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Chapter 58: Prologue
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2022-04-29 14:02:11Related chapters
Darkness Chapter 59
AnnaI extend my arm and punch. I do the same with the other. Punch, punch. Left, right. Again and again until I tire. The metal swings the punching bag away from me then back, away from me, then back again. I dance on my tip toes, left, right, left, right, punch, punch. Seconds, minutes, hours pass, I don't pay attention to the time. It's the only time I don't.Mickey, the owner of the training center I am profusely sweating in, comes up from behind me, I see him before he speaks, I feel his movement before he even makes it. I was trained to."Looking good Anna but keep your elbows up."I nod and do as ordered, then try again. Punch, punch, left, right. Sweat slides down one side of my face and onto my collarbone. I can feel pressure rising form the bottom of my back and that's my indication that I've been at this for over an hour. My max is usually no more than forty-five minutes, but if I really push myself, like today, I can normally make it to one hour and eighteen min
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 60
AlanI walk down the halls of Northridge Academy one last time. As excited as I am to be moving to New York and starting new somewhere, I am really going to miss this school. I have been here a total of three years and even after everything that went down with me one dark and drunken night, the school staff and principal still supported me and welcomed me back when I was deemed fit to teach again.Mr. Tissimo, the school principal, greets me right outside his office door. When I first requested to work here in this school, I expected I would not get in. It being an Academy and all, had diminished my hopes. It wasn't until I was hired and was asked several times if I would have my father come and tour the school or take a look around at what needed to be fixed in the school, did I understand the true meaning behind my hiring. I am my father's son.Dad is a real estate tycoon that has recently announced his running for Senator. It didn't come as a surprise to our family, dad was alw
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 61
AnnaEight seventeen pm."I just can't imagine those two colors together. What do you think Anna?"Eight seventeen pm."Anna, did you hear me?"Eight seventeen."Anna, why are you starring at your phone so hard?"Eight eighteen. Shit. Still nothing."Anna!"I look over to Laynie as she smirks at me. Shit, how long has she been asking me a question?"Sorry Lanes. Got a little sidetracked. What were you asking me?""Anna, we can do this another day. It really isn't a big deal." Laynie says to me as she looks around at her now empty restaurant. Yesterday Laynie asked me to come over to the restaurant and help her out with a few things. When I came in today after work she was at one of her tables with her head down, looking at paint samples. Laynie has been extremely overwhelmed with everything since Maggie's business skyrocketed. She is working nearly seven day a week being the chef and manager. Both Jared and I have told her to hire someone to help manage the place, but sh
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 62
Alan"We are very excited for you to start with us Mr. King. The previous fifth grade teacher, Mr. Wormon, has decided last minute that he no longer wanted to teach, so circumstances have you starting sooner rather than later." Mr. Moley the school principal tells me.It's Sunday morning and I was asked to come down this morning to start my paperwork and get them everything they would need for me to start by tomorrow. It's not normally how it's done but I know they are shorthanded at the moment. Plus, to be honest, I don't mind one bit. I'm eager to get started and to meet my new students.I've been here for two days now and although the first night was of me getting settled in and resting. I thought the next day would bring me a surprise I've been waiting on. Laynie and Jared came over to bring me dinner but when I asked Laynie about Anna, she just lowered her head and shook it.The girl has been avoiding me like the plague since I moved out here but when I told Laynie that, she s
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 63
AnnaI wake with a jolt. What time is it? Father hates it when I am late. I glance around for my clock on my small nightstand but don't see it. In fact, I can't see anything. I try to lean forward but quickly hit my head on something above me. I try and get my bearings right and realize I am in some kind of box. I feel around for something, anything to indicate what I am supposed to do, what my mission is, but get nothing.I want to cry out for my parents, I want to shout out for my brother, but I know that will only lead to a punishment. I cannot give in.Father wants to show me something, teach me something, I just need to survive long enough to know what that is.A rocking sound jolts me again and I realize that is what originally must have woken me up. A small light shines through the box I am trapped in and I try my best to look around. Suddenly something slams down on top of the box, startling me.A buzzing type noise starts to rattle the box and I'm helpless as a small
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 64
Alan "Good job today guys. See you tomorrow." I say to my new class as they nearly trip over each other trying to run out of the classroom. Today was my first day and it went so much better than expected. Back home in Minneapolis I had a class where I only taught social studies, but the school systems are so much different here. I have these amazing kids all day long and I am supposed to teach all subjects. Though I'm a bit rusty, and it's gotten a bit challenging, I was proud of my first day.Growing up with all little sisters I was able to tell right away how each student was going to be. Fifth grade is an interesting age group. It's where you can potentially meet your future friends and it's also where you truly start to find yourself. I remember being in fifth grade and deciding for myself that being a teacher is what I wanted to be. I had a workshop teacher, Mr. Dunlap, who taught me that I didn't have to be the stereotypical jock just because I played football and had parent
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 65
AnnaA light in the darkness. A small lit flame floats in the air.I should have known.I should have known ignoring the problem wouldn't make it go away. Alan was right. We can't run away from our problems. We have to be brave. I thought that's what I was doing when I went home last night and pulled out the letter I had originally ignored, the one that feels like a lifetime ago that I received.It was Jed's handwriting, I knew it would be, but somehow when I opened it, doubt dreaded my mind. The letter was the same as the others, facts about our past, secrets hidden all around the world. Everything I would need to put my father away. I put the letter into my safe hidden under the ground of my bedroom's closet, along with the pictures and all the other letters and I went to sleep.Now, as I stand here in my doorway, while the light, the burning orange and yellow light flickers, I wonder if I were meant to stare harder at the letters."Annabelle." The shadowy figure calls out.
