Dark Fall II

Disclaimer: The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and all related characters are copyright Disney Channel. This story is a work of fan appreciation, for entertainment, and for writing practice. No profit is being made off this work in any way, shape, or form. The story in this fanfiction is a very loose adaption of the story of the point and click adventure video game Dark Fall II: Lights Out created by Jonathan Boakes. The game's plot is only barely followed as a template, about 90% of the story actually does come from my own imagination. The game Dark Fall II is copyright Jonathan Boakes. Consider looking up the original video game (for the PC) and supporting his work.

Author's Preface: Yes, I am very aware it's been years since I finished the original, which I left off well intending to write a sequel. I do not know if any of the people who read the original will read this one or even be interested by this point.

For myself, I really did intend to finish this story, but life got too much in the way. I never stopped writing. I simply started self-publishing and pushing my original fiction, which took up the bulk of my writing time. It was an unexpected direction shift in my life. And it seemed I had let too much time elapse so that anyone interested in reading the sequel would have lost interest. Plus, quite frankly, I lost interest in the Suite Life fandom completely.

But the story I wrote (Dark Fall) is still notable because of all the writing I've ever dabbled in, it was my first completed full length story ever. I don't consider it my best work, mostly because I was so raw and unpracticed, especially concerning dialogue. I've tried to revise it somewhat since. But a lot of people seemed to like it anyways. It also proved to me for the first time that I could start a large story, complete it, and not do half-bad.

But it has always bugged me that I never truly finished it. And though my SL fandom has long since passed, and none of the people who read the original might read this one, I decided to finish it and see what happens. Just for fun.

If you have not read the original, you will want to do so to be able to understand this one better. It's very much a sequel and picks up where the last one left off, and concludes this particular story arc.

Prologue

(1)

Walking alongside the interstate out in the countryside of Massachusetts just as the sun was beginning to set on a cool autumn day was a young boy.

It had been days since he'd eaten or slept. He'd been walking for a very long time, but he retained a constant energy and didn't slow down nor stop for anything.

If you would have happened to have been driving on the road of which he was walking on the side of, you would have not seen him.

Indeed, every now and then, a car would pass by and completely ignore the sight of the roughly 10 year old looking boy who was walking at a steady pace in the middle of nowhere. He'd even walked through several densely populated areas, including several major cities and a good number of small towns, but he had been completely invisible to the surrounding people.

If he would have been seen, those around him or passing by him would have been taken aback in shock. His appearance was not something you could just simply ignore.

It was mostly the fact that he was splattered in blood. He was dressed in a black suit, which, despite being covered with blood, was still neat and pressed. Only his black hair was in a minor state of dishevel. There was some blood in it, too. The blood was the most noticeable on his face and also on the exposed part of the white button down shirt he was wearing underneath the suit.

In his right hand, he was gripping a dagger. The blade was covered in dried blood. It was not a normal looking dagger. The dagger had a unique curving shape to it, and the handle was gold and inlaid with all sorts of jewels.

The boy's green eyes were piercing and determined. If you were to look straight into them, you'd almost swear there was nothing there. But if you were to look more deeply, perhaps, you'd possibly swear that you could see something, something far more horrifying than the spectacle presently before you at first sight. Not the boy in there. Something else.

Perhaps if you saw the boy your first inclination would be to freak out and try to get help, but then you'd look into those eyes and suddenly you'd have the strange urge to leave him alone and get as far away as possible.

The boy walked. It was a beautiful autumn day. A little hot, but not too much. A nice, strong wind was blowing steadily. To the boy, though, temperature didn't matter. The boy couldn't feel it. It could be during the hottest part of summer or in the middle of a blizzard right now and he wouldn't have felt a thing nor given any indication of even noticing it.

On both sides of the highway, the countryside stretched out around him. There was a farm off in the distance, but the boy didn't turn his head nor admire the scenery at all. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the previous blue in the sky was taking on a golden tint as the sun was setting. In only a few hours it would be nightfall.

