This is my sci-fi story I am currently writing. Please tell me what you think of it so far. It is in present tense, which can be a bit different so please bear with me. And please, don't be afraid to comment or give constructive critism. Enjoy!
Prologue
When the universe was created, either by an unknown entity or an explosion of matter, the Light was also created. However long after that, no matter what belief, humans came into existence. They thrived in the Light, along with all the other creatures living on Earth. However, the Light caused the universe to cast a shadow and the Dark was created. Human-like creatures and other beasts were created in this shadow. Humans feared them for they were things of the unknown. As time grew on, legends of the Dark became mere stories used to scare children. The creatures in the Shadows were never heard of again by many.
Only the rulers and leaders of the peoples on Earth had knowledge of such creatures. They kept it a secret, believing as long as the things in the Dark kept to their shadow, they would keep to themselves too. But there came a day when all of the planets were in alignment and the Sun was blocked from view of Earth. A huge shadow stretched from Earth and mingled with the shadow of the universe. When the planets broke alignment, many of the aliens in the Dark were stranded on Earth and its’ shadow. The rulers and leaders decided to take action.
Each group secretly brought together a group of elite fighters to dispose of what they now called Shadows. They were named the Illuminators. Gifted with the knowledge of the Shadows, they searched every inch of darkness on the planet for the Shadows. It wasn’t enough. Too many Shadows had been brought to Earth and they decided to form a resistance. Illuminators began to disappear without a trace. The group began to dwindle.
When only a few Illuminators remained, they passed on the job to their children. It became tradition that the firstborn would become an Illuminator. They swore to never tell the world of the Shadows that still walked the Earth. With the new set of Illuminators, the resistance was crushed and almost all of the Shadows were destroyed. The survivors managed to hide and for the most evade the humans’ eyes.
However, sometimes a human would find out about their existence; someone who wasn’t an Illuminator. They would support the few Shadows still living. It soon became a necessity to dispose of them along with the Shadows, but quietly.
One thousand years after the Illuminators formed, in the year 3012, Illuminators are still hunting. The Shadows are rarely seen and nearly all the human population is oblivious to the fact that aliens live on Earth. The whole of Earth is controlled by a huge collection of rulers with one person acting as head called the Government. The Earth is dying and not a single human soul knows it…….yet.
Chapter I
Crying. That’s all I hear when I wake up. The soft sobbing of my mother over the death of my beloved father. It was years ago, but I will always remember the day he stepped into the Dark and never came out. On that day I was ‘illuminated’ with the knowledge of the Shadows. Shadows, the word rouses a deep hatred within me. But my mother doesn’t know about them. She can never know what really creeps at night. I sigh, arise from my bed, and walk to the next room to comfort her.
She’s holding a picture of him when they were young and in love. His brown hair looks windblown and his green eyes stare up at my mother as if he were there. His eyes. Those green eyes with little flecks of gold in them that I share with him. This is probably the reason my mother can’t look me in the eye without crying.
Right now, she’s crying so much I feel worried. Each morning she seems so confused about why the chair at the end of the table is empty or why she never gets a kiss on the head anymore. One day I think she will leave me with an empty shell so that she can be with the one she loves. She jumps when I finally place my hands on her shoulder.
“Myra, you’ve stayed up to long,” I whisper into her ear as father had always done whenever she stayed up to late.
She seems to gain a hold of where she is and nods. I wait until she’s up in bed before I walk out of the door of our little house. A large, bright world greets me. The houses around me are made of metal and crystal causing the sun to glint off the entire neighborhood. However, our yard is the brightest as it contains a garden of rare golden flowers.
As I stare at the flowers, I remember a day when my father was alive and he brought me to a secret little field filled with these flowers. I was only four then but I remember it like it was yesterday. As I frolicked amongst the flowers my dad asked me a question. He asked, “Aurelia, do you know what your name means?” I looked at him and shook my little brown head of curls. He pointed at the flower and said, “Your name means ‘gold’. No matter how dark the world may be, you’ll always be a light in that darkness.”
I’m brought back to the present by the sound of approaching feet. A teenage boy with shaggy black hair and laughing brown eyes is walking towards me. His mouth is pulled into a grin that never seems to vanish.
“Hey, Jag,” I say when he is front of me. His real name is Jaeger, but I just call him Jag like he calls me Aurie.
“HI, Aurie. Ready to hunt the Dark?” he asks. Jaeger is also an Illuminator and like me, we gained the job earlier than the usual fourteen year old tradition. We had both lost our parent who was an Illuminator and were forced to take the job at the age of ten.