Last Updated : 2022-04-29Darkness Chapter 66
Alan"Who can tell me the story of Romeo and Juliet?" I wait for the snickers to stop. I don't know what it is with kids and the story of Romeo and Juliet that have them snickering, laughing and blushing all at once. My previous class was the exact same way. I ask the question again once the class has settles down, and a girl raises her hand first."Yes, Merith."Merith lowers her hand and answers with a shy voice."Um, I think it's a love story. Romeo and Juliet love each other but their families don't like each other so they go behind their families backs and kiss." My lips turn up at her description.A few boys look at one another in the back corner with their mouths turned up in disgust. Ah, to be the age where you think all girls are absolutely discussing. Hard to believe in a few years those boys will be chasing these girls down instead."That's pretty accurate Merith. It's a tragic story derived from William Shakespeare." I begin telling the class the story of the doom
Last Updated : 2022-04-29
Latest chapter
Darkness Chapter 82: Epilogue
AnnaSix Years Later"Sweetheart can you tell your father to come in here and grab the steaks?" Laynie asks her daughter Molly. Molly runs out to the back-yard hollering to her father that mommy said to get the 'sticks'.Laynie and both laugh which causes me to hold onto my enormous belly. I am currently eight months pregnant and I swear if there was a way to get this baby out sooner I would do it. Laynie walks over and closes the sliding glass door shut after Molly left it open."So how are you feeling?" Laynie asks coming back to the kitchen and grabbing the salad out of the fridge. We decided to have a barbeque at Alan and I's home for the fourth of July weekend. Shortly after everything went down six years ago, Alan and I got married and bought a house. I fought it at first, but Alan soon convinced me that we knew each other all our lives, we didn't need a timeline for marriage.Jared and Laynie are here with their three children, and Jed will be here soon. We invited Alan
Darkness Chapter 81
AlanChaos. I've never truly understood the word until now. I've grown up in a house full of people all talking at the same time. I've had over thirty students yelling at the top of their lungs for a sound proof test the school was doing. I've been in a circle of both equal parts nervous and excited football players, preparing themselves for the big game. I've had noise, I've had excitement, I've had an uncontrolled environment. What I've never had, is chaos.I get in the car and drive after the ambulance carrying the woman of my dreams. My mind a flurry of thoughts and images of every moment we have ever spent together. I thought when detective Stephanson told me, Laynie and Jared the entire story of Anna's past, that I was heartbroken then, but nothing is compared the pain I feel in this moment.Thoughts of this morning come rushing back to me as I arrived at Jared's home. Detective Stephanson was there, I had recognized him from when Jared and Laynie were attacked last year i
Darkness Chapter 80
AnnaMy phone vibrates in my palm once more. I can't answer it, I won't. I already know it's Alan. He has been calling for the last three hours nonstop. His words form last night are still raw and I don't know if I could stand to hear his voice right now. Alan finding out the truth last night has brought me to where I am today.I await the guards to finish frisking me and lower my gaze even further when the lead guard comes over and starts telling me the rules I have already learned. I am let into the room, a different one than the one I am used to being in and wait. Today is the day Jed gets out, and my nerves have given me both jitters and anxiety. I am not only nervous for Jed, I am nervous for me.A loud ringing sound starts, and I look around to see where it is coming from. The sound stops when a door opens, and I see two guards flowing in, followed by my brother. He looks different, almost happy. His long dirty blonde hair is brushed back, and his eyes are bright and vibrant.
