pLEASE NOTE, i DO NOT OWN tHIS STORYLINE. WITH EXCEPTION TO A FEW CHARACTERS, aLL OTHER cHARACTERS AND PLOT ARE BASED ON THE SHORT STORY "BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON" AND BELONG TO STEPHEN sT. vINCENT bENET.

The secret to knowledge is in the letters. The priests don't know. Or, if they do, they keep secrets. Father and John always keep secrets.

I saw them one night, heads together, their whispers like the light flyers who flutter in and out of light and make me chase them. And with the light flyers, I have to become one with silence if I want to catch them.

I will catch the secret.

Yet it was very hard to hear everything. I only heard John say "The Place of the Gods," and father, with all his wisdom, tell John that John's knowledge would "eat him".

In that moment, I really didn't understand Father, but I did not care about my ignorance because ignorance comes and goes like the night. I think a person only ever sees the day if she chooses to stay still.

I am not still. I am Aeleah, and I am no priest; I am a hunter. Hunters do not stay still unless the hunt calls for it.

So I went, like a shadow, tracking John's footsteps, his swim across the The Great River, and finally to the burning cracks of metal and stone.

I discovered what John did, but of course I had already suspected. There were no spirits, there was no sacredness of The Dead Places, for I had already gone to them many times.

I knew I wasn't to become a priest, but my curiosity ate me up. When Father told John that knowledge may eat a person, consume him, I thought, "Oh aye, Father, but it is the other way!"

I eat knowledge, and I hunger for more, but I am careful to control my appetite, store food for later.

I am Aeleah. I will hunt knowledge like I hunt the doe. I will shoot at knowledge so that it may fall from the air. It just takes practice and my aim is true.

You see, John would never have survived his journey without me. It was I who lured the dogs away so that John could go on. It was I who pulled an unconscious John to shore. I got my brother safely through his journey, especially when he became filled with the box of fruity liquid which caused him to go to sleep.

He had screamed in his sleep when I turned on the wall of light. I wasn't sure if he saw the story. The wall of light showed the ancient people who were destroyed. Before the Great Burning, they moved fast, through the god roads and the air, and under the ground. I had watched the wall of light many times, but I grew bored and left John to his fits. I explored the temple further to feed my thirst for knowledge.

You see, each time I am in a temple, I study the letters in the books and on the walls. Some walls speak to me. Some books are not written, but they are like the metal. For each visit, I work out how to attach some metals like I did with the wall of light, knowing more magic was there.

I am a shadow. I am a hunter, and that is why I know we must learn the letters. Those who we thought were gods used the letters. If we learn the letters, we would be wiser than they were, because we know already what comes after the Great Burning.

Our destiny is not to burn again. We are the survivors because we must eat only the knowledge that is good. We must destroy the rest.

John would keep the knowledge from the others. I know this, but that is a foolish plan.

I will learn the letters and teach others about them, those who are worthy.

"Aeleah, where did you get that book?" John asked in a hushed cry of surprise, for there he found me, in my secret place, where I spend time getting closer to unlocking the key.

Well done, John, I salute in silence.

I am not the only shadow.