The Shadows and The Star

Chapter 19

Stella walked down to the Dining Hall for breakfast the next day blissfully happy. She walked down with a smile on her face for the first time that week saying 'hello' to everyone who passed. After spending an hour on the North Tower contemplating life, Stella figured out everything that she considered, 'wrong with her life'.

Her blissfulness was short-lived when she walked through the doors of the Dining hall. Nearly every table but one was unoccupied and all the students were gathered around one particular table in the center of the room.

"James!" Stella called over another student who was walking towards the crowd of people. "What's going on?"

"Another Stone attack!" the boy called back.

"Another...," Stella repeated, "what?" Stella walked over to a table in the corner of the Hall and shoved her way through the crowd finding herself beside Peter.

"What's going on?" Stella asked, "Someone mentioned something about a Stone attack."

Peter however didn't get a chance to answer as Headmaster Flackons called, "Everyone back to your tables."

Everyone dispersed and Stella reached over the table to grab the newspaper before walking back to her seat. "What's going on?" Stella repeated when she sat down with the group. 

"Stone attack," Alexa shook as she ate her cereal.

"Yes we've covered that bit of information," Stella served herself eggs. She waited a moment, "Elaborate?"

"Ok so," Alexa set her spoon down, "Since the beginning of life, light and dark have coexisted in a balance, good and evil-"

"Yeah balance, blah, blah, speed up the story," Nigel said while piling far too many pancakes onto his plate.

"I'm getting there," Alexa said, "Anyway, about two hundred years ago, that balance was broken. Something caused that rift, and light and dark have been playing a game of tug of war ever since. When that started happening, it unleashed these shadow things that turned people all over the kingdom of Andromenia to stone. No pattern, no strategy, just normal people being turned to stone. And the more people were turned to stone, the more often these attacks happened." Alexa ate a spoonful of cereal before continuing. "50 years after that, there was a war and the battle of Tenebry was fought where the leader of this dark magic thing fought the current King of Andromedia."

'My ancestor,' Stella thought.

"Luckily we won," Alexa continued, "And the darkness was banished to the underworld, which is basically just like our world bu-"

"Just imagine the 'Upsidedown' from Stranger Things." Peter interrupted.

Alexa glared daggers at Peter, "May I continue?"

Peter raised his hands in defeat, "Be my guest,"

"Thank you," Alexa rolled her eyes, "Peter's not totally wrong about the Stranger Things analogy. But these shadow monsters, they're not physical-"

"Physical?" Ember asked.

"Intangible. It means that they can pass through objects. And because of this, sometimes the strongest monsters can pass through the barrier between our worlds."

"Why?" Nigel was stress-eating pancakes.

"Because-"

"They're hungry," Stella finished for Alexa.

"What can we do about it?" Nigel finally set aside his pancakes.

"We?" Stella turned to look at him. "I'll tell you what we're not doing is getting involved in this. It's way too dangerous."