My name belongs to me only

The Mysterious shroud of darkness

As Jake cleared his throat for his presentation, while hearing shouts from his classmates, mostly the girls who each had cracked their voices and hurt their palms from their clapping, while Rico, Erica and Seth stared at him with different expressions, as Rico and Erica gave him nods of support while Seth snickered at his friend's misery which earned him a knock from Rico who was holding a thick heavy book with a blank look which resulted in him holding his head from the sudden and unexpected hit.

The hit wasn't really sudden. After all, Rico had been warning Seth. While she was ignoring the two idiots seated beside her, Erica had cheered up Jake before scolding the boys seated to her left and right, as Jake had finally cleared his throat as he was ready to speak.

"As we all know, Liume is a common thing found in every living thing in Glathon, but unlike Risme, which is gained by focusing on all your internal or personal Liume as it is balanced with nature or foreign Liume to convert into Risme.

Frist is the most concentrated version of Liume. In other words, an upgrade to the power we use daily, which is why it comes with more risks, even if we already have liume some people don't have the ability to use it, which is why most people of this day and age put all their fate into Fristers and Liumers," He had finished his short presentation while ready to expect questions, either reasonable questions or some unrelated questions which were directed to annoy him and lastly the single type question which was mostly likely going to be from the girls.

"So does anyone have any questions to ask? If so, please raise up your hand and clarify either me or young master Alaric over here," Miss Emily had said sweetly, a bit too sweetly, to the four kids who had noticed Miss Emily's expression.

As the girls had all raised their hands in expectation of being answered by their romantic partner, who closed his eyes as he wished for nothing more than silence at this point, clearly annoyed by his classmates' antics.

Unknown to him, his prayers were answered by Lord Urani. The classroom was filled with a horrible stench as he opened his eyes after not hearing his classmates' lively joys and shouts, which were replaced by a sudden shriek and muffled voices. All that awaited his eyes were his classmates strangled and silenced with daggers which sliced their throats as his teacher's face was covered from her eyes to her jaw by a tendril made by the darkness, while she screamed in pure pain but was silenced as it stopped her breathing completely while her body had slammed into the floor and started to bleed on the floor, as the shroud of darkness emerged from her shadows, grabbing her body and covered it whole, as it was lost into the void that began approaching him.

"That's right Jake, you have nowhere to run. After all that, you keep running back into the darkness. In other words, me."

The shroud of darkness had surrounded Jake while watching the pure horror written on his friends' faces as they were slowly drowning in the darkness.

He shouted their names, unable to do anything but watch his friends slowly being consumed by his friends while being held down by the darkness. The darkness had laughed at Jake's bold yet foolish action while trying to save his friends.

"Dear Jake Alaric, do you know why I laughed at your pathetic actions?"

He directed the question to Jake, who stared at the shadow in anger which replaced his fear.

"Why did you take them away from me?" He shouted angrily at the darkness, who was simply amused by the sudden courage of the boy.

" Why should I care about them?"

The darkness questioned Jake, who glared furiously at the darkness to question his feelings. Even if he never showed them, he always cared about them.

"As much as you hate me, that would mean you hate yourself as well."

The darkness proclaimed to the confused boy, who was only confused by his words.

"Excuse me, what do you mean exactly?"

The expression of Jake's face perfectly described his confusion at the whole situation, even with the number of hints planted by the darkness.

The darkness had gotten tired of waiting for him to figure it out, it came closer to him while Jake slowly walked back, until the darkness had cornered him to a corner, as it simply answered "I am you, and you are me, so there is no way to escape from myself or to love yourself after all you clarified it yourself."

The darkness had finally showed its true appearance, a grown Jake with a wicked smirk as he cackled, while a younger Jake had screamed in terror, as he continued to cackle as he spoke up.

"Remember this till the day you die. We are the darkness and can never love ourselves. All we can do is hate each other."

"Jake!!"

"Jake, wake up."

"Master Jake, please wake up, it's just a nightmare."

"Just wake up please, I need you."

"Someone bring me some bucket of water."

A shout was heard from a familiar feminine voice.

"Here you go Miss," The noise caused by the servants until their noises were overlapped with a huge splash of water which resulted him jolting up from his bed, waking up from his nightmare while holding his chest as he checked himself, as he breathed in relief, but silence filled the room until Erica spoke up.

"Jake, how long has it been since those dreams started?"

"Ten years, Erica, ten horrible long years, of course."

He replied swiftly as he avoided her brown eyes, which had a hint of disappointment in them.

She briefly sighed and said "Exactly Jake, it was ten years ago, Seth has moved on from it, Rico forgot about it five years ago, and I learned from it, and as for you, Jake, you haven't let go."

"You and Seth are fully human, so you're just different. What about me and Rico? Why should I just forget about it? I am not like Rico, he may have moments when he loses control. At least he can control his urges most of the time, but for me, I can't control this curse. Every single member of my family has gone through this, but for some reason, mine is worse.

Even after we got Victoria Stane, the descendant of Olivia Stane, the woman who cursed my ancestor for some reason to uplift the curse, my curse didn't get removed. Please, I have every right to be guilty, and nothing is going to change that, not even you."

Erica's expression darkened after he finished speaking. Only blinded by rage and annoyance, she slapped him.

"Just shut up."

"But I-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, put yourself together, it was just one nightmare that hasn't stopped coming because you haven't accepted it!!?"

She exclaimed at the top of her lungs, as her bangs shadowed her eyes, which indicated she was crying.