I turned on Alice, "Who's the smart alec that said that this was an easy trial?"

Chapter 11

Running. That's all. Running. Over logs. Branches. Rocks. Running. The House… Quiet… Eerie. Bedrooms… Empty. Kitchen… Messy. Lounge… There they are. Strewn across the floor. Blood rushing out. Spiders… They're covered in spiders. Why spiders? Why not moths or cute little bunny rabbits? Why spiders? But wait… that's not right. The House… it's meant to be empty. Not full of spiders. It's too cold for spiders. He walks in. He smiles. He knows.

"The Shadows of Fate…" He starts

"What?"

"Will join together"

"Who are the Shadows of Fate?"

He smiles, and walks away.

A computer. Log on. Kelly. Friend. Talk.

"What do you think are the Shadows of Fate?"

"No idea sounds Darren Shanny."

"Demonata or Saga?"

"Both, teehee"

"Lord Loss playing chess with Des Tiny."

"Yeah lol"

"Darren fighting Vein and Artery?"

"More like Vancha"

"Nah Gannen"

"You always liked the vampaneze better, that's why you're a Kurda fan"

"Scream now, whoever you maybe I am the lady of the vampaneze"

"Lol, I screamed for Paris and Mika Ver Leth, but they would not scream and they would not follow me, I screamed for the vampaneze for Steve and Gannen, they screamed with me and we all killed Darren"

"Lmao!"

"You started it! Is that why you like Kurda then?"

"Of course"

"Lol, well me g2g I have to go earn money, teehee."

"Okays bibi"

"Bye"

Normal life. Not anymore. No more Kelly. No more confusing analogies about how Lord Loss and Mr Tiny were cousins. Vampire. Shadows of Fate. Join together. Just another confusing analogy. Some things never change. But Vampires, not real. Can't be. Darren Shan wrote more books. Demonata. And more. All dream. Dream…dream…dream…

I was lying on a pile of blankets in my cubby-hole. It was time to choose my second trial. Caleb had brought me a jug of blood, which I carefully sipped. I place my head in my hands. Yuck spiders. I hate spiders. And Kelly? Why did I dream about her? We met in primary one. Then I moved away, moved north we kept in contact talking via the Internet. Via cyber comm. Talked about everything, mainly the Darren Shan books. She would be ecstatic if she ever found out they were real. She was a vampaneze fan through and through, she was Gannen and I was Vancha.

I stared up at the ceiling; today I picked my second trial. I shivered and stared at my hand, two tiny pinpricks were almost visible.

"Knock, knock." Caleb said as he walked in.

"Ha" I snorted.

"Least I knocked," He commented dryly, before throwing my tee shirt at me. "Get dressed; you have to be in the hall in half an hour."

I groaned.

I wasn't really paying attention; Mika was complimenting me on my trial, saying that he couldn't do that type of trial, and that I wasn't alone with hating spiders. I didn't feel like arguing. The thing is I don't hate spiders; I'm terrified of them. Ever since I was five I've been terrified. It started with a dream, I was playing with my cat, Kuro, when she was attacked by a gigantic red spider, and it swallowed her, my mum, my dad and was about to swallow me when I woke up. The thing was when I woke up there was a real spider about the size of my hand sitting on Carrot, my cuddly rabbit. I freaked out and wouldn't sleep for days.

I looked up and saw that a guard was jiggling the bag of stones in front of me. I sighed then placed my hand into the bag. Something brushed against, paranoid I gave a small shriek, grabbed the first stone I came to and pulled my hand out. I handed the stone to the guard and cradled my hand like a baby. Alice stared at me then watched as the guard called out the numbered stone;

"Number twenty-three, The Path of Needles."

I sighed at that, not just any sigh, a sigh of relief, the Path of Needles was a trial Darren had completed, although barely. There was hope for me yet.

Training.

I turned to Alice, "How do you know the difference between the two?" I asked indicating to the stalactites and stalagmites.

"Stalactites, hang tight to the ceiling whilst stalagmites hope that someday they might reach." Debbie said, admiring the length of the cavern

Alice stared at her and then at my confused face, she smiled, "Stalactites have a C for ceiling and Stalagmites have a G for ground. Now come on I'll run you through what you have to do."

Training was harder than I thought it was, the stalagmites were slippery and sore, taking a leaf out of Darren's books I used dirt to dry my hands, and I continued across. I got to the other end still intact.

We had a short fifteen-minute break where Alice and Debbie practically shoved broth and blood down my throat.

