Day of Darkness

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice I've been turning over in my mind ever since. He told me to look after the people I loved, because life was nothing without them. He died on a government assignment three days later. My family received neither details about his death, nor the body. They told us it couldn’t be recovered.
I’ve kept my father’s words in my mind because of their undeniable truth. They have become somewhat of a code that I live by. I have safeguarded my friends and family continually through the years following his death.
They will most likely never know the extent of my protection. They’ll never realize that I have kept them safe from everything I could. The rabid dog, the would-be rapist, anything that I could defend them from, I did, and I never regretted it.
It was about two years after my father’s death, almost to the day in fact. I was walking home after school, thinking about what lay ahead. My constant vigilance was having unforeseen side effects on me, specifically paranoia. I couldn’t focus on anything other than my alertness to any threat, which resulted in consequences with both my grades and social life.
I was so deep in thought that I almost didn’t notice the figure watching me from across the street. It was only when I lifted my head, in preparation to avoid a cluster of older individuals, that I glimpsed him. It appeared to be a man; and though the weather was quite warm, he was wearing a dark windbreaker jacket, and loose faded jeans. The short, dark hair on his head was spiked, and his eyes were covered by a pair of dark sunglasses.
As soon as he noticed me scrutinizing him, he turned and fled around the corner of the apartment building he had been standing beside.
Only a completely oblivious person wouldn’t have been aware of his obvious suspiciousness. The average citizen would notice, but do nothing about it. I was neither of these.
With a quick glance to make sure there were no vehicles coming from either direction, I dashed across the street and around the corner.
When I turned the corner, he did not appear to be in sight. However, I had learned a technique for spotting the seemingly nonexistent, or well hidden. I unfocused my eyes, looking at nothing in particular. This sacrifices clarity for awareness of movement. Sure enough, I soon discerned the figure slipping into an alley.
Many sane people say that walking into an alley by yourself; even in broad daylight is not a sound idea. Many people have also not taken three years of the Spanish martial art, Arte del Cazador, or been partially trained in military combat by their father.
I followed the figure into the alley, and glanced around. It looked almost the exact same as any other I had ever been. One dumpster, overflowing with trash on one wall, and several doors, undoubtedly locked. The only thing that was missing was the shady man.
Suddenly, the entire alley dissolved into blackness. It wasn’t as though night had fallen abnormally quickly, the alley had disappeared. In its place was a world of subtly shifting shadows.
I crouched in the equilibrio stance, ready for anything. Apparently, my definition of anything was not as wide-ranging as it is now because when I saw the beast that stepped from the darkness, I reeled backward in shock.
It towered over eight feet tall. Twisted horns spiraled outward from a thick black head. A pair of eyes glowing crimson set deep in the face burned above the thin nose. Its chest was deep, and its shoulders broad. Two growths of some sort rose from its shoulders, their height equal to its head.
A deep, guttural chuckle echoed through the space, and it seemed as though we stood together in a great, vacant chamber.
In a gravelly voice it said, “So. You are almost the last, and a mere child at that. My task is nigh on complete.”
Having no idea if I could run in this shadowy world, and if I could, at what speed, I decided it wouldn’t matter either way if the fiend caught me. I whirled around and sprinted in the opposite direction. The reverberating laughter haunted my ears as I raced away.
Something about this shadow world numbed my distress and let me be able to function. Even though I would have normally not been able to cope with being in an incredibly dark place with an unnatural, twisted monster chasing me, the lack of feeling let me continue moving.
Though I could feel motion, the area around me appeared no different, blackness stretching out in all directions. Then slowly it began to change, a small portion of the darkness gradually became slightly lighter. Using my newly acquired depth perception, I drew close to the light area and examined it. A pair of short swords, or long knives, rested diagonally across each other in twin sheaths on the ground. Or what the ground would have been if I wasn’t in a shadow world.
Having no idea what they were, illusion or reality, weapon for or against me, I decided it was best not come into contact with it in any way.
The amount of time that passed while I stood there, waiting for something to happen, I can’t even begin to guess. However, after pausing for what seemed like an eternity, I decided I had to risk touching the swords.
I knelt down and grasped the blades by their leather hilts. Instantly the shadow world dissolved around me, and I was thrown to the ground, back in the alley.
I pushed myself off the ground into a sitting position and drew the blades from their sheaths for examination. They were identical in almost every way, the only difference being the minute scratches on the hilts. There were no marks or blemishes on the shining silver of the two-foot blades. Each had a pommel stone, a sphere of jet black rock.
For a moment I was transfixed by the swords, and then I vaulted up from the ground, berating myself. Anyone, including the man I had followed into the alley, could have overwhelmed me while I was sitting in a defenseless position.
