April, 2010
North Elba, New York
“Lake Placid”
It was barely six in the morning as the reddish spring sun struggled to cast its light through the young boy’s bedroom window. The early sunlight magnifying through the glass would be enough to wake anyone from sleep, but the boy was already awake.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed with his back to the sun, fully clothed and fully groomed, as if he had been up before the break of dawn. He was wearing a light, gray-striped DC hoodie and a pair of bluejeans defaced by holes in the material of various sizes. His dark hair was long and ragged, reaching halfway down the back of his neck and almost over his eyebrows, and his expression was one of bitterness and exhaustion. Not exhaustion due to lack of sleep, but rather mental fatigue. To him the weight of everyday life pressing down on him was taxing and burdensome, and he would see himself confined to his room for long hours each day, as it was his only means privacy.
The boy’s name was Alex Lee. Clutched in his hand was a black, steel-tipped throwing dart. He stared down at it for a moment, twiddling it around in his hand as if admiring or disparaging the thin, metal point of the dart. The silver surface glistened faintly as the morning light reflected off of it. He looked up at his bedroom door. There was a dark-red target spray-painted on the white wood. All over the target and its surrounding area were dozens of tiny puncture marks, as throwing darts against his door was an activity that he would do aimlessly most mornings upon waking up, sometimes for hours on end. In a way it helped him clear his mind. Whatever it was that he needed to break away from, this was how he did it. Without any effort, Alex quickly repositioned the dart in his hand, wound up and whipped it at the door. The dart instantly drilled its sharp point into red center of the painted target. Alex brought his hand up and rubbed his head lightly as he let out a drained sigh of self-misery.
In the next room over from his own, a young girl was lying awake in her bed. As the light of the new morning sun also brightened her room, she too had been awake before dawn. Her name was Nickole. She was Alex’s 12-year-old sister, and she was awoken this morning, as she was every morning, by the sound of her brother piercing his door with darts.
With each dart that dug its way into Alex’s door, the sharp sound made Nickole’s mind wander. Her thoughts traveled deep into the far reaches of her mind in search of the better memories of her brother. She could recall a time not that long ago when the two of them were much closer. They never knew their father, as he had left when they were both very young. Alex never spoke of him, but everytime Nickole would ask their mother about him, she would never give a proper answer. All of their friends were convinced that he simply turned out to be a typical dirtbag that ultimately wanted nothing to do with family. But somehow, Nickole did not get that sense from her mother. She was the only one in the household who really knew what kind of person their father was, and though she rarely ever talked about him herself, she never showed any sort of contempt or anger toward him. Was she just trying to forget him and move on? Or was there something she knew that she did not want either of them to know of?
Whatever the reason, Nickole somehow doubted that Alex’s radical decline in spirit was due to the disappearance of his father. She could vaguely remember when Alex was not the gloomy, emotionless boy she knew now. His darkened hair was once much lighter and his gray, somber eyes used to show off a rather elegant, cool form of blue; the shade of ice cold blue whose gaze would temper one’s exhaustion in the summer and fill one with peace and amity in the dead of winter. But the one thing she missed most was his smile. It was a short smile that warmed people up inside, the kind of smile that showed aspiration for life and for the lives around him. Yet for all that was once good in his heart, Nickole would wake up every day to see more and more of her bygone brother sinking further away.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a rapid knock on her door. Nickole’s eyes jerked open and she turned toward the door as a woman’s voice traveled through. “Get up, Nickole. You two will be late.”
Nickole rubbed her eyes and sat up in her bed. “Coming, Mom,” she replied tiredly. She stood up and lumbered over to her dresser, glancing into the mirror that stood on top of it. Looking at her drowsy reflection, Nickole casually recovered her tangled, blonde hair from the night of unconscious tossing and turning. Soon she began to notice that the darts in her brother’s room had stopped flying.
At the sound of their mother waking Nickole, Alex tossed his last darts at his door and allowed himself to fall back down onto his bed. Instead of coming next to knock on his door, Alex’s mother walked past it and proceeded down the stairs at the end of the hallway. Every morning she would wake her daughter as she had done but knew that her son was always already awake and disturbing his quiet mood was the last thing he wanted, so she saw no choice but to leave him alone until he picked himself up. For several years everybody watched the boy slowly decline into discord with the world he had grown up in, and they knew it was having an effect on his small family, even though they did their best not to show it.
After dressing for the morning, and still feeling the ragged effect of sleep, Nickole applied a small amount of makeup to cover the dark circles under her eyes. It was the only amount of makeup her mother allowed her to use. She was extremely perceptive about the concept of makeup and, unlike their father, always made sure she was close enough to ensure that her daughter would not grow to become the kind of reckless adolescent who felt the need to drown her true self beneath the veil of a false image. Setting down her makeup, Nickole smiled at her mother’s tacit notion of, “You are beautiful just the way you are.” She walked over to her closet and pulled out a light, sky-blue jacket and put it on. She opened her bedroom door and started to walk down the hallway, but before she passed by her brother’s room, the door was pulled open.
Nickole halted suddenly as her dismal brother emerged from his den of solitude. He stopped in his tracks as well and directed his attention to Nickole. The two abruptly locked eyes. It was something that they rarely found themselves doing much anymore, and from his taller stature she felt like Alex was glowering down at her with his dim, gray eyes. Trying to show no expression, Nickole waited for her brother to say something, anything. Instead, Alex just nodded to her ever so slightly, as if he wanted to say good morning but found himself holding it back. He then turned and continued down the hall to the stairs. Nickole exhaled with some disenchantment, and proceeded to follow him.
