Overcome by Darkness

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Not a day has gone by since I was turned into this wretched creature that I haven’t thought about my family. They are all probably long dead now.

It all happened on a quiet summer’s day in our small town of Akarina, about 100 years ago.

I was eighteen, my sister thirteen. We had just gotten out of guardianship school, and were heading home.

I remember my sister less and less these days. Now all I remember is her long, flowing black hair streaming down to her waist. Her facial features have all become a blur, but I remember being slightly taller than she.

She had a heart of gold and I often wondered why she had become a guardian. She was very good at battle tactics, but lacked the will to send someone to the ‘Great Beyond’.

Now that I look back, I can only laugh at the way she always seemed to get in arguments with the teachers.

“But why do we have to kill them, why not take them in for interrogation or something?” she would constantly ask.

“Because, Chris, that’s what we do.”

Everyday, she would ask our teachers the same question. This would often lead to a heated argument about the topic, Chris always backing out before things got too far.

Anyway, we reached our house and found the door swinging slowly in the summer breeze. There seemed to be no sign of forced entry, so we decided to step in.

Nothing was missing or out of place. We figured our parents left the door open accidentally when they left for work.

I sat down on the couch to do some homework. I began work on a tough battle technique taught to me by Sanjen Demaon, the mace and whip teacher, being careful not to break any glass nick-knacks. Chris, on the other hand, walked up the tall, wooden staircase and stepped into a quiet room with posters of different lands and animals, mostly fantasy, strewn all over the walls. Her fascination of the unreal never ceases to amaze me. If I can't touch it or see it, I assume it isn't real. That shows just how different we were, like perfect opposites. Or maybe contrasts, one can't live without the other.

Chris would normally close the door and quietly go over her day. No one in our entire family knew why she did this, or even if it was her day she was going over, but we left her in peace. Whenever we would try to ask her, she would smile and change the subject.

What was different about today was that I didn’t hear the door close or the quiet click of the lock. After a while, I realized I didn’t hear the soft murmur of her voice either.

I got up slowly and silently found my way to the stairway. I looked up into her room and all was silent. I slowly trudged up the stairs and I wrapped my hand slowly around the large brass knob of the half-way closed door. It wasn’t even locked. I pushed the door open and found her lying on the floor, a large flowing cut throbbing on her forehead.

“Oclina!” I shouted. I ran to her side and took her hand. She groaned and looked at me.

“Orin,” she said quietly.

Her eyes opened wide. In them a mixture of fear and, strangely enough, understanding struck me. I also saw a faint outline of a man with a large club in his hand in that bottom-less pit of soft brown.

“Wha…” I was stopped short when the man whacked me across the temple with the end of the club. I felt myself hit the floor and then lost all senses.

When I finally came to, I was in a large black room. It smelled strangely of mushrooms and pine needles. It reminded me of the many pine woods that were outside of Akarina and all the grand family trips taken there to relax. It was really the only time Oclina and I could talk to our parents. They were always at work during the day. A small tear ran down my cheek as I thought of all the things I would probably never have the chance to tell them. I would never get married or have children, never risk my life for my charge. I would never be my most cherished dream, a hero. I had to do something.

“The boy has finally come to, mi alor,” a dark dusky voice said flatly.

There was a quiet crackling sound and then another voice announced,

“Bring him to me,”

“Wha… Where am I?” I managed to leek out of my hoarse, achy mouth. I raised myself to a sitting position. I tried to stand, but found it to be a futile attempt.

“Anitlo mi athspan vantor,” the dark voice uttered in a language that sounded vaguely familiar, but I could not place it.

“Excuse me?” I rasped.

“Translated roughly,” the voice boomed, “it means ‘Don’t ask me such morbid questions.’”

The owner of the voice picked me up and laid me in a small vehicle. The vehicle made a small buzzing sound and jerked forward.

“Morbid,” I said weakly, “What do you mean morbid?”

“Clamos,” he breathed.

Clamos. I recognized that as meaning ‘silence’. I closed my mouth and continued to wonder where I had heard that language before. No one in my family had ever spoken it, I was sure. I spent the long ride across the almost mile long room thinking on this.

We slowly moved to a section of the room where the man stopped and opened a narrow door. The rush of light caused me to blink fiercely.

This room was the exact opposite of the previous room. It was bright white with a mysterious light that seemed to come from an invisible source. This room also smelled of wildflowers and grass. I then remembered a trip my family took to the Naroroe plains. We met this old man there that told us of a place with rooms like these. The rooms would take on the smell of much loved memories.