As I stood up, I became aware of some sort of presence in the alley. I saw and heard no one, yet it seemed that I was not alone. I turned around, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. There was a figure in the back of the alley, standing in the shadows with its head bowed, almost invisible. As I peered closer, it appeared to be faded, almost translucent.
I stepped closer, into its line of vision; it began to look more familiar to me. It lifted its head, and I realized with shock, it appear to be my father.
He stepped forward and said gently, “Hello son. It’s been a while.”
Normally this would have probably stunned me so severely; I would have needed to be placed in a mental institution. However, after being transported to a shadow world with a distorted fiend pursuer, talking to a dead man seemed relatively ordinary.
“What is happening?” I asked. It seemed a fairly legitimate question.
“I’m sorry I never found a chance to tell you about . . . well, what I used to do. I was much more than anyone, including the government realized. I was an iluminar, one of the last remaining defenses against the darkness.” He nodded at the swords in my hands, “Those were the dirks I used an iluminar. In the past we were many, but our numbers have been decreased by the Dark One.”
“The Dark One?” My brain had no trouble accepting his words as truth after what it had seen.
“Yes, a creation of the darkness, a mighty fiend, one of the more powerful enemies of the iluminara. He is nearly immune to any of our arcane powers, and there are indeed few who can match it in physical prowess.” he explained.
“So this Dark One is apparently coming to kill me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” I replied.
“I will do everything in what is left of my power to prevent that. To my knowledge there remain only two iluminara left in this world. You are needed to prevent the inception of darkness. Also, you are my son, and I love you. I will do my best to protect you, even if that is giving you the ability to protect yourself.”
“How so?”
“I do not have the time to teach you the all the skills an iluminar would learn. Therefore, I will guide you when you need me. You may not always see me, but I will always be there. Remember, there is a light, and it will always conquer.”
As the words left his insubstantial lips, he disappeared. At the same moment I felt a strange energy blossom in the dirks, a force that was filled with light.
Using a leather strap on both sheaths, I fastened them to my back, and then donned my windbreaker to cover them.
I turned to the ingress of the alley, and began to walk toward it. All of a sudden, the air in front of me dissipated into blackness. I somersaulted backward as a glowing, oblong disc of some crackling energy flew out of the darkness and into the back of the alley. There was silence for a moment, then a tremendous explosion. It rocked the ground beneath my feet, throwing me sideways into a wall.
An echoing laugh erupted from the shadows, and I felt my blood run cold. Grinning, the warped ogre, the Dark One, stepped from the darkness and drew a black sword of amazing length from a scabbard on its back.
My hands trembling, I wrenched the dirks from the sheaths on my back, and held them in front of me. I felt a bizarre power take control of them, and adjust them minutely. I heard a voice, the voice of my father, “I will be with you during this; I will help you as best I can.”
Feeling slightly more confident, I face the Dark One with greater conviction. Faster than my eye could see, it whipped the sword above its head and brought it down in a giant vertical slash.
Again, I felt the power command my body. I was pushed into a narrow, invisible corridor while bright blue light flooded around me, and an instant later I was in midair above the Dark One. My hands, moving of their own accord, brought the dirks together, and then pulled them apart, slashing like scissors. The Dark One leapt forward, barely evading my attack.
I took the force of the landing by bending my knees, dropping low to the ground. Looking up, I saw the Dark One slashing horizontally at me. I blocked the blow with one of the dirks; then recoiled in shock as it shattered with the power of the blow. I whirled sideways, barely avoiding another fierce slice that would have decapitated me. The dark blade sent black sparks flying as it sliced through the air.
A rapid series of clangs sounded as I fended off the Dark One with my single remaining dirk. I had no idea how he could possible be as strong as he was. I had no idea if I could defeat him.
Using my last remaining strength, I forced myself into the corridor one last time, vanishing in a flash of cerulean radiance. From my new position behind the Dark One, I slashed backward, expecting to feel my dirk cut through his shadowy being.
Instead I felt nothing. The momentum carried me around until I was face-to-face with it. The Dark One smirked; then blasted me into the alley wall.
“Come now, why must you defy me? This could be much simpler if you would just give in, stop protecting those weaker than you. Why do you do this? Are they really worth it? Is it really your destiny to end like this, nothing to show for all your work and perseverance?”
I replied, “That is the only thing worth living for.” Then, remembering my father’s words, I smiled, and said, “There is a light that will always conquer.”
The Dark One’s face twisted into a vicious snarl, it raised the dark blade to smite me.
An instant before he could I said, “I am that light. I have no other destiny.”