Title: Beauty in the Beast

By Topaz36

Chapter: Prologue

Character is what you are in the dark. -American Proverb

I looked at my watch after peering out the window. The sun was almost behind the tall buildings that loomed in front of my little home, and my watch confirmed it was time. My legs almost automatically pressed against the hard tile and my chair lurched away from the table. Without much thought, I traveled to the window and pulled the curtains together. This pattern continued as I walked around the rest of my house doing the same thing along with locking the seven locks that were on each of my doors to the outside world.

I walked around the rooms for one last time to make sure everything was in its place.

"Nothing out of order," I barely whispered aloud, knowing the only one in the house was yours truly. My bare feet lightly tapped against the tile as I walked towards my car less garage. Once inside, I locked the seven locks on this particular door along with the metal bolt that fastened the door shut even further. My eyes checked to make sure the garage door was closed as my hands began to push the levers and bolts that connected the garage door to the floor and walls.

I brushed away the one trickle of sweat that began to form on my face.

These precautions I had to take every night, not because I was scared of burglars or the like, but because I was scared for the poor soul who found a way to get to this room.

I checked my watch again.

I had to get ready.

I double checked to make sure a set of clothes was lying on the counter as I pulled off my black sunglasses and placed it on top of the clothes. My eyes turned into slits at first, trying to adjust to the light.

But I had no time to adjust. So I continued.

My body began to tremble as I walked to the opposite side of the garage and began to place the metal cuffs around my wrists, not tight though. I pulled against the cuffs to check to make sure there was no weak link in the chains that connected my cuffs to the wall. Then I attached my ankles to the shackles that were connected to the floor. Once again, I pulled on the chain and they were just as strong as the night before, and the night before that, and so on and so forth.

Then I sat and waited... waited for the night.

Night... a constant that we humans rely on unlike anything else in our lives. To most, the mysteries of the unknown and the unpredictability that branch from night are unsettling. Fortunately for them, with night, there is always the knowledge that the sun will peak out from hiding and eat away at the darkness. People naturally feel more at ease with this common knowledge, feel like they can hold onto that truth. They are, by the smallest margin, in more control of their lives.

I cannot hold onto that truth. For you see, I have no sun. To replace the void of light, darkness flourishes inside me. I do not worry about the mysteries of the night. They’re all solved for me which makes it much more dangerous... which is why I have forced myself to learn self-restraint and isolate myself from the world.

But even with those precautions, the darkness, this beast, will come out and play when the city is no longer in the protection of the sun.

"Who am I?" is not the question I use when I refer to myself.

No... that is way off.

"What am I?" is more appropriate.

I am a curse. I am a daemonium lupum.

I am Nikita.