2 Darkness embrace

"Ugh… What is that thing?"

"Do you see the same thing that I do, is there someone else here?"

"Umm? Anyone there? Why is it pitch black here, what is going on?"

"I'm, Scared…"

Fingers of heat restrained his body, as what felt like a hand that held him in a vice grip. A hand of abnormal vastness, that dwarfed his existence. Within it, there was no difference between him and a simple ball of yarn. With neither reason nor control, he began to weep without restraint, failing to understand even one of the words that echoed around him.

None of that was the language he has used. "Used? What is a language?" He asked himself with curiosity as he was thinking about what is going on.

"Why am I in this place, and what are those people? People? What are these words? I don't understand anything… What do I do? I feel, lonely, it's quiet… I feel like falling into a deep abyss, I want to sleep, but I don't know for how long… I'm tired..." The boy was overwhelmed by the unknown.

His mind was suddenly flooded with weird thoughts, his consciousness awoke much earlier than normal people. His thoughts, made him fall into a deep sleep…

He woke up.

He didn't know when or how long this sleep took. He sat on the bed and looked around, the first thing that caught his eye was a woman who sat beside him. She was still sleeping, he didn't want to wake her up. Shortly after, he saw that the room has been painted in beautiful shades of white, with one big window and a king-sized bed. It was well decorated inside with red curtains embroidered with golden threads, the bed was also in the same style. In the corner of the room stood a big wardrobe made of dark wood. When the boy stood up, the woman also woke up.

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"What's your name?" I asked with curiosity and confusion.

"Are you okay?! Hayden? Is everything okay?!" Why is she asking me that? Where am I? Who is she? Why is she hugging me?

"Emm… Who are you?"

"How could you forget someone who raised you!?" She screamed at me… I don't know why, who is she?I, Who am I?

"I, Don't know." I said really confused at this point.

"Oh god, I forgot that you. You… Lost your memories. I Saw you yesterday on the ground in a pool of blood... Early in the morning. I called a doctor and he said that you would partially lose your memories." She looked at me and a single tear flowed down her face. She took a handkerchief and wiped it out. She then hugged me, this feeling… It was very warm. I hugged her back and another tear appeared.

"I… Who am I? And who are you?"

"You even forgot those kinds of things… I'm Flora. One of the Handmaids and well… The only one that took care of you, and you are Hayden. One of the three brothers of the Moonshine family." When she was talking she also went to open the curtains in the room. All light flowed to the room in an instant and met my eyes. The shine was so bright I had to cover them with my hand. "Well… Since you slept for a whole day let's make some food!" She added enthusiastically what changed the atmosphere in the room a little bit.

"Emm… Sure." I answered still unsure and hesitating.

"I will make the bed and you can go to the kitchen."

"Where… Where is the kitchen?"

"Ugh… It's the third door on the left in the main corridor." She seemed a little irritated but as I was leaving the room she still smiled in my direction.

I was repeating the whole time what door it is. While walking there I realized that the corridor was really beautiful. The whole wall was covered in red laces and strokes while the rest of the corridor was white. It was a very nice example of those two colors as it filled me with a little melancholy. The doors were mostly red to match together with the laces and overall the whole corridor had paintings on the walls. People… Many people.

Staring at you as you walk through the hallway. I got to the doors and looked inside. The kitchen was very stoic. It was mostly made of wood not counting the stove. Pans were hung on nails in the walls, different kinds of pots ranging from very small to really big ones were in the back of the room. From the doors, you could also see a single window… The light from it was shining directly at the stove.

And then Flora entered the room. Her blonde hair shone with the power of the light that came from that window. She came to the stove and looked with her blue eyes at me. They were really beautiful like some kind of crystals.

"What do you want to eat, young lord?" She asked while cleaning a knife.

"Something… Good? I think?"

"Hmm… Then maybe chicken broth with noodles?"

"Uhh... Okay!" I smiled at her and she smirked, the knife she held in her hand was ready to chop the ingredients laying on the table beside the stove. She went to the back of the kitchen and took a middle sized pot. She then cut all of the ingredients and poured water inside. Her work looked really rapid but experienced at that. All movements were sure with no hesitation like a chef in his craft.

Something started appearing as she was doing that… An afterimage? Many… I think this scenery, I've seen it countless amounts of times… Her shining hair flowing through the kitchen like a wisp flying around. The shine of the knife… It all looked so familiar.

"Hayden! Are you alright? Why are you crying?" She came to me and looked directly into my eyes.

