Chapter 1 - Prologue

January 7th 2031 - 04:27

BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

"Dammit! What's making my phone go off so early."

After scrambling around his bed with his eyes closed Luke eventually managed to pick up his phone and bring it close to him. Wearily he opened his eyes and looked at his phone wanting to know what had woken him up at such a time.

As Luke gazed down at the screen he saw his reflection look back at him. Luke had a handsome face with dark red eyes. His hair was short and straight, coloured black with natural purple streaks at the front, however, no one believed they were natural and Luke wasn't able to say where he got them from, so everyone assumed he dyed his hair. He stood quite tall at 6'1 and had strong muscles from exercising daily since a young age. He was still fairly slim though since he had trained to be nimble and explosive in combat as well as strong.

He was a twenty-year-old student of the Oxford University's history department and was currently on a field trip to Paris with his class and Professor Wilson.

His phone beeped again and he finally decided to unlock it.

"Urgence! Urgence!

Ceci n'est pas un exercise!

Veuillez rester à l'intérieur et écouter les nouvelles pour attendre d'autres instructions du gouvernement."

"Dammit it's in French I can't read this!" Luke shouted to no one but himself "Maybe I should've listened to dad when he said I needed to learn more languages. Isn't that the French for emergency?... I suppose I'll check the news."

However, before he had the chance a rushed and tense knock came from the door to his hotel room.

From behind the door came the sound of what seemed like a crazy door to door salesman. "Luke, Luke, Luke! Have you seen the news yet? It's crazy, I can't believe it! I actually can't believe it! ... Maybe they made a mistake?" the voice of the hyperactive puppy had a rare moment of silence before Luke could hear it again. "Yes... they must've made a mistake."

Then Luke didn't hear anything more from behind the door.

'Did Ron actually just stop talking? What kind of crazy event has the power to make Ron stop talking? Where more nukes launched!? But after the 2030 agreement last year, nukes were banned from being fired. If any country used nuclear weapons the rest of the countries of the world would all work together to retaliate. It would surely not be a good outcome for the country that fired first. So then what could it be?'

Picking up the TV remote he went to switch the TV on, however, his attempts at watching the news were futile as he was once again interrupted by a voice from behind the door.

"Ron!" a girls voice shouted from behind the door "Mr Wilson said that everyone needs to meet up in his room so he can make sure we're all here. Is there anyone in that room," said the girl pointing at Luke's door.

"Luke's in there, Elena" Ron muttered.

"Luke!" The girl, Elena, started to shout however before she could continue Luke opened the door and stepped out, now wearing tight black jeans a red t-shirt and an unzipped, plain black hoodie over the top.

What greeted Luke outside his room, was the sight of Elena standing with straight silver hair that went down to her shoulders and a serious look on her face. She was tall for a girl standing at 5'6, and had a slim athletic build with visible signs of exercise.

To the left, he saw Ron leaning against the wall violently chewing his fingernails. Ron had blonde hair and was 5'8" with a slightly pudgy body. Slowly he looked up at Luke and said "Have you seen the news yet, Luke?"

"No, I didn't get the chance" Luke replied whilst glancing at Ron's nails which were starting to bleed from excessive biting.

"You can watch the news in Mr Wilson's room," Elena said in her usual calm and confident voice, interrupting the awkward conservation.

With that Elena grabbed Ron's wrist and started leading him to Mr Wilson's room with Luke following behind.

"How are you so calm Elena?" Ron asked midway through the walk.

In response, Elena giggled a little before saying to Ron "Don't feel bad I've had training to stay calm in difficult situations"

'Oh yeah, just make your special background any more obvious' Luke thought to himself sarcastically. 'I wonder who she is though. I regret not fully checking all of my classmate's backgrounds now. I just checked the obvious things and noted down whether there is a possible connection to the shadow world. I remember Elena being noted down as a possible wind Elementalist.'