We started training again and already I could feel the blood going to my head, I was careless, making mistakes a few times they had to jump in and safe me impaling myself on a blunt stalagmite.

I muttered something about too much blood and sat down near the door, clearly out of breath.

Thinking back to the dream I sighed, I missed Kelly, I wondered if she missed me. What was really confusing was Darren Shan. I still didn't believe all this was real and that dream made it even more unbelievable. Darren Shan wrote more books, the Demonata and Koyasan, could it be that they were true as well? I brushed that question aside with a laugh. Demons, this was getting out of hand… or was it? I made a mental note to ask Caleb later.

It was later and so I asked the question that had been on my mind for most of the second half of the training session.

"Caleb?"

"Mmm?" He didn't look up from the bread he was eating.

"Is there such a thing as Demons? As is in the Demonata? Only Darren…"

Caleb dropped his bread and looked at me, "Are you tired? You look tired, you have your trial tomorrow, you go to bed now." He gentle pushed me out of the door and went back to his bread.

I sighed, he had slyly side stepped the question with my health. It was sort of the thing I would've done.

Gods I was nervous, yeah I knew what the trial was, and yeah it didn't include spiders. What I did include were razor sharp stalagmites and stalactites where one wrong move could be the death of me. No pressure there!

Mika Ver Leth decided to watch this one seen as he didn't with the last one. He nodded at me and I climbed into the path and onto the first stalagmite, these ones were much more slippery than the training ones.

I tested the stalagmite directly to my left; it wobbled a bit so I decided not to risk it and went for the one on my right, slowly I clambered over the stalagmite.

Although I was going slowly, the time went quickly and in no time at all, I was half way across. I wedge myself in between two stalagmites and glanced grimly at a stalactite that was hanging directly above me. I covered my hands in dirt, biting back a scream as it stung the many a cuts I had on my hands.

I moved on climbing out of the wedge, and onto a sturdy big one, the stalactite above the wedge wobbled, then fell, crashing in between the two stalagmites.

My first thought: "Gods that was close, if I hadn't moved…" that thought was interrupted by another thought accompanied by the tale tale sound of stalactites wriggling out of their tight grip to the ceiling. "Shit." I swore, not bothering to be quiet. I looked around where could I go. Fortunately there wasn't a stalactite directly above me but there were others dangerous wobbling around.

I stayed where I was, preying that they wouldn't fall. The tip of a particularly nasty one snapped off and fell towards the stalagmites, where it hit and broke into thousands of pieces. The pieces showered through the air, one even cut through my skin just centimetres away from my eye. I could feel the blood running down.

Bleeding when your anaemic no matter how small the blood flow is, isn't very good, so I gathered a bit of dirt and attempted to stop the flow, it stung like hell, but it did the job… for now.

I carried on ever so slowly I even got past the bit where Darren nearly failed last time. I think that's when I got over confident; I had two more stalagmites left to manoeuvre. I clambered over one, tested the other and got all but one of my legs on to it when a smallish stalactite broke free and hurtled towards me, I struggled to get my leg on the last stalagmite, it was too late though the stalactite soared through the air and through my leg!

The screams and the language that came out of my mouth would even make Vancha March's blood boil. Breathing through clenched teeth I managed to break the stalactite so only the tip remained in my leg, I swivelled round and painfully gripped on to the last stalagmite, I felt like giving up, just falling of the last stalagmite, hoping that this nightmare would be over.

But something in side me said no, in a few seconds I could be crawling out this cavern and having a rest. The thought of sleep and food, made me forget about the searing pain in my leg, I clambered of the last stalagmite and crawled out of the cavern. Where I collapsed.

Caleb being the gentleman he was rubbed some spit onto all my wounds apart from my leg, whilst Debbie called the stretcher over.

I smiled, I could feel myself losing consciousness, I had lost too much blood, I could see Caleb's worried face as the medics lifted me on the stretcher.

"Shadows of Fate…" I whispered only loud enough for Caleb to hear before losing the battle with my consciousness.

A/N: Oh Gods, do you guys know how sorry I am, I haven't updated in like ages. This chapter has been complete for ages, just everytime I tried to upload it, My computer went Funny, yeah cpmuter worked for Fowl Squared it was just SiB it didn't like. So anyways he's Chapter 11 please R&R and I warn you know Chapter 12 might be a while, I have just started rehersals on our Winter Musical (i'm doing Drama at Uni) so, I have rehearsals for Fame, we performing in five weeks, eep