Hey peoples!

Welcome to my new story, Dark Nights! I don't really have much to say up here, apart from stating the obvious fact that I am just like everyone else on here, in the way that I own no rights to Tintin. But we can dream...

Anywho, R, E and R! (Read, enjoy and review) See y'all at the bottom!

BANG!

The bullet from his unknown assailant's gun struck him in the head, burrowing its way into his skull. As he fell, one ankle twisted beneath his weight, before giving way with a harsh snap of broken bone. The boy was unconscious before his body struck the cold, hard, Syldavian rock. His mind was empty, devoid of any thoughts or ideas as to what had happened. His heart pumped blood around his body slowly, irregularly, weakly. His chest rose and fell with every breath his battered lungs struggled to push in and out of his chest. As the minutes passed, these breaths became smaller and weaker, until he was hardly breathing at all. After all, what is the point in breathing if your body can't take the oxygen from the air and get it to your dwindling supply of blood? By the time his breathing ceased, the pool of blood around his head had grown, comprising of almost half of the boy's supply of the vital fluid.

Meanwhile, about halfway down the mountain (it was, after all, not all that large), the boy's two assailants were making their escape. Their names were Jim and Bob, and they were Bordurian secret-agents, with a mission. A mission that hadn't gone to plan at all. They'd parachuted onto the mountains surrounding the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre (SARC for short), but their third team member, Tom, had broken his neck when he landed, meaning that the remaining agents were forced to leave him behind. They'd taken an hour to find the third ventilation shaft, which was probably the cause of their problems. Bob had gone up to the shaft to collect the documents from their informant, and didn't notice the boy curled in a blanket hiding in the shadows. Jim had stayed back to keep a look out while Bob got the papers, and it was a good thing he had. The boy had leapt out of the shadows and pressed a finger into Bob's back, telling him that it was a gun in a youthful, yet powerful voice. Upon seeing this, Jim, without thinking, pulled his revolver from his belt and fired it at the boy's back. He'd never been a good shot, and being in the dark and scared for his life, he missed completely. Instead of a wound in the shoulder, where it would only cause pain and a delay for him to escape in, the bullet struck the boy in the back of the head. Jim only gaped as his victim crumpled silently to the ground. Bob turned around to face him and grinned his congratulations; before beckoning to him to come with. Jim couldn't just run, though. He had to check that the boy was okay. He stumbled to his side, and dropped to his knees, which quickly became wet with the boy's blood. The sheer amount of it, and the complete lack of movement convinced Jim: his victim was dead.

"Come on, Jim! We have to get out of here, now!" Bob called harshly.

"I… I think I ki-killed him, Bob… I think he's dead." Was Jim's stuttered response.

"We'll be joining him if we don't skedaddle!"

And with that, Jim stood up hastily, wiped the blood on his hands onto his trousers, and joined his companion in a desperate race down the mountain to escape the Syldavian police that would surely be on their way by now. Someone would have heard the firing of Jim's gun, and reported it to SARC's security company.

By the time the Bordurian agents had made it to the bottom of the mountain (it was, after all, not very large), the boy Jim had shot had ceased any function his brain had left. He was dead not more than five minutes before the security guards found his body. They had been too late.

Inside the centre, the high up authorities were beginning to worry about one of the centre's members. He'd gone out into the mountains surrounding the centre, to hunt for a pair of parachutists that had landed in the area the night before. There had been a third parachutist, but his body had been found by the SARC security company with a broken neck among other horrific injuries. The boy, for he was purely that, far too young to be considered a man, had promised to radio in to his friend Captain Archibald Haddock, who would then report to the two commanders of the operation, by twelve o'clock that night, to say that he was safe and had a good spot to spy on the area where it was easiest to access a wing of the centre. But it was now one in the morning, and Haddock had not contacted Mr Baxter (the Director General of the centre) or Professor Cuthbert Calculus (the mastermind behind the operation), so the pair had gone in search of the sailor. They found him sitting against the door of one of the many strategically placed broom cupboards of the centre, sipping from a bottle of whiskey, and apparently, ignoring the sounds of a dog barking and growling behind the door.

"Captain Haddock? What are you doing?" Mr Baxter asked, frowning when the dog scratched desperately against the door.

"I'm … hic … enjoying this … hic … mi-mighty fine whiskey, here. And st- hic … stopping Snowy getting out. Bloody dog."

"But Captain, why would you need to stop Snowy getting out? Surely he'd be perfectly happy hanging out with you?" Professor Calculus pressed. Normally he would be making a fool of himself by this point in a conversation due to his failing hearing, but he was currently trialling a hearing aid, which he would use on the trip to the moon, to avoid any careless mistakes being made.