Not that it mattered. The boy would keep on walking.

He would come to pass through many more towns and walk yet an even greater distance. But nobody would notice him nor try to stop him at any length of his journey.

He was invisible to the world.

(2)

The boy had to walk through an extremely long stretch of countryside and through a long dirt road in the middle of a heavily wooded area before he finally came to a town where people were able to see him.

It was early in the morning, and as if to portend the things that were to happen that day, everything was covered in a very thick, dense fog. At first, it seemed as if the town was deserted. The boy walked up the middle of the road toward the town center, and for the first time, stopped and stood dead still.

A few minutes passed. Then, one by one, the people started coming, out of the buildings, out of their homes, out from everywhere. The entire town turned out and began to surround the boy on the road.

There was an old man who came walking up the center of the road, and the people parted to make way for him. When the old man came fully into the center and stood facing the boy, all the people formed a circle and stood around the man and the boy.

The old man looked down at the boy. Their eyes made contact. The old man was solemn. He leaned down, took the boy's head in his hands, and kissed his forehead gently and with reverence. Then he leaned toward the boy's right ear and said softly, "It's time."

Fast as lightning, the boy took the dagger he was holding and plunged it into the old man's chest near the heart.

The people of the town did not move, do, nor say anything while the horrifying spectacle before them was taking place. The boy was cutting, as the man's body was going limp and writhing on top of him. The older man's weight, however, didn't faze the boy at all.

The old man fell to the ground, lifeless, crumpled up, with blood pooling around his body, as the boy lifted his other hand up and held the old man's heart high in the air.

As soon as he did this, the people circling the boy prostrated around him in extreme reverence, and, kneeling down, began to worship him.

The puddle of blood coming out of the old man's body was beginning to pool around the boy's feet, and it seemed as if the blood was strangely being drawn towards the boy.

Something in the boy's eyes shifted.

(3)

A number of years later, on an otherwise uneventful spring day in Los Angeles on an overcast day, a sandy, blond haired man leaned over the edge of the bridge overlooking the waters below.

He noted to himself that it seemed like a storm was probably coming later. As the wind blew and he watched the ripples of the water below, he felt his assessment was probably right. It hadn't rained in several months, and LA was due for some spring showers.

He felt the weather was appropriate. The way he felt right now, clear blue skies and sunny weather would have felt sacrilegious.

He felt if he were inclined to suicide, it might be preferable to just take a nice jump off the edge. But then again, this wasn't the Golden Gate Bridge, and the water below wasn't that far down. At best, he'd probably simply make an ass out of himself and get wet.

But he wasn't inclined to suicide anyway. That was what made it so hard. Continuing to live day to day knowing there was no way out and he just had to deal with it.

He wanted to cry. But he couldn't. He needed to compose himself the best he could while he was in public.

He leaned his head down and closed his eyes. Images filled his mind, images of happier times, before finally an image of a not so happy time. Something that happened that should not have happened. A mistake. And then...

He was tugging on his wedding band again. It had become a nervous twitch of his. Ever since that day.

A thought crossed his head. It was not a good thought. If he had been thinking rationally, he might not have given heed to it. But he was not thinking rationally. He was hurting. He was broken on the inside.

His battle was a conflict of what he felt was the truth versus the hope he really wanted to hold onto.

But how much longer would he have to go on hoping? He knew it was very likely that hope had long since passed. And when the truth inevitably showed up on his doorstep, uttering those words that he did not want to hear, what would he do then?

It was over, he was certain. He'd had the best thing he could have ever hoped for in his pathetic life. The best thing ever, and he'd let it slip away. It was all his fault.

He didn't want to live with it anymore. If he was to be the cause, the one that had brought everything good he'd ever had to a crashing halt, then he wanted to punish himself further, separate himself from everything that reminded him of it for good.

At least, that's the way he was thinking. Because when you are hurting in the way he was hurting at this very moment, you just don't think rationally.

