When Darkness Dawns

Chapter 1 - Where It All Began

             "Mom, look!!" The six-year-old boy ran excitedly into the middle of the road, abandoning his scooter on the sidewalk. His eyes were fixed on something that glittered in the sunlight and he wanted to see exactly what it was.

             "Andrew, get out of the road!" his mother replied, rushing after him, but her boy seemed to tune out her protests. He scooped up the object to examine it. However, this was short-lived as his mother snatched him quickly out of the street before an oncoming vehicle had collided with him.

             "Andrew, you could have been hit!" she gasped, setting him safely next to his scooter.

             Andrew looked up at her worriedly, swallowing a sob as guilt set in for upsetting her.

             Seeing this, her features softened as she knelt to look him in the eyes.

             "Don't cry, sweetie. I just didn't want you getting hurt. You need to pay better attention okay?"

             Andrew nodded as his mom wiped his tears from his face.

             "Now, what was it you saw that was worth running into the road for?" she asked, gesturing towards his hand.

             Her little boy unfolded his hand and in it rested a golden pen with some sort of foreign inscription on the side.

             "Can I keep it, mama?" he asked, looking at her expectantly.

              His mother seemed to be thinking, and in truthfulness, she wondered how ethical it would be to take this pen. It looked incredibly expensive. Besides, what would a six-year-old use a pen for? But the more she looked at the pleading face of her son and convinced herself that this town was small but not that small, she finally relented. "Alright, kiddo. You can keep it as long as you promise me you won't run into the street like that again!"

             "I won't!" the boy grinned, eagerly tucking it in his backpack.

             At that moment, the pen did nothing to make the weight he carried any heavier. But one day, he would see what an unbearable burden it truly gave a person to possess. But not today and not now. For now, the boy would treasure it for many years before it's truth surfaced....

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*12 years later*

             In a cheery-looking house in the heart of Stonebrooke sat a young man, busy doing what he did best - imagining up everything he could and writing it down. Hundreds upon hundreds of times, he'd sat at his desk, thinking up every captivating story, persuasive essay and heartfelt poem that he could. He was known in the town to be the over-imaginative but incredibly talented writer. Though his imagination never failed him, he was always honest and had a reputation for his integrity and determination. When he set his mind to something, his animated personality carried him through to see it finished. He tried to live his life with a perfect balance of experiencing the exciting things in life with time for his reading and writing.

             Nights, where he could find refuge in the confines of his "office" (which was a bedroom he'd fashioned to look exactly like a writers workshop of sorts) were his absolute favorite. He would rush upstairs, practically slam the door and begin his magic. With the golden pen, he'd owned since he was small, he would let it glide across the paper. As the words found their way to the paper, it gave him new inspiration. The minutes would turn into hours as the warmth of his yellow-hued lamp cast shadows on his cream-colored walls and sent golden streaks through his floppy, brown hair.