Chapter 1

A Chapter by JamesMarcus

Chapter 1

“How then, can a man find the road to enlightenment, if his greatest fear is failure?”

-The final words of Joesap Nether. E.32

There was more blood than she could imagine. The thief, whom had pulled her behind a metal trash bin, and demanded her typical valuable things, now laid face down in a pool of blood in the ally where she stood.

She had known it was unsafe to walk home after work, but without a car, she had few options left. So she walked home alone. The streets had been littered with trash. She could smell a damp, festering, filth from somewhere along her path. In the city, it is not unusual to see people trafficking up and down the pavement, but tonight the roads were dark and Alex felt completely alone. With nothing to take her mind off the uneasy silence, Alex quickened her pace.

As she scanned the street with her bright green eyes, she saw a human shadow in the street walking next to her. However, when she looked down the shadow to see its origin there was none. She stopped; the shadow did not. Alex watched, bewildered, as the long shadow of a man walked half a block in the same direction she had been traveling and make a sharp awkward skip down a small alley. She slowly approached the alleys entrance, and before she could think to react there was a hand around her collar and a knife to her neck.

The sudden force of the dirty unshaven man pulling her into the darkness caused her to stumble forward and loose her balance.

“Sh-sh-sh-shhhhh…. Don’t say a word.”

She remained silent, eyes wide in fear.

“Give me your wallet, and your phone.” The man spoke in hushed tones, as if there was someone around to hear him. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed or even changed his clothes in weeks. His thinning hair was dirty and matted to his scalp. His eyes were wide open and had a sense of urgency in them. Alex did notice that despite the filth he seemed to live in, the man’s teeth were quite white and straight.

She dug inside her jacket for her wallet she kept with her and before she could retrieve it a small crumbling, rolling, sound of a rock against the pavement interrupted the motion. The man spun Alex and frantically looked around as he held her from behind, his knife still to her throat. He began to walk backwards down the alley, still searching for the cause of the noise. They crept down to the back of the alley where it was almost engulfed in complete darkness. Alex’s eyes tried harder and harder to adjust to the lack of light but they were unsuccessful in aiding her.

In a flash of desperation, she kicked her leg back and though she was aiming for his groin, she managed to connect hard with the man’s femur. As he tried to hold in the small groan of unexpected pain she wriggled out of his grasp. She heard the slight swoosh of the knife when he swung at her, but she was already out of his arms range. She began running back towards the light in a frantic sprint. Her heart felt a sureness of luck as the entrance to the street became more and more visible.

You lucked out this time Alex. You really lucked…

Crash!

She had run, at a dead sprint, straight into a metal garbage can. She was stunned because the can hadn’t been there before. She lost her balance again and fell to the pavement with a thud. She was quick to make her way up, but before she could get on her feet she was tackled to the ground by the dirty man who had chased her down the 20 yards of darkness.

“You don’t think I’m going to let you go that easy, do you!?”

Alex screamed for help and her cries echoed through the dark. She felt a quick pain go across her temple as the man struck with the butt of his knife.

Her world went fuzzy.

She grasped for consciousness.

She could feel the man rummaging through her clothes, searching for anything he could find that was valuable. He found her wallet and opened it.

“Alexandra Jane Richards” announced the man.

“Glad to see you’re an organ donor”

It was a strange comment.

As he helped himself to her belongings he paused a moment to listen to the night. Clearly he was worried about something, or someone. Perhaps he wasn’t used to this line of work? Perhaps he hadn’t ever done this before? Alex didn’t know, but before her world turned black she caught a glimpse of a blade around her assailants’ throat. And in a deep soothing voice she heard the new blade’s owner say,

“Shhh… don’t say a word.”

Then, at that moment her world went black.

She didn’t recall getting up out of her unconscious state. Darkness had consumed her. She felt like even in that short of time she had dreamt about something…

She had dreamt about something familiar.

“I’m glad to see the light has returned to your eyes.”

The voice registered in a low sweep across her ears. It was the same voice she had heard before darkness had overtaken her. The voice was the knife, and the knife was now a man, a man that now stood right in front of her. His clothing was unique, and mostly visible was his dark blue or black, hooded cloak with a trimmed hem that seemed to faintly glow light blue. His eyes were like blue crystals that absorbed every ounce of light around them. As he removed the hood from his head she saw the bald head and the brand on his forehead. This was not a man. This was an Elli.

He slowly lowered the now clean blade back to its sheath.

The Elli was a primitive race that lived in the wooded areas of the countries. For the most part, ellis kept to themselves and were not much different than primitive man once was.

Ellis did seem to have a few traits about them that made them very distinguishable from modern humans such as, their bald bodies, the brand on their forehead, and usually their primitive clothing. From birth an Elli is known as “Copil” or “Childlike”. It isn’t until it goes through three sacred rituals that it is considered an Elli, and full grown.

