AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'll
warn you right now that this story is probably the darkest and most angsty
one I'll ever write. Some of the ideas I used in this story were also used
in some previous ones. I actually thought about this story a long time
before I wrote it, during the time I was writing "Rules of Succession".
I have really put of writing this idea for quite some time, but I finally
decided to do it because it was bugging me too much. This story deals with
some dark subjects that might make some people uncomfortable. There are
a couple swear words, but nothing major.
Prologue
Shadows danced across the aging ebony
walls of the cavernous house. A small lantern illuminated a dilapidated
old table, and the flickering rays of light cast an eerie glow onto a woman’s
tired, drawn face. She took a sip from a small glass of liquor that sat
on the table. It was all starting again. She could feel the strength slowly
draining from her body and soul. She had experienced this feeling many
times before, each time with the same end result. But over the years, the
feeling had come at shorter and shorter intervals. It was as if her remedy
didn’t want to work anymore. This time she would need something stronger.
A normal person–with a normal body and a normal soul–would not do this
time. She knew all too well that ordinary people would no longer have any
effect whatsoever. That is why she had been seeking out a person with a
stronger spirit. It had to be someone more than unique, someone with extraordinary
powers. And she had found that person. His spiritual strength was more
than she had ever sensed in any other person before. This boy would be
enough to sustain her for centuries. Of course, his spiritual strength
also made him more difficult to capture. It would take extreme steps to
“extract” him, as she had so delicately named the procedure. Normally,
all she would have to do was capture the person and perform the spiritual
extraction. But this boy would take much more work. She would have to not
only break him down, but all those who loved him.
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