Before reading press the green flag (or this won't make sense) Prologue We were forgotten. Left unwanted. In the minds of the others, we had never existed. But we had always been there, watching our planet burn, watching them tear it to pieces. Our worlds were destroyed, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. So we took refuge in the one place they would never find us. The one place they couldn't check. We hid in the light. The light that mounted the walls, flared in the fire, burned in the darkness. The candles lined in rows, the flickering light that hung to the firefly, the storm of brightness which glowed with thunder, the stars that buckled under the sun. And the sun itself. Our eyes were covered with fabric and our senses were dulled. The light had blinded us, but we had adapted, persevered. And we still do. We have balanced the peace between darkness and light for centuries, and will continue to do so. That's what they said, and we believed their words without question. But they spoke only lies. Madison: Lies Madison gingerly walked through oceans of light, waves of brilliant brightness clashed over her. She, along with the other inhabitants of her candle, were visionless. They had been for years. Misty sparks of fire still scorched her eyes, but she had grown accustomed to them, and she trusts them not to burn her skin. She trusts them like the tight web of trust she had woven with the other candle creatures. Yet though this trust was intertwined, one cut string could send the whole thing tumbling down. And unlike her peers, she knew a string had been cut, and did not need to see through her own eyes to be able to see through the council’s lies. And she refused to ignore them. Jax: Darkness Jax strides through darkness, beaming under the stars. He snakes out from a crumbling alleyway that is as thin as the moon in the setting sky, and emerges into a musty street. He is a soldier. A soldier of the night. He was there the first and last day Madison would ever see her home. Jax is one of the many events that caused the sting to be cut, the strings she has woven. He knows this and does not hide it. He has never hidden in his entire life, and the kingdom of the darkness has not either. He is free to roam during night, and he creates shadows during the day. If any brave soul from the realm of light dared to step foot into the dusk, they would simply disappear. Darkness outweighs light in this world, and Jax knows it. Alyssa: Council Alyssa waltzes through the pristine hallways, she walks in dainty but confident steps. Though the beings of the sun are also blind, they have sculpted the entire star to their liking. They have carved pillars of brightness, carpeted the floor with flames, decorated the shell of the sun itself. To say it in the least, they live in luxury. They are the rich, they are the powerful, yet still they are the liars. And Alyssa knows this. Madison: Scarred Madison strides forward, sparking with confidence. She has a mission, the mission to shout the truth. A mission to be heard. She knows the beings of her candle will not believe her, so she must expose the creatures they will. She will go to the council. Alone. She approaches the borders, touching the layers of wax she had grown up surrounded by. She was always told to stay away from the border, yet she had never even imagined going through it. But as she runs her fingers across the creamy wall, she remembers the day she almost left. She remembers the shade. She remembers seeing the buildings inside the candle. She remembers the day the kingdom of darkness invaded the candle. She remembers the darkness burning a hole through their land. She remembers the day they tried to blow out their candle. And she remembers and still does. She remembers darkness outweighing light. It was more powerful than light could ever be. She remembers racing to the edge of the land, pushing her hand through the wax, and looking back only to find the darkness had almost completely disappeared. But they had left behind a single torch, a torch that steamed with night. Madison had been the one to throw the torch away from the land. But the torch had burned her, and she is still scarred. Her hand still emits a strange darkness, exploding with black stars, she can feel this darkness running through her veins, pulsing inside her heart. Though she can feel this darkness with every step, movement, and living breath, it is simply nonexistent in the eyes of the other creatures. Jax : Memories Jax remembers the first time he saw light. He remembers being mesmerized by the shining brightness. He remembers wanting to stay in the light for years to come, only to realize he had casted a dark glow in the center of that light. The first day he had seen light was the day he was commanded to destroy it. But he was hesitant. He had stood still for too long. Long enough for a little girl to spot him. (continue in notes)
(continued at Jax) He stared at the light so hard his eyes began to burn. He had not noticed the rest of his troop leaving, he had not noticed until they had completely left. Frantically, he had raced to the exit, unintentionally dropping a torch of stars. But the torch was not the only thing he had lost that day, as that candle held a part of him. And that piece was forever lost. Alyssa : Training Alyssa believes that her lies are for the better to the realm of light. She believes that she is benefiting them. Alyssa knows about the attacks, and she is organizing troops of soldiers to fight back. But the millions of soldiers who were enlisted were the many people declared missing. The millions of people who have been attacked. She has put them together based on revenge. Nobody misses the soldiers, for their entire families lived inside the same light source as each other. Nobody knew they had ever gone missing. The adults of the sources were immediately trained, the children killed, abandoned, or locked in cells where they would grow to become soldiers. The parents of these very children were unaware. According to them, the soldiers of the dark kingdom had taken or killed them, and they were fighting to right these wrongs. Fisher : Escape Fisher is among the youngest in the cells, yet due to the lack of successful attacks, he is much older than children yet to come. Fisher vaguely remembers seeing for the first time, seeing darkness just as Madison had. Madison and him had lived in the same candle for as long as they had remembered, the day of the attack he had been by her side. When they had seen the darkness, they had ran in separate directions, opposite sides. Fisher had ran to his family who were about to evacuate to the lightning; Fisher had joined them, but as they traveled in the lanterns, Jax had ran through their light, in attempts to meet with his troops, and the lantern had crashed into the descending shore. When dawn fell upon the land, they were picked by the council, and fed nothing but lies. Fisher and his parents were separated, each told all light had been destroyed. Fisher had nodded, pretending to believe this. But he knew otherwise. He had seen a torch laid upon the ground. The torch that was touched with light. The torch Madison had dropped. The torch Madison had told Fisher she’d discard. And he knows all the lies that he has grown up surrounded by. Yet through all these dark lies, he can not shine the truth. He has witnessed what would happen if he did. So he has only one option. Escape. (the end! For now at least)
