"It's dark in here."
"Are you scared?"
"I…do not fear darkness. I was born in darkness, raised in darkness. It is in my being, a part of me. I would feel incomplete without it."
"Yes. But they do. They fear the darkness. They do not know it, and so they fear it. They seek to control what is not known to them, and when they fail, they try to trample it, suppress it, crush it. It is their nature, inescapable, fundamental."
"Then they should fear me the most. I lurk in the darkness, hunt in the shadows. Humans are indeed a cowardly race. They try to beat back the darkness with fire, always forgetting that the light leaves many shadows behind."
"Of course. But you are different. You are special. You are not one of them. You do not fear the darkness, and so you teach them to fear you."
"Are there…others like me?"
"Naturally. Cant you feel them? Can you not sense their presence? At the moment there is only one other, but soon there will be many more. And one day, those other weaklings will be culled and we will no longer need to hide in the shadows."
"I am tired. I want some sleep."
"Then sleep well, because we have a lot of work to do in ridding the scum from this world."
It was true; she had a lot of work to do. But for now, the pale skinned, sandy haired diclonius lay down on the floor of the abandoned warehouse she had made her home and slept, dreaming of the perfect world that she was sure would one day come.
The first thing David felt when he awoke was a sharp pain in his head. He attempted to sit up, but only succeeded in smashing his head against the underside of the dumpster, further increasing his pain. Slowly, he crawled out from underneath the dumpster and slumped against a nearby wall. He slowly reached up and felt his head. It was a miracle he was still alive, and by all rights he knew he should be dead from the massive amount of blood he had lost. A spasm of pain went through his body, causing David to sharply withdraw his hand. He shivered.
It was very cold in the alley, and seemed to act as a natural wind tunnel. Bits of old newspaper were blowing around in tiny cyclones, grimly parodying man's attempts to control nature. One of the pages blew into David's face. He was about to tear it away when the headline caught his eye. It was entitled, "Serial Killer on the loose!" He quickly scanned the article, then went back and read it through more carefully. He shivered again, and this time it was not from the cold.
According to the article, an outbreak of killings had occurred relatively nearby. There were nine cases in all, and none of them seemed to be linked – except in the nature of the deaths. All of the bodies had been literally hacked to pieces. But the truly horrifying nature of these killings was that the victims had not been killed by these injuries; rather, they had been left to flail around in their own blood until the darkness took them.
Could it be…that there was another? What exactly happened to the girl who escaped before he did? Before he could ponder the matter any further, he felt a sudden numbness in his head that was impossible to describe. It was strange, like the feeling that you are being watched. And that was when David knew, with a sickening clarity, that he was not the only one.
"I'm not alone…" He said to himself, and shivered once more.