Darkness Within

Prologue

It was a cold windy night in December in the northern United States with snow in the air, and the moonlight glowed blue. Two hooded wanderers had come into a little town. Both of them had stopped, one murmuring to the other one, and the one listening nodding. They both came up to a wooden house in a broken town, both took a deep breath and softly knocked on the door. After a few seconds, an old man opened the door.

"My god!" The old man gasped as he stood at the door frame, looking at what's in front of him. As a tear dropped, he murmured, "Stephen, Khalil... You are here..."

The two figures, the poor old man could only see their eyes , were standing in front of the little hut; One, slightly taller than the other one, eyes glowed blue while the other one, glowed reddish gold.

The old man came forward to the blue eyed figure and hugged him tightly, and said, "Stephen, my friend, I had missed you." Then turned to the other, "Khalil, how are you?" and got the replied answer of "We are fine, thank you..."

The old man paused for a few seconds, and continued, "Come in! You two must be tired." He turned back to the house and started walking inside the shelter as the brothers followed.

When the three stepped in, the old man went into the kitchen and the brothers took off their cloaks and masks, and put them onto the clothing hanger by the door.

As Khalil watched his brother put his cloak and mask on the stand, he saw many scars on Stephen's arms, and over his body. The most noticeable and the worst one was the burnt scar that ran across his face. Some are deeper than others while some look like the wounds never healed themselves. Khalil clearly remembers how the scars found their way to his brother. Sudden guilt hit him as he thought to himself, "It was my fault..." Then he turned to look into the mirror nearby, there were no major scars, merely scratches on his body how-so-ever.

Khalil looked back, forcing a smile, to his slightly taller, a few minutes older brother, and signed to him, "It had been so long since we are here, brother."

"I know, it had been awhile. That's why I decided to come back to this town for the night." Stephen smiled, signing back.

Stephen was not born deaf and Khalil was not born mute. It was really hard for the two brothers to learn sign languages, or even communicate, since Khalil always caught himself wanting to talk so much yet no sound comes out and for Stephen, he always wants to listen to what others are saying, but he could only hear silence. Of course they can depend on what they know but they decided to depend on each other instead.

"Come sit!" The man came out of the kitchen with a plate of cookies and put them onto the coffee table in the living room, "I got you cookies. Stephen, I think you will like them!"

As Khalil quickly signed what the man said to Stephen, Stephen smiled and said, "Great! Thank you so much, Uncle Cooper."

As the two were talking, Khalil threw himself onto the couch, earning the look of disappointment from his older brother, grinning as Stephen rolled his eyes.

"So tell me all about your adventure." Cooper said softly, but Khalil and Stephen turned to each other and Khalil shook his head, and opened his hands, palms up as Stephen mimicked his brother.

"No, Uncle. We can only show you our story before we need to leave." Stephen said quietly, Khalil and his eyes darkened as the whole room dimmed from the darkness the two created....