Obscure Radiance

Chapter 1

Author's note:

Hello guys! This is a new fan fiction I'm working on and would like to continue. Please do let me know if you like it. I'm still thinking about where I want to take this but I do have something in mind. Leave me a comment, add it to your library, follow me, I don't know! I really do want to know what YOU think about it. If it sucks, tell me it sucks. If it's great, tell me it's great! I just want your honest opinion on my writing. Oh, and if you do like it.. share it with your fellow Directioners! I'd like to get as many people as I possibly can to read my story. If you could share my work, I'd be ETERNALLY grateful. I've tried writing other stories, but they usually don't get the attention I'd like them to and so I just completely drop them. I wouldn't like to do the same with this one. I've got a feeling.. that this one will be good. 

 Anyway, I hope that I can get suspense into this and have you all at the edge of your seats. c: Now, read, read, read!

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    Darkness. It was all I knew. All I'd ever known. Earth; a planet known for its vast beauty, and abundant life. This is where I reside. Where I carry on my life- just like those, humans. The two legged creatures that seem to thrive off of other's defeat. I'm not like them, no. But I'm forced to live here, I'm forced to share their world. And all because I need them. Wether I live, or perish.. depends on them.

It's mid November, and the temperature is dropping. The leaves abandon the safety of the trees for the floor. They're no longer a deep green, but shades of pink, orange and violet. My favorite time of year. Days grow shorter, and darkness overpowers. The creatures of the dark emerge from their hibernating states, and do what they've waited so long for; feed.

"Harry!" an excited voice broke into my thoughts.

I looked up from a seemingly never ending pile of papers in need of organization to find Jerry, the mail delivery boy. I was only three years his elder, and yet he still managed to keep his childish mind.

Letting out a deep breath, I set my pen down, sure he was here to pester me again. "What now?"

"What's new?" He asked, his thin lips forming into a wide smile. He never seemed to find the annoyance in my tone of voice, and if he did.. my, what hell of a good skill he had to shrug it off.

"Nothing much." I replied boldly, not interested in anything he might ask me. But his still smiling face told me I should be asking him what's new. "I'm guessing you have something awfully interesting to say, based on your idiotic smile."

"As a matter of fact I do." The grin on his face became even wider. Something virtually impossible, but for him it was more than possible. "I finally asked Denisse out on a date."

"Did you really?" I asked, still not a hint of interest in my voice.

Denisse was the head secretary here at Hoffman. She was average height, and curvy. She wore glasses, just like about every damn person in this building. When you  hear the word 'lawyer' what do you imagine? A man wearing a black suit, and glasses? A woman wearing a pencil skirt, a black blazer, and.. glasses? Then you'd be right. Everyone here seems to play up to the stereotype.

"Mm-hmm!" He exclaimed. He walked up to my desk, sitting down at one of the chairs at the front. He folded his arms over the table, and leaned forward, as if he needed to keep the following in secret. "I really like her."

"I would have never guessed." I mocked him, leaning forward as well to speak.

He didn't notice still that his crush on the girl was obvious. "I'm just really good at hiding it." He laughed.

"Very. Now, why don't you carry on with your job and you let me do mine?"

"I will, but Just because I have loads of things to deliver. And these packages don't deliver themselves, you know?" He stood up from the chair, adjusting his maroon jumper.

"I bet they don't."

He smiled quickly, and exited my office finally. I sighed loudly, picking my pen up again, going back to my usual routine of scribbling meaningless notes onto blank spaces on the paper.

Jerry's POV.

Harry always seemed a distant fellow. But I didn't mind. He was the only one who didn't shoo me away as soon as I stepped through their office door. He's the only one who I can call by their first name. Anyone else, I have to refer by 'Mr.This' or 'Miss That'. He always listens  to me, and he likes me. I'm sure of it.

Stepping through the doors of Mrs.Crowden's office, I was immediately hit by the stench of cigarette smoke. "Mrs.Crowden, I've got your package." I managed to croak out, afraid the odor of the smoke would choke me if I breathed it for long enough. She sat at her desk, her silver hair pulled up into a tight bun at her head. The room was dark, and it had a loneliness to it, even though it was filled with her praised stuffed animals. Gifts from her nephew. Their marble eyes followed you everywhere you went.

"Bring it here, boy." Her voice was raspy, and unwelcoming.

I rushed forward, taking the long file out of my bag. I set it in front of her shaky hands. They were wrinkled to an extreme, and bony. Every vein and artery showed through her thinning skin. Her fingernails were long, and sharpened at the ends. One slash from those, and you were sure to bleed out.

She grasped the package in her skinny hands, and examined the label. I watched her pale blue eyes strain to read the text. She was old, and going blind for sure, even though she always claimed it was the smoke that was clouding her view.

"Mmm.." she paused. "Take it to Styles."

I nodded quickly, wanting to get out of this room as soon as I could. I reached for the package, but she pulled it away from me. Her cloudy eyes flickered up to meet my own. I'm not kidding when I say they could be of a dead fish's.

Her voice came out in a croak. "Not so fast." She set the package down in front of herself, picked up her black, slim pen and wrote something down over the yellow envelope that encased something seemingly boring to her. Her handwriting was neat, something you wouldn't expect from a witch-like lady. "Tell him this case is of the outermost importance."

I nodded, taking the large envelope. Turning around, I shuffled back out of her office and into the fresh air of the building. I blinked quickly, and headed back to Harry's office.

Harry's POV.

I sat back in my chair, too tired to keep working. I don't know how I ended up in this place. Working as a lawyer, pretty funny if I may say. People like me, never end up in places such as these. The office I so called mine was large, shelves lining all four walls. Books no one would ever read rested on those shelves, slowly covering in dust, the pages of their insides never to be scanned through.

There was a painting in a little corner. Something the kids from the school down the street had done. I used that spot to chat with my clients. What better than a few sofas, pillows and a warm cup of coffee to get them to spill their stories?

I was never interested in anything they had to say, to be completely honest. I simply took notes, and nodded, adding a few comments here and there. My lack of interst came to be mostly because either they repeated everything I had already read from their file, or all they said was that they were innocent. Most of the time speaking to the actual client was pointless. But as head lawyer at Hoffman, my job must be done.. as Mrs.Crowden' strictly written rules dictate.

I had been appointed as head lawyer just a few weeks ago. Nothing I'm too dreadful for. I get the most interesting cases, the one's that involve criminals, murder.. or simply the ones that no one else can make a good defense for. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But everything is starting to turn into routine. I needed a change. And a change is what I got. It came in a yellow envelope, with a note written from my boss in black ink, and the words from Mrs.Crowden spoken by Jerry.

"... This case is of the outermost importance."