The Dark Awakening

Prolouge

The museum was quiet, not an eerie quiet just calm. The guard had long left to go home to his family. Not everyone knew that the guard left at exactly eleven o'clock but the thief on the roof did. He had wirelessly shut down the security cameras so he would be in and out without anyone ever knowing. The dark of night blanketed him leaving him unseen. The man was removing one of the many sun roofs that dotted the museum roof. The last deadbolt gave way with a clang. The man's smile lighted the darkness for a second before he disappeared into the gaping maw of the museum, with nothing more that the whirr of his equipment. He knew what he was there for and he wouldn't leave without it. He landed on the floor without a sound and unhooked himself from his gear. The silver-gold orb was on a pedestal in the center of the wide room. It seemed to be illuminated from the inside with its own light. He quickly cut a hole in the glass, suddenly glad he had thought ahead. He almost had it, it was so close he could feel its smooth surface under his gloved fingers. When suddenly, there was a loud thump. The man jumped away the orb in his hands.

"Hello?" He called out. "Is anyone there?" There was a low hiss, like something sliding against tile. A sense of foreboding came over the man.

"Jonathan Hayes" Several voices said in unison, and again the slide of something being dragged across tile. "You have been judged and found guilty." The man took another few steps closer to his gear that would carry him back to the roof.

"I must have forgotten to shut down a security system." He mumbled to himself, still clutching the orb. It was then that he saw them. No larger than a German Shepard but a thousand times more deadly. Their faces where contorted into grimaces, their skin set like stone.

"Do not try to escape Jonathan Hayes it would be futile to try." The man began to panic, "What are you!" He screamed, running the rest of the way to his gear. The beasts closed the distance between them and the man in an instant one of them shot up into the air and drove its arm through the man's chest. He fell to the ground with a sickening crunch as blood bubbled from his mouth. The orb rolling from his still twitching fingers. Soon the gurgling stopped and everything returned to the quiet calm. The gargoyles silently crept back to their posts and returned to stone.