Dark Shadows Darker Secrets

Chapter 9

"Times up. Pencils down." Elysia says from the table. She stays seated but Cecelia and Declan get up and start collecting the tests.

When they finish they give the tests to Elysia. Declan says something to her and she nods her head before leaving through the front door. I'm actually pretty surprised because I thought that she would teach us the brief history that we just had a huge test over, but I guess it makes sense that Cecelia and Declan do it instead.

"As Elysia said before the test." Cecelia starts. "We are going to give you guys a rundown of everything you just took a test over so that you have an idea of your mistakes." She claps her hands together like she's excited and I try not to laugh. She really loves history. "Let's get started."

"There is many different religions that have their own beliefs, but we just refer to the Christian belief since that is one of the biggest, but basically one way or another all the religions are true." She starts pacing as Declan leans on the table.

"So anyways we all know that one day God just appeared and made the Earth and the Heavens and angels. Everything was perfect until God made humans." She stopped pacing and hopped on the table next to Declan.

Declan smiles down at her and continues. "God loved humans more than anything else he created and many of the angels grew jealous. One in particular, Lucifer. Lucifer not only grew jealous but he desired to be God. So when he tried to over throw him he was cast out of Heaven and became Satan. Now some of the lower angels followed Satan down to hell and they became demons." He nudges Cecelia and she starts again.

"Once Satan was thrown into Hell he wanted to inflict as much pain and suffering to the humans as possible, so he created a world, with the help of some demons that would be able to inflict pain to human souls even after death. This place is called many things such as the Veil, or In-Between world, where lost souls go that died an unnatural death. They have to relive their deaths but unfortunately we do not know for how long. Much of that world still remains a mystery to us as does Hell." I think about the girl I saw in my apartment the day Draken came to get me. Draken said I was in the In-Between world already. How did I even get there? I mean I saw Draken open a portal and I never did that. Did someone else bring me there?

Cecelia continues. "So anyways the angels grew extremely jealous that Satan and the demons got their own world to make, so they made Umbra, or the Shadow world." She looks at her nails and starts to pick at them cueing Declan to go on.

"Umbra is a world full of beings that are less than angels and demons, but still had the powers to travel to the In-Between world and Human world and the ability to track with essence. After thousands of years of being used under the angel's control, our kind grew sick of it and rebelled. Of course we won." I hear some people let out quiet victory yells even though I'm sure this rebel took place a long time ago.

"Along with winning, we disconnected ourselves from Heaven. By doing this we lost the abilities to travel and track. But for some reason a few of us are still born with these gifts each year. Of course they are not as strong powers as they used to be, but at least we have them. We're lucky to get twenty students with this power each year, but just because you have the power doesn't prove anything. That's why we have the tests, to narrow you down to the top ten." She glances at Declan. "But unfortunately we can't tell you everything that we do in the government."

I look around at the large dark room that is filled with desks and test takers. They stare calmly at Declan and Cecelia as they explain all of this but I can't seem to think straight. It feels like I'm looking out of my eyes through a veil of fog. This is all real, but it all sounds so impossible.