"It would'a been just past eleven o'clock, Mr Baxter," Haddock spoke, addressing the General Director. "Snowy was just laying by my feet, and I was just about asleep, when there was this horrible loud BANG. I don't … hic … don't quite know what it was, but I know it wasn't good, and it had some- something to do with Tintin. Snowy leapt up, see, and growled at me. You know the dog, sir. He doesn't growl at anyone! An- and then he stuck his head up and howled for the dead. Then he tried to bolt, but I grabbed him and shoved him in the cupboard, here. He's been growling and barking ever since. Something's happened to Tintin, sir. I don't know what or how, but it's bad." He explained, struggling to contain himself.

"Damn," Mr Baxter growled, after hearing Haddock's tale. He strode over to an emergency phone on the wall and ripped the handpiece out of its socket. "I need the SARC security company, now! … … Yes, hello. I need a search team in the mountains around Sector J-"

"Ventilation shaft 3, Mr Baxter. That's where he was." Haddock interrupted.

"Did you hear that? Yes, ventilation shaft 3. You're looking for Tintin. He was staking out the area just after eleven, but no one's heard from him. So get out there and find him!"

An hour and a half later…

Suddenly, the phone on the wall jingled to life, ringing shrilly in the silence of stressed waiting. Haddock was still sitting against the broom cupboard door, but he'd put his now empty whiskey bottle in the bin, and let Snowy out. The white dog was now sitting on Haddock's lap, whimpering softly, but not causing any fuss. It was clear that he knew what was going on, and recognised the need for quiet while the group waited for news on his master. When the phone began ringing, every member of the group leapt up in shock, not expecting the loud ringing in the echo of silence in the corridor of Sector J. Snowy fell to the floor, as his seat switched from horizontally placed to vertically so. He glared up at Haddock, silently criticising him for removing his seat, before remembering why his master's friends were now standing. He yipped excitedly and raced after Mr Baxter, who had just picked up the phone and lifted it to his face.

"Hello? … Yes, Baxter here. … You've found him? What do you know?"

Haddock and Calculus, upon hearing this, raced over to Mr Baxter, Calculus accidentally kicking Snowy in the side in his haste. When he started to apologise, Mr Baxter shushed him and turned back to the phone.

"The hospital wing? … Damn … not yet. Ok, how long till you get him there? … Ok … Good … We'll be there."

"Well? What's happening?" Haddock demanded, grabbing the lapels of Mr Baxter's overalls. Mr Baxter, at 5'10", was certainly not a short man, but when the 6'1" of muscle named Captain Haddock lifted him onto the very tips of his toes by his overalls, he felt dwarfed. He shrunk back from Haddock's fists as the big man tensed, waiting for the worst.

"The SARC security team found your friend," Mr Baxter began softly, but upon realising he wouldn't make it through the next sentence unless he stepped up his game, got louder and faster as he spoke. "He wasn't far from Ventilation Shaft 3 of Sector J. They're bringing him to the hospital wing as we speak; so the doctors can try to resuscitate him. He was shot in the head, Captain. From what the mobile paramedics could tell, he's been dead for less than ten minutes, so there's a chance of them being able to bring him back. But we need to be there, just in case … In case we need to say goodbye."

Mr Baxter was pleasantly surprised when Haddock lowered him slowly to the ground and forced his hands to relax at his sides, rather than dropping him and punching (and probably breaking) something, most likely a wall.

"I should have known something like that would happen. He's always getting into trouble like that." Haddock murmured softly, strangely calmly, for someone of his temperament.

"Would you like to tell me on our way to the hospital wing, Captain?" Mr Baxter asked kindly, placing a comforting hand on the sea captain's shoulder as he gently steered the big man in the right direction, past Professor Calculus, who told the pair he was going to talk to the security team. Haddock nodded, and began to speak in a soft voice, reminiscent of the past. He told Mr Baxter of the time Tintin was in Scotland, involved in the mystery of the Black Island. He certainly hadn't asked to get involved in that one. Haddock remembered how shocked he had been when Tintin first told him the tale of that adventure.

It was a beautiful morning, and Tintin was walking along a dusty country path with his furry companion Snowy. All of a sudden, he heard a sputter of a twin engined plane with only one going. The other had died, and was phut-phutting loudly. Tintin looked up to see the plane drifting lower and lower to the ground. It was clear that the pilot was looking for a place to land, which he found in an empty meadow. Tintin strode over to the plane, where the pilot had clambered out of the cockpit and was rummaging around in the engine bay.