As soon as Nickole descended the stairs, the savory scent of buttermilk pancakes enveloped her. Her mother’s knack for homemade pancakes had the influence to sedate her thoughts and welcome her to a brief state of bliss. Sometimes it was just what she needed to fully awaken in the morning. Nickole walked into the kitchen where her mother was stacking fresh pancakes onto a square ceramic dish. “Morning, Mom,” she greeted cheerily. “Good morning, sweetheart,” her mother responded as she proceeded to cut up an apricot. Nickole opened the refrigerator and pulled out a 59-ounce bottle of Tropicana before walking over to the counter to retrieve a small glass. “That smells really good!” she said, inhaling the warm scent of the breakfast. “Thank you, Nicki,” her mother smiled and placed the dish of pancakes on the island
30 miles south of the Borders of the Dark Zone Three nights earlier The man forced his head above the surface of the river and sucked in a massive gulp of air. The current of the stream had carried him for nearly a mile from the cliff from which he had jumped but now it was finally starting to weaken. The man’s feet were slipping on the rocky floor of the river as it continued to pull him along. He inhaled a deep breath and dove under the surface, scrambling around the creek bed for a handhold of some sort, but the rocks were just too slick. In the middle of attempting to grab onto something to resist the current, it suddenly caused him to strike his head against a higher rock. The man gasped underwater and returned above surface to catch his breath. He brought his hand to his temple and felt a small a
The night was filled with the yipping and howling of a pack of coyotes in the distance. It was late, the sun had long set and the temperature was still dropping. Ranger pulled himself to his feet. It was time to move and find shelter. He held the sword in front of him and gripped it tight in his hand. He squinted as if thinking hard about something, and then the sword’s intertwining blade structure suddenly transformed, instantly retracting down into itself. In no more than a second, the blade had shrunk down to the hilt until it only stuck about eight inches outward. Ranger then reached back and slipped the minimized relic into the harness he was wearing, where it fit perfectly into place. Giving his dark surroundings a quick look around, Ranger set off from the riverbank and up into the mountains. The hills were steep and the darkness of the dusk sky made the venture difficult. And not to mention quite
Alex spent the entire car ride with his head leaned back against the headrest and staring aimlessly out the window. It was still early in the morning, but by now the sun had illuminated the sky and the neighborhoods of North Elba were active with the life of a new day. People were pulling out of their driveways, heading to work or wherever the day would take them. The springtime dew on the blades of grass glistened in the early sunlight, as did the serene, blue water of Mirror Lake. The morning clouds cast a series of shadows all along the vast mountainside. It was one of the many beautiful sights of the great Adirondacks, but none of it swayed Alex’s mind to any sort of fascination. Nickole, on the other hand, was always interested in the sights of her home. She and her older brother had spent their entire lives in the village of Lake Placid, rarely travelling very far outside of the county, and she woul
As they shuffled their way through the halls, Seth continued talking to Alex. “So you remember the quad path, right? You know the branch that splits off and heads down toward Roger Brook?” Alex had to think back for a moment. “Yeah, I remember. That rocky path that sits on the edge of the mountains. That’s about as far as we’ve ever gone, isn’t it?” “Yeah, that’s it,” Seth replied. “Hetrick says he might have found the remains of an old express road that’s supposed to cut right through the mountains and he wants to try to get a closer look at it.” “Really?” Alex responded with interest. “What do you mean an old express road?” Seth shook his head. “I don’t know. Apparently it was closed and blocked off some twenty years ago or something like that. But Hetrick says it’
As the day pressed on, the spring sun began to penetrate the canopy of the Adirondacks. At night, the Dark Zone had the tendency to live up to its name by appearing to be a dark and dreary wilderland with a hostile vibe that instilled fear into the hearts of those who wandered near its borders. However, when the sun was high and the woods were illuminated, the Dark Zone could be seen as a beautiful and peaceful land of valleys and forests full of life, in spite of its reputation. Along the shadowy floor of the mountainous woods, a young girl wandered. Though she looked somewhat older, the girl was quite young; only fourteen years old. She had long, black hair that hung down her back and over her shoulders. Her clothes were poor; stitched primarily from leather and fur. Her face carried an expression of boldness and gallantry, yet also a sense of compassion and love. Her home was not located anywhere along
Rowan took a few steps back, staring up at her kill. By now it was just after midday. It was still early, but it was time for her to head back to her home. Her brother no doubt knew she was gone by now. “Rowan?” a male voice called out from the woods just behind her. Rowan turned swiftly around. Out of the trees, a young man stepped forth. He was about six feet tall, dressed similarly to Rowan, but instead of a bow, he carried a stone sword in a sheath on his back. On the belt around his own waist, he had sheathed a small knife on one side and a tomahawk on the other. He had long, brown hair, not nearly as long as Rowan’s, but it hung down against the back of his neck. On each side of his head, he had a section of his hair tied into a tail that hung down the side of his face. He approached Rowan and nodded as a greeting, and she nodded back to him. “Matheus,”
The school day came to an end for Alex as it always did; with dozens of students filling the hallways in crowded clusters just as they had been in the morning. Alex walked out of his last class of the day and pulled his cellphone from his pocket as soon as he entered the hall. With school hours over, Alex planned to meet up with his friend Seth in front of the school building, where ordinarily he and Nickole would be picked up by their mother. He flipped open his phone and typed a text message to Seth, “Hey Seth, I’ll meet you out front.” He made his way quickly to the nearest staircase where he would descend to the lower floor. The doors to the stairwell were being held open by the groups of students all heading down. Alex pushed his way through the hordes and down the stairs. Once at the bottom, he felt his phone vibrate. He opened it up to see a response text from Seth which r