Tomes of Nevermore: Shattering Light

Chapter One: Dead Gods

There is a saying from a realm much different from the one that you have come to know that says, "The two are closer than the stars". This saying actually makes next to no sense because as any person who knows anything about the stars will tell you, stars are actually very large and very very far apart but only appear to be close because of the narrow view of reality provided to us by our planet. Regardless of the lack of sense this idiotic idiom makes, it still refers to the figurative closeness two people can share.
Tarah Weird and her twin brother Tywin Weird, or as he preferred to be called Ty, were as close as the stars, not because they wanted to be or even because they were twins, but because they both had no one else in the entire world. 
"I wish you wouldn't constantly be raising the bar for what it means to be stupid." Tarah said gently floating to the roof of an ancient decayed building as her twin brother landed beside her.
    "It wasn't my idea to come here." Ty said as he landed on the next rooftop sprinting for a moment before he leapt to the next building as a stream of air shot from the bottom of his shoes keeping him floating in the air for a moment or two. "For once this was your stupid idea."
    "I just wanted to look at the temple of the dead god Alfereon. I've never been to the temple of a dead god before, or any god really." Tarah said leaping forward to keep up with her brother.
    All around them were rusted out machines from a different age all covered in the vines that had woven themselves between the cracks of the fallen apart buildings and boarded up windows.
    "I think I figured out why destruction is so beautiful." Tarah said catching up with her brother.
    "Since when is destruction beautiful?" Ty said only half listening to his sister as he picked up a stone and tossed it through one of the few unbroken or boarded up windows in the entire city.
    "Anything can beautiful. But the reason destruction is beautiful is because it's nature reclaiming the planet." Tarah said watching the shards of glass exploded against the cobblestone ground.
    "That's stupid." Ty said as he stopped at the edge of one of the tallest buildings still standing.
    "You're stupid." Tarah said.
    "There it is sis." Ty said ignoring his Tarah. "The temple of the dead god Alfereon the Wicked. You scared yet?"
"Please. It's not even that creepy." Tarah lied.
The stone steps of the temple were lined with dead leaves as rotten trees hung their dead branches over them like a decrepit archway casting long scraggly shadows on the ground. At the top of the steps was a statue surrounded by rusted swords and bones from a war long since passed.
"What do you think the god was like?" Tarah wondered.
"The elder boys say that Alfereon was one of the most evil and powerful gods to have ever lived. He fed his body slowly into darkness and made a new body for himself out of wood or something. He was on of the first gods to ever walk this world. A dark champion in the Age of Heroes. They say his energy still haunts this place." Ty said still trying to scare his sister.
"That's stupid." Tarah said pointing at the giant laugh skull spray painted on the side of the building. "Kids come here all of the time. If Alfereon's spirit was still here don't you think he'd stop kids from destroying this place."
"Well supposedly a lot of kids have died here in weird ways" Ty said leaping down to the ground. "Come on I feel like smashing some priceless artwork. There's a ton of old books and junk inside of the throne room."
Tarah leapt down from the building and followed her brother up the forty two steps that led to the temple of Alfereon. All around giant red flowers coiled up their vines and bloomed as they walked passed shining a green light down the seemingly endless winding stone hallway. Giant spider webs were draped over the ancient stone carvings that lined the dusty walls. Mostly everything in the temple had been destroyed or stolen besides the actual temple itself and a few worthless things like candles and rusted old weapons.
Ty leapt up and kicked off of the walls. Letting his shoes propel him from wall to wall as he cackled manically as priceless artwork chipped away beneath the blasts of air that shot from the bottoms of his shoes.
"You're it!" Ty said tagging Tarah on the head. "Last one it has to give up their extra piece of bread tonight!"
"Over my dead body!" Tarah shouted leaping up and kicking off the wall the same way her brother did chasing him down the hallway bouncing from wall to wall. Back and forth the two laughed and laughed pushing each other back and forth aggressively.
"You hit like a girl." Ty said with a laugh as his sister shoved him against the wall. In one swift motion Ty tagged her back and spun around leaping away from his sister.
