Shadows- a Danplan fanfiction

First year zero

"Well then, Jay, you still have a lot to tell us, don't you?" Daniel began the obligatory conversation he was waiting for.
After all he had yet to ask about the other city, about Jay and about many other things.

Jay sighed, knowing that he would have a lot to explain. Especially to Joe, though Daniel seemed more impatient.
"Hey, Pau! Bring us some beer ok. It's gonna be a long night." Jay began, alcohol always was a good way to make the conversation more light hearted.

"Um, I don't drink." Joe mumbled insecurely.

Jay nodded. "Only a water for him then!" He ordered.

Joe smiled gratefully.

Meanwhile Daniel decided to just roll with it. While he didn't appreciate the bitter taste of beer, he wanted to make sure Jay knew he was equal to him.
Jay was the kind of leader that made Daniel slightly uncomfortable, because of the authority, he basically radiated.
Yet he was also extremely relatable, both of them had lot's of responsibility and cared deeply for their team. At the same time none of them were willing to give up their leadership.
"Well then?" The green haired male urged the other to begin.

Jay sighed once more. "Well what do you need to know?" He asked.

Daniel laughed. "Everything? Well let's maybe start with some more simple stuff.
How did you manage to defend yourself against Stephen's necromancing?" He asked curiously. He mostly asked this question to find out how much the other knew about magic. Did he know how it worked? Did he know everyone had it?

Jay smirked. "Well, I have my own special talent, I guess. You see, I can make other people's magic fade for a bit. It's been like that since I was a little kid."
Immediately after saying it, he regretted his last sentence.

Daniel's eyes widened. "Does that mean that you were allowed to use magic as a kid? Where'd you grow up?" Now there was suspense.

The mood drastically changed to something melancholic, and strange.

"Remember the first village, where you met Pau? There, but also not there. It's complicated." Jay muttered.

Daniel cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy. "I don't think I understand."

Jay looked around nervously, as if someone was watching them. Then he proceeded to whisper. "It used to be a completely different place, but one day, everyone and everything was gone."

Daniel shivered, there was something incredibly wrong going on, he could tell. "How'd it disappear?" He found himself wondering.

Jay looked at him sadly. "Nobody knows. Nobody that was there was ever found.
That day, the Imperatoris kingdom burned bright red, even we could see the smoke.
All the young people were curious, and we went away.
When we came back, there was absolutely nothing, and no one, that could tell us about it."

"So that's why I only saw people about my age or younger." Daniel mumbled.

Jay nodded. "Not only that, it's also the reason why the village is so small. It used to be this big, beautiful place, but now it's reduced to a shadow of its old self. Even if we tried to rebuild it."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Daniel mumbled, slightly ashamed of questioning all those things, when Jay already had it rough.

Jay smiled slightly, before taking a sip from the beer he'd ordered. "Honestly, it's mostly a shame for all the others, that lost their families. I'm the oldest one, and I am barely 26 years old.
My people, they are my family, and I am their family, it just hurts to see us this far apart."

"Far apart?" Joe spoke up for the first time, confusion and commotion showing in his voice.

Jay took another sip of beer before smiling sadly. "The mafia. They are just people from our old village, in the end. Only that they took ot worse."

"What do you mean by that? I'm sorry but I'm not understanding anything." Joe continued to ask.

"You see, the loss of family members and their home, some people took it less well then others. They started questioning if the village even existed in the first place. They started wondering if it was all their imagination. They began to question their own existence.
In the end they were set on finding someone that was at fault for their despair. And in their opinion, that was whoever started that fire in Imperatoris.
And once they found out about the book involved, they decided to blame whoever owned it." Jay paused for a bit and finished the rest of his beer in one go.
"The thing is, now they want the book. To see it. To see the past. They want to know if their lives were barely lies.
We can't let them do that, because we fear, that if they owned a book that powerful, while they know the true meaning of their madness. It would be more destructive than anything mankind has ever seen."
Jay finished his rant, then ordered another beer, apparently as a coping mechanism.

Meanwhile Daniel wasn't even really listening to the other anymore.
His head was spinning, with memories and sentences and theories running through it.
'They want to see it'
'They want to see the past.'
'The meaning of their madness'
And gradually, they became You, and you became I.
And more phrases haunted his mind, phrases that seemed so distant, but were so awfully, terrifyingly close.
Then it became me. It became me, and Daniel's head felt as though it was exploding.
There was something like a bright light in his thoughts, awfully bright, awfully clear.

'They want to see it, Daniel'
'You want to see it, Daniel'
'You want to see me, Daniel'
'Daniel, you can see me'
'You can see me'
'For God's sake look at me, I'm right behind you,...we don't have time'
It felt as though his chest was burning.
All he could see was pitch black, all he heard was white noise, then a dull thud, then silence.

"Daniel, are you ok?" Joe asked frightfully, looking at his collapsed friend.

Jay sighed sadly. "People often over heat, when I talk about year zero."

Author's comment:
What's that? An update?
Ok but seriously sry about being so inactive. Life is an emotional rollercoaster rn. In a good, but very distracting way.

So seriously, I'm sorry that I didn't pay much attention to this, or to my friends recently, seriously, I feel bad about that.
I love you guys and it sucks that I'm not giving you the attention you deserve.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Bye, girlfriends, boyfriends and none binary lovers!