Mathilde Reinbold 03/05/2006

A/N : Okay, so maybe this is a part disclaimer, but it all means the same thing. This belongs to me. Got it? Steal it and you’re dead. Also, you might get something called CHAPTER ONE ASH. This is because Fictionpress has screwed up my chapters. Not my fault. But…just ignore it. Seriously.

PROLOGUE

A creature slipped out of the buildings and straight into the shadows, hidden in the nighttime’s bloom of darkness. The evil was instantly spread across the world, everyone felt it, and everyone heard it. Children murmured in their sleep, parents woke abruptly, the air of tension crawling up their spines. They shivered as three sinister words became imprinted as one across their minds. “I am here.”

Ethan Katchugoshki awoke with the adults, his reason far more important. Dialling on the telephone for Ash, his friend, he nervously tapped his foot as he hoped that she would pick up. “C’mon Ash,” he muttered, “Where are you?” Suddenly the phone was picked up, a smooth voice answering. “Ethan,” she asked him, “What’s happening?”

“I dunno.” He replied.

“Oh, wake up and smell the rat, Ethan! Something’s wrong, everyone else is out, the city’s silent. We’re the only ones who’re actually gonna do something.”

“Alright, alright,” a disgruntled Ethan hissed, “But shut up about me being lazy, I was the one to call, and I am the one who has the powers. It’s not my fault you weren’t taken with your parents and Matthew. I can’t change the world, much as you seem to be able to think.”

“Of course!” Ash suddenly cried, “That’s what’s wrong. We are the only ones to shut our minds. Whoever it is reached them through their thoughts. Meet me in town.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Ethan began to say, before he was cut off. “Oh for God’s sake. She’ll get herself killed. Bloody maniac.”

Meanwhile, Ash Smunkazatchi was dressed in a leather jacket, black jeans and Doc Martens. Running a comb through her almost white hair and twisting it into a plait, she grabbed the keys to her father’s motorbike and the helmet. Running to the garage and unlocking it, she grabbed the bike and set off towards town. Legally, she wasn’t supposed to drive at the age of fifteen, but who really cared? Ethan didn’t, that was for sure. Ethan didn’t really care about anyone. ‘Watch where you’re going!’ her phone’s text read, ‘You’ll get yourself killed, not that I’d really care!’ Yep, Ethan had been reading her thoughts from afar again. ‘I thought I told you not to do that,’ she thought, aiming the thoughts directly in his direction, ‘It gives me no privacy whatsoever!’

Ethan quickly ran a brush through his hair, making sure the black cap covered his blonde hair. So what if Ash didn’t care about him? He had Rachel, after all, as his girlfriend. Why should he have feelings about her? And what the hell was Ash thinking about, anyway? He’d caught the last thought as it was aimed at him, but he never read her thoughts, if that was what she was talking about. Anyway, he’d better make sure he couldn’t be seen at all. Some of us didn’t have motorbikes from Daddy’s garage.

‘Ouch’ Ash thought as she heard Ethan’s comment. ‘He really is in a bad mood.’ Looking down at herself, she thought she looked okay. Apart from the black helmet with a small red streak across it, she was hidden in the dark. ‘But what about Ethan?’ she thought again. ‘What about Ethan? He’s an antisocial, egotistic lowlife who cares for no one but himself. Like all of the male gender.’ Then, waiting at the dark brown boulder at the edge of the road that they called their meeting place, Ash fell asleep.

‘Sweet dreams, darling?’ Gelkus whispered into her ear. Shoving Ash down on the cave floor, he once again whispered ‘You just became my new best friend.’

Ethan had a sense that something was wrong. Her thoughts were trapped by whatever evil lurked by her, and the creature (or whatever it was) was searching her thoughts and causing a blockade of the body around it. Soon she would die a slow, horrible, painful death as the blood ceased to flow around the creature. ‘I can’t let that happen’ Ethan thought grimly, ‘I can’t let her die because I slowed her down.’ Grabbing his bike and pedalling as hard as he could, Ethan set off for the boulder.

