Chapter One

~Leonard~

In a nameless town, witch hunters kept the 'evils' at bay. So that's what everyone thought: lived a child. Many people said he was no good, wicked, only because he had no father as they did. The boy never lost faith, knowing he would never see his father. He had his mother, Dahlia Gillespie, a kind gentlewoman. But even the kindest of hearts had dark secrets: Christabella was her sister. The leader of 'The Order,' a treacherous group of witch hunters that had burned many, for they thought they were erasing the town of evil.

Every day, his classmates and children harassed the boy in the hall. Either verbally calling him 'bad seed' or chasing him around the large school, forcing him to take shelter away from the maddening chaos on the other end of the locked wooded door.

Their resounding pounds and chants echoed through the air as his classmates dispersed to different parts of the school, leaving him to seek refuge in his temporary shelter until the class bell tolled. Tears welling up in diminutive, dense, lashed eyes. He would run to the stalls crying.

The rhythmic tap-tapping of heels would resonate in the young boys' ears until the dim stall flooded with a radiant glow. Observing the disarray of curls, he knew it was his mother and quickly moved towards her welcoming arm. He never disclosed how his day led him into the boys' bathroom.

"Your son, even the children. Know it. Why won't you reveal the father," moving the curls from her sister's face, "You're weak, my dear sister, you always were. We are brought forth to cleanse this filth."

"What does she mean, mommy?" The child looked at his mother, who looked deep in thought at her questioning son, then at her brown-haired sister.

"Trust us, Dahlia, bestow faith upon our virtue," Christabella proclaimed prior to departing her sister and nephew in the restroom designated for males.

-Many days later-

Christabella guided Dahlia and her son to the renowned Grand Hotel, specifically to room 111. "You can leave Dahlia; we fight the sin, not the sinner."

"Mommy!" the pleas rang through the redheaded woman's ears as she realized the mistake she had made as she ran from the hotel.

"Praise the innocence for their sacrifice." Christabella ranted to the congregation as the burning rocks below the metallic ring that the child was lying on slowly took off his skin and blackened it. The room was filled with the echoes of his cries. Until a deafening crack fractured the colossal charcoal black bowl, resulting in the spillage of its contents. The hotel and the town found themselves engulfed in flames.