Shrouds

Prologue

         I am writing this to tell you that all is not as it seems in this world. There are lies, deceptions, falsehoods, illusions, and I have only one request, that you should keep your eyes open. You have been told that there is nothing beyond what you can see that nothing exists beyond human comprehension and I am here to tell you that those words are nothing but lies. I have seen many things and if I can communicate them to you through this book then I will be very grateful. The human race has been around for much longer than any history book will tell you and periods of history have been wiped from our knowledge. Spells, enchantments, dragons, potions, werewolves, there are countless things that exist in our world that we have long since forgotten. Those fairy tales far more real than one could ever guess. Yet here I am writing this to you in hopes that I can prepare you for what is to come. For I believe that future generations need to know and I desperately hope that this knowledge does not die with me.

         In here, I shall record every discovery I make, all the theories I have, confirming which are true and which are false, but most of all I hope to peel back the shrouds that cover this world so that you may be able to peer past the darkness and judge this for yourselves. I have seen the light and darkness, goodness and wickedness, all of these powers at work and truly, I fear for this world. From the little I have learned, the most important lesson about magic is also an important lesson about life. Discovery does not truly begin until one imagines all of the possibilities, seeing what is as what it could be and truly realizing that the impossible do not always stay impossible forever.

Introduction to the Lefaye Chronicles

Los Angeles University – 3:22 A.M.

         The flickering bulb in a rusted black lamp in conjunction with the blue light from a silver Sony Vaio laptop were the only things that lit the small room. The soft clicking of keys was the only sound filling the air as his fingers shifted from tab to tab about as fast as his eyes could comprehensively read. The man was dressed in a coffee-stained button up white shirt with his royal blue tie loosened and his collar popped out. This particular scene had reoccurred for the past several nights, sitting in his office this late. His screen was filled with digital articles such as : Teen Girl Survives Explosive Fire, Heart Eater Strikes Again, and Vanishing Girls. Looking at these articles had been his routine for a while and he always hoped that he would find something but all of it came up empty. With as many dead ends as this man came across, most would have thought he’d give up but if Dr. Ivan Lefaye was anything, he was determined.

         Ivan sighed yet again, looking back over the stack of papers that he had to grade. Truthfully, he wished he didn’t have to work two jobs. Wait…that wasn’t exactly accurate. He was employed by the university as a professor for mythology and folklore which he was an expert on but his passion wasn’t there exactly. He was a parapsychologist and he was bent on proving that there was something beyond the natural. That was why he put himself through this. He was almost constantly checking on mysterious happenings in nearby areas and checked them out but he constantly kept coming up cold. Some though the man was a joke, those who believed that magic should be left behind in childhood along with fairy tales, Barbie dolls, hot wheels, and nose picking. Others thought he was obsessed which may have very well been true considering he put himself through the wire, doing research when he wasn’t grading papers or teaching. Still, he could care less what they thought about him. He printed out a few of the articles, planning to scour the areas very soon. He had to find something. He just needed to keep his eyes wide open.

Location Unknown, Time Irrelevant

         I know not how long I have been here, nor where I am, nor how I came to be here, nor when I shall leave, if I shall leave at all. All around me I see Nothing. Darkness completely envelops me and I have not seen light in…well the fading memories of light are the only reason I can hold on to hope of any sort. Yet I am not blinded. All that stands before me is pure darkness, a night bereft of stars, of moons, of lights, and of candles. Each and every step that I take within this place leads me Nowhere, as if there is no end to this darkness. This place is bound by neither time, nor space, nor light. It is endless in each and every way, far beyond what I was ever meant to comprehend. This place is filled with an eerie silence yet among I can feel it, the still agony of others trapped here as I am. I now know how they got here but I know that they are just as I am. Trapped in the Dark with little hope of escape.

Los Angeles University 8:02 A.M.

         As a stream of light passed through the window prompting his eyes to flicker, a soft yawn broke the cone of silence that previously covered his office. Ivan blinked a few times as he tried to dispel the air of post-sleeping haze that still hovered over him. He arched his back as he pulled his body up from his desk, cracking his knuckles and gently wobbling his head from side to side. As he stood up and finally composed himself, a loud thump filled the air, the sound from the other side of his office door. He reluctantly approached and turned the knob, revealing a lovely-looking brunette woman. Her smooth, silky hair flowed down to her shoulders, dressed in a white blouse and black packs covered with a dark blue suit jacket, all while adorning a jade necklace that hung from her neck.

