Prologue

Prologue

If I told you about the world in which I live in, would you believe me? It just so happens to be the same world you live in, it’s just… that I get to see it as it truly is. To you it might seem like a dream and cling to the hope that it will only be a matter of time for everything to be over. Hmm, on second thought, maybe not so much a dream, perhaps you would describe it as a nightmare. After all, dreams are supposed to be about pretty things, like white ponies running on rainbows…or so I hear. But this is one nightmare you can’t escape… and you never will, because it’s all real and the thing is… reality sucks.

Before I talk to you about who I am, there are a few things you need to know about first. I’ll tell you the story of how everything started and how we got to where we are, to this kind of world. While you live in light I get to live among shadows, and for so we are not meant to be known. At the end, it is your choice if you want to know the truth or not …in my opinion, that’s if you care, ignorance can be bliss. So don’t be hasty making up your mind; first, you should be aware that once you have seen the other side, there’s no turning back…your choice, at least you get one, we never did.

At some point in history, we were all regular humans. If you noticed the past tense in the sentence you do well in assuming we no longer are. Some of us still have some humanity left while others… all they have is a distant memory of what they used to be.

It’s a well-known fact that when two opposing forces collide, a new unknown force emerges. This is a natural phenomenon that occurs constantly in our universe and as far as we know, this is how the four Ancestral Beings came to be. For centuries, our Elders have passed on the story of these Beings to countless generations of our people. It is said that after their birth, they wandered indefinitely through the universe that created them in search of other organisms that resembled themselves, but nothing was meant to be found.

The attempt to fully describe these Ancestral Beings would be useless; the stories only provide us with vague images. Perhaps, the closest word that could characterize them would be ethereal, meaning that which has no physical body or shape. They were made up from light, and as such their existence couldn’t be quantified by normal standards. As sons and daughters of our infinite cosmos, our Ancestral Beings inherited a vast amount of knowledge and power related to the laws of our universe. Some say that their knowledge knew no bounds, that they safeguarded all the mysteries and enigmas of the very universe that created them. Their cosmic knowledge was only challenged by their unbridled powers. They had the ability to create life and end it at their will; whatever satisfied their momentary whim. They only had one rule among them…the living things they created, had to be soulless; they wouldn’t challenge the universe that created them. They named themselves: Riot, Narissa, Neron and Xyon and deemed themselves Gods.

For years, they tried to create physical bodies for themselves, but to no avail. It was discovered that since the nature of their essence went beyond the laws of time and matter, no corporeal body could contain them indefinitely. These manufactured bodies were unable to process effectively their energy, and thus would wither away in minutes. It would be like trying to hold sand in your hands, no matter what, it always slips away. It took centuries to master, but they finally succeeded in creating temporary vessels to house their spirits. They thought of themselves as immortals beings that wandered in search for more knowledge, new questions and universal phenomena’s that just like them wandered indefinitely. But even as immortals, they could be corrupted and fooled, that last part was about to be proven spot-on. Not even with all the knowledge that the Ancestral Beings possessed could they have seen it coming. Something was growing inside Xyon, their brother was a new kind of God and was turning his back on them. The “mighty” Ancestral Beings were deceived by one of them…such is life, don’t you think? Xyon broke their main and only rule…he created his unspeakable aberration, his children… the humans. He was so proud of his small art pieces; they were fragile, imperfect, but ultimately, they were beautiful. He didn’t stop himself after the humans’ creation, he made a world and creatures that kneel down in the presence of his children, making them believe they were gods and masters among animals, but at the eyes of the Others what made of this invention something that should be destroyed, were the envy their bodies caused them, the feud wasn’t even for their souls. Xyon gave his children souls a mind, a will power and a body that allowed them to interact with the world that he created them. Bodies that not even them as “Gods” could have. The horror!

When the other Ancestral Beings finally realized what Xyon had done, it was already too late; his feat was deemed complete. The Gods decided to summon a conclave in which the fate of the children of Xyon would be decided. Two thousand years passed before a unanimous decision was reached. All the while the humans kept on living without ever being aware of the existence of the Gods or the fact that their fortunes were being decided at the time. The verdict was clear… the only action that could restore what once was a peaceful existence among the Gods would be the total annihilation of the offending creatures. By the hand of the one who had created them.

It would be mild to say that Xyon was infuriated. As the story told, the renegade God turned on his bothers and sister once more. Blinded by an all-consuming rage, the God attacked the three remaining Ancestral Beings in order to defend his children. His actions were futile since the very beginning. Riot, Narissa and Neron took a new outcome; one that seized them less time that the previous one. His brother Xyon was regarded as irrevocably tainted… there was no saving him.

As a result, they convened the immediate extinction of Xyon. And then, when there was nothing left he could do to stop them…the Ancestral Beings would destroy the human race along with everything else Xyon had created.

Xyon’s essence started to extinguish in agony; it was like observing an ancient tree falling down in the woods and hear it cry a silent roar. Only a blinding line of pure light was left after Him. It seemed to travel the whole space before it was finally gone. The universe, even the Gods, went silent at its wake; awestruck by its beauty and horrified by the sheer realization of what they had done. For a moment the earth stood still… waiting. An explosion of proportions the universe has never seen the like, shook the very foundations of the cradle of life. A glaring wave of energy tore apart the black veil of a moonless night. Northern lights were born; the eternal imprint that he, the cursed God, had once existed.

But apparently, the new lights weren’t the only things he left behind. When Xyon was executed, something happened with his energy. His power wasn’t destroyed as planned; it was released over some of his children, transforming them into something of their own. Those who changed and survived were no longer the children of Xyon, now they were a new kind of mortals, we became the hybrids. The rest remained as humans; they were to be eternally ignorant of their father’s sacrifice.

When Riot, Narissa and Neron realized what now they have released through their actions, they decided to hold the next annihilation just because they weren’t sure of the consequences that could be next. The transformation or The Change as some called it, didn’t affect us physically well, it didn’t to most of us. We are actually not far from a regular human appearance; it’s what we can do that sets us apart. And because we are different from the regular humans, the Ancestral Beings decided it was wise to separate this new kind of humans from the rest. That’s why they created a new space for us to live in, and they called it The Shadowlands.

The world was then divided in two. Dead Territory: the part of the world that wields no magic and The Shadowlands…the space for the unknown ones. Soon after this, kingdoms on the dark side were formed and alliances to certain Gods sworn. After a time, awakenings, people coming belatedly to their powers, started taking place on Dead Territory. And since that ought to be corrected, people like me were trained and sent to retrieve them. Whatever the cost.

I am what some call a tracker; every now and then I am summoned to hunt for a new awakened and reinforce the division between the lands. In simpler words: I keep people like me far away from people like you.

           You’re welcome.

I guess some things are in order now …like making a proper introduction and all that. Well, what can I say besides the truth?

 I am shadow so I don’t have a face. I am utter darkness like the one that swells within your coldest depths. I am the ultimate judger.  I am your final fate. I am the one that brings your darkness to the known.

            But even shadows have names.

            My name is Aisha Blackwell; I am a tracker from the Order of Soha, the daughters of our goddess Narissa. My mother was Isolde Gray. And now you are part of my story.