Three boys and a girl

Prolouge

The diner wasn’t attractive. Nor was it hygienic. The harsh grey floor looked like it had been coated in the substances that took refuge in the garbage bins that littered the ally outside. After a quick swallow, I took my tinted glasses off and scanned the deserted diner. I spotted a total of 5 people, not including the waitress who looked like she had rolled herself in some toxic looking orange sludge, scattered around the dirty white table top islands and two of them looked like they weren’t actually ‘there’. Nevertheless I walked in, the glaring florescent lighting a harsh change from the inky black night outside. Silence. Everyone looked at me when entered. I looked right back, not too friendly. They stopped looking. I took my seat at the corner table, dingy, dark and perfect for hiding secrets (or picking your nose without fear of public humiliation). Clunking my bag on the table, I relaxed as easily as I could into the straight backed red chairs. “Can I get you anything?” I looked at the waitress, wearily taking in her cheap red and white linen dress and bleached blond and very tacky hair. “Yeah, some privacy.” I turned away, not before I saw the spiteful roll of her narrow eyes and the thin veil of frustration in her upturned snarl. I decided to let it go. It wasn’t my problem, it was hers. The echoing steps of cheap high heels faded away and I turned to look out the floor to ceiling windows that patterned the wall. Night had fallen over New York like a giant curtain; however the darkness was the alarm clock for the NYC partiers. Here in the big apple we weren’t afraid of the dark but that was more a token of idiocy than actual bravery. Thanks to the beautiful view of the brick wall I caught sight of my wavering reflection in the window. My hair, the unusual colour of strawberry pink fell past my shoulders, the soft curls spewing random stray’s hair around my face. In my reflection my eyes looked black, however that was the poor quality of the image, dark blue printed wrongly. The pale skin didn’t look as weakening as it did in the lighting of the sun. At night I looked dangerous and my pale complexion brought out the colour of my hair. That was all I could make out. The rest was punctured by the grimy rectangles of spit and brick. Turning away, I started to tap my fingers on the table, a quick beat tempo of impatience. The sound in the diner seemed to echo. The clink of a coffee cup, the mumbled conversations and my relentless tapping seemed about ten times louder than usual. To me the loudest sound was the silence; crisp, clear and secretive. The door opened, the only reminder of outside civilisation and I automatically turned to the sound. A tall blond boy stepped inside, his footsteps soundless and his face shadowed. I could tell he was wearing black; lots of it. Black jacket, black jeans, black shirt and black shoes. The waitress asked if he wanted anything and he shook his head, quick, sharp and mysterious. My heart leapt in an ungraceful joyous jump then landed on two feet of annoyance. The blond boy sat opposite me, his face still hidden. I grabbed his hand, gripping it tightly. “What the hell took you so long?” I hissed between my teeth. My brother still didn’t look at me, staring down at his knees. “Samuel, what in the name of sanity is your problem!” Sam looked up and I covered my mouth to stifle my surprise. His eye’s, the same midnight blue as mine, were so… dead looking. His mouth was a straight line of hopelessness. “Sammy,” I whispered in a hushed voice. “Sam, what happened?” He smiled, if you can call it that. The absolute finality of the bitter upturn of his lips was enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and bawl my eyes out. “Nothing, Roze. Nothing.” I was hunched uncomfortably over the table but I didn’t care. My spidey sense was tingling.  “Then who sucked the life out of your eyes?” I shot back. The sadness was uncovered and raw when he looked me full in the face, his grip tightening on my hand. “No one. I just… there’s something I have to tell you. Something important.” I felt my eyes widen and my pulse pick up pace. “What? What do you have to tell me?” Sam’s lips moved but his words were lost in the explosion that ripped through the diner at that exact moment. I hunched over, protecting my face as shards of glass flew from the windows in a horrific screech of glass and foot falls.  As soon as it stopped raining stabby bits of glass I got up, Sam only a second after. The diner was in shock; people curled up into balls and cuts evidently were the new trend in facial injuries. I didn’t have time for an inventory of the wounded, not even time to shout a warning because at that moment seven black figures jumped through the new entry, faces a grotesque blend of empty eye sockets and stitched up mouths. Screaming was inevitable. The figures were striking as they took position on the empty tables, one big vertical line more venomous then a snake.  “Shadowen.” I whispered under my breath. At that moment all curiosity about my brother was driven out of my mind, replaced with a cold flame of determination. “Everyone get out!” I shouted, sweeping my arm back. As soon as the words were out of my mouth the Shadowen sprang to action, leaping of the tables and sprinting towards me and Sam. I didn’t have time to check if everyone made it out and the only thing I had a spare second for was to duck as the first Shadowen leaped at me, the horrid stretch of rotting skin covering their sockets a blur above my head. “Shit, Sam!” I shouted as I leaped out of the way of the now ongoing horde “Planning on doing something?” But he just stood there, a solitary figure of black stone in the corner of my eye. “Frikkin emo.” I muttered as the Shadowen regrouped in front of me. Silence was my heroic background music as I stared down the eyeless creatures. “Fine.” I said. “If you want to play it like that.” In one quick movement I whipped the two sided dagger out of my jeans and sliced forward in a rush of speed. If it was a human opponent I was versing, they would have been dead before they could even registered what I had done, but as Shadowen were so totally not human, I only managed to tear of the hand of the darn creature. At the severed limb I could see the rush of darkness pouring out. The other Shadowen looked curiously at me in the split second before they attacked. A-ha. Threat recognised. In three minutes I had killed three Shadowen, gotten my best jacket ripped, cut cross the cheek and wrecked a whole diner. In the same three minutes Sam stepped forward once. I scooted beside him after a narrow miss. “Gonna help?” I panted eyeing the Shadowen as they regrouped. Sam looked at me, a bitter sweet look in his dark eyes. “Yep.” He raced forward and my heart leapt. I felt like a football mum, cheering from the sidelines. Sam stopped a few centimetres from the Shadowen. In reality it only took a few seconds, but to me it seemed to take years. The way Sam stood was wrong, too open- he wasn’t fighting back. I twitched forward as one of the Shadowen gripped hard at his neck and twisted splattering the diner in blood. My hearing was muted as I watched with horrified eyes as my brothers corpse fell to the floor. I rushed forward dimly aware that I was screaming. As I got to Sam’s body the Shadowen disappeared, turning to smoke. I held his dead body in my hands, cradling my older brother not daring to look at his face. I felt the warm drip of tears run down my face but only vaguely. I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t allowed to feel anything. My life had shattered. My love had died as soon as my brother did.