Ash was vaguely aware of something in her mind. It was controlling her, causing her body to allow what evil was seeping through her, wasting her limbs till they felt heavy like stone. “You’re mine, precious,” something hissed, (could she say hissed? It felt like her whole body was vibrating with the sound it made) Then tranquillity. Peace. Quiet, for the first time in her life.

“You killed her!” Ethan yelled at the creature, “ All she did was live, and you killed her!” Carrying Ash’s slumped form in his arms, Ethan left the cave behind the boulder. He laid her on the motorbike and drove, her body lying over the front seat. How long Ethan drove, he did not know. Time stood still, but a figure in long black robes seemed to cloud his vision. “Ethan. Stop. She may still live.” The figure seemed to say. “How can you say that?” Ethan yelled, “You don’t know the true meaning of feelings, Sillur. The world’s just a game to you.” Swooping Ash out of his arms, Sillur vanished. Ethan tumbled off the bike; bewildered at the blatantly obvious piece of magic he had just seen. Sillur never used magic on mortals, never if he could help it. Apparently, they never noticed him while he was alive so he didn’t have to notice them while they were alive.

Ash woke up ten hours; feeling like her head had been kicked in. She saw a swoosh of long black robes and immediately crouched into a fighter’s position. She frantically searched around for anything that could serve as a weapon and found a sharp looking stone. Tugging it out of the mud and brushing it off, Ash stealthily crept to the exit of the cave that she had woken up in. She recognised that face peering down at her and put down her weapon.

“Sillur?” she whispered and abruptly fell to the floor unconscious.

Ethan struggled with ‘Gellus’, as he liked to call himself.

“You killed her!” he accused.

“So what if I did? It doesn’t matter. She’s only a weak little human. Didn’t even have much energy for me to feed on.” Gellus replied, sneering at Ethan.

“Why? Why did you take all those people? What did they ever do to you? How did they ever harm you?” Ethan questioned.

“I was just a creature of fiction, not fit to live in this world. How would you feel if your people banished you because your father was half troll and mother completely human, if she abandoned you because whereas her husband could keep up disguises, you were just a baby, unable to help your looks.” Gellus yelled angrily.

Ethan sat down for a while, wondering. Gellus didn’t seem able to do any harm to Ethan and Ethan certainly couldn’t do anything to Gellus with all the strength that he had sapped from the world. Breathing only slightly heavily, he pondered about Ash and Sillur. Why had he taken her? What had he done with her? Where was she? Only one thing he knew, he had to find her before Sillur upset her.

Ash woke to Sillur’ face peering at her. She gasped and sat up, more than three thousand questions circling around her brain.

“Where’s Ethan? What’s he doing? Why am I-“ she cut off as Sillur’s face swung around and glared at her in a look that she knew well as ‘shut up’.

Waving his hands about in an almost comical gesture, Sillur closed his eyes and pushed Ash towards a small pile of wood burning only slightly. Ash fell into it and swallowed deeply, guessing that she was about to meet Ethan.

Ethan grabbed Ash as she fell into the clearing from seemingly nowhere.

“Sillur?” he said gently.

She nodded slowly and carefully.

“You okay?” he asked.

Again she nodded. Glancing over at Gellus, he realised why Ash wasn’t speaking. Gellus was pointing a dagger at her. Unarmed and stuck in front of Ethan, she was a sitting duck. Ethan quickly dragged her behind him, grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the clearing and into the forest again. Gellus didn’t have enough power to follow them; proud as he was of his magic it wasn’t that strong.

Starting the motorbike, Ash began to drive till they came to a road. There they stopped by the roadside at an empty roadside café and went inside. The air was filled with tension as the pair walked through a seemingly empty room filled with dirty tables and chairs. Then they heard it. A baby, crying. It sounded from by the counter, where the pair went to investigate. Ash pulled open the counter door and stepped behind it. Sitting in a pram behind the counter was a tiny baby, its face red and screwed up from crying. Ethan and Ash gasped together as the baby stopped, stared back at them and started crying again.

“Oh no.” Ethan muttered. “No, no, no.”

The pair exchanged looks and Ash shrugged almost light heartedly. Picking up the baby she wrapped it in her jumper. Examining it under her jumper she said quietly.

“Girl.”