you want it darker | michael langdon

chapter one; primrose langdon.

"Come on, you can do this. I know you can."

There was a woman, panting madly, sweat pouring from her brow. She was screaming frantically, hunched over in pain on the bed, her friends and family at her side.

"Almost there, I just need one more great big push, okay?"

The woman screamed again until she could scream no more, and a newborn infant was held aloft.

"Oh, Delia! No!"

-

"Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!"

Primrose groaned and covered her head with the duvet. "Please, Ms. Mead. Just five more minutes..."

Ms. Mead tutted. "Come on, Missy. Time to get up."

Primrose whined from underneath the sheets; to put it plainly, she was exhausted. Sleep seemed to be evading her lately, but for that she was glad. When the sleep came, it brought the nightmares with it.

Such strange, twisted and indecipherable visions that had tormented her ever since she was a child. Too cohesive and too vivid to be mere dreams. They played out like scenes in a movie, they seemed rehearsed, as though they had happened before. They unnerved her to no end.

Last night, she had dreamt of a woman in the throes of childbirth, and it had been painful and bloody. Her screams were haunting, like a memory...

So yes, the dreams she could live without. But the alternative of tossing and turning in bed all night was not so pleasant either.

"I have something for you." Ms. Mead said, trying to entice the young girl out of bed.

Primrose poked her head out of the blankets. "What is it?"

Ms. Mead waved a package wrapped in brown paper in her hand. "A gift."

She smiled as Primrose shot up out of bed, suddenly awake and alert. "I knew that would work on you." She laughed.

Primrose excitedly tore open the parcel, carelessly shredding the wrapping. "It's a journal!" She exclaimed, running her fingers across its surface. It was a brown, moleskin journal, with unlined pages. It had a lock with a small gold key in it that was attached to a soft, suede rope that lay across the cover.

"It's beautiful, but what's it for?" The young girl inquired.

"It's a few weeks early but just consider it an early birthday gift from your custodian." She replied. "I told him how much you enjoyed reading the classics, so he thought perhaps you could write some stories of your own."

"Ah, they're much more than mere stories, Ms. Mead." Primrose smiled. "I don't suppose our lord and master will be gracing us with his presence this time around, will he? Eighteen is quite the milestone. But then again, so was sixteen. And 13, and the rest. If he wasn't big on milestones then, I don't suppose he will be now, will he?" She laughed, bitterly.

"He does care for you." Ms. Mead reassured her.

"Then why is it I'm not allowed to meet him?" She asked.

"Our leader has been handed the monumental task of rebuilding the world," Ms. Mead exasperated. "He doesn't exactly have time for child-rearing."

"If having me as a ward is so unimportant, so inconsequential on his world domination to-do list, that he does not even feel compelled to come and see me, surely I can tell my friends who I really am without consequence?" Primrose pouted with her hands on her hips.

Ms. Mead sighed heavily; this was not their first time having this particular argument.

"You cannot tell anyone he is your guardian for safety reasons. A lot of people are... displeased, shall we say, with our leader right now, and they could potentially take it out on you. It's best that only a select few staff should know. Also, friends? The only friend you have is that snot-nosed rich boy, and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, or his father, for that matter."