Chapter One - Dawn

The nightmare was constant, repeating itself night after night for the last week or so. It was beginning to have an impact on my conscious life, bringing to life a little monster in the back of my head that yanked on the cords of my eyes, causing an explosion of pain to explore my head in the mother of all headaches. I couldn’t shake the image of the blood as the knife sliced through the girl’s tender flesh at her throat, almost black as it seeped over her chest and beneath the lining of her gown. I certainly couldn’t shake the sight of the life leaving her eyes as she tried to scream, the shocking blue paling as death took her away.

Sometimes I almost thought it was real. 

I had a box for the nightmare, deep in the back of my mind. It was one filled with all the other nightmares of my life, right back to the age of six. And, like every other time the nightmare surfaced, I stuffed it in said box and forgot about it until the next time it arose. It was the only thing I could do. So, sitting in the sixth form centre of Coldlake High School and Further Education, I buried the nightmare deep into my mind box while pretending to listen to my friends, who were rambling on about something to do with homework.

“Honestly, I swear we haven’t learned about this stuff yet!” Courtney Bellingham complained, sitting opposite me with her face propped on her palms, elbows braced on the table. A mix of work sheets and blank paper scattered the surface before her, one labelled with the title of Darklings; Then and Now. I wanted to roll my eyes; we had learned it, she just couldn’t be bothered to remember it.

“We have, actually.” My other friend, Nakita Night, objected, seemingly speaking my thoughts. She walked behind Courtney and leaned over her right shoulder, peering at the sheets. “I mean come on, these are easy!”

“I don’t see why we should even learn it, they’re freaks. Inhuman.” Courtney snapped.

“Yet fascinating.” Nakita chirped merrily, or Kita as she liked to be called.

I lowered my eyes, red creeping in my cheeks at the work freaks. It was a word I was all too familiar with, and when Courtney looked up to say something to me, she chewed her lip in realisation.

“Sorry, Dawn, I forgot.” she said quietly, but I just shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s alright, I guess I should be used to it by now anyway. It’s just a word.” I murmured, forcing a smile on my lips. I didn’t want her to feel guilty, because that’s all anyone ever felt around me. Guilty or pitying. It was pathetic really; nearly eighteen and everyone felt the need to be careful around me because they were terrified that I would break down in a ball of tears. That just made me look more pathetic.

I stole a glance at the clock above the door and withheld a sigh. Two hours of absolutely nothing to do. I hated free periods; what was the point in coming in to just do nothing? I could have done with the extra sleep.

“Rough night?” Kita asked, her voice soft as she spoke. Her green eyes were gentle when I looked up, but I didn’t miss them flicker to my left temple like they always did.

“Yeah, nightmares again.” I muttered, reaching for my back and placing it on the table, pretending to rummage for some work.

“You should see a doctor or something, I’m sure they’d subscribe some sleeping tablets for you.” Courtney offered with a smile, tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “They help my mum a lot, knocks her out cold.”

“I’ve tried, it only makes them worse.” I told her. It was true. Somehow the dreams would only intensify in realism, so much so I could detect the smell of saltiness of blood, feel the heat of another body. The colours would be too bright, too, so intense that they were hard to look away from. With sleeping pills in my system, the standard nightmares morphed into horribly real ones, ones where it was hard to define what was real and what wasn’t.

“Never mind that now, though, we have this crappy work to do.” Kita said, graciously dropping the topic of my sleep pattern when she clearly saw how uncomfortable it made me. I smiled, glad for her efforts, and then engaged myself in Courtney’s work.

What is the code between Darklings and humans?

The question was straightforward. Every human in every school in England knew it, yet most chose to pretend it didn’t exist. In fact, if it was up to us, the word ‘Darkling’ would never be spoken out loud. As far as we were concerned they didn’t exist, and yet the school forced them upon us, forcing all known knowledge of them down our throats until we choked. There was the odd exception like Kita who found them fascinating, but the rest of us tended to run for the hills.

 

He who is a Darkling must never be seen.

He who is a Darkling must never be heard.

He who is a Darkling must never be touched.

 

Humans are to lead their own lives while Darklings go about theirs.

Contact between the two species is worthy of prosecution.

 

To unite we must isolate.

 

“To unite we must isolate.” I murmured aloud, and Courtney smirked with appreciation to the rule.

