Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  “I have to go and warn my –” but the man was instantly silenced: a hand had maliciously torn through his chest and ripped out his heart in what looked like the swift work of a Japanese katana. Duana stood there, petrified and glued to the spot, as the man slid to the ground. She slowly began to stumble backwards. A male figure emerged from behind the dead man’s body. Devilish looking Trailian slowly marched towards her, his height and structure intimidating. Duana slowly continued to stagger backwards on the uneven, rocky, bone-ridden floor, swallowing hard.

  “Thank you so, so much, Duana, for having gotten that information from – Jerricho, I believe his name was?” She shook her head, disbelieving what was happening as tears began to leak from her eyes.

  “All the same, I would have killed the wrong man when it’s his children I should be after,” he said rather playfully.

  “You’re sick! You would harm innocent children?” the scared woman spat out venomously.

  “Well, why not? It is for power, is it not? Speaking of which,” Trailian still advanced towards her as she backed further away. They had gotten to the middle of the room before he stopped walking, “where are your children, Duana?” he asked, more in a tone of demand but was calm, with a suspicious and sadistic look in his void-black eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said simply in a hushed tone.

  “Oh, come ooon –” he began, the corners of his lips climbing into a cheeky grin.

  “NO! I honestly do not know!” She then lashed out, half attacking, half fearful. They stared at each other piercingly for a while. Suddenly, Trailian’s eyes quickly zoomed to the floor and back to Duana. She had seen this and immediately knew what he was thinking. Instantly, both of them threw their hands out to the ground and yelled: “RISE!” In one swift motion, half the bones in the room rolled up into humanoid creatures, but were taller, had pale ruddy sorts of skin, jet black eyes and formed behind Trailian. Simultaneously, a black smoky essence wafted in front of Duana and created an army of her un-dead servants. She turned around, running towards the exit at the end of the room where the glowing cocoons floated unharmed. Trailian and his army lit their hands with vicious black fire, letting out a horrible fury against Duana’s protectors.

  Duana’s Roamers were at the point of dissolving back into the air and leaving her vulnerable. There was nothing she could do about them. Duana wasn’t strong enough to maintain them. In pure mockery, Trailian stared at her from the other side of the dungeon and laughed. His army of servants were still very active, standing next to him as they all observed the helpless woman, standing idle and panting, with locks of her magnificent hair dangling over her face. She had stopped running. She was facing them.

  “Give it up, Duana,” Trailian hissed with a snaky smile. He wanted to enjoy this – he ever so slowly raised his hand to his face with a perfectly spherical ball of black flames hovering in the middle of his palm. Duana was out of energy, even to summon a Roamer to rescue her. She simply exhaled and gently closed her long-lashed eyes, waiting for the worst to happen.

  Trailian scoffed and shot out his hand. A beam of bright purple-black fire, carrying the heat of a thousand suns, tore through the air and headed straight for Duana. Moments before the impact disintegrated her, a quick flash of indigo shone and Trailian’s beam was redirected to a life-sized column in the corner which was soon obliterated. Duana looked a few paces in front of her and saw Angwen’s body materialise out of the air behind the invisible shield that had just saved her life. Her heart warmed with joy, having thought for all this time that her fate was truly sealed.

  Duana smiled victoriously as Angwen then threw a nasty, backbiting shot of electricity at Trailian – who had gotten rid of his army and began duelling Angwen as Duana ran. Their energetic fight consisted of Angwen’s indigo electric shots that ricocheted to all parts of the room and causing chunks of cement to plummet from the ceiling, and Trailian shooting out his usual beams of hellfire.

  “Duana –” Angwen yelled through the fire that ripped from Trailian’s hands, busy gesticulating his hands and arms to create large force-fields, “break the cocoons and tell them to run!”

  “What? Tell who to run?” Duana desperately asked.