"I'm… I've seen you do this… You were here, I was here." I tried to cover my eyes from crying and soak all the tears onto my sleeves.

"Dummy… Of course, I was… And you as well. We even tried to cook together." She hugged me and that made me cry even more. Her warmth felt so… Real. "Shh… I'm here." She was repeating this. It's, who am I actually? What is going on? I know my name but not much more.

"Flora I…"

"I know I know." The water on the stove started bubbling and almost flowing out of the pot. "Oh god! The soup!" Before she stood up she quickly kissed me on the cheek. Used the other parts of my shirt to wipe my eyes and face from the tears. The pot was steaming from heat and the aroma slowly started spreading throughout the whole room. At the same time, she took two bowls and wiped them with a towel. Then she also took two mugs from under the table and also cleaned them real quick. And she stood like that another 20 minutes waiting for it all to be ready.

"Soup is done! Come here and check if you like it." Then I came to her and took a small spoon. The aroma entered my nose and drilled into it. It smelled amazing and as I took that one spoon the soup looked like golden nectar. The soup was getting into my mouth and as the broth entered it, I felt a thunder going through my whole body.

"It's… Amazing!" I almost shouted from excitement.

"Of course it is haha!" She smiled and laughed. At the same time, she was pouring the soup into our bowls. "Eat up as much as you want." As she said that we both started eating.

"Flora?" I asked with my mouth full.

"What is it?"

"What's with my real mother?" She stopped eating the soup. And with all strength, she closed her hands and bent the spoon.

"Some things… Are better to forget." She answered almost instantly but you could hear the anger in her voice. Then we went into silence for a minute. "I… Don't want you to remember them… All they've done was, nothing. Let's just not talk about this." She seemed really scared while saying that. Her hands were trembling. "Okay, Hayden… I need to do some cleaning in the house. Since we are the only ones living here I need to take care of it. Oh right! Tomorrow your power will be evaluated!" Power? What power?

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, yeah... Listen tomorrow your power will be tested. If you will get high grading you will maybe become the best in the academy! Become a powerful mage and fight the bad guys." She seemed more excited than me.

"I will be able to do that?"

"It depends. If you will be highly evaluated then maybe... We won't know until tomorrow so you need to be patient!" She stood up from her chair and took my bowl. "Want more?"

"No… I don't want more, thank you." She started cleaning the bowls and when she was done she covered the soup with a clear stone plate. "I need to clean the house. Since there are only the two of us here it will take me some time. You should go outside to get some fresh air."

"Can I help you?"

"It's a maid's job to clean the house. Now go and don't come back too late!"

"Thank you, Flora…" She smiled at me again. Her big smile was really warm, it made me feel really nice.

And so I left the house and tried to find something to do. Since Flora asked me to go around the town. I just did that while having different thoughts. When I was walking around the town it seemed really beautiful. Most of the buildings were made of white bricks and were decorated with flowers, especially red roses. Some colors are required to those white bricks to add some soul. Besides roses also other various kinds of other flowers were in gardens. The other buildings that weren't for families, were made of wood and those were either taverns or for other things such as crafts like tailoring or skinning and all of that.

I really liked the look of this town, it looked very compelling to the eye. And at times when the sun shone, like now for example it looked as if it was a world of snow. I wanted to go to the woods. They weren't that far away but also not too close.

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It took me some time to get to the woods but by the time I arrived the weather was really clear. Sun was shining bright and shadows were dispersed by its light. I saw a girl doing something. Her hands covered in a dark matter that swallowed all other colors around it. I took my time observing her from a tree and after a short moment she quickly looked in my direction. That made me lose my balance and I fell down. The woman then came and asked:

"Are you alright boy? what's your name?" Her voice was very nice, he thought.

"Ummm My name is… Hayden Moonshine!" Because of the shame created by the fall, I answered nervous and louder than normal.

"If you are the young master of the Moonshine family then can you tell me… Why were you observing me?" One of her eyebrows went up suggesting that she really finds it curious.

"Well… I saw you here alone in the woods, I thought what can someone so well dressed be doing alone here. So I observed you a little… I'm sorry!" I bowed hoping that she would forgive me that I observed her.

"Young lord don't bow to me. Nothing happened. Oh, wait. Your knee is wounded…" As she said that water like substance appeared in her hands. She got closer to me and put it on the wound. The feeling was more like jelly than actual water, but when she took her hands off the wound it disappeared and so did the pain.

"What is that! How did you do it!" How does that work? It's amazing!

