Chapter 1: The Truth behind the Lie
In a time, not so very long ago, we lived in a city by the sea, a place of endless green and golden sand, where the water crashed upon the shell covered beach with graceful elegance and the lake blue and clear guarded our city, while the ocean swelled at our backs.
But even in this beautiful place, hidden secrets darkened our door and haunted our pasts.
I was thirteen when I recognized my foolish belief in paradise, too young to realized what pain fate held in store, and too afraid to escape, but even if by some lost chance I had run, who and where would I have gone too, what mortal man would believe the tales of rebelling child.
So I waited and slowly, as time drifted onwards I saw the spread of corruption, the infinite seed taking hold and I feared, what madness could cause such stupidity, what sin could consume so loving a family and how was one child supposed to stand against the immorality of the world.
So this is where our story begins, in the lost city of Belmore, its spirit broken and bound as its two thriving families destroyed themselves from within.
Their tale is what some would call heartbreaking, but for those of us who lived through these darkened days it is called justice, but all who claim the title of humanity are welcome to their own perception.
All we that remain can do is whisper endless truths, but as mortality and human history have revealed to countless others, truth is written by the victorious not the defeated.
The Baxton's where what most modern families would call ordinary; they held no large kingdoms or grand titles and in truth their family felt more like a tribe, Malcolm was their leader, Our leader, My father and within his dominion there was but one rule, as long as you lived under his household and protection "He was God".
But this was all before the darkening, the consumption and the obsession; this was all before the end.
My mother was a woman called Melina, strong and firm but as gentle as the wind, her smile brought about the sun and melted even the coldest of hearts, for she had captured my father completely, to him there was not air or moon without my mother and when she wept the world was but a cold dark place.
But even then we didn't know her sorrow could bring about the end.
My family were solid and strong, their connections based on tender affection, but deep within they were riddled, the mistrust desperately thriving, a foundation brought about generations before my family, when my father's ancestor betrayed her husband for the lust of another man.
To my father if so strong a marriage could be shattered so quickly by a mortal's lust, then his own blessed union could also crumble and fall into such treachery.
This haunting truth tainted my parent's union, my father could not trust and the beauty of my mother became a burden, his constant belief in her infidelity slowly began to consume him and she chafed at his tightening restrictions and yet through it all neither had the strength to leave the other.
It was through these waring and peaceful times that my brothers were born unto this world, I have never truly known if they recall a more serene time, a place of peace and contentment, or if all their memories contain is remnants of the darkness.
I can however, tell you of their person, Karl was the eldest, his kindest both a weakness and strength, his heart a heavy burned to carry, for he much like myself, longed for family, in truth he sometimes seemed a giant teddy bear.
But this was not always the case, Karl bore the weight of family pride, I was but the eldest daughter, he was the eldest son, my father's pride and joy, a boy born to be a man and like most men Karl loved woman and he was loved in return, but the needs of woman can sometimes consume a man and when his heart is broken he will use countless others in an attempt to heal it.
An example he showed all too well as he was consumed by his vices.
Tyron came next a tall and lean boy, with the bright blue eyes of our beloved mother, so different from the rest of us, his mind far more adapt and tuned to the world around him, much like our father in personality, a born adventurer, a boy who quickly learned to control the world outside his domain, a man with a lust for money and the means to use it.
But control can be shattered and when a boy grows in the shadow of darkness, he will either thrive or fall, my brother rose for all he had known was the darkness, however unlike our parents he did not succumb completely, but on his terms alone.
This was the world we lived in, fight or fall, win or lose, join or die, the way never changed, never returned, before the end.
I would like to say I fought hard to maintain our ways, but in truth I fled, I hid myself away, buried deep within my legends, old gods and magic, fantasy became my hidden reality and I longed for freedom.
It was not until the day of my sister's birth I truly began to wonder, Talia was a rose, pure and sweet but she was born in utter blackness, she would never know the light of the beginning, she would grow and be consumed, knowing only one way of light, the falsehood of my parents, the lies and betrayals they would feed her.
But I was still a child, too young to fully understand the life we would all be trapped in, the life blood had bound us too and for years I would plan my families salvation, a fruition that would never come.
You like me may wonder, what was this darkness, how had it taken hold and what drove this tribe into the bowels of hell, at some point along the hidden path we walked, I wondered was it my own birth that caused our downfall, robbed my parents of youth, but only know looking back can I truly see our fall, the sin of pride.
No man alive can say they have never felt proud, the glow of belief or the shadow of self-doubt, swept away by all-consuming victory.
This death consumed my parents, a self-belief of purity, to them they would never fall, they were stronger then all those that came before and as they fell, they did not recognise their own defeat to consumed in the need for consumption, to driven with the needs of addiction, the eight ball had taken hold.
But what I did not know was my salvation lay in the arms of another, a boy who would soon become a man, strong and fierce, a man born of the other tribe, a man born in the mist of defeat, a kindred soul in the bowels of the O'Darqehue clan, a family that had fallen to the same fate.
