Shadrach (Shadrach Acres #1)

1. Let Me In

A smooth, opaque fog had wrapped itself around Shadrach Acres for two days. Alek rolled along the wet streets cautiously. The sidewalks were still and quiet. It didn't seem like a Monday morning. This morning was dreary, dark and mistaken. Rainy overcast Sunday evening insisted upon staying. No fresh start, only more of the same.

The fog is perfection. Fog in its truest form. The closer to the building she got, the seamless low lying clouds became more dense. As if this were the natural state of the atmosphere, the vapor never stirred, never broke. One corner away from the neighboring middle school, students walked through it. They move deeper inside as the fog enshrouds them, turning them opaque as well. Phantoms heading to class.

***

Markell quickens, his skin awake before he is. His nerves fire tiny warnings. The fine hairs on his arms stand. His nose flares and twitches. His fingers jump.

His eyes flutter open with the realization that he is late for school ... again.

He flips out of the bad - half runs half stumbles into the bathroom and snatches up his toothbrush.

As he hurries through the house, he knows that he'd rather be running. Not in the house but away. Away from his house away from his school ... free and moving far, far away.

Alek doesn't long to run as Markell does; she dreams of running. Longing and dreaming are two very different things. The first has already done so, and wishes to again. The dreamer is left to wonder and reach for what is to come. Markell has ran. Alex has yet to do so.

Every night she dreams in neon. An undulating violet glow that penetrates her eyelids and brings her to wakefulness. She wants to run into it, this field of violet. It calls to her. She needs to see what's on the other side.

Markell also dreams of violet, but sees it more clearly than Alex can. He knows what it is ... flames. Living, wavering, flames. Licking, racing, burning through him. They are a part of him now. He ran to them not long ago, and they rose to meet him. He has changed. He knows because it feels it ... the wandering of his thoughts to open spaces, and pitch black, sparkling skies. A fever that comes more and more frequently as the days move on. The change is almost complete. He hears it: a voice just barely an echo as he sweats and shivers on the worse nights ... and now you are like me ...

Alek hears also, as she wrenches awake almost every night, so close to the light ... but still too far away. She lays awake, urging her heart to slow, and her body to stop quivering as her mind races ...

Let me in ... the violet glow urges.

Let ... me ... in.