  “You’ll find out the instant you break the cocoons! NOW RELEASE THEM, DUANA!” Angwen vigorously shouted as Trailian let out sadistic yells, amplifying the magnitude of his power. Angwen kept pulling energy out of nothingness as if it were air he could manipulate, moving just as swiftly as Trailian; their movements being artfully liquid but their arms and hand gestures remaining solid, following the dynamism running through them. Duana turned to face the cocoons and shot her hands out saying: “servants, render them free!” Rough, half-visible outlines of vibrating energy were sent darting to the three luminous cocoons from Duana’s hands and they fell to the ground nastily, smashing into a thousand shell pieces and still glowing rather brightly. But what astounded Duana was what crawled out of each: a girl and two boys; all of them in their teens – though one of the boys looked a tad older. The girl had a mocha sort of complexion and the boys, chocolate. They all looked at each other and their own hands disbelievingly, as if they didn’t know what they were.

  “We’re – we’re young….what happened to us?” The girl stammered. Trailian fumed with rage and shot a side-streak of fire which tore across the room to Duana, slashing her on the left part of her stomach and breaking a few bones of her left ribcage. She fell to the ground in agony, clutching the wound as black blood seeped out. As Trailian continued to attack him relentlessly, he needed to react fast and save these children. Angwen slowly held out his hand, opened-palm, to his chest’s height and uttered: “until the time is right, relax their age. Let their spirits remain frozen at this stage.”

  He flung his hand towards the three teens and within seconds got full blast of an invisible force that sent them a step back with a shove. Trailian stood up again, ready to continue as the cuts and bruises on his mutilated body healed rapidly.

  He stepped back down to a level surface and resumed attempting to kill Duana and Angwen. But Angwen was reluctant to let this happen. The oldest boy, with stunning electric blue eyes, darted to Duana to help her but stopped him in his tracks: “GO! DON’T STAY! RUN!” she ordered in a dominant, forceful voice which they couldn’t help but obey. Quickly and without discussing the woman’s instructions, they took the narrow opening in the left corner of the dungeon and vanished. Duana was in pain, clutching the side of her stomach to avoid excessive blood loss. Still, the breaking of her bones was making her breathless and she felt weakened. Finally, with one last strong blow, Angwen had knocked Trailian out then dashed to Duana and carried her through the same exit the teens had taken. The woman was groaning and grunting in pain but she wasn’t dying.

  “Angwen, that man, he’s not the Bond; his children are –”

  “I know. He and I deliberately led the monarchy to believe it was him to buy us more time. I need to go and protect them –”

  “Angwen,” she spoke as she groaned in more pain. “The children, are they alright?” she spoke between breaths. Angwen, still carrying her, slid out of the corridors and was then out in the grounds where the war raged more dreadful than ever. He had to manoeuvre his way around attacks and shout to Duana to be heard through the vengeful roars of the soldiers and warriors.

  “They’re fine –” Angwen yelled, being interrupted as he evaded a large set of raining fire from the soldiers in the battle field “– I separated them, slowed down their ageing so they wouldn’t continue to grow until the time is right and I had their memories erased. They won’t remember you,” he continued, looking at Duana solemnly, “except Élouisa. I let her keep her memory so that one day, she will gather them all back again.” Angwen lifted one arm and a small cave of earth immediately rose up, behind which he hid as a sudden tsunami of malicious water had been conjured by one of the soldiers. The raging liquid spun in the air and destroyed things in its path like a maelstrom. The i
nstant it retracted, Angwen sprang out and dashed across the battlefield. The forest was charred and still burning energetically whilst the Adalbheort and Balamir troops fought with ardour. Balls of flames were being hurled everywhere, monsters fought alongside the Balamirs whilst men from the Adalbheort monarchy turned into large, majestic creatures – many of which had never been seen before. Green embers were being emitted in the entire perimeter and from them came out men, teleporting here and there to attack their opponents. The castle was under unimaginable siege and in ruins, but the war wasn’t going to end as far as there were Balamir troops still standing and their monarchs still alive.

  “Angwen!” Duana yelled, worried in the arms of her saviour, “why can’t we just teleport away?” she finished, as they evaded another deadly strike by a plant who’s vines swept the floor, taking out a dozen soldiers but still leaving a million more alive.

