The new version of "Bring Me To Life." Bring the challenges on.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bring Me To Life by Evanescence or Gone by Michael Grant.
Prologue:
Rien Alles was thirteen when the FAYZ came. She was playing with her brothers in the small stream that connected with the dam their father had built so they could have fresh fish and water.
"'Ey, Joey, Ri, want some lemonade? Benji's just in here, he's already got some!" Jared Alles yelled from the back door of their old house. His straight-as-a-stick brown hair waved wildly in the breeze out. Rien pulled her thin yellow jacket tighter around her skinny arms and shivered.
"Yes please, Jarhead!" Joseph and Rien Alles chorused. Rien looked at her brother and collapsed into giggles, nearly falling out of her knee height yellow gumboots.
"Fine, Nimrod and Dunderhead!" Jared yelled back at them, trying not to laugh. He disappeared back into the kitchen and Joey ruffled Rien's short spiky hair that stuck up like an electrocuted cat's fur.
"Joey! Catch!" Rien giggled suddenly and heaved a stone at her brother. Joey caught it with ease and skipped it down the still waters, causing ripples. A yell came from down the stream, near the dam.
"Hey! I'm fishing down here! That stone scared away all the fish! And it broke my line! Do you want dinner or not?"
Joey's lips twitched. "I think that's Cameron fishing. He can get quite irritable when he's fishing."
Rien laughed and tried to skip another stone into the dam. But then a rumble from the power plant, only a mile or so away, where their parents worked, sounded. Jared came out of the kitchen holding a lemon wedge and a half-filled jug to see what was going on. Benji, too, came outside, clutching a cup and a game controller.
"Huh?" Rien said, tilting her head. "What's wrong with the nuclear plant?" Her playful kid's demeanour was gone, and in it's place was a solemn fourteen year old who was curious.
"Rien, get inside the house." Joey pushed her out of the stream. "Go."
"No!" Rien objected, stamping her booted foot.
"Rien!" Joey yelled in frustration. He looked up at the power plant in horror and then turned back to Rien. "Then, in that case, I want you to know that Benji, Jarhead, Cameron and I will always lo - "
And like a mirage that wasn't there, Joey disappeared. Rien looked up the hill and saw a lemon wedge and a spilled jug on the ground. On further inspection, running up the hill, Rien saw a black Playstation controller, a cup spilling yellow liquid into the grass, and Benji's dog tags.
"Joey? Jared? Benji?" Rien was a little kid again, but she wasn't happy and playful. She was a scared little kid. She slipped Benji's dog tags on and read the information on them. Benji's name, birthday, age, weight, address, emergency numbers...
"Benji!" Rien cried in a broken child's voice. "Come back! Please!"
A cry from downriver made Rien remember Cameron. She ran down the hill, down the stream's banks, down to the dam.
Lying on the banks was a dead Cameron. His throat was gruesomely slashed, blood everywhere, and he had several dark patches on his skin that didn't look like bruises.
Rien sobbed and fell to her knees. Joey and Jared and Benji were gone and Cameron was dead. What was happening?
Nothing is happening. Darkness is happening.
Rien raised her head slowly. "Hello?"
Go on. Touch your brother's body.
Rien shook her head furiously. "No! Where - who are you?"
That is something you do not need to know.
Rien's left hand jerked up, not of her free will. Rien cried out for mercy but her body still got up and went closer to Cameron's sprawled form. Her hands reached out to touch the patches of dark on his ravaged neck...
Cameron's skin was still slightly warm to touch and the dark patches were liquid-ish...seemingly...
"AAH!" Rien screamed as the dark swirled up her fingers. She pulled at her fingers, but they would not budge. Rien was stuck there, waiting to see what the dark patches wanted.
Not so easy to resist now, is it?
"Let me go!"
Valiant spirit. Strong. But a bit prone to depressive fits. Are you depressed, Rien?
"No! I'm not! I'm not!" Rien screamed, tears coursing down her face. "Let me go!"
The dark liquid swirled up her arms, up her neck...
Let go, Rien.
"NO!"
Let yourself sink into the blissfully pain-free black.
"Please!" Rien could not hear anything but the voice now - the black had filled her ears.
Joey and Jared and Benji and Cameron and your parents have left you to rot here in my grasp. Don't you want to take revenge on them?
Rien couldn't speak anymore; the black had glued her lips shut.
So silent./
The black obscured her eyes and stopped her endless tears.
So unhearing, so unseeing.
Rien could feel the despicable liquid creeping up the side of her head.
You're just a puppet.
A flash of white light sent Rien spiralling down into the depths of her own mind, unconscious and unknowing of what the darkness was going to cause.
Can't wait for feedback! T'would be very, very, very appreciated.
x-KeybladerInTheDark-x (Keyblader or Key for short, eh?)
