And so it seems that this story has ! Hope ya like it.

Dark Ones

Ch 1: I Remeber When.
By: Helena F. Lupin

I know that it was called the Light of Judgement, that it swept from the north poll and down in a ring over the earth. I was only eleven when this happened six year ago and didn’t really understand what was going on. I remember mother and father were so scared when in the middle of one of their favorite movies the tv flickered off and something else came on. Not just another movie, but ‘something’ else that did not belong. I don’t remember the words exactly, but I know that when the news verified the phanominom that ‘thing’ had spoken of that everyone began to really be afraid.

I remember that mom and dad had let me and my little brother sleep in their room that night. I remember that they had the tv on. It shown a satellite picture of the earth on the screen, and that a point of light and appeared in the center of the north poll, that that light was traveling in a steady thin ring around the earth toward the south. I remember we watched it for hours, it was moving so slowly, that it had just come near us the next night. I remember standing in the middle of our living room when it touched our house, it moved so slow that we all had time to go to my parents’ room at the other end of the house, to cuddle into the bed together. My mom and dad had told us to go to sleep, not to worry.

I wondered why we didn’t run from it, my dad had told me that we couldn’t. That light was going to touch all of earth, even if people ran they could not escape. And we never knew if that light would kill as. All those who had already been touched by the light had not made any communication with those who had not. I don’t know how my aunt Judith in New York was doing then. It remember the sight of that white light just outside of my parents’ closed door, shimmering under it. I remember hiding my face against my mother as it drew closer, I know she held me while dad held my little brother. Then it was all dark.

I know we woke the next day, my mom, my dad, myself even, but my brother had not. The things that had warned us came out in the open the next night. All tall, towering figures to a small eleven year old like myself. They wore black cloaks with half masks hiding their lower faces, leaving their pure black eyes open for us to see, staring out from white skin. I was so frightened when one of them spoke in a hissing, thin voice.

‘We are the Alananie, we are here to help you...’ So many knew it was a lie, that we would be slaves. I didn’t know what to think until I was just a little older. ‘The Light of Judgement has swept over you and taken those who would be a danger to you...’ In time the truth behind that light came to us all, it had swept over the earth to kill those who would be rebellious to them.

Those of the age of seventeen or older were welcome to the Alananie teachings. At the same time on a certain night for each family that still lived an Alananie would appear at their home and teach those who were of age. I only just turned seventeen and am now welcome to attend the teachings that they give at night to my family. I was happy to see that my aunt Judith came looking for us, and I expected her husband and three children to be with her, but only her fourth child that she was pregnant with made it to us with her.

We never called them the Alananie, we called them the Dark Ones, and they never corrected us. It amused them to have such a nickname, thought they never showed it. They are destroying our world, it is turning black and dead, but we live on with their help. We cower under the shadows of the massive homes they have built their selves, but we still thrive in small numbers for their use. Some humans have been said to be taken in by them, trained by them in other ways more like an Alananie, and those humans’ families are well cared for. Older ones of about mid twenties to mid thirties are usually chose to be taken to those dark dwellings. I am glad that I am still so young, and have a good chance of never being taken, the one’s chose are usually so beautiful...I’m not that beautiful...am I?

“Aaron!” He looked up sharply at the call of his name. He would know the voice of his mother, Mary, from any distance. “Come on inside!” He pushed to his feet from where he sat on the iced roots of a tree. It was the middle of winter, and it was his seventeenth birthday. The snow that lay in a good three inch blanket held an off blue tent in the dimming light of day. Aaron pulled his black coat tightly about himself as his eyes drifted over the low rolling hills off in the distance to the looming, hulking form of a black castle. One of a few he knew from travelers that came through.

He knew tonight that a Dark One would be in his home, and for the first time he would be able to listen to what it had to say. Dark Ones knew all earth languages, but they had their own that they taught to all humans, and one day it would be the only language. They kept humans around to do their bidding, but more often then not they left the families to their own lives.

Aaron had heard stories of Dark Ones kidnaping humans, and when the kidnaped ones are found they are dried corpses. Some say they steal their blood like vampires, so say they suck the life from you with a kiss, or they take your soul. Then there is the story that they take all three.

Aaron shuddered. He hopped to never find out. He hurried inside where dinner was ready, smiling as he passed his aunt Judith. She was a short, slender woman with shoulder length blond hair and deep chocolate eyes. The little girl that clung to her side would look just like her when she grew older. BB, real name Brandy Barbra, was his little cousin of about five years old. She was a sweet quiet little thing.

His father was just ahead of him as he ran into the living room. His father was tall, and make like a muscle man, but he had never been a fighter. His hair was cut short and was a true black, while his eyes were a sky blue that smiled all the time. Aaron wished he took after his father, with his strong features and handsome looks. No, Aaron resembled his mother.

He walked into the kitchen with a smile upon his face. His mother was shorter, like her sister, with short hair that was actually a deep auburn like a well varnished rose colored wood. Her eyes were a dark green, all of it came from her father.

Aaron’s hair was down his back in a braid to his waist and was the same color, but somehow it managed to be richer, sleeker, with a deeper shine. His eyes were that same green, but one shade lighter. He was taller then her at a height of five ten, still shorter then his father. He had his mother’s fine features and her pale skin, it looked white, even it you compared it to one of the Dark Ones’, their skin was marble white from never setting foot in sunlight. Aaron and his mother possessed such skin, like gleaming moonlight with a pale silver shimmer in the star light.

He laid a kiss on her cheek. “Hello, mother.”

“Hello, darling.” She smiled up at him before her face turned serious. “Please, remember to be quiet unless it asks you something directly.” Aaron nodded obediently. When his little brother had been killed his mother had become so over protective, but he humored her to make her happy.

