Broken Soul

Chapter One.

My eyes flutter against my desk trying to stay awake but refusing to open. “Where are you?” whispers across my thoughts. I try and push it out of my head, I am safe here I tell myself they cannot find me, “I need you…” it whispers again. “Go away!” I mentally scream at them my body standing on edge as fear races through my body. They can't touch me I try and reassure myself. “Please…” It continues, “No!” I scream, lurching awake in my chair my eyes snap open I hear gasps coming from most people in the room and someone squeals. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light after hiding in the crock of my arm for so long untouched by the light. I look around to realize with dismay that I am still in my class room and everyone was looking at me. The teacher Ms. Morre clears her throat to get the classes attention and goes back to explaining what she wrote on the board. She sends me a sideward glance but otherwise ignores my having yelled out in her class after so clearly having been asleep on my desk. I put my hands to my face I so don't want to be here today. I look down at my empty notebook, I should properly take a few notes but I already know this stuff, just going through the basic of the ‘Shadows 'making sure to install the information forever in our heads. No one knows the real story behind them, and the information we have on them is very limited. One of the things we do know though is no one is safe until the day after the eighteenth birthday. Until then your mind is open to be possessed by those things. Though the odds of you ever finding one to possess you is very slim it happens. There are many rumours in regards to the possessing some people say that there is only one shadow in the world that can possess you, just one specifically for you. That they are born the same day you are and they have eighteen years from then to find you like some twisted game, the older you get the more your body sings to it, the easier it is for them to find you. Once they find you, you experience a pain like any other encountered in this world, they get in to your head and thoughts creating what we call a bond. After a bond is made its game over you belong to the shadow like a puppet on stings. After you get bonded you become an enemy to all humans, to yourself and friends. You are no longer the same person. What makes it worse is a shadow can walk by you, and you might not even know. They look identical to people expect for one abnormal feature. There was one girl that her eyes were like a cats or green hair. Others are less noticeable like a marking on their skin that are hidden by clothes. They are naturally faster and stronger than us humans as well. Though once bonded they feed of the persons' energy and get even more powerful a threat to everyone. Us humans have been in a war with them since we realized of their infestation. Many parents fear for the lives of their children so they send them away to a ward school. A ward is set up around the school that shadows are unable to cross, I grew up in the walls of this school, in a month I will have passed the age of eighteen and will no longer need these walls to keep my mind safe. So why do I feel like I have already lost? “Nora?!” Ms Morre snaps.

My eyes come face to face with hers only a few feet away clearly this is not the first time she has said my name. “Um… Yes?” I stutter at a loss for words after being brought back to reality.

“I asked how might a shadow be killed.” Clearly annoyed with me having ignored her.

“You can't kill them” I answer “not unless they are bonded, if they have a bond you kill the person they are bonded to… then they die.”

“Very good, I want to see you after class though.” Ms Morre then goes on to continue the rest of the lesson. I let myself slip into my own thoughts again. I already know this stuff all too well.

“I am a bit worried about you Nora, you have been sleeping in my class all this week and this is not the only class that you have been sleeping in, what's going on is your birthday getting to you with it being so close?” Ms. Morre asks not even blinking staring at my face like it might revel and answer. “I just have not been sleeping well.” I mutter hoping that she will just let me go back to my dorm. I don't know why I am hearing this voice in my head but it's better that I keep it to myself for now. “Truth be told Nora, most the teachers are worried about you, even after you leave this school. You have never really fit in here and we are worried about you finding it harder out there. I believe I have only seen you ever talk to one of the students here. You are a total outcast and you seem to have no intention to fix that.” Mutters Ms. Morre

“There is no problem to fix I am happy like this. Can I go now? I have work to do”

“I guess but just think about what I said.” Ms Morre concedes. I utilize my chance when I can and quickly make my way out of the classroom and to my dorm, I hate living here but I hate the thought more of what could happen to me when I am outside the wards. To become a slave to those things is worse than death themselves. My life would have befallen the same fate of my parents to think that my mother was inhibited by one of those things for over five years gives me the chills, did she ever even realize that I was her daughter? I shake my head of the thoughts no use asking questions that are forever going to be remained unanswered. I reach my dorm room and go inside, I am lucky I have never had to share my room, I believe the school is still letting me have my space to heal thinking that forcing people on me would be a bad choice. My dorm room is empty to most. I have a bed with the same donna covering in which it came with a off light blue with white cream walls and a placed in the middle between the two beds though the other one had no coverings due to it being unoccupied. My desk had a few school text books on it but that was about it, along with the double wardrobe placed in the room. I only own my school cloths and two sets of civilian clothes as we call it. Not many people here even wear their school uniform most days but to me there are just clothes and they are free. I have never had a need to buy anything thing here, I already had everything I needed to why buy more. Even my civilian clothes they were a birthday gift from Chelsea; Chelsea who was sound asleep on my bed, for some reason we became friends don't ask me how. Two years ago, she was transferred here after her last school kicked her out, some sort of a misunderstanding she said. She has not got a single mean bone in her body but she is always in some kind of trouble. truth be told would not surprise me if she skipped class and used my room as her hiding spot most of the time. Would make sense why I always found her in here, but in spite of that I did not mind. Her antics make me smile a lot of the time, and with the way my thoughts have been lately I could really use a smile. I close the door behind me, I try to be quite. So I don't disturb sleeping beauty there on my bed, but as soon as the door clicks shut she launches up in the bed. “who is there!” she frantically yells as her eyes dance around the room trying to find the cause of the noise only to rest upon me. I shrug my shoulders in a offset apology, "sorry I tried to be quite, but you know the doors here they squeak like mice" I huff. She nods her head, still a bit shaken about her frightening wake up, out of everyone in the school Chelsea has been the closest to the Shadows, her sister got possessed when she was seventeen years old, Chelsea was only fifteen when it happened. She watched as they killed her sister, they last shred of mercy you can offer a person after they have been taken over. Chelsea was the one that told her parents about her sister getting bonded. I believe to this day she blames herself that her sister died, but in the end at least her sister died before she could hurt anyone and even greater burden to bear would have been not telling anyone and then her sister having made her first kill. she might have even killed Chelsea. But she still carries that guilt around, her hate for the shadows go as deeps as mine, most people see shadows as a risk in the world that they try and prevent. Its not a living nightmare like the rest of us. "Did you hear the news?" Chelsea asks, oblivious to where my train of thoughts were. "They final found out you haven't been attending all your classes" I joke trying to make light of the situation that is hanging around the room, the fear that we know will never leave. "Nooooo……" Chelsea smiles, "They have transfer students coming to the school tomorrow, and they are meant to be in our grade too."

"What," I reply "they are coming this last, why transfer over now the year is nearly over like nearly everyone has left the school."

"I know that is what makes is so weird, you think they might have been expelled from their last school is that why they are coming here?" She askes looking at me like I might hold the answers to all the questions that she has, and being Chelsea she would have a lot of questions.

"I don't know." I counter "but what I don know is that Ms Morre is going to kill you, she noticed you where not in her class today." I smile knowing just how much fun Ms. Morre can be when she is mad.