"Hey, can I help you? I'm good with planes!" the boy called. To his surprise, both the pilot and his copilot inside the plane ignored him. They instead muttered a few sentences to each other, one seeming regretful, the other harsh. The copilot then pulled a small gun our from under the plane's window sill, aimed and fired. Tintin cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground.

"How many times has this sort of thing happened?" Mr Baxter asked, once Haddock had finished narrating how that particular adventure. Haddock shrugged nonchalantly, before replying.

"I'd be more than happy to tell you, Mr Baxter, but I don't actually know. Y'see, no one really knows about his past at all. He was kidnapped on my own ship once, too. That's how we met. He'd escaped from my hold - mind you, I had no idea he was there, being drunk off my face at the time - and rolled into my cabin through the porthole. He saved me from a life in jail and cured my unquenchable thirst."

"If no one knows about Tintin's past, how come you could tell me about how he got wrapped up in the mystery of the Black Island?" Mr Baxter asked curiously.

"Believe me, Mr Baxter, when you see a scar of that size on a lad that young, you've got no choice but to ask where it came from," Haddock growled. Mr Baxter winced, clearly wishing he hadn't asked such a personal question of a man he hardly knew, about a boy he only really knew from stories.

Inside the hospital wing, Dr Emmett Brown was working on one of the most hopeless cases he had experienced in his entire career. He was one of the most qualified and practiced doctors in the world, which was why he was working in SARC in the first place. But he hadn't been expecting something like this. Not like this at all. Frowning, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand. His job description said he was supposed to help engineers who had burnt themselves with welding equipment or dropped sheets of metal on their toes. Or even accidentally inhaled the gases used in the rocket building area.

"How are we looking, Doctor?" Evan, one of Doctor Brown's assistants asked, peering around the door where the doctor was working.

"Not well, Evan, my boy," Doctor Brown replied distractedly.

"Mr Director General Baxter and Captain Haddock are here, just in case, sir," Evan said, sliding timidly into the room. "In case you can't do any more for the poor lad."

"Alright. I'll let you know if I need them in here. Thanks, lad." Doctor Brown said, pressing a button on a square machine mounted on a wire frame. The button turned the heart monitor, for that is what the machine was, on, but with only one purpose: if it detected a single heartbeat, no matter how small, it would let the doctor know by beeping loudly. He then pulled another bag of blood from his bank under the counter, and hung it from the IV stand next to the table, next to the first bag, which was now empty. He had a single option left to try now. He had already removed the bullet from the boy's head (after shaving the matted ginger hair from the area), and connected a variety of IV medications, as well as a brain activity monitor. After inserting a ventilator into his throat and still finding no sign of life (his patient was dead when he was first brought in), other than artificial breathing, he decided he had no other choice. The ventilator was forcing oxygen in and out of the boy's lungs, but it was coming straight back out again, rather than replacing the carbon dioxide in his very limited blood supply.

Doctor Brown sighed, and fetched the new electronic device from one of the many cupboards in the room, and connected the four coloured wires to little pads on the boy's bare skull. Switching the device on, he programmed it to send a small blast of electricity into his brain. Unfortunately, this method was only just out of testing, but, if used correctly, it was supposed to be able to 'wake up' a patient's brain, and therefore start the body commands needed to work the heart and lungs. Sighing again, the doctor reluctantly pressed the button on the screen to send the electricity into the boy's brain. His body jerked, once, violently, before becoming still again. There was no change from the brain activity monitor or heart monitor. Doctor Brown doubled the amplitude of the electronic device and pressed the start button again. The boy jerked again, but the doctor was rewarded when the flat line on the brain activity monitor quivered slightly, before spiking suddenly, at the same time, the heart monitor came alive with a loud beep. Slowly, but surely, the pair of machines picked up their pace until they were running at an almost normal level. With a gasp, the lad's chest heaved with the first intake of air into his bloodstream in an hour.

"I hate to bring this up, Captain, but if he doesn't make it, do you have a way to reach his family?" Mr Baxter asked the seaman gently.

"You shouldn't need to," Doctor Brown smiled, coming out of the room where he had been taking care of the boy. "I got him back."

There we have it! The end of Chapter One! Two is already on its way, and it's gonna get good! Thanks for reading so far, but I'd just like to add one thing before you close this tab:

I'm sure everyone who uses is familiar with the use of the magic box on the bottom right of the screen by now, right? Even if all you have to say is that it's horrible or that the characters are too OOC, I want to know. Plzthxbye!

P.S.: And I'm going to reply to reviews and everything, I promise! I like reading what you guys think!