I remember the day we first met, on the day of our first training session. We were in a white room with bright lights stretching as far as the eye could see. I could see the fear in his eyes and so I reached down and squeezed his hand. He smiled at me and that smile has never truly disappeared since then. We’ve been partners in the hunting of the Shadows ever since then.
I return a smile to him and say, “Yeah, let’s go.” We head down the bright pavement and have soon left the gleaming neighborhood behind. A long row of crystalline buildings stretch before us. They are the houses of the rulers. At the center of the row is a tall spire made out glass and crystal. This is the building Jag and me head over to.
We enter the building and find a small woman with blonde hair and blue eyes sitting at a desk. She nods to us as we enter and presses a button on her silver desk. The white elevator doors behind her open and we go in. I take a small key with a light bulb shape on the top from my jean pocket. Placing it in the slot beneath the button panel, I turn it to the right. Instantly, the doors close and we are rocketed far down beneath the surface. The elevator begins to slow down until it finally glides to a stop and the doors open revealing our destination.
A small white room stretches in front of us with many people already filling its’ corners. Blue gun-like weapons hang from hooks all around the walls of the room giving this white prison some color. Jag and I make our way to the far end of the room where we grab our weapons and the capsules that replace bullets. Each little capsule contains a net of thin wire that gives off a bright light. We use them to contain any Shadows we may find so that they can be brought for disposal to the Government.
Before we head, we talk to and encourage a couple of new fourteen year old recruits. They are young and scared but do not know of the horrors awaiting them. However, they’ve noticed that the oldest Illuminator here is a twenty-nine year old man called Hector. They’ll soon realize that most Illuminators live to be twenty before they are consumed by darkness.
Jag and I soon head out after giving the newbies some tips. It is nearly noon, but the world is so bright the Sun is a mere glow compared to it. We patrol the nicer, brighter parts of town before heading into the long, dark alleyway known to have housed many Shadows. The bright crystal and metal soon becomes gray stone and dirt as we enter the less traveled part of town.
Jag is silent as we take out our guns and poke behind every corner and in every building. Crack. A noise sounds behinds us. Jag signals for me to stay here while he investigates. I nod; he’s been in worse danger before. As he rounds a corner I suddenly get the feeling I’m being watched. I quickly turn around.
An old, rundown building looms in front of me. Its’ door is ajar. My heart beats faster and my sweaty hands grip the gun harder. Quietly I make my over to the building and swing the door open. I see it, huddled up in a corner. A Shadow.
Chapter II
A Shadow. My first instinct is to pull the trigger my fingers are resting on, but I seem to be frozen in time. The gun lays useless in my hands as we stare at each other. ‘Why hasn’t it run?’ is all I can think about at the moment. After a moment of silence the Shadow speaks.
“Well, get on with it,” the creature says while eyeing me curiously. Its’ voice is strange, but beautiful. It sounds more like sighing than talking. At its words I seem to regain a hold of myself.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I inquire. It merely looks at me and gives a grim chuckle. “Death can’t be worse than what I’ve suffered,” the answer finally sighs from its lips. I begin to look more closely at the creature huddled in a corner. It displays the normal characteristics of a female Shadow. Slightly pointed ears, silver eyes, dark hair and skin, tight clothing. But then I see her leg. It’s bent at an odd angle and a silvery substance is protruding from a cut on her thigh. Her blood.
I gasp. This thing is injured. I try to focus on my job instead of the pale substance dripping to the ground. I had captured many Shadows before with barely a thought about it. So why did it pain me to see this girl in agony curled up in an old building. The only thing that sets this Shadow apart from the others I’ve captured is her lack of fear and abundance of curiosity in me. It reminds me of my mother in her younger years who, if Death came knocking her door, would probably pester it with questions.
This small resemblance is the only thing that lowered my gun and let this girl Shadow live today. She looks surprised but comforted that she won’t die a death at the hands of humans. However, her comfort is short lived as I hear Jag returning from his patrol. Quickly, I step back outside the building and run into him in my hurry. He looks at me worriedly.
“You okay,” he asks, “Did you see a Shadow?” I think of the girl close enough to hear our conversation from inside the building. “No, I was just startled by a bug is all,” I lie smoothly. He takes it and laughs. ‘I am too good at this,’ I think sadly as I grit my teeth while he chuckles.
Jag and I head back to the building and I let him babble on about how his exciting patrol went. He didn’t encounter a Shadow. He didn’t break the law and protect one from capture. He doesn’t have guilt gnawing at his insides because of a lie told to his best friend.
By the time we arrive back at the tall spire, it is nearly nigh. The artificial lights are turned on giving the appearance of an early morning. It is never dark here. The whole world is surrounded by a large, glassy, bowl-like dome. This allows the scientists to keep Earth a shining light. It also means that the weather never changes. It’s always sunny here so we never see the night skies that are mentioned in history books.