“Good.” she said. “I’d rather die than be united with those things.”

Kita squirmed but said nothing. I, however, smiled, despite the sudden burn in my left temple.

 

Standing in front of the mirror of the school toilets, I tenderly touched the skin on the left of my face. The Marks were clearer than ever, black swirls travelling from above my brow, over my temple and below the curve of my eye, my cheekbone a somewhat path for them to follow. They reminded me of Henna tattoos, only they were eternally embedded into my skin as if drawn by a permanent marker.

They’d developed over time. When I was born, I had a clear face like any other baby, but when I hit age three they started to appear, darkening with time and spreading like a rash. My mother thought they’d been a sort of virus and rushed me to the hospital, and after god knows how many tests and scans, all the doctors determined was that they weren’t life threatening. At the time I thought the Marks were cool, pretty even, but then I started school.

I wished I could just say it was a tattoo I got when I was very drunk, but everyone knew that was a lie. I was surrounded by people I grew up with, and they all knew the truth, so they all laughed and sneered “freak” in my direction, as well as informing any new students that it was something I was born with. I couldn’t get away from it. Yet people didn’t hate me because of the marks alone, no, they hated me because they were frightened of them. People are always scared of the unknown, it’s human nature.

I traced my fingers over the black swirls, following the patterns as they curved around my eye. They made my iris look brighter than the other, a shocking blue the same colour as the ocean on a sunny day. Of course that was the trick of the light and the contrast of the Marks, but the sadness I could see was not to be mistaken.

The door behind me slammed open, and in walked Johanna Lee. She was a tall but obtained the figure of an athlete, known well for her incredible speed in running and great power when it came to high and long jumps. She was an infamous champion in school, and everyone loved her for her skill as well as her looks. It wasn’t fair. Where I was small with twigs for legs and a waist barely noticeable, she was tall with the curves of a model. She had a chest to die for, and mine wasn’t even worth noticing. And her hair, golden coils that fell to her waist with the shimmer of the sun on water, was something that almost every girl would kill for, while mine was just a tangle of brown constantly pulled up in a ponytail or a bun.

It baffled me why she picked on me when I was hardly any competition. 

“Hello, freak show.” she said with a dazzling smile, her jade eyes practically drilling holes into my Marks. Lifting my bad and slinging it over my shoulder, I did my best to ignore her and shuffle past. I didn’t see her stick out her foot, catching my ankle. I gasped, losing my balance instantly, and my hands automatically launched forward to catch myself in a soft landing. Johanna laughed when my bag fell free, crashing to the grown and its contents spilling out.

I scrambled to gather everything back into my bag with trembling hands, struggling to hold back tears. Johanna had other ideas and caught my hand with the point of her heel, making me cry out with the sudden pain exploding from my hand and up my arm. I didn’t dare struggle�"she would only push down harder if I did�"and waited for her to stop with my eyes clenched shut.

“You don’t belong here, you know.” she snarled at me, crouched so that her lips were near my ear.

“Please let me go.” I whispered, hating the tremble in my voice.

“What are you gonna do? Cry?” she sniggered, and pushed down on my hand with her heel. I fought the desperate urge to scream, the pain terrible as it followed every nerve. Heart pounding, blood singing in my ears, it took everything I had to take the abuse I received every single day, and had done since I was a child. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was not to cry or call for help; it made everything worse.

The bell rang for next lesson, and finally Johanna eased up. “And just think,” she said, “you don’t even have a mother to go home and cry to.”

Hurt erupted in my chest like a balloon, the words not a surprise to me but agonising all the same. She released my hand completely, leaving me on the floor as she went over to the mirror to fix her already perfect hair. Silently I cleared up my things with burning eyes, shoving them into my bag and stumbling out of the toilets. Like every day, people pushed and shoved against me, pretending I didn’t exist, hoping that if they hit me hard enough then I’d collapse and disappear. That’s the thing, though, I never disappeared. I was always there, living the torture of being alone, drowning in the whispers and accusations and rumours, and sometimes my own friends couldn’t help but join in.

Yet I slid the handle of bad on my shoulder and walked on regardless, squaring my shoulders and raising my chin in defiance. It was the only thing I ever could do, something my mother taught to me when I was little.

People are cruel, Dawn, but never let them destroy you.

She contradicted herself though, because it was she herself who destroyed me.