"Ugh… Don't scream please my lord. How do you not know?" She also didn't believe that I asked about something like this. Just like Flora before

"Well… I don't laugh okay? Promise me."

"Okay, I promise." She seemed a little annoyed. I heard that in her voice.

"Well… Yesterday morning when I woke up something really weird took over my thoughts and I fell down exhausted. While falling I hit my head really hard and I lost some memories." Hayden explained to the woman who made a pose of interest.

"You fell? Hmm, that's a reason to forget things… Let me help you a little bit." She again came closer to me. I was at that time leaning against a tree behind me. She put her hands on both sides of my head and I felt as those two places got pretty hot. "Now if you see something really important it will restore some memories."

"How did you do that? How could you change something here?" I pointed at my head.

"Because hmm… I really wanted to." She snorted. And looked at me really proud of herself.

"That doesn't make sense…"

"As the whole power of this world." She nodded. "This is the power of the dark. It's the one you get as your life begins to flourish. It's something all men and women have inside and can use for different purposes. Mostly It's your imagination that makes that power the way you want it to.

For example, as you can see my hand is now covered in fire." Then a thing that resembles dark fire covered her entire hand. "As you can see, the only thing that holds us down is our imagination.'' While speaking, different things started appearing in her hands, stones, and other elements.

"You can create what you want as long as you can imagine it in your mind. That's why this world is not that unfair as it may seem in the future. The only thing that makes it unfair is that there are people with an imagination far greater than the others, but are not half as powerful. The one with true power is a man who is bestowed with both power and imagination."

"Then… Is there a way to increase the amount of that power inside one's body?" I asked curiously while looking into her eyes.

"Of course everyone can do it, but some it will take longer and some will take much shorter, it only depends what level you are at the evaluation. If your amplification is somewhere high it's pretty easy to increase the raw amount of power you can hurl at your foe. Also, I got a question for you" Her face changed from a small smile into a serious grin with no real emotion behind. "Why don't I feel any of that in you?"

"…" I gazed into the ground. I had nothing to say, only felt really bad with myself. "How is it that I don't have any power inside me? I'm the son of a big and powerful family in the city. What is with this world… I don't understand… Who am I then? I'm no better than just a peasant on the street." This thought was surrounding my mind. The thing Flora told me, may never come. Fighting bad guys...

"Oh, there it is! I feel something from you boy! There is some of that inside of you." She did that only to make me feel better. "Am I a joke? Is this world not for me?" This thought flooded my mind and didn't leave it for some time.

"Listen, kid. There is always a way to get somewhere with low power! Just don't give up on life too early because of some misfortunes. There will always be something that can change your fate. You can believe me." She pointer her thumb on her heart.

"I understand… But, I have to go! it's pretty late! Thank you for your lecture."

"No problem" While I was walking away I Looked behind. She smiled at me and I answered with the same.

As I left that place I started to notice how dark the woods got. From outside it looked pitch black... Clouds like made of ashes from a volcano. Very strange... Before it was a very beautiful sunny day.

I only noticed after leaving the woods how beautiful this girl really was. She had dark blue hair as if it were the deepest parts of the ocean and eyes green as grass in the morning. Her face looked completely clear with no 'impurities'. Also, she looked pretty young which was weird since she was calling me a kid it's weird...

I went back home and wanted to go to sleep… I was tired. And some of the words I've heard came back to me.

"I have no power? I won't know until tomorrow but the thing will probably bring me bad thoughts. I wonder how it will work out tomorrow." I was thinking to myself

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In the night the town looked really sorrowful. Dark grey color could give people depression. The flowers lost their natural color and it made the whole town even less expressive.

I sat down on the bench relaxed and gazed into the stars for a short time. Then I noticed how beautiful the stars are at night. Sitting there made me realize one more thing. That even in the darkest of places there will be light.

I felt really tired. Some of the things came back to me… Especially the excitement of Flora when she told me about power… While thinking about tomorrow I was slowly approaching my house. To those doors made of dark wood with a metal knock on them shaped into an eagle. I went inside and closed the doors behind me. I tried to look if Flora was in the kitchen but she was absent. I just went around the rooms to look after but she was nowhere to be found. So I just went to the room where I woke up before, worried about her hoping to find her.

As I opened the door to his room he saw Flora sleeping on the chair beside the bed. I took her in my hands and laid her on the bed. I took the chair... I will have to sleep on it somehow. Before going to sleep I looked at her sleeping for a short moment. Her face was so... Innocent and clear. Beautiful. It was a dreamless night. The only thing I saw was the night sky from yesterday, a very beautiful sky…