Again, Jag and I travel down on the elevator until we reach the all too familiar room where we stash our guns. I notice that the few people down here are all grouped together and that a gloomy haze has seemed to fall over the room. Not waiting to see if Jag is following I walk over to the group.
“What’s happened,” I ask the group of Illuminators. A young girl looks up at me, her face wet with tears.
“Someone was taken by the Shadows, my brother,” she answers and then breaks down in tears again. I comfort the girl, I know how she feels. But my mind seems to have wandered off at her loss. I think of the Shadow I have left alive in the old building. I grow angry at myself. The true nature of Shadows is to kill us as with what happened to this girl’s brother. How could I have let that Shadow live even if she distantly reminded me of my mother? A lot of people can remind me of her if I look hard enough.
Jaeger rests his hands on my shoulders jolting me out of my thoughts.
“Ready to go?” he asks. I nod and wait until we are out of the building before I talk to him.
“Has an Illuminator ever helped a Shadow before?” I begin cautiously.
He looks at me like I am crazy and answers, “No, not that I’ve heard of, why?”
“Well, maybe that boy didn’t just disappear, I mean the Shadows haven’t attacked anyone in years,” I say quietly.
“Aurelia, no Illuminator would ever support those monstrous aliens.”
“But, what if the disappearances aren’t actually killings?”
“The Shadows would never let one of us live if they have the choice.”
“But what if-“
“Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?” Jag interrupts. He’s right to wonder as I am the kind of person who does her job, no questions asked.
“I just overheard some kids talking about it…”
He looks at me strangely, but otherwise drops the subject. My house finally comes into view and I wave goodbye to Jag as I trot up the steps. I open the door to find my mother sleeping on the small couch in the living room. She looks like she’s having peaceful dreams so I leave her and trot upstairs. I walk gratefully into the arms of my silent room and reflect on what has happened today.
The first issue that comes to mind is that I broke the law. As an Illuminator, I am not allowed to speak with a Shadow unless absolutely necessary. I also am not allowed to protect them as this is a sign of rebellion. They may appear human, but they are aliens bent on destroying mankind. However, I can’t stop thinking about the girl Shadow’s face. It had shown no signs of fear, anger, or rebellion. Nor did it seem like she would hurt anyone. I can’t help but wonder if everything we knew about the Shadows is wrong.
‘What a preposterous idea,’ a voice in the back of my head whispers. She was only one Shadow among the thousands of others. Just because one is different doesn’t mean they all are. That Shadow may have just been luring me into a trap that Jag unknowingly rescued me from.
Anger swells inside me. How could I, an Illuminator, have given a Shadow sympathy? I make a decision. Tomorrow, I would find the Shadow and dispose of it. Tomorrow, one less Shadow would roam the Earth.
Chapter 3
My eyes open to the bright lights shining all day from outside. I hear my mother walking around downstairs making breakfast, not crying. This is one of her better days. All seems well in my home, as if the world is in accordance with my plan. The Shadows are meant to be destroyed.
I quickly change into a simple outfit consisting of jeans and a t-shirt and walk over to my dresser. A golden ring sits on top, the words ‘Wherever you go there is light’ etched across its surface. This is the ring given to me by my father who’s father gave it to him. It showed our status as an Illuminator. If one lifted up the jewel resting on top, one would see a small part of a star that came to Earth. I slowly put on the ring and then walk downstairs to the sweet aroma of bread.
My mother is sitting at the table eating a slice of bread from the loaf she just made. I grab myself and savor each bite. My mother usually only cooks once a month as most of the time she’s confused or sad. However, her cooking is one of the best things in the world. Before my father died she would sell her pastries at the local market for tons of money. But those were the better days when you didn’t have to hope for her cooking.
I eat the last bite of my slice and hug her. She smiles at me and says, “Have a good day, Aurelia.”
I walk out of the door to the familiar light outside. Jaeger is standing a few feet away from my door. He waves at me when I walk out. “Hey, Aurie,how are you today?” he asks.
“I’m well,” I answer, “Mother baked some bread today.”
Jag looks behind my shoulder at the house with longing in his eyes. Even Jag can’t resist my mother’s cooking especially since his father can’t make even a sandwich.
I laugh at him and say, “Go get some, there’s plenty. I’ll meet you on the dark side.”
Jag smiles and runs inside. He’ll be there awhile which gives me plenty of time to dispose of the Shadow. Again a sense of the world being in harmony with me washes over me. I begin the long walk to the Government building.
As I walk down the path a song that my father used to sing for me escapes my lips.
