Darkness:the Alice Chronicles 1-The Transformation

Darkness: Prologue

Prologue

Memories

This is the story of Alice, a young girl born into a changing world. A world in which humanity is still at the top of the food chain. But the day of her birth was a dark omen for the sinister time to come and when she becomes fourteen, the battle for the future of mankind begins. It is a fight against the ancient gods that have come back to punish humanity for its sins against nature. She had special gifts only a few people have. But by the time Alice has her 14th birthday, nobody knows of the impeding danger that is about to come.

Many of the things I tell you now, I know because my mother had told them somewhen. I was born in a small town, where we knew each other and nothing extraordinary ever happened. My parents, Peter White and Amy White of number 25, Bakerstreet, were as boring and normal as you could imagine. They were the last people you would expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just did not hold with such nonsense. He worked in an office and she in a mall. They were both wearing suits when they went to work. My father was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck. Mother was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent much of her time craning over the garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The day I was born, the sky was dark and it rained. My parents drove to the hospital. And while my father was waiting, the trees creaked and the rain smashed against the windows. When I was finally born, it was already late. My father opened an umbrella and under it, we hushed to the car, which was already waiting for us in the darkness. After entering the car, we finally drove home. We drove through the endless night. It was so dark that we could barely see anything in front of the car. A few times, animals crossed the street and we had to evade them. My father tried to drive without crashing into a tree because the ground was so wet and it was so dark. The trees had no leaves and loomed creepily above us, shaking in the wind. Suddenly, it was raining fireballs. The sky was burning with falling stars. A thousand shooting stars were falling down. When we arrived home, we hushed into the house as fast as we could.

When my parents woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday my life started, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things that would happen fourteen years later. The day my mother was out of the hospital, my father hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work and mother gossiped away happily.

At half past eight, my father picked up his briefcase and pecked mother on the cheek. While my father was driving to work, I stayed with my mother. I saw father getting into his car and backing out of number 25. I remember it being a tranquil and peaceful day. That day, a shooting star crashed into our garden. In closer inspection, it was a gray capsule, which has set the grass around it on fire. The capsule itself was still burning. Suddenly, a pale, white hand came out of it. After that, I saw a pallid body, which was covered with gray goo. It walked out of the black capsule. It had pitchblack eyes without anything. My father gave himself a little shake and put that incident he just saw out of the corner of his eyes out of his mind What could he have been thinking of? As he drove towards town he thought of nothing except a large amount of files that waited for him in his office. But on the edge of town, the files were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he could not help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. Albinos with black eyes in cloaks. My father could not bear people who dressed in funny clothes. He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Father was enraged to see a couple of them were not young at all; why that man had to be older than he was. The nerves of him! But then it struck father that this was probably some silly stunt - these people were obviously collecting for something. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, my father arrived at the car park in front of his office. His mind was back on the files. Father always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he had not done that, he might have found it harder to concentrate on his files that morning. He did not see the UFOs swooping past in broad daylight, though the people on the street did, they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as UFO after UFO flew through the sky. Most of them had never seen an UFO. My father, however, had a perfectly normal UFO free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a lot more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought that he should stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakers opposite. He had forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the bakers. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He did not know why, but they made him uneasy. This lot were whispering excitedly, too and he could not see a single collecting tin. It was the last such thing my father would see for a long time. In the meantime, my mother had a nice and normal day. During that time, my parents often lamented that I wasn't as social as the other kids. I often played alone in the garden, not interacting with my parents or anyone else. While I played, I didn't want to be disturbed and I lashed with a stick at anyone who interrupted me. Even though I was very intelligent, I showed no interest in walking around or speaking.  During my first year of life, I didn't speak a single word and my parents were very worried. But then short after my first birthday, I started to walk and I also spoke my first words.

When I was three years old, my little sister Mia was born. She was different. Mia was not like me. She was normal. Most of the things I will tell you now, I barely remember as childhood memories long past, but when I remember James, many memories come back. It was this year that I once saw the evening news with my parents, when my sister Mia had been put to bed. „And finally there were UFO sights everywhere. It were the first reported UFO sights since three years. Although UFOs should not exist and are hardly ever seen, there have been hundreds of sightings on that strange day three years ago. Experts are unable to explain the UFO sights." The news reader allowed himself a grin. „Most mysterious. And now over to the weather. Going to be anymore UFO sights tonight Jim?" „Well Ted", said the weatherman, „I do not know about that, but not only that there were many reported UFO sights again lately. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they have had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating bonfire night early - it is next week folks. I can not say anything about the UFO sightings that are troubling us again this year, but I can promise a wet night." The news reader said and it were the last strange things to happen for a long time.

Because I was bullied in the nursery school, my childhood wasn't that easy. I barely ever spoke and that was the reason why the other children didn't see me as a real human. They treated me like an animal and avoided or even terrorized me. But then, when I was around four years old, I met a boy named James. That boy with the red hair and his short braids always cheered me up. We played together for around a year.

But then, short after his sixth birthday, he was taken away from me by a Tornado. His parents died that day, so I believed that he died, too. Ever since that day, I prayed that he survived, but until now, I have never seen him again. I still remember most of the things that happened that day. When I was six year old, I had to go to school, and I asked me if James ever had to endure that, too. While in school, I felt alien among the other kids. I felt that I didn't belong to them. I didn't interact with them and I felt as if there was some kind of invisible wall between me and them. I remember most of the things that happened in primary school.

It got better with every year I stayed there and I found new friends. But not among the girls. With every year, the other girls felt more and more alien to me. It was as if we were from different worlds. It was during that time, that I started to wear short hair and a base cap. I also stopped wearing skirts and dresses as well as jeans. My parents didn't like my development. Especially, that I was interested in Kung Fu and Karate. They always said to me that this was nothing for girls.

The years passed and my interests didn't change. That worried my parents. My taste also worried them. I liked dark clothes and my parents had the opinion that girls had to wear pink and like horses and so on. That was why the older I became, the more often I argued with my parents. And as I came into the middle school, the situation at school also worsened. The other girls and boys that were in my age, were appalled by my boyish behavior and clothes.