The Curse of Night

Natalie - Assassin

Run. That's all I was thinking at the moment. It has already been a pretty rotten day, and its not even noon!! So far today I have almost gotten sucked into the sun void, ticked off the street gang, ran down the wrong path and tripped over someones rotten little trap, and just to make everything worse, I'm being hunted!!!

I guess I should explain a little more in detail. My name is Natalie Griffon Lensen, and I am a ShadowDemon. I don't have a permanent home so I sleep in the shadows, literally, I can morph into a shadow. It's difficult to explain the many capabilities of ShadowDemons. It is also difficult the many, many rivals we ShadowDemon's have, so I won't go there until later on. Now to continue my story...

Most of the time I end up, somehow, making the street gangs very, very angry with me. I bet you wouldn't be that mad. Okay, you might. All I did was steal one of their bikes! It's not THAT bad! It's not like their parents won't just buy them a new one. After unsuccessfully stealing a bike and getting a black eye and the group starting to approach and get rougher I started running.

After running pretty far from this angry group of teenage boys, I thought I would be safe in the forest, but boy was I wrong. I found a path that looked very recent, "probably a deer trail" I thought out loud. That's about when I tripped over the trip wire, "deer don't set trip wires.... do they?" grumbling as I laid on my stomach. An arrow whizzed past my ear, into the ground.

My eyes wide I scrambled to my feet and started running for my life, again. Being a ShadowDemon has its advantages, such as weapons. My sleek black bow materialized in my hand and I spun around and shot. I didn't have to notch arrows, they just appeared. In return, three more arrows lodged themselves in the tree right above my head. "Who in Rolemee is shooting me?!" I shrieked and started running again, faster than before. I nearly lost my footing when a dark shadowy figure exploded in the ground next to me.

"Gang members to your left! Assassin Lady behind you! Make a sharp right!" I quickly did what he said and skidded to a quick stop and turned and started running. I already knew who was next to me, it was my guardian/friend Rague. I realized I was in an alleyway, when I thought my luck couldn't get any worse, was when I hit the dead end. Standing proudly in front of me was a fifty foot tall office building. I looked at the gutter pip and started climbing as fast as I possibly could. Hand over hand and the whole time begging, in my head that the shooter wouldn't shoot my hand.

'Thirty feet up' I thought. Suddenly searing hot pain rippled through my ankle. I almost lost my grip, I didn't need to look down to see the arrow lodged in my ankle. I could feel my dark, blue blood dripping slowly down my foot and falling in drops thirty feet down to the ground. I reached down and grabbed the bloody arrow and put it in my empty quiver. "Your'e not getting that back brat" I grumbled and continued climbing a little more slowly, in pain.

I finally reached the roof and pulled myself tiredly, over the edge and laid down on my stomach, flat, my ankle still searing in pain. I scanned the area for my shooter and spotted some dark blue eyes. I took a double take. I was staring at a teenage girl, with black hair. Her crossbow loaded and aimed, and she looked ready to shoot.