Darkness Chapter 79
AlanI had always assumed I had strength. The strength to move towards my goal as a teacher. The strength to move to a whole new city. The strength to say no anytime someone would offer me a drink at their dinner party, or a small get together. I had no idea that strength, real strength, came from pain.As I sit in my small blue plastic chair sipping on my overly stale coffee and listen to other people talk about what they have endured. What they have gone through, the horrible things they have done to get that last sip, or last hit. I realize that strength, real strength is a small part of what I would need to keep fighting my demons.It has been a week since I have been back in New York. I did what I was meant to do. I went to work, came home, graded papers, said hello to Delilah every morning, saw Laynie and Jared a few times for dinner, everything that was expected of me.What I didn't do, was relax. My mind couldn't. I was too wrapped up in what I had found on my first day
Darkness Chapter 78
AnnaAnger has never been more clearly evident on someone as it is on me at this moment. As I watch my father waltz into a club full of men who could kill him simply by flicking their wrists, I wonder what his motive must be. If he has been tailing me, and I know he has because he showed up at my apartment the night I flew in from Minneapolis, then he knows what a mistake this is. Alan is here, and if father's plan is to get Alan to see that we still keep in contact, then it's working."What are you doing here father?" I snare at his pungent face. Now that Alan and I are over, something father doesn't know because I bullshited the story of me going over there in the first place, I want him gone even more.After I got home, I was broken. Alan had said some horrible, but truthful things to me and the last thing I wanted was to come home to father sitting comfortably in my armchair. He did what I figured he would. Questioned my trip with the Kings. I told him the very basics. The inter
Darkness Chapter 77
AlanThere is no greater pain than knowing you caused an innocent person's tragedy. That night I made my decision. I had to change myself. I woke up the next day in the hospital to no Anna. My mother was sitting in the chair next to me, crying. My father nowhere to be seen. My hand was grasping my mother's tight and when the detective came in to tell me of my charges, I watched my father break down for the first time in my lifetime. He was always the strong one, the wall of bravery and courage that never backed down or gave up. He was the sturdiness of our family and I witnessed him crumble over and over again as they named my charges.Edith Monroe Jewel.She was eighteen years old, majoring in economics in college. Her favorite color is orange like the sunset she insisted on watching every night from her dorm. Only child to her parents and used all her money she worked at a movie theatre to buy a ten-year-old Chevy. She was the most innocent face I would ever see, the face that
Darkness Chapter 76
AlanI remember it like it was it was yesterday. The pain and anguish, as if it were a mere ten seconds ago. She broke my heart that day. I not only learned that I was with someone that wasn't supposed to be with me, but I learned that the world is a cruel and ugly place. I found my place that night. The bottle called to me, and it never stopped.Two Years AgoAnna should be here any moment. I dash over to the kitchen and start cleaning there as well. I never realize how dirty my house is until I know someone is coming over. Anna isn't necessarily a clean freak but knowing my girl, she will bust my ass seven ways to Sunday if she sees my left over Chinese containers from three days ago. I've been a bit busy with helping to tutor little Arnold after school. He will be in my class the year after next and I for one cannot wait. He and his older brother have been having a hard time with their father and he is relying on me to come through for him this summer. I started teaching summ
Darkness Chapter 75
AnnaI've never felt so helpless in my life. Not even when Jed turned sixteen and instead of a gift, father made him train with a nasty brute of a man named Serge. Father told Serge not to take it easy on Jed and he barely made it out of the match alive. I was eleven, and mother made me watch because my job, was to hopefully seduce Serge if he went too hard on my big brother. Always a way out. No, in this moment, I feel much more anxious than when Jed was slowly dying ten feet in front of me. Alan adjusts his tie for the hundredth time while the host, Margarette Knowles, asks Paul the next question. So far, the questions have been on the subtle side. Why he chose to run now? What he thinks of his competitor? What sorts of things he wants to change in our government. But I know the questions are far from over. She hasn't even asked about Paul about not going to the formal dinner back in New York."So, tell me Mr. King. What did your family think when you announced you were goi
Darkness Chapter 74
Alan"Okay, either our bags were not on the same flight as we were, or I'm blind and need glasses."I look again at the spinning conveyer displaying everyone's belongings, well, everyone's but ours. We have been here for over ten minutes and I still cannot locate our bags. Should be easy enough with Anna's large Louie Vuitton messenger bag but still, I've got nothing. I look behind me and notice Anna is no longer standing behind me but much farther away. She is looking down at her phone and I feel a ping of insecurity. Ever since we landed, Anna has been on her phone and I don't want to be that boyfriend that snoops, but she is being a bit sneaky and it's making me a bit nervous.Each time I've asked her who it was, she hides the phone from me and says Laynie. I tried looking over her shoulder at the phone, but she types so damn fast and places it inside her jacket pocket, I can't tell who it really is."Alan?" I snap out of my daze and see Anna standing right in front of me with