         The woman stepped into the cramped office and let out a huff of air. “You slept all night again. You’re going to work yourself to death with these projects of yours. When are you going to give up this nonsense and focus more on being a professor?” As she spoke, her body rotated around him in a circle, raising her arms and flicking her fingers in and out.

         “Celia, we’ve been through this before. I am not…” his ritualistic response was interrupted by a yawn that wafted from his throat mid-sentence. “Going to quit my research anytime soon. There are far too many strange happenings for me to simply throw in the towel,”

         Celia couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the man standing alongside her as she crossed her arms, pressing them close to her chest. “Oh really? And what exactly is your next lead, Mr. Parapsychologist?” A mocking tone filled her voice as she looked toward him expectantly.

         “You know the fire that happened at the community theater last week during the magician’s performance? Well a young girl apparently got trapped in the fire and came out without a single burn or scratch on her,” His tone was devoid of the previous early morning droll and was filled with his usual excitement he held when he spoke of supernatural matters.

         “Fine then, let’s settle this once and for all. Let’s go tonight and see if there really is anything to all these mysteries you keep spouting off about,” said Celia.

         For a moment, the room was silent, Ivan’s eyes widened at what she just said. “Seriously? The rational, logical, biology professor wants to accompany me on one of my field trips?” His face has turned from shock to a bit of a smirk in very little time. “So when do you want to go?”

         “Let’s meet at the theater after lunch because I absolutely refuse to take you anywhere until you’ve had a proper shower and change of clothes,”

         He chuckled a bit at her words. “Fair enough,”

L.A. Community Theater 1:02 P.M.

         The man who stepped out of the ash mauve 2008 Ford Focus bared little resemblance to his former self. Ivan’s hair was neat brushed and tidily in place, he wore a dark red polo and a pair of khakis, overall much more put together than he had been earlier this morning. As he walked from the parking lot, he spotted Celia standing at the entrance of the building. Much of it was charred, the front doors completely collapsed in. He approached her with a smile, looking confident for his mission today. He would find something because he needed to find something. “Are you ready to have you in-the-box view of the world completely blown apart?”

         Celia stood there silent for a moment and smiled. “Quite confident I see. I bet’s it’s just the fresh change of clothes talking,” The two of them walked into the building, carefully stepping to avoid shards of glass and large pieces of wood that covered the theater floor. As they looked around, it was clear that the stage had the most damage of all given that it was the location from where the fire originated. As Ivan took a look around the audience seats, Celia headed onto the stage. It was bare, nothing decorated the charred flooring aside from scattered pieces of wood. She walked toward the center of the stage and knelt down, to get a better look, appeasing her friend’s interests or so she thought. As her palm touched the flooring, her pendant glowed bright green and her eyes were enveloped in a white light, all her surroundings disappearing from her sight.

         Everything was replaced by a campsite just outside the woods. She saw an older man with dark red hair standing above a fire pit. His lips moved but she couldn’t hear what he said, only silence pouring from his lips as far as she could tell. Yet as he finished, a ball of flame appeared in the man’s hands. He leaned towards it, whispering. As he did so, the flame leaped out of his hand and into the fire pit. He continued to speak more inaudible words and the flame slowly grew until it ascended several feet into the sky. Soon, the flame fell down towards the ground and completely subsided, and as the vision ended she could hear the man’s last few words. “It has begun,”

         As she was pulled out of the vision, she could hear her name being called out over and over again. She blinked a few times, allowing the white light to fade from her eyes. She quickly rushed off the stage, grateful for something to allow her to forget what she had seen. The vision felt far too real to be a daydream not to mention it’d be crazy to dream of a man she had never seen before but she could not think of any logical explanations for what she had seen or the timing. She reached Ivan rather quickly who was holding a card of some sort. Celia peered closer and saw that there were two pillars a moon and two wolves howling at the moon near a river on the card. It looked like a tarot card. She pulled it from his hand gently and turned it over. It said: Tarot Society, where we bring the past and future to your present. Lower on the card she read: Silas Redenford 848-662-7767

         Ivan turned to her, his eyes widened with intrigue. “You can read that?”

         Celia’s eyebrow shot up, a look of surprise on her face. “Yes, can’t you?” He shook his head no.

         “I can’t see anything on the other side of it,”

         Without warning, Celia took the card ad walked right out of the theater. None of this made sense. Writing one person could see but another couldn’t. Visions of people she had never met before. It was all ridiculous. All of it impossible but the impossible was happening.