When The Stars Disappear

Prologue

I wish I could live a normal life. But with everything that I have, I wouldn't change anything. Darkness consumes the world once every decade. You'd think twelve hours per decade wouldn't be the end of the world. But nature is wholly submerged in darkness, animals are turned even darker—bloodthirsty and deathly powerful, and the only light you can see is the sparks you create in battle against these monsters. And their eyes. The first time this happened while I was around, I was only thirteen. But even then, I had to learn to fight these creatures as the prince. At least now I know how to fight back.

I hide behind the thick woods alongside my brother.

"There's only one, we can do this," Revler whispers to me.

I nod and swing my bow around from my back to hold it tightly. I inch my fingers in my pocket to retrieve the arrows. I ready an arrow between my fingers and hold it against the bow.

"Ready?" I mutter, looking back at Revler.

He dips his head in agreement as he drags out his sword from its holder.

I look back through the forest and a pair of red eyes are peering back at me, a large shadow following behind them. I hastily bring myself into a stance to aim and fire an arrow directly into the beast's face. I let go of the arrow and it sparks against the bow, setting on fire as it travels through the air. The dark's roar echoes through the empty forest when the arrow hits it. It charges for me, leaping over the plants.

I yell in pain as it pins me to the ground, fracturing a hole into the dirt with my body and carving holes into my shoulders with its claws. It's a tiger. Fuck. It opens its mouth, revealing its keen teeth, each the size of a butcher knife. The dripping blood from its tongue sends a conflicted scent mixture of fresh rain and rotten meat. I try to force it off but there's no way to move when it has me pinned like this.

It whines abruptly. Ice cold blood drips onto my face and it falls over to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Revler asks, breathless.

He pulls me up from the ground. "My fucking shoulder," I groan.

"It's alright. We can head back. I'll tell dad."

He presses his foot onto the dead tiger's body and tugs the blade out of its head. Revler knows the sweet spot in the darks. It's lucky that he does because it's near impossible to kill these motherfuckers with brute force, let alone a single arrow. I pick up the sprawled arrows that fell from the impact and toss my bow around my back. Revler sparks his lighter and bites onto it, nearly burning his face as he searches through his backpack for bandages. He pulls out straps and stands up to wrap my shoulder. I wince when it presses against my wounds. He tugs it tighter, attempting to calm the bleeding. Then he goes around to the opposite shoulder and repeats his actions. He takes the lighter from his mouth and glares into my eyes.

"Let's go, yeah? Dad's gonna be proud."

"Of you, maybe," I whine.

Revler giggles and we start to walk down the trail we came. As we're nearing the split in the road, we hear a scream from the distance. A bloody scream. It's our father. We look at each other. We swiftly take off in the direction his yells are coming from. After what feels like minutes of running, Revler stops.

"What are you doing?" I ask, slowing down.

He doesn't even acknowledge me.

"Rev!?" I yell.

I can hardly see through the fogged darkness. I get closer to him. His eyes are sunken into his face. And they're slowly becoming more full of tears. I turn around. There's blood on the ground. A trail of blood is smeared across the ground. I follow up with my eyes. There's light. A fire. And...

No...

No...

No...this isn't real.

Dad...?

Dad?!

Dad, please! Wake up!

Dad...