"Maybe one day you can hope to reach the strength level of an average girl." Tarah said smugly as her brother entered a giant room at the end of the hall.
"This is incredible." Tarah said following her brother into a room filled with a sea sea of books that covered the floor. She followed the stone ceiling and the intricately carved stone to giant hissing gargoyles snarling at the world. Above them was a painted cieling fading and peeling from the wall as time wore away the endless hours that it took to create such a masterpiece.
"Yeah I figured you'd like this room. Since you like books and junk like that." Ty said as he wiped his feet on a precious ancient story that no one had cared enough to read for centuries.
"How come no one has taken these books?" Tarah wondered.
"Because books are so dumb they aren't even worth stealing." Ty said kicking a book to pieces as it flew across the room.
"Books are not dumb. Just because you can't understand something doesn't make it dumb. You not understanding something probably makes it smarter." Tarah said as she began to scan the floor looking at countless different titles, dreaming of the wonderous stories that lied between the pages. "Could you imagine how long it took someone to write these stories? All of them are even written by hand!"
"It took somebody way too long for them to sit inside of this place." Ty said as he picked up one of the books and chucked it at the head of the gargoyle trying to entertain himself. "So this is the temple of the dead god Alfereon. Pretty boring right? I told you we should probably do something else.
"No you didn't." Tarah said. " Besides, I think this place is amazing.I love old buildings and books. This place practically reeks of memories and experiences."
"No this place reeks of mold and dust." Ty said picking up a stick and pretending it was a sword.
"You're going to make fun of me and you're the one playing with a stick like some kind of child." Tarah said placing several of the more interesting titles into her bag wishing she had room to fit more. Playfully she threw a fallen apart book at her brother who expertly deflected it with a stick. The second destroyed book Tarah threw however wasn't so lucky as it came smashing to Ty's shin sending him toppling down the pile of books head first.
"Go ahead. Laugh now." Ty said picking himself off as he rescaled the mountain of books. "Because one day you won't be able to laugh when I'm a honored knight for one of the gods."
"I'm going to be a knight for the gods." Tarah said mocking her brother. "That's all that you ever talk about. There aren't any orphan knights who grew up alone in a treehouse. Plus you're sixteen years old, practically fully grown, knight's start training as soon as they're old enough to hold a sword. You'll never be able to be a knight."
"You'll see." Ty said pretending to stab a book. "Everyone will see. I'll be the greatest knight any kingdom has ever seen I decided that a long time ago."
"I don't think anyone just decides to be the greatest at something." Either way it seems like a waste of time if you ask me." Tarah said as she ignored her brother and turned her face into the comforting first pages of a book.
"If you ask me reading seems like a waste of time." Ty said back.
"No one asked you." Tarah said never even looking her brother in the face. "And reading is never a waste of time. It's why I'm smarter than you."
The sound of boots stomping their way through the temple echoed through the hallway.
There is a certain phenomenon that twins in every dimension experience. The sort of phenomenon that allows them to read each other's thoughts and feelings without saying a single word ti each other. But at this moment, two complete strangers could have taken one look at one another and had the same thought.
"Run," Tarah and Ty both said as the sprinted down a darkened hallway, going deeper into the ancient temple.
"It's probably just a kid." Tarah said looking back over her shoulder and seeing only darkness as they turned left, right, and then left again down the winding hall. The pictures on the wall began to depict demons. No plants grew in this part of the temple for lack of light. "But if Alfereon's power really still does exist in this place then we're going closer to it." She could feel the hairs on her skin begin standing on end. "Maybe we should turn back."
"And you claim to be the smart twin." Ty said still running faster and faster without the slightest clue of where they were going to end up. "There aren't really children that play here. Mostly just fanatics and gangsters using this place as a hideout."
"Then why do you know about this place?" Tarah said.
"I didn't I was lying. I just wanted to see you get scared. I spend everyday with you how on earth did you think I'd been here before?" Ty said as the sounds of the footsteps behind them grew closer and closer.