  “I’m giving you to someone and you will have to go with them –” Angwen dived from a corroding ray of blazing fire “– it’s too risky for you to come with me! I’m going into hiding after I’ve saved Jerricho’s children!” he finished.

  “What? Angwen, please no –” but Angwen had dropped Duana on the battle ground through her desperate plea of remaining accompanied, as he was sent hurtling away by a forceful impact into the air before landing further away on a large rock. He could see Duana below and distant, weakened and clutching her ribcage as the war progressed around her.

  A man, one of the Adalbheort soldiers, instantly appeared at the bottom of the rock on which Angwen had landed

  “Tantrus, any news?” another soldier asked him.

  “Is Jerricho still out there? He needs to leave!” the man named Tantrus snarled.

  “He’s been captured, Tantrus. He’s probably dead,” the other soldier replied. Tantrus’face withered into sadness and anger as he instantly looked directly into his comrade’s eyes.

  “The king says to fire the void. Now,” Tantrus spoke. The soldier nodded. Angwen had heard what was said and was now on the verge of madness, desperate to leave the battleground. He looked up at the castle and saw Trailian on one of the deteriorated balconies, about to shoot out an infernal ray of unavoidable fire towards Duana.

  Subsequently, a flare of red fire was shot into the sky Tantrus’ comrade. All the other Adalbheorts had seen the flare – it meant something to them.

  “FIRE!” the soldiers stationed around the crumbling castle yelled.

  “FIRE!” the word was repeated resonantly from all around the perimeter. Suddenly, from all directions around the disintegrating monument, bright balls of white light were speedily shot into the sky, dwindling into tiny stars in the distant universe. All soldiers, all monsters, everyone involved in the war fell silent – the vicinity was a graveyard and the wind gently howled as they all stared at the sky.

  And then, as if it were a tiny emerging spot, a darkness began to grow. It spread throughout the sky and descended to the earth.

  “RETREAT!” a soldier yelled. The murderous war instantly resumed, but now it was about the Adalbheorts trying to escape and the Balamirs keeping them there.

  “They activated a void,” Trailian said to himself, horrified. He looked back at Duana, stuck on the ground and completely helpless in the war around her. The darkness was falling from the sky and its gravitational pull was increasing, vacuuming everything into its pit. It pulled soldiers into its depths with their screams lingering after them. The entire alien forest was uprooted and sent hurtling upwards into the falling darkness. Men were flying upwards to their deaths helplessly.

  The evil Trailian, still preying on the wounded woman, took a deep breath and the streak of fire left his hand, aimed directly at the weak Duana who had no idea it was on its way to end her life.

  Angwen was standing firmly on the rock with the wind rustling around him as the void attempted to take him in. His eyes were locked on the beam aimed at Duana.

  “NO! ELISEDD!” he yelled viciously through the screams of men. Suddenly, Duana gasped as she felt a cold hand enclose around her mouth. Angwen had no choice – he didn’t want her dead. He grunted and struggled, his hands gently letting go of the surface of the rock as the void attempted to swallow him. As he let go, he shot out his hand to the ground and it suddenly ripped open with a monstrous explosion. The eternal pit in the ground was reversing the effect of the falling darkness but took everyone down with it. The ground around Duana crumbled, taking her miles below as the Balamir castle collapsed feebly in the chasm. Angwen was pulled back down along with all the other soldiers. Everyone fell into the eternal mile-wide crater. But in Angwen’s last effort, he conjured the darkness to go down with them.

  CHAPTER 1.

  The Unavoidable Genesis

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  I sniggered, adjusted the goggles and pushed them up my nose.

  “I really don’t know how you do it,” Jaden continued.

  My name is Aden Blue.

  Aden Jordan Murdoch Blue to be extremely precise. I usually went by A.J., Jordan or my actual name – but not Murdoch. I loathed that excuse of a name.

  I rolled my eyes and exhaled, slamming the medical needle on the table.

  “No, seriously…how do you do it?”

  “Do what, exist?” I resumed sewing up the cut I had created in the frog in front of me.

  Jaden scoffed and pulled his latex glove-covered hands from his white lab coat pockets.

