow stayed put. Glin knew it wasn't just any shadow. A shadow that would stay put where it belonged. It was one of Glin's shadows. 

As predicted, the shadow began to move toward Glin, shifting along the floor like a jellyfish through water. Glin didn't flinch or move away. She stayed put, watching it come toward her, almost welcoming it. She felt a part of her want to close the space between her and the shadow and allow it to engulf her in darkness like she had so many times before. But another side of her wanted her to run with the rest of the students out of the building. 

The shadow was approaching closer and closer. Glin could feel it's magnetism on her, it's pull toward her as the darkness began wrapping itself around her. She took a sharp breath, feeling energized yet filled with fatigue at the same time. 

The space between her and the shadow was getting smaller and smaller. So much shorter, she could almost reach out and touch it. She wanted to, oh, she wanted to. Feel it's cool, prickly touch as it tugged at her. It was almost there, almost at her feet, ready to take her into the darkness. She wanted it . . .

But then someone grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the door. She was too dazed by the almost-feeling of letting the shadow take her that she let her feet move her with the stranger that grabbed her. 

Or was it a stranger?

She looked up, confused and dizzy, at the person who pulled her along.

It was Liam. 

"Kaylee, we need to get her out of here." Liam insisted.

"Where? To the institute?" Glin heard a female voice respond to Liam.

"Do you have any other ideas?" Liam asked, frustrated, as he tugged Glin out the front doors and into the sunlight.

"Ah!" Glin protested as the sun hit her like a bag of bricks. It was too bright for her. Glin tried to open her mouth to tell Liam to take her back inside, but she didn't have the energy to speak, only groan and whine.

"She's already too effected to even be out in the daylight. We need to take her to the institute. Get Nurse Reynolds to get this curse off her." Liam said. "Osilim might be strong, but he's full of darkness and disease. We can cure her. We have to try."

Kaylee sighed. "Fine. Get her in the car." 

After Glin felt Liam's arms lift her into a car, she fell asleep.

For the first time, Glin didn't know if she would dream of colors or the shadows. 

Author's Note

It took a while, but it's finally here. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. I like it, but I think it could probably be better. Tell me what you think.