Tuesday 28th August 2091

Okay. Write it down. Good old fashioned pen to paper. Then maybe I can stop thinking about it and it won’t drive me crazy anymore. If I hadn’t lived through it myself, I’d say it had the makings of a novel. But I did live it. To me it was real. Is real. But I'm afraid I'll wake up one day it will all fade into a dream. No matter how terrifying and painful it was, I don’t want it to have been a dream. I don’t want to forget.

Look I’m no damsel in distress or a kick-ass heroine. I am an archaeologist, just like my Dad. I’m organised, love history, and I don’t mind hard work and getting dirty. Then there’s Mum, amazing with people. She’s so kind hearted and caring. Not afraid of tough love but you can’t help but love her back. I swear, you put anyone in a room with her for five minutes and they’ll come out as best friends. My parents are so loving and supportive, they have grown into some of my closest friends. I have lived my life in amazing places, with good friends, and I enjoy it. But despite all that, until recently, I was afraid. I was afraid of the things that came out of the half-light of dawn, through the misty fields and rolling hills of middle England…

***

Part 1:

From her bedroom window, the young girl watched intently, fearfully, not wanting to see but compelled to look. In the mist shrouded dawn, the shadows appeared. More than ever before. The familiar whispering drifted on a breeze with the morning mist, sending chills of terror down her spine. Hazy blood dripped from shadowy wounds only to disappear as it hit the ground. Fear froze the scream in her throat and the tears of a sadness not her own streamed down her face. In the chilled air, the frighteningly defined shadows loomed closer and closer until, with the rising sun they fade… but she knew they were not gone. They would return with the new dawn.

Part 2:

It was late now, or early. He shouldn't be here. He knew it. But he had to. What compelled him? She was beyond him yet he continued to torture himself going to see her. He just couldn't seem to get anything right. And nothing he ever did filled the void in him, not even her, his untouchable Angel. No home, no family, no love. No hope.

I don’t belong in the light. He thought, gazing up and the Angel in the window. Always it slips through my fingers leaving me lost in the dark.

Everyone who might have helped him left. Abandoned, alone. Only the shadows were constant. They haunted him relentlessly. Malevolent. Turning against him like everyone else except they didn’t leave. Yet he was still worth nothing, fit only to be lost in shadow. Every day the cold darkness within him seemed to consume him more leaving him numb. Nothing filled it. He could feel himself falling and, what was worse, he didn't want to fight it anymore. The light of the rising dawn chased away the shadows, but he felt no warmth. It's was too late, he was lost to the darkness within him, and he finally knew what he had to do…