Darkened

Chapter 1

Meg looked out the window of her new bedroom.

The house was new, this place was new just as this whole freaking town was new to her.

Unlike her sunny Arizona, the view she was seeing now was dominated by snow as far as her eyes could see.

'Depressing.'

"Meg what are you looking at?"Ellen questioned as she sat herself in front of the mirror in the room.

"Snow" she replied flatly and Ellen sighed. None of the sisters liked snow.

"Sometimes I wish we were humans you know" a wishful tone had entered Ellen's voice and Meg rolled her eyes . for they have had this conversation many times now and honestly, Meg liked what she was and couldn't understand why her sister didn't feel the same way.

For as far as Meg was concerned she was happy and proud of they were.

"If I had a choice I wouldn't have chosen to be a Castellian" Ellen spoke as with sad smile she continued combing through her long blonde hair.

"Wish mom had given me that hair instead of you" Meg said looking at her own dark colored hair.

Now it was Ellen's turn to roll her eyes, which were a pretty shade of blue and fringed with a thick coat of mascara "Wel,l you do have gorgeous black hair so stop whining"

"Yeah, right" Meg retaliated with a teasing smile " Maybe you should start listening to your own self and stop whining about not wanting to be a Castellian and start seeing the perks" She added " For one thing, we get to live forever"

"Unless we die in a battle"Ellen was quick to point out.

Natural causes or aging wasn't a bother to Castellians, only lethal battle wounds could kill a Castellian.

"Duh ! Whinning again"

" I wasn't whining"Ellen pouted making her sister smirk at her.

' Well,so what if I'm whinning ?'

Ellen was aware of her tendency and was glad she did it only in front of her sister whom she could count on to keep all her secrets safe.

But their mom, on the other hand, would have thrown a serious fit if she found out about her younger daughter's wish because just like many other Castellians she took huge pride in being one but, unlike most of her kind she did not look down upon humans.

For the castellians consider themselves superior and do not mingle with humans but their mother was different, she had fallen in love with a human and got married .The others of her kind opposed the relation for a long time, even tried to find a way to change their father into one of them but couldn't succeed in finding any.

It turned out that a person cannot be a Castellian until he or she had Castellian blood in their veins right from birth.

Despite the opposition, their mother and father got married anyway and as a result, their family got cold shoulder from other castellians but Meg had no regrets about being one herself.

In fact, she loved what she was, her race was really strong and besides having great speed and pure souls they had even greater purpose in life.

Her mother had told her when she was a kid that Castellians had originated from the light cast by the pure crystal of the sword of Angels that dwelled in heavens ages and ages ago when Vazzek, the lord of black magic created his abomination of a dragon by summoning the horror and darkness from the deepest depths of hell.

The dragon was a threat to not only the heavens but to the entire humanity. The angels descended to fight the dragon and its dark master but they were too strong and the battle went on for a very long time.

But in the end good had triumphed over evil as the angels had killed him but unfortunately, they could not destroy him completely for the fragments of Vazzek's soul latched on to his dragon.

However, the dragon itself which had been created out of darkness was barely alive due to the grave battle wounds it had received so it flew up into the high skies and burst. The formless darkness spreading out of its body, and when it touched the earth it turned into a human .

But a part of the dark dragon continued to live in those humans granting them the ability to transform themselves into dragons. The race of human shapeshifters has come to be known as the 'Dragonairs'

The legends say that to protect mankind from the evil race the angels had created Castellians.

The Dragonairs still walk the earth.

Meg herself had been killing them from the age of 14.

Her mother had always been immensely proud of her daughter's excellent sword fighting skills.

Each Castellian had to fight Dragonairs with an ancient weapon including a sword, sphere, whip or whatever weapon the Castellian chose as the modern day weapons have no effect on Dragonairs even when they were in their comparatively weaker human form.

But the Blackbleed demons were a much fiercer and stronger race than the Dragonairs and Meg knew from experience that Dragonairs were a tough race which was extremely powerful and swift as the wind.

it is impossible to stand a chance against them if you don't have intense practice and strength. but Meg had been training for this her entire life.

She was seventeen now but she could still recall with clarity the experience of slaying her first dragon three years ago, it was a terrifying experience and she remembered being attacked and covered in blood as she battled the Dragonair which had very nearly succeeded in killing her .

It took all of her will power and what was left of her strength to rip out or stab the creature's heart because that was the only way to kill them or else they were immortal beings who could live for centuries together but of course, they made sure to rip out your heart first before you could do any real harm to them. Their sharp talons were ever ready to shred bodies into pieces, their enormous wings even their spiked tails had immense strength and they used it all to kill.

And to top it off they could fly, they could snatch up a Castellian and tear them into two mid-flight so it was very vital for her kind to make sure they never give the Dragonairs a single opportunity to lift them up for once in the air the Dragonair is the one with the absolute advantage.

It was simply game up.

Meg remembered during her first fight the Dragonair had actually lifted her a good fifteen feet off the ground and though she was sure it was the end of her life she didn't want to give up without a fight, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed she was filled with fury and white-hot rage as she plunged her sword not caring where her weapon stuck ,but she had fortunately succeeded in piercing its heart for the creature's pain filled growl filled her ears . She only had a millisecond to recognize her victory as the dead creature let go of her and she began tumbling down through the sky.

She found herself in her bed when she opened her eyes and Krouchen,the wise old Castellian who had exceptional medical abilities was looking down at her with a kind smile.

Well,she couldn't see much of it because his mouth was covered with hair ,all long mustache and beard .Her mother told her that she had been unconscious from the last two days which Meg found hard to believe, and no matter how many times she argued Krouchen fed her weird potions . Some sour , some sweet but some smelled so nasty she had to pluck her nose before drinking while her family shot her sympathetic looks but all the pain and weird portions were worth it since she had recovered completely and was proud of herself for killing her first Dragonair.

But unlike her, Ellen was very reluctant about facing a Dragonair.

It wasn't that Ellen was a coward, she just didn't like taking a life neither did Meg but she knew it was important in order to protect innocent humans from the evil beings .Initially Ellen refused to fight but later she had to give in.

Neither the girls nor any members of their race had seen or much less fought a Blackbleed demon and it was hard to believe that a race much stronger and more vicious than even the Dragonairs existed. But the Castellian legends spoke of them and sometimes Meg and her sister wondered if they were false.

But right now her kind was facing a real problem, the number of Castellians have been dropping lately and the reasons weren't a mystery to any of them.

Frequent wars with Dragonairs.

Though Castellians mostly preferred to live in solitary any news or signal of a battle spread quickly among them.The only time Meg saw a gathering of large number of Castellians was when they were in a battle.

The decline in the number of Castellians and the numerous attacks by Dragonairs had been the reason why the Castellians were not treating Meg and her family as coldly as they used to before, but her mother had never been the one to care about it anyway.

Meg and Ellen were proud of their mother and the love between their parents.

Even today Meg could see her mother look at her father with goo-goo eyes which sometimes she had to admit she found weird, and her father used to tease her mother calling her his 'Light women' which sounded double weird. "Dad, you have a terrible sense of humor "Ellen would say from somewhere in the background.

Meg's train of thoughts was interrupted by the sound of her mom knocking on the bedroom door "Come on girls, Hurry up !you don't want to be late on the first day of school, right?"

Meg groaned wondering why in hell her mother was putting her through the torture.

She could face evil creatures and slay dragons but high school........It was a totally different battle!!