| abstract | - I wake up with a start. I look around the area to notice that I am in what looks like a cave, circular rocks with a table in the middle, there's torches around the table which, upon closer inspection, has a person sitting on the other side, beckoning me to sit across from him. I take a few steps and see the shadows grow closer to me. Another step, and closer it comes. I then sprint to the center to avoid the torches, and then the shadows stop, just outside the range of the torches. Looking closer to the person, I see a woman cloaked in black. "Where am I?" I said, shakily. "You are in the Lair of the Dark ones." She spoke, quite seriously. "What are the Dark ones?" I said confused. "Look around you, look into the blackness..." I did so and to my astonishment, the "Shadows" that followed me were also cloaked figures, in Jet black robes blending perfectly with the shadows I thought they once were. "Why am I here?" I said, gaining a bit more confidence, though I feel dumbfounded. "You are here to learn the truth, so as not to make the mistakes so many others made before you. If you are to make the choice before your life really starts." She said, sounding prideful about delivering the message I barely understand. I am seventeen, 6' 5", with shaggy, dirty blonde hair. Green eyes my mother always compares to emeralds, though I feel they have much less glittery shine to them. Now when I think of her message, I think of my decision before my life really starts as what I shall do with my life when I turn 18 in four days. So I ask, "What decision? How do you know me? What have others made before me?" To which she simply smiled, pulled back her hood, showing a scar going down her face starting just above the nose and flowing down the left side of her face, between her Baby blue eyes and her cute little nose. She was beautiful, and vaguely familiar... "Serenity?!" I exclaimed as soon as I recognized her. She was a girl who went to my school, she wasn't quite popular, but she wasn't unpopular either. She seemed pretty well set in the economy, having enough money to get by with a little extra, just above middle class, and she had an ominous air about her every time anyone mentioned her scar, even if it was out of earshot of her. "Yes Keith, I'm glad you remember me." She seemed a bit more cheerful now, seeing as how I claimed to recognize her. Honestly I never stopped thinking about her, even if it was just in the back of my mind. In truth I found her fairly attractive, but I still felt strange being surrounded by cloaked beings with one familiar face among them. "I will always remember you, you're amazing, but why am I here? What is it you want from me?" I sounded somewhat desperate by the last question, feeling strangely terrified now knowing that I'm not just in a room with complete strangers, but now I'm stuck in a room with around twenty to twenty five strangers and a girl I like but barely took notice to me. At least, I thought she did. "You're here because we want to welcome you to the family of the Dark ones. You are being invited because of your persuasive nature and expert skills with simple weaponry such as bows and arrows, and daggers. Plus..." She leans in to whisper into my ear. "You're also an attractive man, and the Dark ones need to know who they shall be with before adult hood so they can make new Generations with fairly young generations to teach them." To this she looks at me, blushing, and returns to her seat. I feel flushed with embarrassment as I realize she wants to be with me... ME! Of all the men she knows, she picks me? And how did she know I liked to use daggers? I mean the bow and arrow part I understand, we have archery together, and I am top of the class. But I keep my dagger specialty secret, as many people will find it odd that I have about a good three hundred ceremonial daggers, one thousand five hundred combat knives, and an uncountable amount of odds and end daggers, either the kind I form myself, or the kind you find in ruins of old castles. And of course, having this massive collection, of course I practice with them. "How do you know this about me?" I say, somewhat stern now. I look at her and she is about to answer me, when a cloaked figure leaves the shadows and approaches her, telling her something I could not understand. I think it was Greek or roman or something. "Πρέπει να φύγω τώρα, πες το αγόρι να πληρούν τα μεσάνυχτα έξω από το σχολείο του επόμενου φεγγάρι." She stopped abruptly, then opens her mouth again. "We need to depart for now. We shall meet again tomorrow at midnight behind the school. Feel free to explore the room, when you wish to leave simply walk up to the shadows and say, 'Depart,' and you shall be taken back to your home." She does just as she instructed me, as well as the shadow behind her, and the room lights up brightly to show a horrific site. The walls are splattered with blood, hand marks are everywhere, and skeletons litter the area the shadows once were. As I look around, I see a small corner of shadow. I walk up to it... "Depart..." I spoke, nervously.
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