A/N This is a Collab between me and Dreamstar (formerly known as Stargazer) Check out her blogs here: Pen Post & FandomClan
11:30 AM and the phone was ringing. Jaiden picked up, sleepily asking, “Hello?”
“Jai- sksh- coming- sksh- parents home- sksh sksh,” Aiden’s staticky voice replied. She could barely make out the words.
“My parents are getting groceries,” She replied, suddenly more awake. “You can come over.”
More static. She sighed and hung up, deciding she might as well get dressed. As soon as she had pulled her hoodie over her head, the doorbell rang. She walked out of her room. The bell kept ringing insistently. “Okay, okay! I’m coming!” Jaiden said as she opened the door.
There stood Aiden, looking even worse than he had yesterday, in worn down sneakers and a green windbreaker. Behind him was a black-haired boy with a scar going vertically across the left side of his face. His eyes looked faded, like they’d once had color but were now grey.
“Hey…” Jaiden started cautiously. “Who’s your friend?”
“Jason, Jaiden,” He introduced them. Jason nodded at her. “He’s here to… spot us, I guess you’d say.”
“Come in and explain,” she replied bluntly.
Aiden stayed put until Jason nudged him, mumbling something like, “Orders are orders, man.”
Aiden made a choking sound, but the two boys strode inside. Jason shoved Aiden onto the couch, gesturing for Jaiden to join her friend. She plopped down on the couch, and Jason launched into speech.
“Alright! This is not gonna be fun for any of us, but let’s keep the whining to a minimum, yes?”
Jaiden nodded, still confused about what was going on.
“Aiden? Should I keep going or do you want to?”
“Hmm… Okay,” Jason said when Aiden fixed his gaze on the floor, pressing his lips shut. “Queen Daryah reviewed the projections Aiden sent you— yeah, those were recorded, by the way— and decided you don’t know what you’re up against. So she’s ordered Aiden to show you his ‘training’ if you can even call it that, and I’m here in case something goes wrong and to make sure he doesn’t chicken out.”
“Okay,” was Jaiden’s only reply. “Then let’s begin, hm?”
Jason nodded, producing what looked like a cookie. He split it in half, handing one piece each to Jaiden and Aiden.
“Eat,” He commanded. “And brace yourself, Jaiden Lightning.”
She shoved the cookie in her mouth and… nearly spit it out. It tasted day old, burnt, and completely sugarless. She ignored her instincts and swallowed the grossness, gagging and making sounds like a cat with a hairball.
She was about to ask what was supposed to happen when everything turned black, and suddenly she was a 16-year old boy with brown hair, sweating and gritting her teeth in a glass room. She was surrounded by almost tangible blackness, and it cut into her skin. It was cold and everything hurt and she wanted it to stop, so badly, but the agony only got worse and she could barely stop herself from screaming.
A voice in Aiden’s head tried to command the shadows, make them his, make them obey him. But they wouldn’t listen. And the agony was still there. She went limp, heard yells, and then she couldn’t see and the darkness was pressing in.
She woke up gasping in the healers hut, Conner and Jason leaning over her. Conner whispered, “It’s okay, Aiden. You’re okay. Breath.”
Then she was back in the shadow filled room. And it was so much worse. The darkness seeped into her skin, burning the old scars like salt in a wound. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. She was no one. The darkness had won.
No!
She fought the feeling back, wanting to cry with each effort. The voice at the back of her head had come back with full force, yelling and giving her a headache. I am Aiden Lynn Stone, the shadows are my birthright. AND. YOU. WILL. OBEY.
The darkness stopped it’s games, bending to her will. Her head throbbed. She waved her hand, gritting her teeth, and sent the darkness away.
Next thing she knew, she was in cold sweat, sitting up in her bedroom, Alroy, Jace, and another boy hovering around her. Or was it him? She felt she was someone before she was Aiden. But who?
The room crumbled, the faces melting along with the pain. She was in a New York city apartment, sitting on a comfy couch with scattered throw pillows. But who was she?
The answer hit her like a boulder. Smashing at her head. She let out an embarrassing moan as a thunderous sound replayed in her head. I am Jaiden Lightning. IamJaidenLightning. IAMJAIDENLIGHTNING!
Someone moaned next to her, and she opened her eyes to see Aiden, his scarred face contorted in pain. Jason handed her a bottle of water, and began prodding Aiden, trying to get him to take a sip of a silvery liquid from a vial.
He shook his head, mumbling, “No, no, get away. No medicine. No…”
Jason sighed, shoving it in Aiden’s mouth anyway. Aiden jolted up, a wild look in his eyes. “What did you give me?”
“Calm down,” Jason ordered, grabbing Aiden’s arms and crouching in front of him. Aiden shook him off.