"You're gonna get us both killed!" Tarah said as horror settled in the pit of her stomach. "Don't you see! We're going deeper into the temple... If he finds us... If he went hit a dead end..."
"Then we're dead, yeah." Ty said with the smile of a madman on his face as he laughed in the face of death. "But I'm pretty hopeful. If you haven't noticed life hasn't exactly been trying to keep us alive pretty much since we were born and I'm pretty not dead so far so I think we'll be good on that account. Besides I can't die yet, I'm not the greatest knight in the world yet."
"How can be smiling like an idiot don't you realize how bad this... " Tarah stopped herself mid sentence as Ty came to a screeching halt and she crashed into his back. Thankfully Ty was able to grab onto the stone walls just before he would have fallen to his death. Infront of them was a chasm nearly a hundred feet deep with pointed rocks sticking up from the bottom.
"I agree this is bad." Said a raspy sounding voice as a man in a tattered dirty cloaked came rushing down the hallway behind him. On the man's face he wore a gas mask for no reason that covered the entire lower half of his long rat face. He scraped his tiny blades curved in the shape of a C against the ancient stone carvings sending a haunting sound echoing through the stone halls. "This is no place for children. You could get hurt."
"Get behind me!" Ty shouted stepping in front of his twin sister.
"Ty don't be an idiot!" Tarah shouted as her brother pushed passed her still holding the stick in his hand.
"Alright are you ready to get beat up by an orphan with a stick then?" Ty shouted as he leapt and swung the stick trying to strike the man in the gas mask in the face. But the man in the gas mask dodged every single blow laughing at Ty as he stepped back.
"Honestly boy do you expect this to work?" The man said as he swung his sickle. Ty stepped back evading the blade and slammed his stick into the man's knee's as hard as he could knocking the man to the ground. "You're going to die for that brat!" "
"You haven't been able to kill me yet." Ty said swinging the stick at the man's face. The man however was ready for him this time and in a single swing cut off Ty's hand before the man was struck by the stick. A beacon of haunting blue light shot from the gaping wound on Ty's arm as the severed hand fell to the ground and shattered into a million pieces like glass.
"Get back!" Tarah shouted grabbing her brother. She took the her heavy backpack full of ancient books and threw it at the man in the gas mask as hard as she could only to have him step away from the bag as if it were nothing.
"Don't protect me!" Ty shouted raising his one fist up and leaping forward with his moonshoes propelling him like some kind of superhero ready to punch the villain in the face and save the day. But the man in the mask only laughed and stepped away.
"No." Tarah cried as the man in the gas mask made the fatal blow that ended her brothers life. The sight ruined any lasting bit of innocence Tarah still had and broke her so emotionally broken that nothing could ever truly repair her. In a flash of blue light her brother shattered into nothingness, a glittery dust in the wind.
"I'll kill you!" Tarah cried as she leapt forward making the most reckless decision of her entire life.
Laughing at her the man grabbed the back of her long black ponytail and pulled her to the ground. "Now, now girl I thought we were just becoming friends. I thought since your boyfriend is gone now you and I could get a little closer."
"He was my brother!" Tarah cried kicking and screaming like a child trying to break free. "He was my twin brother and you killed him! He was all I had in the entire world and you killed him!"
Tarah imaged her brothers jet black hair, the same as her with the gentle curl. She imagined his icy blue eyes the same as hers. Then she imagined her brothers death and she could tell that just like their appearance, he death would be the same.
"You will be joining your brother in death's abyss soon enough."The man said said in a horrible hiss. "But first I'm going to need to borrow that pretty eye of yours.
"What kind of sick freak are you! You're a monster!" Tarah screamed.
"No child, real monster have a lot more power than me. But your eye can help me change that." The man in the gas mask said.
That was the last thing Tarah heard before everything went completely black. She felt nothing. Dreamt of nothing. All it was was an unending blackness. She would have thought this was death but this was not death, for death is final and this, this was only the very beginning.