Remember

Chapter Forty-Two

Prissy took another step forward, hand outstretched. Carefully she crossed the field until she was a mere foot from Colette. "You can stop this. You can control it. You are not your power."

Colette laughed in her face and Prissy took an involuntary step back at the sound that had been unleashed from Colette's throat. It had not been a singular laugh but mixed with the laugh of multiple, dark and haunting voices.

"Who said I wanted to stop it?" Again, Colette's voice mixed with the darker voices -- the cold and ancient voices of the darkness and it's victims.

"This isn't you talking." Prissy barely was able to get the words out, the rest of her speech stuck in her throat from fear. "D-don't listen to it."

Maybe at one point Colette could have been talked out of it, could have been talked into controlling herself but it was too late. She had made up her mind and there was no changing that. With a flick of her wrist, the darkness sent Prissy flying back into the tree.

Prissy let out a loud groan and vines shot up Colette's legs and held her in place. She squirmed for a second, the anger flared up inside her, and within second the vines were obliterated by the darkness.

"That." Colette took a step forward. "Was foolish."

"Colette. Don't." This time it was Madie who spoke up, stepping forward. Everyone's eyes moved to look at the blonde haired girl. Some looked at their leader for hope and a solution but others knew better and looked at her with fear and knowledge of what was going to happen to her for trying to speak up."

"You humans are all the same." The darkness started swirling around Colette as she continued talking. "Always willing to sacrifice your own lives for the good of the world. Have you ever took the moment to realize that maybe your selflessness is your demise?"

Jordy snorted in response. "What do you know about selflessness? All you know is death and destruction."

Colette -- the darkness -- chuckled lowly. "I've been here since the beginning of the world boy, I've seen more than all of you combined." The darkness took a moment to look at everyone left in forest. They all shrunk back under it's deep gaze. "You should be glad you even exist. In fact, you should thank me and your early ancestors." The darkness paused, relishing at the confused faces. "Oh you didn't know?" The darkness chuckled again. "Your very government made a deal so, so long ago. That's the only reason you exist."

Kaden laughed. "Yeah right, like the government would be dumb enough to make a deal with you."

"Anyone desperate enough would make a deal with the devil... if their very survival was on the line..." The darkness' voices trailed off as a wicked smile appeared on Colette's lips as if it could read what was on everyone's minds. Perhaps it could. "Humans, always so curious. Didn't anyone ever tell you that curiosity killed the cat?" Colette shook her head side to side in contemplation. "I suppose I can let you in on the deal, not that you can do anything about it. You're all going to die anyways."

Everyone collapsed to their knees as a deafening shriek filled everyone's head and the darkness sent glimpses of the past spiraling in each of their minds and told them the history of the world;

"The dawn of the world, everything was so simple then. Humans were much more simple then. All they cared about was surviving. They were so easy to manipulate." The darkness' voice filled all of their minds.

Vast meadows and mountain ranges danced in their heads. That was what the beginning of the world had looked like... or at least that's what they thought -- what they were taught in Paradisium. Images flew by too fast to comprehend as the darkness turned back time even further. Here the world was nothing but volcanic destruction. Lava flowed everywhere and where the plains and mountains were in the future there was nothing but black ashes and burnt ground that bursted open with more lava. Everything was dark and destroyed. The air -- it was the same orange fog that was starting to thicken on earth once again.