  “No. I mean, be one of the smartest in school and one of the most stupid,” Jaden concluded. I chuckled lightly and dramatically wiped a tear from underneath my eye.

  “You know, I’m actually surprised you’re dissecting the frog as asked.” My chuckle faded and I stared at Jaden with my lips clenched together and blinked once at him.

  “You’re going to pull a prank, aren’t you?” I sniggered and got back to dissecting the frog. Jaden sighed out of distress and rolled his head in circular motions around his neck.

  “Aw come on, Aden! You’ve gotten sent to the headmaster’s office more than once – and we’re only in the first term –”

  “What are you talking about? We’re in October; that’s quite a long time away from September,” I interrupted.

  “Exactly, the school year has just restarted. Mum’s going to flip a lid if you get sent back!” Jaden whispered in hisses. I kept looking up suspiciously as Mr Leery patrolled around the lab tables.

  I stuck my tongue out of the corner of my mouth as I quickly swapped the dissected frog for a prosthetic one underneath the table.

  “Aw no, Aden; what are you doing?” Jaden asked stressfully. I slammed my hand lightly on the table and rolled my eyes at him.

  “See, this is what you get when identical twins pair up as lab partners.”

  “Uh, Aden…we’re fraternal twins. One’s witty, the other is dreary; one’s cocky, the other’s amusing,” Jaden sang to himself. He quickly took the prosthetic frog and plunged it underneath the table. We quietly wrestled as I tried to keep the fake one on the desk whilst Jaden attempted to keep it concealed.

  Mr Leery made his next stop at our table. He was tall, with long curly black hair, a thick black moustache, looked as if he were in his mid-thirties and wore a deep blue suit with a lab coat over it. His voice was dreadfully broken, sounding quite close to a bear.

  “Aden, Jaden…how are we coming along?” he asked, intimidating. I exhaled after Jaden had managed to win and I enlarged my eyes, causing Mr Leery to take a step back – I had this bizarre effect on people. Most think there’s something wrong with the size of my eyes. They sort of come off a bit larger than usual (specifically like coins), but they aren’t disproportionate to my face or anything of the sort. I just seemed to be able to make people think I was looking through them.

  “We’re done. We followed all instructions and finished stitching the frog back together. It should take some time for it to become conscious again though,” Jaden said. He gulped nervously as he pr
odded the frog’s body. With one quick hit I gave him on his hands, he stopped.

  “Quit doing that!” I snarled.

  I looked at Mr Leery from eye to eye with mine half shut – without a single care in the world. I felt my hand touching the frog’s body. Our teacher blinked once after examining the specimen on our table.

  “Nice work, Mr Blue…you too, Mr Blue.” He turned and headed for the next table. I quickly called him out.

  “Mr Leery, is it possible you could call us by our first names. Since we’re both…you know – Mr Blue,” I said whilst glancing around. I quickly scratched my neck frantically and put my hand back down.

  Mr Leery chuckled. “You’re funny,” he said, walking away casually.

  “I was…being serious,” I said timidly undertone after he had already left. Jaden snickered.

  “No one takes you seriously. It’s no surprise, really.”

  Jaden let out a sigh of relief and looked at me.

  “I can’t believe we’re twins,” he said. I rolled my eyes. Suddenly, I heard a loud pop and my goggles were covered in what looked like pink wads of gum.

  The whole class looked back and erupted in laughter; even Jaden and Mr Leery. I wiped the substance off of my goggle screen. I quickly took them off and slammed them on the table.

  Steam was curling up into the air, emitting from the table. I looked down, still surrounded by laughter, only to see the frog, burst with steam ascending from its guts.

  “Now how is that fair? You get to pull a prank?” I asked out of annoyance. Jaden was busy laughing maniacally.

  “What are you talking about? That wasn’t me,” Jaden answered through his chortled belly laugh.

  I sighed. “My hands feel hot,” I complained. Suddenly, the bell rang and the lesson was over.

  “Okay! Don’t forget your essays on marsupials due for tomorrow,” Mr Leery said as the whole class rushed out into the corridors, hanging their lab coats on the hangers allocated to that purpose on their way out.