Then it hit me. This was the place the old man spoke about. The language the large man spoke was the old language of Fanior, the Kingdom of Shade. The old man told us of the fateful prophecy that one day a castle like this would be rebuilt. These rooms were part of Janmon’s great castle, or so the old man said. He told us that this castle had been destroyed in the War of Seven Ages. Why was it still here, yet unseen to many historians and scholars? How did no one know it had been rebuilt? These questions puzzled me for many years after this great tragedy.

We came to a wall on the other side of the room and stopped. The man came around the vehicle and placed his hand on the wall. His skin was dark against the white wall, almost black. His cold, hard eyes focused on the wall. He whispered something and a hole slowly began to form.

This room was not at all like the other two. It looked like a castle hall made of dark gray marble. Columns lined the wide red carpet. The man pushed me through the hole into the large hall.

At the end of the hall was a large, iron throne with a small person in the center. The person was cloaked in blue velvet, and was difficult to see against the black iron. In his right hand he held a large black staff with what looked like some great battle scene. That staff looked several inches taller than the little man of only five feet.

As we inched closer, I began to hear quiet weeping sounds. On the floor, a small white figure with black hair sat sobbing on the cold, gray marble. What had caused this young person to cry so much? What had that man done?

The closer we got, the shorter the man became. His small bald head stood out plainly against the black iron.

I looked down at the sobbing figure on the floor. There was a huge gash in her forehead that didn’t seem to bother her at all.

“Oclina!” I rasped. The feeling in my legs had not returned, so I was forced to roll out of the vehicle. The cool floor caused me to shiver, but I managed to crawl over to my sister’s side. I put my arm around her shoulder. She didn’t even look at me.

“What has happened?” I whispered. She gave no answer. Tears continued to roll down her pale face. I moved her black hair out of her face. Her golden eyes seemed to swim in a sea of tears. She blinked.

“She won’t answer you,” a shrill voice said with a cackle.

My head spun around so fast, it was very hard to focus on the man behind me. His bald head looked gray from the reflection of the room. His facial features were very thin and bony. He looked like Jamon, evil senator and great grandson of the Dark King Janmon.

“You’re right,” the voice laughed in my mind.

I stared at him with cold, hard eyes. He sneered and walked over to me. I pulled my lifeless legs over closer to my sister. She continued to sob.

“It will be alright,” I whispered. She didn’t even acknowledge my concern. What happened?

The bald man stopped and continued staring at my sister and me. I looked up into his eyes and saw cold, lifeless black specks with little or no expression. Dark lines circled around them, making them look shrouded in shadow. I looked away.

“Where are we?” I asked, and continued to look into the cold dark lines on the floor.

“She did not tell you who she was talking to in her room, did she?” he said. I could hear the sneer widening on his hideous face.

“We assumed…”

“You assumed,” he interrupted with a slow cackle, “that she was talking to herself?”

“Yes, but,”

“But, my youngling, you never looked to see for yourself,” he said, silently chuckling to himself. “You should have let your curiosity take you.”

“I respect he…”

“Respect!” he yelped, “Respect is worthless. You respect someone and all along they were your enemies’ spies, are they not?” I could recognize a glimpse of pain behind his tone.

I turned to Oclina. A spy? That great heart and great mind, a spy?

“Wha… She wouldn’t, couldn’t?” I squeaked meekly, harboring the lump that appeared in my throat.

“Ohh, she did,” the sneer sounded louder than ever now, “It took a lot of convincing, though.”

I slowly turned my head to face the little, pale figure on the cold stone floor. “She did it to protect us, didn’t she?” I said, unable to hold back my tears anymore.

“Us?” he said dryly, “No, you.”

I gasped. It felt as though someone had put a knife to my gut and slowly rotated the blade. I felt the urge to faint, but resisted.

“Yes, my little one, you,” he smiled and turned to face a large marble column. “Of course, when she found the door to your house open, she automatically suspected me,” he turned and laughed. “But, I was already there.”

I clutched at the sore spot on my temple. I could feel the large bump from the club. I suddenly became very self-conscious. Seventh rule of guardianship, never enter a suspicious area without protection.

“Why did you need a spy?” I uttered.

“My son, think about it,” he cackled.

Mother and father are quiet doctors who spent most of their time at the hospital. There would be no need for spies there. Besides we were never allowed to go to the hospital with them. Oclina and I were at school most of the time.
School! At our school, all of the well known guardians teach all their best fighting tactics. If you knew how to beat the guardians, you could pretty much take over. He was using her to learn how to overcome the guardians.