"Do you mean from being student council president and all the other stuff you do?" Ron asked clearly confused.

'It seems Ron's not thinking clear enough to notice anything. Although he's not wrong about Elena always taking a leadership role. Hmm. Perhaps she's heir to some powerful family or faction and she's being groomed to be a leader in the future. I think her full name's Eleanor Smith. However the second name is definitely fake, I wonder if she's a Silver, the noble wind Elementalist family.'

"We're here," said Elena cutting off Lukes thoughts.

Elena calmly knocked on the door three times before steadily pushing it open. The room was brightly lit and spacious. There was king size bed with a metal frame and a bright lamp to the side. On the adjacent wall, there was a window with silver, embroidered curtains. In front of it, a boy was pacing constantly, muttering under his breath. In the centre of the room, there was a table with pieces of paper neatly stacked on top. A couple of students were sitting at the table with worried looks. At the other side of the room, the TV was switched on and playing the news. The majority of students, as well as Mr Wilson, were crowded around it with consistently glum looks.

When the trio entered Mr Wilson's room, Ron and Luke were completely ignored, Ron because he hid himself behind Elena and Luke because he didn't have any friends. Luke may have been good looking however he was unsociable and generally kept to himself. During his high-school years, there were rumours about his parents spread by a gang of bullies.

This was due to their dubious deaths and disappearances.

One night his father was found dead in his house, his throat slashed and a bloody kitchen knife next to him. On the same night, his mother went missing never to be seen again. Luke was only seven years old at the time and had no memory of what happened that night. Since Luke was the only person in the house and there were no signs of a break in the bullies started spreading rumours that he killed his own parents.

There were times when the bullies would gang up on him in deserted alleys and beat the crap out of him.

Of course, he could've easily beaten all of those bullies in a fight however he knew, thanks to his Foster mothers teachings, that the powers his mother and father taught to him are evil and must never be used.

So Luke let the bullies beat him up.

'Like an idiot.'

'Shut up those powers are ungodly I can't use them.'

'Says who? I don't remember God coming down here and saying that our strength is evil.'

'Our foster mother, Ms Anwir, said so.'

'That stupid woman doesn't know anything.'

'Don't talk about Ms Anwir like that.'

'You're even more stupid than her.'

'...'

'...'

...

Back in Mr Wilson's room, a crowd was formed around Elena.

"Elena thank god you're here."

"Do you know what is happening?"

"How can we get back to England?"

"I want to go home!"

"Calm down, calm down" Elena urged the crowd. "Let me see the news first and then Mr Wilson can take the register to make sure everyone's here. We can talk about our next move after."

Elena then turned around and walked towards the TV where a few people who hadn't run towards her were still sitting. Luke, who was following behind hoping to finally see the news, noticed that all the people he had marked as having possible connections to the shadow world were still sitting there.

Luke turned to listen to watch the news on the TV where a news reporter was pointing at a map highlighting different places.

"As you can see these things that people are now calling 'zombies' have already spread over almost all of Asia as well as Russia and have now made it through Germany and have started to enter France..."

"France!"

"That's where we are!"

"No shit, sherlock"

"What if they come here?"

"I don't want to die!"

"We're all going to die!"

"Everyone shut up!"

The last shout came from a boy called Kyle. He was American, 6'4" with blonde hair and blue eyes, muscly and popular with boys and girls. He looked like he should have been playing American football instead of studying history at a university. Luke had noted him down as a werewolf.

There three reasons why he thought Kyle was a werewolf; number one, he smelt like a dog all the time, although most humans couldn't pick the smell up; number two, he always wanted to be the top guy in his group of boys, you could say he wanted to be the alpha, and number three, like most werewolves he was easily pissed off.

"If everyone doesn't shut up I'll throw you all out the window!"

The crowd quickly quietened down after being shouted at by Kyle and turned back to the TV just in time to see the words breaking news onscreen.