And so he did something he would regret the very second after he did it and for days to come. With the first signs of tears tempting themselves at his tear ducts, his face contorted to a grimace of rage as he found himself slipping the ring off his finger, and then, with as strong of a throw as he could muster, hurling it into the air into the water below.

Luckily, no one was currently passing by on the bridge to witness his sudden outburst of poor judgment, not that the blonde haired man would have cared anyway. The moment the ring left his hand he'd regretted it instantly. He wanted to reach out, grasp it, put it back on his finger, and never let it leave his sight again.

But it was too late now. The ring went sailing through the air, far out of reach, and landed in the water below with a soft plunk. There would be no getting it back now. Never again. He'd made his hasty decision, and it was too late to take it back.

He felt instantly horrified. What the hell had he just done? He felt a sinking feeling of revulsion in his stomach towards himself. He suddenly felt like maybe he should just try to jump over and end himself for doing something so stupid.

Disgusted with himself, and feeling himself losing control of his emotions by the second, he turned and began to leave the bridge walking at a fast pace.

(4)

He walked through the streets of LA, maneuvering deftly. His home was only several blocks away, but that's not where he was going. He wasn't going anywhere in particular. He couldn't go home. Going home would hurt. He just wanted to walk. He still hadn't cried yet. But he wasn't going to break down here.

The sights and sounds of the city surrounded him, but he paid no heed to it. No one else paid any attention to him either, except for a few drivers who honked at him for jaywalking. Not that he cared. He was too mentally far gone to care about anything right now.

He came to the local park and walked through it. The sounds of kids playing nearby did nothing to him. He passed a guy who was walking his dog. Looked like a golden retriever. The blonde haired man didn't look up and make eye contact with the guy walking the dog, even though under normal circumstances he would have been the first to give a friendly greeting.

He looked over and saw a young couple making out on a park bench. He watched out of the corner of his eye but did not stop walking. The sight of it stung him deep inside. He felt himself beginning to lose it. He continued on his path. He knew where he was going.

There was a public restroom in the center of the park with bushes surrounding it in such a way that if you went behind it and knelt down you wouldn't be seen. A lot of kids snuck down here at night to have sex. He was here in the middle of the afternoon to cry.

He sat down and leaned against the wall, taking his head in his hand as his body began to give way to heaving sobs and the tears started streaming down his face in a flood.

These were not the first tears the man had cried and they would not be the last.

After a while, the man couldn't tell how long as time had no relevance in his world anymore, the tears abated for the time being and he sat, unmoving.

Many thoughts passed through his head, but they were mostly a haze. He felt too weak now to let them overpower him again. They no doubt would later this evening, though.

Eventually he came to the conclusion that being here, in LA, at this point in time, was just not doing him any good. He needed to get away. Nowhere in particular. Just anywhere but here where he was surrounded by all the memories.

He could afford to go anywhere he wanted. He had the money. He had no obligation to his job. Well, he did, since he was the CEO after all. But Lenny had things well under control, and he was just not at all into it right now.

Nobody at the club really minded that he hadn't been seen around much in the last few months. They understood. They were all worried about him. He was very well liked by everyone. But everyone also knew to give him his space. He was still basically grieving, even though he hadn't gotten the final confirmation yet.

But he needed to get away. Not just anywhere. Going just anywhere in the world would have no luster for him. He wasn't going on a pleasure trip. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed someone he hadn't talked to in several months, now finding himself suddenly regretting the length of time it had been since talking to this person, though it hadn't really been that long ago.

The number rang six times and then finally went to voicemail.

"You have reached the personal cell of Dr. Cody Martin. Sorry I'm not able to take your call right now. Please leave a message and I'll get back with you as soon as possible. Thanks!"

The man sighed.

"Hey, it's Zack. Why don't you ever answer this damn thing? Listen, umm, I'm thinking I might be coming up to New York for a while this weekend. You want to get together and connect for a while? It's been awhile since we last talked. Call me back when you can. Talk to you soon. Bye."

He hung up the phone and pocketed it. He sat there for a few more minutes, then got up and started heading home.