“Well done,” he smiled and clapped his hands slowly, “I knew it was only a matter of time,” He had become closer than ever to me. "Although, that is not the only reason." I shrunk back in fear.

"You see, my love, many years ago, I was very different than I am now. I was kind and fun-loving like you," I wondered what he was getting at and why he called me 'love'.

"I fell in love with a woman, no younger than me, and married. We soon had a child," This man having a child, how horrid.

" But, while giving birth, my darling wife died and I was left alone with the son of a corpse," A solemn tear rolled down his cheek.

"It was many months later that I had a vision of my son over-throwing me as king," he walked slowly over to a stone column and stared deeply in its dark gray marble.

"I knew I had to get rid of him, so I sent him to a small family outside of Akarina,"
I wondered what he was getting at.

"That boy, you see, was you, my son."

My eyes widened and I told myself it wasn't true. It couldn't be true.

"Yes. Your sister wanted to protect you from me, so she did everything in her power to keep you from knowing or meeting me. Obviously, her plan failed." His cold gaze turned to me. He silently walked over to Oclina.

"Such a pretty girl," he whispered.

It was then that I realized that a small black dagger replaced the long staff in his hand. He grabbed Oclina by the hair and put the dagger to her neck.

“No!” I yelped. The feeling rushed to my legs and I leapt forward, tackling the bald man. We landed with a loud, echoing thud. Before I could react, he was on top of me, the cold steel of the dagger standing tentatively at my neck. I looked left and right, trying hard not to look into his lifeless gaze.

“It is not your time yet, my son,” he breathed.

“Get off,” I voiced through clenched teeth.

He laughed. The walls seemed to shake because of the echo. “Even in the face of death he still fights on, just like his father,” He got off and I rose to my feet.

“I will still have to be rid of her, she already knows too much,” he glanced over at Oclina. The staff reappeared slowly. He whispered something under his breath.

Oclina screamed in agony. I whipped my head around to face her. She became deformed. Her arms and legs grew out twice as long as they were. Her finger nails grew into sharp hooves. Her nose grew long, and tan hair started growing all over her body. In the next second, her deformed body sprinted off in one long bound. She was a deer.

“Oclina!” I yelled.

“She can’t understand you anymore,” the bald man said with a wide grin. “Now, what to do with you?”

I backed up to the wall, looking frantically for an escape route. What would he do to me? What could he do to me? He couldn't kill me; after all I was his son. Or would he?

“I will give you two choices,” he said inching ever closer, “Join me and rule beside me as father and son, or,” by this time he was less than two feet away. I assumed he was going to say “or die” but where had assuming gotten me?

He smiled and turned to face his iron throne. “Or live your life as an animal not strong enough, or fast enough, to over-rule me,"

I considered the choices.

“Turn my sister back,” I said, adding another property to our deal.

“Sorry, sonny, she knows to much,” he said turning to face me. There was not a glimmer of mercy in his eyes.

“You are obviously a mage, erase her memory,” I said matter-of-factly.

“But that takes so much work,” his cackling laugh resonated through the hall, “Alright, but you will have to take her place as an animal.”

I nodded my head. There always had to be consequences.

He whispered the same enchantment as I braced myself for the transformation.

My arms grew short and scaly. A large hump grew out of my back. I wanted to scream, but I would not give that evil man the satisfaction of it. I just continued to stare into his lifeless eyes.

“By the way,” his voice sounded so far away, “my name is Jolmn, son of Jamen, great grandson of the Great King Janmon, and you are my son, Jeno. Never forget who you really are,” his cackling laugh resonated through the hall.

I fell to the floor, breaking the contact with the bald man’s, my father's lifeless eyes. I closed my eyes. The pain was too much to bear. The last thing I remember seeing before all left me was the face of my dear sister. “Don’t forget.” I whispered, and everything was gone.

When I awoke, I was in an enclosed area surrounded by people. Where am I? I thought. I guess the more important question was what am I?

“Mommy, look! A turtle!” A little boy squealed. That was what I had become, a turtle.

Now one hundred years later, I still think of that day. I still dream of my sister, humming as she did her chores. Memories of her arguing with the teacher.

Animals cannot cry, so I am forced to suppress my feelings. Great sadness fills my heart as I look to the sky now. I constantly think of what would have happened if I destroyed that little bald man. There is still time to bring him down, to fulfill the prophecy, but for now I will stay a turtle.

Jolmn, that little bald man, destroyed everything good in this world. Nothing is left but smoke and darkness. He has no right to be king.