This Elli seemed strange though. His cloak was very unlike the culture had been described to her. Alex had never seen an Elli in real life, but she had read much about them.

About the wars.

About the magic.

“Don’t fear me dear, I will not harm your mortal body, for you have not harmed mine. So see? The point of harming one another isn’t valuable to either of us. You would be harming a being that has potentially saved you! “

The Elli let out a large fit of laughter, and sighed as he continued.

“And I!”, still smiling, “would be harming a beautiful woman that I have potentially saved.”

He looked at her for a while, smiling. He slightly cocked his head and after a short while said, “would this not be a poor choice of action?”

The Elli obviously wanted an answer from her.

“I… suppose not.” She replied.

The Elli looked up to the sky and let out another small fit of laughter. Afterwards, he looked back down at her smiling still. He knelt down and took a small vial out of his pocket. It contained a faintly glowing, blue liquid that he offered to her.

“Here, this will help with your wound.” And motioned to her temple, where the man had struck her. She reached up and could feel the half dried blood on her head. When she reached to take the vial he pulled back just a bit before letting her have it.

“Only take a small amount directly on the wound. Just enough to take the pain away… Too much and you will not remember your own name.”

What was this stuff?

He handed it to her and she pulled out the tiny cork and cotton plug. She held the vial slightly over the wound and was about to pour when he stopped her, took the vial from her and began to scold her, his echoes ringing through the night.

“Did I not warn you!? Did I not say a small amount!?”

She tried to defend herself. “But I...”

“Are all humans this unlearned!? Perhaps next I shall teach you to walk!!”

With that he took her by the wrist and lifted her to her feet. She struggled for balanced, still dazed by the blow from the first man in the ally.

He took the small bit of cotton in her hand that she had removed from the vial. It was slightly damp from the glowing liquid.

He slowly caressed her wound with the damp cloth and she noticed he had on gloves.

“Give me your hands.”

At this point she knew that he was no person to question. His dominating presence commanded the very shadow around him.

Wait…

The shadow…

It is more than just dark here. The darkness is literally growing.

“Give me your hands!”

She lifted them up.

With a handkerchief he wiped both of her hands down with the liquid. For the first time she noticed that her palms were bloody from trying to catch her fall in the ally.

The effect took perhaps a minute and before she knew it, Alex was swimming in a comfortable numbness. It even seemed to make her thinking clearer.

“Who are you?” she asked the Elli.

He did not respond right away. He put away the vial and looked at her in a way that made her wonder if even he knew who he was.

He looked down at the body in the ally.

Reality hit her and she realized that this man, though he had saved her, was still a murderer. This thought made her uneasy.

“This man was a good man.”

…What?

“A man that would risk everything for his family would still be a good man. Though, harming others to help the ones he loves makes him a bad man in your eyes, does it not?”

She didn’t reply.

He continued, “I think that perhaps men like this do not think about their actions and categorize them either good or bad. Perhaps they simply look towards their goal and decide that to meet that goal would be good, regardless of the actions it takes to get them there.”

“I don’t think he was a good man.” She finally said. “I think that he was nothing more than a thief who got what he deserved.”

The elli stood silent for a while, and then he began to cry. Slowly at first, then deep sobbing, as if someone he loved had just been slain.

“...Sir?”

He threw himself over the corpse and cried on the dead man’s chest. Alex began to slowly back away. She had to get out of here.

“You would leave a grieving person to tend to their sorrow and their thoughts alone?” He said through a choked voice.

She froze. “I don’t understand why you’re crying.”

He stood up, wiped the tears from his eyes and began to slowly walk towards her.

“I cry because life is lost, because love is lost, and because justice will not be dealt to me! I cry for the soul now gone from a man who died because he failed to listen to his boss which led to his termination from his pathetic career and began the downward spiral to my turf! My turf! He failed to listen to his boss! He failed to listen to me when I told him to stay away from these parts! He became too comfortable and too cocky to listen! Oh! I cry because the one person to witness his death other than me doesn’t even morn his passing, so now I am left with the full burden of this man’s soul!”

He was right in her face now. She could smell his sweat and his breath. He continued ranting in a whisper. “…and it may not be the last soul I take this night”

She felt as though the ice in her veins keeper her still suddenly shattered and she turned to run away from the crazy elli that had saved her.

As she turned, she turned face to face with him. The elli!

She turned back.

Still face to face.

She could hear the dead man’s voice in her head.

You don’t think I’m going to let you go that easy, do you!?

The shadows were moving! They swarmed around him like water. His cloak glowed brighter and they seemed to multiply even more.

She was frantic. “Please! Please! I didn’t mean to be unthankful! Please! Just let me go! I’ll never tell anyone!”

He moved closer till he was just inches from her face.

“Tell who you will. I care not.”

With that his cloak dimmed and the shadows retreated into their rightful places. She felt a wave of relief. Maybe she

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”