Chapter 1 ~ Evanescence “All That I’m Living For”

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The shadows stretched long in the darkening night. The sliver of moon barely offered enough glow to illuminate the ground while the shattered streetlights just stood there, broken and useless monuments of times passed. Times when people could walk around in the dark without being scared for their life. Scared of what else lurked in the dark with them.

A slight shift in the shadows under a streetlight, nearly imperceptible to the human eye, revealed a hidden presence. The shadows molded and morphed into the shape of a person, wispy tendrils of darkness drifting off of the figure like smoke. They curled and twisted in the air, hissing like snakes and crackling like the embers of a fire.

Two yellow orbs glowed fiercely from the darkness, flickering with danger. They burned with an internal fire that gave off darkness instead of light. They were captivating and mesmerizing, tempting and sinful. Yet, as if they had exhausted their powers, the yellow fire began to fade into a dull black that blended back into the darkness they came from.

A man stepped out from the shadows into the faint streak of moonlight on the ground. The shadow’s grip on his body slowly melted away until he was completely free from its embrace. An aura of darkness, however, continued to surround him. It seemed to emanate from his dark black hair and deep black eyes. He lifted his face to the starry night sky and breathed in deeply.

He was back on Earth.

For a moment, he remained in the small patch of moonlight and took in his surroundings. Broken streetlights, cracked roads, and ramshackle houses damaged from years of neglect and the harshness of nature surrounded him. The few trees along the sidewalk had spindly, cracked branches, and the grass beneath them was dry and crunchy. This abandoned, run-down neighborhood was where he would be spending the time he had in the living world, cursed to walk the dark streets alone.

He lifted up the sleeve of his black shirt and stared at the phrase scribbled on his arm.

S.Coups

It was all he knew of himself, the only clue that he existed as someone else before waking up amidst the fire and bones of Hell. He did not know exactly what it meant, but he took it as his name since he could not remember if he ever had one.

S.Coups began walking slowly away from the place he appeared. He never much cared where Hell led him during his nightly visits to the living world. After years