Although the world may seem dull and gray
Take heed of the voices you hear.
They tell you a story of a life far away
As the light stretches onwards from here.
I step into a small puddle of silver goo and I look at it in distaste before continuing to sing.
The world we know was not always that
As then the dark held no fear.
But the world unknown had no day of flat
Because of one’s silver ear.
Sweat trickles down my brow and I pause to wipe it off before taking up the song again.
When the world cried out
Oh they worked so very hard
To keep out the doubt
Of the world’s last playing card….
The last note dies down in my voice to a saddening key before I stop singing. I had never really thought about what the song really meant, I was only a small child then. But now the words seem to carry a hidden message. I reflect on this until I realize I’m already at the crystal building.
I feel empty as I walk inside alone and nod solemnly to the desk clerk. The elevator seems to drag on forever before it finally comes to a complete stop at the weapons room. The Illuminators here today appear fine as if nothing ever happened, except for the small girl crying in the corner. She’ll soon get used to the occasional disappearances.
I trod on straight past her and grab my gun. I can feel her eyes on my back as I enter the elevator, but I don’t turn around until they close behind me with a satisfying thud. My mind is focused only on the task ahead of me and I go over the steps to my job in my head.
1. Patrol and find any Shadow you come across.
2. Capture the Shadow in the gun provided.
3. Deliver the Shadow to the Capitol building for elimination.
Nothing will stop me from pulling the trigger today.
The elevator doors slowly open and I walk out into the bright world. The sidewalks seem to be neverending, before the alleyway finally comes into view. Taking a deep breath, I slowly creep down to the broken house, my gun held tight in my right hand. I reach the building and immediately know she’s not there. The door has been knocked all the way off its hinges and there’s footprints in the dust leading out. I still can’t help but to look inside.
No living thing sits in the corner. I sigh with defeat and sink to the ground. Perhaps the world just wanted to humiliate me. That’s when I see a glint of silver in the once occupied space. Little droplets of her blood have made a nearly obscured trail to her possible hiding place. I get up, wipe the dust from my pants, and follow the trail. It stops at then end of the alleyway at a large, stone wall with no way to go except the only forest left in the state to the right.
Crack. Startled I look up, breaking my concentration on the silver. The road has darkened and the only light comes from behind me. But the shadows its casting are strange. They seem to be dancing, no running from some evil force. But shadows don’t run, I think stupidly.
My head slowly turns around to take in the sight behind me. At first, my world is in flickering red and yellow lights. I gain enough sense to realize the building nearest me is on fire. Poisonous flames lick the walls leaving behind a ghastly aroma and a pile of ash. Where once was peace, is now destruction. But I’ve seen this before.
The memory is from when I was only six years old, four years before the day that shattered my world. My father was at ‘work’ and my mother had gotten a deadly illness. I took up the job to walk the few blocks to the marketplace to buy her medicine. On my way back with my purchase in my hand I saw something moving on the ground. It was shadows that were dancing. The more looked; however, the more they seemed to be running. Terrified, I looked up. A building that had been perfectly fine minutes ago was consumed in flames.
Later, the story of its destruction appeared on the news. It stated that the fire had started because of an oven left on too long. More stories similar to that one began appearing around the world. Nearly all of the excuses had to do with ovens, experimenting with lighters, or through the primitive use of a fireplace. Then, at the end of that year, the stories just stopped. It was as if they weren’t occuring anymore….or someone was hiding them really well.
The memory of that year washes over me as the fire consumes the house. I know I must move soon, the fire has already eaten the building and is now on the road, but I don’t know where to run. A wall blocks my only way to civilization and safety. But on the right lies the forest where, if I’m quick enough, I can get to before the fire gets me. It looks moist and not that far, perhaps I can make it.
I put the gun in my right pocket and sprint. Far to quickly I am gasping for breath. The forest is farther than it appears to be and I can feel the heat of the flames as they close in on me. I gasp in horror when a spark flies of the fire and hits my pant leg. The only sound I hear is the sound of an explosion before my pain shoots up my right leg. I stumble and fall, allowing the flames to close the short distance between us. My eyes close in pain.
I’m going to die, is all I can think.
“Get up,” someone whispers in my ear. Maybe it’s just death coming to bring me to my father. Two hands grab me and hoist me up. I gasp in pain, death wasn’t supposed to hurt this much. I risk a glance at the world around me.
Only flames greet my sweating face. The whole alleyway appears to be on fire. Only the forest a few yards away looks safe. I turn my head to look at my saviour. Another spike of pain shoots up me as I turn my head. I only have a second to stare into the silver eyes of the Shadow girl before I am consumed by darkness.
