From Light Comes Darkness

Chapter One

Tall creatures the color of darkness pursued Sarah relentlessly. They were in a forest, but not like any she'd seen before. The trees had blue leaves, and what was supposed to be bark was gray, along with bits of grass poking through fallen leaves. Sarah continued to run, not wanting to look back for fear of tripping on a root or stump. She ducked under low branches and jumped over the occasional fallen tree until she reached the edge of the forest. She stopped. About twenty feet in front of her was a cliff. She didn't need to get closer to know that it wouldn't end well if she jumped.

Sarah heard rustling from behind her. Finally, she turned around. As if materializing from the shadows, three tall pitch-black creatures crept closer to her. They walked on two feet and in their hands- or claws, Sarah couldn't tell- were holding sword-like weapons. Two of them flanked her from each side and the middle one continued its creep towards her. Sarah looked around and saw that she was trapped. The creatures blocked her route to the trees, and the deep gorge showed no end if she were to fall in.

Sarah began to panic as the creatures continued their slow walk towards her. Then, they started doing something she didn't expect: they started to speak. It was raspy at first, almost inaudible. They repeated the same thing over and over.

"Sarah..."

"W-who are you?" Sarah stammered, fear prominent in her voice. She backed up a little, the space between her and the seemingly bottomless void growing ever smaller.

"Sarah..." The creatures continued. They showed no intent on stopping.

Sarah looked behind her. Maybe she could climb down a little, at least out of the creatures' reach. Would she be able to try it? Maybe falling to her death would be better than what these beings of darkness wanted to do with her. She turned around to see how far they were when she suddenly felt cold pain through her chest.

Sarah was just impaled.

The creature that held the blade brought its face close to hers. Then it yelled the two seemingly most irrelevant words she'd ever heard.

"WAKE UP!"

Darkness suddenly surrounded Sarah. She floated in an endless void, stripped of all color except...purple? Somehow, somewhere, a voice yelled at her the same two words: "WAKE UP!"

Her entire body was jerked forward by some invisible force. She shut her eyes as tight as she could, trying to stop herself from hurling by the sudden movement. As quickly as it happened, though, it stopped. Confused, Sarah slowly opened her eyes.

Light flooded in from a window in front of her. A familiar silhouette covered most of her sight, preventing her from seeing the view.

"Sounded like another nightmare," the figure said.

"Yeah," Sarah responded. "It's really annoying."

"You really need to tell Mom about these. What happened this time?"

Sarah shuddered as the vivid memory replayed through her mind while she explained what happened.

"Well, you should've dreamt of your stronger older brother being there to protect you from those creatures," he said as he puffed out his chest.

Sarah groaned. "Maxwell, stop it. It's too early for this."

"Yeah," Maxwell responded. "You need to get ready for school. Mom's already got breakfast done and it's getting cold. You're lucky she held me back." He grinned and licked his lips. "You'll never guess what she made."

"I think I might know," Sarah chuckled. "Let's see...is it waffles?"

"How'd you know?" Maxwell looked genuinely curious.