"As you can see the same strange symbols from Doomsday have appeared in the oceans surrounding America once again! Some people are now theorising that it's a magic defence system designed to protect America."

'Well, those people are actually pretty accurate considering it's a defensive formation designed to protect America, so essentially it is a magic defence system. Hmm. Some of the runes look different from Doomsday, the Mage King must have not been happy that the Monster Hunters broke his formation last time. They caused some nukes to get through and destroy the west coast of America. It looks like he's changed the formation a lot, the hunters would have a hard time breaking through again.'

"Change the channel to BBC news," commanded Elena in a slight rush.

"Manners don't cost anything Elena." calmly replied the boy holding the remote. "You're not my lord."

A cold wind passed through the room, scattering a few pieces of paper. "Just change the damn channel, Chris." Elena sternly replied whilst staring Chris down.

Chris turned his head and stared back at Elena with his amber eyes. Chris was 6 foot tall and had short, brown neatly cut hair. He was obsessively dressed in a spotless black shirt and black trousers with a black overcoat on top. Around his neck, he wore a silver Cross.

"Control yourself, Elena, I'll switch it now," Chris replied in a levelled tone.

Noticing that the previously neat and orderly papers were now scattered across the floor Elena took a deep breath before turning back to the TV where another reporter was speaking.

"We have images of these 'zombies' that we will show now however, I will warn you that these images are very disturbing."

The screen then showed a low-quality image of a man. Well, not exactly a man. He still had the same body shape however, his skin was ghastly pale as if he had been sucked dry of blood, his eyes were bloodshot with murky pupils and his skin was covered in a sticky, translucent liquid that mixed with the bloodstains on his body before dripping to the ground. It was a creature that looked as if it had crawled straight out of hell.

'That's not a zombie. Those are the symptoms of a human who recently absorbed pure aether. It's no wonder that people would call them zombies, any human who absorbs pure aether into their soul will turn into a monster that will kill anything it sees and consumes its flesh to absorb the latent aether within the body."

Looking around it seemed he wasn't the only one to recognise these 'zombies' for what they truly are.

Elena even let out a soft sigh as a look of sadness flashed over her face before returning to a calm expression.

Soon the reporter continued speaking. "If we head back to the UK for a second an intense storm has appeared out of nowhere along the channel with record-breaking 180 mph winds and massive lightning storms. Luckily it seems to be narrowly avoiding land for now."

Heating that Elena breathed a soft sigh of relief.

'That must be the Silvers using their power over weather to keep whatever is causing people to absorb pure aether away from the UK, I wonder if it will work. Well, Elena seems to think that they have a plan judging by her sigh of relief.'

"Breaking news! We have just received reports that the zombies have entered Paris!"

Hearing that the students burst into a panic, like rodents hearing the cry of a hawk, and all started shouting at once again.

"What?"

"How did they get here so fast?"

"What if they find us?"

"We're all going to die!"

"God, please save me ... God, please save me"

"Everyone stop!"

Surprisingly the one to speak this time was not Kyle or Elena, but Ron with his pale face and red nails.

"Look guys I know this may seem bad, but I want you to calm down and listen to me for a second and then you may realise that we're not doomed, after all, we're all here together and if we stick together I'm sure we'll be fine," Ron spoke next to the window with the lamp shining brightly behind him, he seemed like a star in the deep, dark sky. With his speaking skills honed from constantly talking he was able to stir hope into the heart of the students who were previously so distraught.

"We're in the centre of Paris and this isn't a movie. The military will surely put up defences to keep these zombies out while evacuating people to a safe area. Where on the third floor of the hotel, if we stay here and wait for help there's no way the zombies can reach u --" bang! The window next to Ron shattered and a white, sticky ball of flesh passed through the shattered glass. "AAAAH!" Ron let out a horrific scream as the ball of flesh landed on top of Ron, sending him crashing into the lamp behind him before revealing its all too human face and sinking its teeth into Ron's shoulder.