The Lights Shadows

Beginning

"So what happened after you ran away?" The FBI agent asked.

I looked around the room, trying to find some lie to tell him but nothing came to mind. I looked at the one way glass and caught a glimpse of Wren's face, angry and upset. She was not a fan of talking about these events but this had to be done.

"Well we had to disappear from St. Louis. Our faces would be all over the place if we stayed."

I told him.

His reaction was as expected and my answer wasn't enough for him. He was about to start talking when someone knocked at the door. He got up to see who it was but I couldn't see them because he only partially opened the door. When he came back from speaking to whoever, he seemed nervous.

"Look kid, I wish I could listen to these stories all day but I have an important guest to speak to and I'm going to have to ask you to leave or whatever until I am finished with him." He said with one breath.

He looked me in the eyes and motioned me out the door. I got up out of my seat and walked over to the door which flew open as I reached for the handle. A tall, muscular man stood at the doorway. He wore an extremely fancy suit and aviator sunglasses. His face was chiseled and the smell of aftershave was powerful.

"Move." He commanded.

I did as he asked and watched him walk over, remove his coat, and sit in the chair I had been in previously. There was a long moment of silence and I realized they were waiting for me to leave the room to begin their conversation. I closed the door behind me and watched through the one way glass. A speaker was playing live audio from within the room.

The agent was sweating pellets at this point. He wiped his forehead and evened out his papers. They still weren't speaking and I still didn't know who this guy was but he looked familiar.

"I want you to know, that kid has caused too much trouble in the last several years." The mystery man said. "But, he isn't crazy because these things did in fact happen. On that note, I have some explaining to do myself."

They stared at one another for some time. "I'm assuming you know who I am, but in case you have forgotten, my name is Justice Cantwell. I am the corporate leader and president of Cantwell, co."

With that introduction, things began to click in my head and now I understood why he was here. Justice Cantwell was a huge business leader in technology. His building had been one that took a huge hit during the fight against Hellfire. He was also my father, I shared genes with him and yet he had no clue who I was.

"You deserve to know how these things all started in the first place. So sit back and listen." Justice said to the agent. "It all started twenty years ago...

I created a team of extremely talented scientists to try and discover a cure to all disease, The Fountain of Youth. We traveled around the global, studying all sorts of diseases and cures. We finally found ourselves in South America, deep in the Amazon Rain forest. My team consisted of Dillon and Carmen Nox, Scott Waters, Allison Battle, Iona Dread and myself. We spent day and night searching for anything and the project was becoming a flop. I was days from closing out the research entirely when Iona and Dillon made progress on a new level.

They called it 'A New Beginning'. The machine they created was able to draw power from a place no human would even think to check, the afterlife. This source of power was endless and was just outside of our normal reach so we called this place The Beyond. We withdrew some of its power and tested it on rats and each time our test subjects grew to unimaginable sizes and then inevitably died. With that in mind, we learned how to control the amount we withdrew from The Beyond.

Our next project was called the Grymm project. We intended on drawing just enough power to make one immortal. However, we needed a test subject and no one was overjoyed or willing to take on that said role. Allison Battle had been pregnant for almost a full term and she said she would be the test subject as long as we guaranteed her child's protection. So we removed her child, and placed it in an incubator with tubes that fed it and gave it the nutrients it needed to live. gave her time to recover and sat her in the machine. We sat her in the machine and fired it up. The amount of power was too much for her fragile body and crushed her instantly. At the same time, a breach in time and space opened up and began pulling something closer. A man in a cloak walked through the breach, saying he came from an alternate version of our reality, another Earth. He described his Earth as a dreamland, full of all the things we dream up that never become reality.

In exchange for protection and guaranteed truce, he wanted the newly born child. We did as he asked and because we were so willing, he offered to let us travel to his Earth and see what it was like. Magic, monsters, myths and legends, and tons of mystery, the world was full of dangerous people and creatures. We eventually returned to our Earth. With this new found portal, we tried to extract its power and put it in beings we created as part of the Grymm project. However, we did not expect these beings to move but once we put the power from the beyond inside them, they began to move as well as attack each other. They seemed to be drawing power from the beyond itself and their attacks were going everywhere. Each of us got hit by their attacks in some way. At the time we didn't know, but we had gained special abilities from these beings.

They eventually triggered the laboratories self-destruct sequence and we were forced to leave as soon as possible. As far as we were concerned, they had been destroyed in the explosion. But, the event in St. Louis earlier this year showed me that they were still very much alive. I have come to the conclusion that one being is benevolent and means no harm and its only focus is to destroy the other more, maniacal counterpart."

The agent sat still, jaw to the floor and pale like he had seen a ghost. "So you're telling me that these beings are still rummaging around the world, looking for people and beings to make an army?"

"That is exactly what I am saying, and they are extremely dangerous. To this day, twenty years later, I still have no idea how to destroy them." Justice said. " I believe that the events that happened here in St. Louis are only a fraction of what is to come."