500 Years Before
My name is Brangwen. I was a young Shadow when the Apollyon came into power.
The Apollyon, King of the Shadows, was never a kind creature. None of his minions were treated with anything but the harsh strictness of our rules and culture. We resided in the NetherWorld, but I never called it anything with the exception of the Nether. This was where Rule No. 1 came into play. No Shadow was to leave the Nether, except during the short amount of time when there was a breach between the Surface World and ours. And even then, only at night.
Rule No. 2: I was not allowed above the Nether, period. I had tried and failed to argue this rule, and had given up trying when the punishments became too severe even for me, a Shadow. I spent my dark days prowling around in the pitch, save the harsh red light that drifted down from above us. Caves surrounded the main walkways and mines, and mingled in with those were torture chambers, enchanted so a Shadow could not slip through the bars. The chambers hold horrid memories for me, for they are where I had spent most of my time. The reminder sent shivers down my black, wavering figure.
Rule No. 3 was a rule most Shadows did not feel the need to even give a second thought. Unfortunately for me, it was the worst of all our Father’s stupid rules. It stated that no spoken, nor written, language was to be learned. Shadows usually communicated through pictures and thoughts that were shared among one another through their intelligent minds. I could never master this, because of what I had seen when I was only a wisp of charcoal smoke.
It was a beautiful room, made up of large and heavy books. The Apollyon had left it unattended for those few moments. I, being an extremely clever Shadow with vast intellect for my negligible age, had successfully crept in without drawing attention to myself. I looked inside the cracked and tattered spines, finding amazing fountains of knowledge, in addition to fanciful worlds I would never have thought up on my own. The peek inside gave me new perspective on the so called “Safe Haven” that the Seryphs called the Nether. There were new worlds out beyond this darkness, worlds that I had wanted to see, instead of the dull, scarlet lighted rocks that bored me to no end.
***
My days in the darkness passed me by unceremoniously. I continued to creep through the never ending caverns to the Place of Knowledge I had discovered some years ago, always careful to slip past the Apollyon unnoticed. The shelves were seemingly endless to a young Shadow such as I. Soon, though, it was all going to change.
I quietly flipped through pages, absorbing every word since reading had not been an issue for quite some time. My crimson eyes whipped back and forth across the flimsy paper. My full attention was focused solely on the book, so much that I did not sense the Apollyon approaching the large cavern. Though I was not made of solid matter, his evil presence sent shivers through my seemingly frozen in place figure. I turned to see the room enveloped in nothing but his ebony shadow as Apollyon stared me down with his bloody gaze.
Quickly, I communicated pictures to him that were meant to say it was all an accident, that I did not mean to stumble in on his shelves upon shelves of glorious knowledge. He silenced me abruptly as my dark form began to pressurize. Inwardly I screamed in pain, for upon my lips there was no sound. I curled into myself, trying aimlessly to distance myself from this agony. It continued for what seemed like hours, but might have only lasted a few minutes.
***
I couldn’t remember anything of how I had got here, but it no longer mattered. I was in the depths of the torture chambers.
