When Shadows Rise | I

Epilogue

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SOMEWHERE IN UPSTATE NEW YORK. . .

The sun grasped on to the last of day. The nocturnal animals in the woods stirred awake, either on the hunt for food or attending their young. There wasn't a stretch of urban life for miles— any person who headed into this area could only find stands and stands of thick coniferous trees bordering the narrow dirt roads. In all actuality, the smell of pine and the rocky terrain and the various flora and fauna made it the perfect place for recreation in the wilderness or to fall off the grid for a while and reset. Only one of the few places in the state of New York that hadn't been overrun by urbanization.

Deeper into the heart of the woods, there was cliff overlooking an extravagant waterfall. It looked like an ordinary spot for anyone to set up camp and indulge in the amazing view of the river flowing over a series of steep stops and down into the pool below, the moon illuminating a patch of the sky and casting a glow on the water. As the light shimmered with the movement of the water, one couldn't help but spew poetry. It was a beauty of nature.

On the surface, it was a perfect scenery— one fit for an artist to recreate on their canvas or for a photographer to snap with their camera. But what nobody knew was that man had already claimed the cliff area, as if the land they stood on was just a dead space waiting to be auctioned. It was invisible to the naked eye, but an animal or a person coming across it would be a dead giveaway: what they thought was an invisible wall blocking their path was actually something far more complex and sophisticated— a cloaking field, covered by microscopic-sized cameras that projected the image from the cameras on the opposite side of the field, transmitting and playing footage of their surroundings at all times, rendering the 'force field' invisible. This effectively made sure that there would be no sneak attacks around here and, also, to confirm the people coming and going.

Hidden in plain sight underneath the invisible veil, was a structure that almost resembled an ancient fortress— tall, mighty concrete walls built to protect a chain of buildings with hip-and-gable roofs and curved eaves, compromising of different chambers and gardens and temples and training rooms— reflecting a shard of Japanese architecture. It might've looked like a majestic castle with mysteries and riches hidden within during the day, but at night when the thunder roared in the distance and lightened tore across the sky, it looked haunting.

In the West Wing, in the comforts of his own chambers, Mak had been lying on his bed for over an hour, staring at nothing but the ceiling while immersed in his thought bubble. Quite frankly, there were many things his mind considered, but only one he kept coming back to.

Raphael. Ah, yes. Him. The warrior with emeralds for eyes and skin like polished jade. If Mak had to be honest, he wasn't so sure what he expected when he infiltrated Roosevelt Prep and first met the target. Actually, Raphael wasn't anything like he expected at all. A month of observation wasn't enough to construct a full dossier, but Mak could safely come to this conclusion, at least: Raphael was impulsive— impulsive towards his classmates, impulsive towards his teachers, and impulsive towards his other ninja comrades (whom Mak figured had to be Raphael's family members). But everything was going great. Mak would've started to ingratiate himself to the target, except. . .

"Listen, Mak. . . you have to forget you ever saw anything. Forget you saw those three guys, forget whatever action you saw in the band room and auditorium, and forget about me. Trust me. It's for the best."

The incident at the gymnasium surely threw a wrench into Mak's plan. Raphael would surely keep his distance from Mak and expect the same from him; something as simple as that couldn't be done. Mak didn't drop everything and fly across the Pacific Ocean and disobeyed protocol just for his vendetta to go up in smoke. No. He had goals. Now he had to find a new angle to play around.