“What. did. You. give. Me?”
“Something Conner and I whipped up for you, yesterday,” Jason replied carefully, glancing at Jaiden.
Aiden slumped, looking relieved. “Okay. Okay, that’s good. Thanks. You okay?”
He turned to Jaiden. She nodded, not quite ready to talk about what she’d seen. “What’s with the medicine freak-out?”
The boys shared a look before Jason tentatively answered, though it sounded more like a question. “Allergies?”
“Something like that,” Aiden agreed. Jaiden eyed them suspiciously.
“You can’t fool me that easily, even if you’re, like, 18.”
Jason snorted, “More like 17. And no one’s tryna fool you. You just don’t know the full story, yet.”
“Oh yeah?” She turned to Aiden. “Then maybe it’s time to tell me the story. Oh, and what did you mean by ‘The darkness is my birthright’?”
She said the last part in her best impression of Batman’s voice, earning a tiny smile from her friend.
“Alright, then,” he said quietly. “If you want the story, you can have it. You won’t like it, though.”
She nodded cautiously, and he took in a shuddering breath. “I really hate talking about this.”
“The shadow? Heart of Darkness? All that? That thing was a person at one point,” he began. “Specifically, my brother.”
Well, she hadn’t seen that coming, but she nodded for him to continue.
“We both have a birthright to the darkness… but too much of anything can corrupt you. Look at what happened to him. He tried to recruit me two years ago, and there was this huge war, but Queen Daryah captured him and he’s been suffering in her prison ever since. Until he escaped. Now there’s none of him left. He’s become the darkness and wants to be rid of the light and also me because I am the only one who stands a chance against him, and blah blah so, to recap, my non-existent brother wants to kill me so he can turn the world into his personal shadow. Aren’t you jealous of my life right now?”
His voice was dripping with bitterness by the end, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Jason, apparently, did, though, because he wrapped an arm around Aiden.
“That doesn’t explain why you can’t have medicine,” Jaiden said.
“Oh, I can have medicine, it just has to be specially made. Give me normal supplements and I will literally become a shadow. Or maybe I’ll be like my brother. I don’t know. The one time Conner gave me one of his normal elixirs I blacked out for two days and woke up with everyone telling me I’d turned into this shadowy thing.”
“You also sent all of us into a panic,” Jason added. “I swear it was chaos, because no one could move you and you were so… lifeless. And your eyes turned onyx black, did anyone tell you that? It was freaky. They were shadowy and dark for weeks.”
“I wondered why no one would let me in front of a mirror,” Aiden tried for a weak smile.
“I honestly don’t know what to say to you, Stone,” Jaiden crossed her arms.
“Are we done?” Jason asked Aiden.
“You can leave,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. Jason nodded, saluted them and strolled out the door, whistling.
“Pizza?” Jaiden suggested evenly. Aiden cracked the first real smile she’d seen on him in weeks.
“Definitely.”
Jaiden stood up, walking over to the open kitchen. She ordered a delivery of one half veggie, half cheese pizza. Then she got out some Coke and sat down across from Aiden.
“Okay, I know you’re acting all noble and stuff, but if you… you know, can’t stop the shadow, I want to know what I can do to help. Hold it,” she added as Aiden's mouth opened in protest, “don’t tell me that I’m doing the best I can by staying here. We both know I’m not.” Aiden closed his mouth and sighed.
“I— I know you want to help,” he mumbled, staring at his feet. “But… I don’t want to lose anyone else. I won’t be able to live with myself if anything happens to you. If it were up to me, you would be on the other side of the world, eating ice cream and thinking my biggest problem was homework.”
She elbowed him playfully. “It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Yeah… I know… But I’m the only one who really cares that you make it out of this alive. You have security, but not because our Queen wants you alive. She just doesn't want my brother to use you to get to me, because she knows he’d win for sure that way.”
Well, Jaiden didn’t know what to say to that, and Aiden didn’t seem to believe he’d actually told her any of it. The silence was starting to get suffocating when Aiden’s head shot up and he rummaged around in his pockets, muttering “Where did I put it—Oh!”
He handed Jaiden a thick, yellowed envelope, but gripped her wrist to stop her from opening it. He waited for their eyes to meet, before he whispered, “I’m giving this to you against my better judgment. It’s a note from Daryah. I don’t know what it says, but I'm counting on you to fill me in. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, and he leaned so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.
“Thanks,” he breathed, pulling back and letting go of her wrist. Jaiden realized she was holding her breath and gulped in some air, shivering when the cold hit her lungs.
She carefully broke the seal on the envelope—which was blue and the same weird, wave-like symbol that had been on her hoodie. Aiden wrung his hands as she pulled out a folded piece of parchment.
It was a letter... and it was signed Queen Daryah
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