Prince of the Moon

Prologue

The shadow sat against the wall, looking at the girl sitting on what used to be his bed. The girl, who had the strangest hair--red, and long on one side and shaved on the other--stared into space where he had been just a moment earlier. The shadow was sure that she had seen him, but now he wasn't so sure that she could see his kind. No matter. He wasn't here for her anyways.

However, he was quite intrigued with her. He had never seen a tan person inside of the asylum before, nor had he seen freckles since he had died. In fact, there had been no one inside of that room for months, not since that brunette named Meredith, who was taken away after she had gotten better from her psychosis. He was sure that she would never see the light of day again.

The new girl turned her head to the position that he was currently in. Damn, he was definitely seen. The girl smiled, showing off some braces, and turned back around. From the new view of her face, the shadow could see that she had an eye-patch on--reminiscent of a car accident, perhaps?--that looked like something from a television show that his brother watched when the shadow was a live.

The girl laughed a little bit, giggly with a hint of insanity. "I know you're there, shadow-sprite," she said. She had quite the accent. Obviously, she was an English person of some sort. "You don't need to hide from me. I do hope that you guys don't go after dragons like the last time I encountered some. That was a very..." she seemed to be searching for the word. "-interesting encounter, to say the least. The name is Crystal, by the way. Crystal Realiza. And yes, I am a part of the Encantan royal family. Well, I was. Long story."

Ah, so this girl is Encantan royalty, but she's locked up in a horrible mental asylum all the way up in Oregon when Encanta was an Spain-owned island in the Caribbean. He wondered what her story was, though he wasn't sure if he wanted it from her. She didn't seem like the type of person that could talk in a cohesive story. A bit random, for lack of a better word.

He also wondered where she got the English accent. How did she end up in England when Encanta was a dream home for many people? For the record, the shadow had heard rumors that parents didn't allow their kids to leave Encanta in the first place--to make sure that the kids grow up in /their/ lifestyle--so how did she get into England, anyways? She couldn't be more than sixteen, if she could see him.

"I am seventeen, for the record. I am aware that I am short, but when you talk to your little shadow-sprite friends, I want you to know how old I am before calling me twelve or something. I am most definitely not that."

Wait, how was she able to see him? Only people sixteen and under could see him and all of the other shadow-sprites born out of the asylum. If Crystal was seventeen like she said, it would be impossible for her to see him, unless she was a-

Oh.

The shadow raced out of the room, blowing Crystal's hair into her face. The girl huffed in annoyance and fell onto her bed, sighing. She, in fact, hadn't even known that he was there. She was just testing if there was.

Her laughter started of small, like a giggle, and then erupted into a full-blown bout of intense, insane cackling that echoed through the nurse-patrolled halls, sending shivers down the spines of all who heard it. Any outsider who would be inside of it would have stared in the direction of the noise, thinking that it was from a truly insane individual.

Crystal's laughter died down and she sat, thinking about when she was going to get her new roommate. Of course, she didn't come to this place for nothing. If she wanted to get him back, she needed to infiltrate this stupid place, even if that meant acting completely insane while doing it.

--

Medford's inhabitants went along with their work that day, ignoring the wails of the many sirens that went past their work buildings. They did, however, look up when the low-altitude reporter helicopter went past their windows with its helicopter blades dangerously close to the glass. Some people on break ran towards the televisions, where a reporter was talking to the camera.