DemiDemonDarla

Chapter 9: Chaos in the City

>>>>> The sun hung low over the skyline of Celestia, casting long shadows across the city streets as Darla sat at her small desk in her apartment. The steady hum of traffic outside her window was a constant reminder of the life going on around her, but Darla felt detached from it all. Her mind was consumed by the revelations of the past few days—her origins, the mysterious medallion, and dagger, the prophecy, and her mother's confession.

Ever since Eloisa had confided in her about the strange circumstances of her conception, Darla had been relentlessly digging for answers. Her laptop screen was cluttered with open tabs—old texts on mythical realms, references to ancient symbols, articles about unexplained phenomena—but none of it gave her the clarity she so desperately sought. Every thread she followed seemed to unravel into more questions. Who were her real parents? What was her connection to the fairy realm? And most pressing of all, how was she linked to the prophecy that foretold either the salvation or destruction of both the human and spiritual worlds?

She rubbed her temples, trying to dispel the growing headache. The city of Celestia had always been a place of strange occurrences, but lately, things had taken a darker turn. Bizarre, supernatural events had started to unfold, and no one could explain why.

First, it was the disappearances. Street children—those invisible to society's eyes—had begun vanishing at an alarming rate. Over the past few weeks, dozens of reports had surfaced about children going missing without a trace. No witnesses, no leads. It was as if they had simply been swallowed by the night. The authorities chalked it up to runaway kids or kidnappings, but Darla knew better. There was something sinister lurking beneath the surface.

And then there were the deaths. Good politicians—those who actually cared about the city and its people—had started dying under mysterious circumstances. First Congressman Aldous Richards, the charitable politician whose death had originally been ruled natural, despite Darla's suspicions. Now, two more high-ranking officials had met similar fates, their deaths seemingly random but eerily connected. The media attributed it to stress, heart failure, or freak accidents, but Darla sensed something darker at play.

Finally, there were the animal attacks. Reports had flooded in from the outskirts of the city, near the mountains, of a huge, vicious creature that had been terrorizing the area. Locals described it as a seven-foot-tall dog with glowing red eyes, and its attacks had left a trail of blood and destruction in its wake. It was the same creature that had attacked Darla weeks ago, the night she had barely escaped with her life.

Darla's stomach churned at the memory of that night. She had been on patrol, chasing a suspect down a dark alley when the creature had appeared out of nowhere—its massive form looming in the shadows, its red eyes glowing with a malevolent light. It had moved with unnatural speed and strength, nearly killing her before a shadowy figure had intervened. When she had woken up in the hospital, Lionel had been there, sitting beside her bed, but the creature had vanished without a trace.

Since then, sightings of the beast had been reported all over the city. The police were overwhelmed with strange cases—missing people, dead politicians, and now these horrific animal attacks. The city was in chaos, and the Celestia Police Department was struggling to maintain order. Darla knew she should be focusing on the case at hand, but the deeper she dug into her origins, the more she felt these incidents were connected. There was a darkness stirring in Celestia, and she feared that whatever it was, it was tied to her.

Just then, her phone buzzed, pulling her out of her thoughts. It was Lionel.

"Darla, you home?" His voice crackled through the speaker, sounding tense.

"Yeah," she replied. "What's up?"

"We've got another one," he said grimly. "Another sighting of that thing—the creature. It attacked someone near the East End just an hour ago. The guy didn't make it."