“Of course mother.” He intended to be nothing more then a fly on the wall tonight. He stood by her side as she finished washing some dishes from dinner. Those who were to receive a Dark One usually wore black, it shown them respect somehow, but it also shown the sorrow they brought into that house. Aaron wore a pair of black dress pants, a black t-shirt tucked in, black shoes, and a black floor length coat. He shook his head to get his bangs out of his eyes.

His mother and aunt were in simple black dresses, his father in about the same as him without the coat. His little cousin was most likely being put to bed at the moment. Aaron looked up out of the window over the sink into the now navy sky with stars appearing. He drew in a sharp gasp then. “Mother...” She said softly. She looked out of the window just as a tall cloaked figure came into sight. Moving gracefully and in a deadly way.

“Oh my.” It always shocked her to see them.

“I will tell the others.” Aaron offered. His mother nodded as he walked out of the kitchen. He had seen them before and did not care to do so again, but what choice did he have. Humans were like pets to them. As he informed his aunt and father he thought to the times he had snuck to the landed on the stairs and listened to that thing speak. He had shivered, and one night had been very unlucky.

As he had sat there that voice had stopped and out of no where the Dark One had been standing at the foot of the stairs, hid black eyes focused on him. Aaron had been to scared to move as it had flowed, not walked, flowed up the stairs toward him. His mother had screamed that he not be hurt.

The Dark One had merely looked at him for a moment, before taking his hand gently. ‘Little ones should be in bed’. It had said softly before it led him to his room and set him on his bed. It had left just as quickly as it had appeared. But Aaron had not stopped listening in, and he was sure it knew he had not.

He heard his mother open the front door and give a soft greeting. Aaron stood close to his father, his aunt on the sofa, in the living room as they waited for her to lead it inside to them.

Mary walked into the room with her hands clasped before her, head bowed slightly down with her eyes to the floor. Only a few candles were lit in the living room, Dark Ones were not fond of light. Aaron felt uncomfortable in seconds. That rolling cold that seems to follow a Dark One was not the cause, it was this man invading his home, the same one that had caught him spying when he was younger. Aaron wanted to go upstairs with BB, he wanted to be to young once more, but that would not and could not happen.

That tall, graceful form that belonged to one of the hooded Dark Ones walked slowly, calmly into the room. It’s hooded head turned slowly toward Aaron and stayed there making him draw in a sharp silent breath.

“Who...is this?” The Dark One asked softly, in a voice that sounded off for one of them. It was lower, and so much softer.

“Oh, this is my son, Aaron. He turned seventeen today.” Aaron’s mother said politely. The Dark One moved forward toward Aaron. The teen felt his heart skip a beat when it stopped before him. And something that had never happened before accrued.

No one has eve seen only one part of a Dark One, and this the section of their faces they do not keep hidden when they are close enough to you. The section between the bridge of their nose and just above obsidian eyebrows. The teen was close enough to see that, but what shocked them all were the hands that raised out of the folded of the cloak and it stripped off one of those black leather gloves they all wore. One pure white, elegant hand reached out and formed to the side of the teen’s face.

Aaron froze. That touch was so cold, like ice almost, but something about it felt nice and inviting. “Seventeen...” The Dark One murmured, towering over the teen by a good few inches. “Then you are of age...to come with me.” Someone in the room gave a small scream, Aaron was sure at first it had been him, but after a moment he found his voice and scream were trapped in his throat, it had been his mother that had screamed. He caught out of the corner of his eye that his father was on moving closer it snatch his son back. The Dark One’s head snapped up at him.

Aaron knew his father would stop, not by choice, but by the command in those totally onyx eyes. The room was growing colder, and the teen felt tears slip down his face as somehow more Dark One’s flowed into the room, all of them tall, beautiful, and frightening.

“Tonight, another will be teaching you...and in fact will be teaching you for the rest of you lives. I have what I have come for, you will never see me again.” The Dark One holding the teen’s face stated in it’s hissing voice.

“You planed this.” Mary whispered then. “From the moment you caught him on the stairs...you planed to take him.” Her voice was breaking, tears were streaming down her face. “Please, not my other baby...” Just like that all of the candles went out, and all of the Dark Ones were closing in, intent on sealing the fate of the family. The Dark One that had been looking into Aaron’s eyes turned it’s head toward the mother.

“Please, stop!” Aaron cried out then. His hand shot up and caught the hand holding his face. This snapped the Dark One’s head back to him. “Please, I’ll go with you, just leave them all alone, please.” The teen begged. He watched with half relief half terror as the Dark One before him gave one slow nod. At the action the Dark Ones that had been moving in began to move back, to melt into the shadows.

Aaron felt numb as the Dark One that held his hand now pulled him out of the room and out of the front door. The last he heard was his mother’s crying and the hissing voice of another Dark One that had stayed behind. Aaron looked up into the darkened hood of the Dark One before him.

The tall figure was leaning closer to him and the creatures other hand still in it’s glove came up to brush something from the teen’s cheek. That was when Aaron realized he was crying. “So beautiful...even when you cry such sorrowful tears.” It murmured. Aaron froze as his eyes met the shaded onyx ones of the Dark One. From the bridge of it’s nose to it’s obsidian hair line he could see it’s face. The skin was snow white, if not paler, those eyes though dark, expressionless, held such a heat to them, a studying look.

“Come.” The Dark One said softly in a voice not quiet like it’s original hiss. It’s arms swept the teen up and it began to walk toward the ever present foreboding shape of the Shadows’ Citadel as it was called by humans, by Dark Ones it was called a home.

So, how did I do?