Prologue:

Innocence. It is said to belong to the young. A baby is born with innocence, made with light and sunshine and smiles. And as they grow older the darkness infects them, one bit at a time, year after year. They are no longer all happy, they become scarred.

This was not the case with Saralyn. She was born belonging to the darkness. As was her mother before her, that was her family's curse. She lived her life sinning, doing the evil things her instincts told her to. But she never wanted to do any of it. She held a great power, but lived in fear of it. She lived regretting her life.

When she was young her grandmother told her the story.

"Her great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Annabella, had fallen in love with a man of the night when she was young. Her family scorned her love for him, and tried to take her away from him. She agreed in the end, for she knew that his kind could never truly love. Their love was a selfish one, on a true one.

A few years later, she wed to a wealthy and respected man of her fathers choosing. She had no love for him, nor of her family. The only thing she had hope left of loving was the child this man had given her. Six months along, she knew something was wrong, she could feel it. Her baby was dying. Not knowing where to go, for no human medicine could fix her, she left to find a cure from some other power. She found her old love, and bagged him to help her. He agreed, but for a price.

He had always wanted to bind her to the dark with him, so they would live together forever. She always said no, threatening to never see him again if he did. She did not want to live that life. She loved the dark side, but she did not want to be part of it.

He said that he would give some of his power to this child, to keep it alive, if after it was born she would return to him and join him. She agreed.

They found a way to put some of his power in the child, to keep it alive. And then Annabella went back to her husband, until the baby was born.

After seeing the man she had loved again, she started comparing her feelings toward him to those toward her husband. She realized how the life she was leading with her husband would never make her happy, and she started to like the idea of turning over. By the time the birth of her baby came around, although deeply saddened by knowing she would not be the one to raise her child, she was also looking forward to being reunited with the man she loved.

She gave birth to a baby girl. Instantly upon seeing the infant she knew she had made a mistake. The child was of the dark. She looked dark, and had the aura of darkness floating around her. Her baby girl would have a tortured life, one torn between good and evil, if she did not do something. As soon as she had her strength back, she planned to take her child, and turn them both to the darkness, it was the only way her baby girl would have any peace.

But before she could go, her husband came to look at his daughter. He was fair, and the child looked nothing like him. Believing himself to be dishonored, he turned to his wife, with a knife in hand. "Whose child is this?! I am sure you have deceived me!" he screamed.

And then he stabbed her to death, killing her hopes for a happy life. And at the same time killing the last chance at a contented life for the baby girl.

The girl, Anna, was raised in an orphanage until the age of 15, when she was thrown out on the street for what her mothers love had made her."

Saralyn was pregnant, and was determined to give her child a good life, one no woman in her family had lived in years.

So two months before her daughter would have been born, Saralyn walked into a hospital and shot herself. Her daughter was saved and put in an incubator until she was ready to be born.

The girl, later named Shawna, was speared from inheriting most of her mothers evil. She would not live the conflicted life of her ancestors, she was born with innocence. But she was left with to much power to live a normal life.

This is Shawna's story.

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