The Inevitable Eclipse

Chapter 1 - In The Embers

In the dimming embers of an explosion, stood Tenebris City's only hope. Like the dying flames, the girl was golden. From her boots, to her warm brown eyes, to the mask that hid her face. And, most notably, the pedestal that they all held her on.

What was once Tenebris' beloved City Hall, a meeting place for book clubs, church groups and political committees alike, lay reduced to rubble at her feet. The girl stomped out a spark with her boot and turned her attention to the crowd held back by crime scene tape. It was growing, more and more tired faces gazed on nervously. Most of them had come straight from their beds, just like she had, when they heard the explosion. With a deep breath she looked away from them and continued to wade her way through the rubble.

    Broken glass, chunks of wood, bricks, burned pages under her boots. The smell of smoke rising to her face, stinging her eyes while looked for it.

He always left a note. A plea, an apology, a deflection of blame, whatever you wanted to call it, it was always there. But all she could see were unrecognisable chunks of the once magnificent building. She furrowed her eyebrows and kept looking, it would be there. It was always there.

    Somewhere behind her she could hear Mayor Clarissa's voice, deep in conversation with a man she didn't recognise. Undoubtedly about, once again, tightening the city's security. But with every restriction came another attack, and the attack on City Hall was the worst. It would only grow.

    Out of the corner of her eye she spotted it, a single piece of paper torn in half. Pinned to what was left of the heavy wooden doors. She made her way through the rubble to where the door lay, keenly aware of every pair of eyes on her as she did so. She bent down and ripped the note off the broken wood.

Illumina,
It is terribly disappointing that it had to come to this. I liked this place too. At least, before it became the birthplace of treason.
Come home to me. We need you.
Your old friend, Void.
Night is Falling.

She wanted to crumple it up and throw it to the dying flames, but instead, she slipped it into one of the pockets of her golden suit where it could sit in the darkness where it belonged. She would put it with the others soon enough. Then she would find the answers, she would find him and she could finally stop this. Every note was another piece of this puzzle, another piece of her old partner turned enemy. These notes would be his downfall, she would make sure of that.

The sun was beginning to ascend over the city, bleeding watery light over the ruins. In the daylight it looked even worse. The night could hide the scorches and the scratches. The daylight made it look all the more brutal.

    She tightened her ponytail, just to do something with her hands and tested the stability of a particularly tall pile of rubble, when she was satisfied it could hold her, she pulled herself onto it and turned to the crowd.

"Citizens of Tenebris!" She called, hoping her voice was loud enough to carry to the crowds, not that it really mattered, a game of Chinese Whipsers was already starting amongst the people. "Once again we have suffered at the hands of darkness, but this night cannot last forever." Every person was listening to her, some were nodding along and murmuring their agreement, but it was not any of them that Illumina looked at. It was a young girl in the front row, her teddy clutched tightly to her chest. That was who Illumina directed her speech to. A girl who didn't deserve to be afraid of the dark. "The morning will come. And with it, the light. I promise you that I will not stop until Void and the rest of The Night Fall are behind bars!"

Illumina stretched her arms above her head. She had been Illumina for over a year but every time she put that suit on it was jarring. The suit allowed the wearer to feel for the light rays in the air and intensify them, she had spent many nights trying to figure out how, once she even picked the gloves apart but all she could find were wires and something that looked a lot like magnets. When she had a firm grip on the rays she splayed her hands and the crowd lit up like it was mid day.