Darkness Watching (Darkworld #1)

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A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe…

Milton,
Paradise Lost,
The First Book, 61-64

he demons first appeared on the day everyone said the world would end. Maybe someone meant that to be ironic. I never found out.

But I’ll never forget it.

“Hey, Ash, you know there’s supposed to be a zombie apocalypse today?”

My best friend Cara gestured toward a clove of garlic she’d pinned to her jacket, out of her misguided belief it would fend off potential supernatural threats. I decided not to mention it would only help with vampires, not zombies. Besides, I doubted a single clove of garlic would be much help in surviving the End of Days.

I had my own demons to contend with.

As people sloped into the assembly hall for the annual Careers Talk, I skimmed through my notes yet again, hoping in vain something would stick. For me, the following day held the title of Doomsday, the day of my interview at my top-choice university.
Hell would be a better fate.

“Come on, Cara,” said Alice. “How many times is the world supposed to have ended now?”

“I’m not taking any chances,” said Cara, indicating she wore a headband threaded with garlic perched on top of her purple-highlighted hair.

“You’ll have a nightmare getting the smell out,” I told her. “Aren’t you supposed to be going out tonight?”

“Some guys like the smell of garlic,” said Cara, although she looked doubtful. “I think. Hmm. Maybe it’s a bit much.”

“Well, it better not be Armageddon, seeing as it’s my interview tomorrow,” I said. “Not to mention we’re in a careers assembly.”

Cara laughed. “I don’t know why I bothered coming, anyway. I’ve heard all this before.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Besides, if we’re going to die, I’d rather not be in this hellhole when it happens.”

“You know, Ash,” said Cara, squinting at me―the fluorescent lights in the hall gleamed far too brightly for a Monday morning―”
you
look like a walking zombie. When did you last get a decent night’s sleep?”

“Define ‘decent’?” I said.

“More than an hour. And not in the middle of school.”

I blinked at her concerned face. Her dark eyes―outlined in purple, in blatant defiance of the school’s no-makeup rule―saw past my carefully constructed mask. Her penetrating stare saw right through any deception―an ability most people found a bit unnerving.

“Um… a couple days ago? I can’t sleep, or I forget everything I know about Milton.”

“Jesus, girl.” Cara shook her head. “Who gives a crap about Milton, really? You’re going way over the top about this.”

“Maybe.” But sleep didn’t come easy when the fate of the world depended on my ability to pass an interview. Well, more like the fate of the school’s reputation. Ever since they’d found out about the Oxford interview, they wanted to hold me up as a beacon to prospective students. I thought this rather unfair to people like Cara, who’d worked just as hard as I had to get into a top-ten university but didn’t have to deal with the indignity of walking around under a spotlight. The worst part? I didn’t think I could do it.

I tried not to think about my record, which included scores of disastrous interviews for part-time jobs. And a tendency to panic in unfamiliar situations. But, this time, I couldn’t afford to screw up.
This has to be worth it. Somehow.

“Ash, you’ll be fine. You’re a genius.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

I felt more like an imposter. I might be able to memorise past papers, but that didn’t make me an intellectual. I’d rather play Mario Kart than read Wordsworth. Would I really fit in at Oxford?

Would I fit in anywhere?

Most of the time, I just felt scared. Scared and helpless, as if I teetered on the edge of a cliff and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop myself falling.

Mr Darton, our ever-clueless head of sixth form, began his customary mutter into the microphone―always the same speech. We
had only one chance
and
this would affect the rest of our lives.
The last thing I wanted to hear right now.

I tucked an errant curl of hair behind my ear and tried to focus on the passage from
Paradise Lost
I wanted to memorise.
It’ll serve them right if I just drop out and run away to Australia or something,
Not for the first time, I imagined doing exactly that.
I need to get out of here.
I felt like a cage surrounded me on all sides, a glass case no one could see but me.

Focus, for God’s sake
! snapped a voice in my head, jolting me back to reality.

The words jumped around the page, like they possessed a will of their own. I rubbed my temples, fighting the urge to groan in frustration. How would I ever remember any of this when staring down at a table of distinguished literary professors? I’d be lucky if I could remember my own name. In the mock interview with my personal tutor, I’d lost my head completely and babbled about a book I’d never even read for a good ten minutes. Panic obliterated all intelligent thought.

At that moment, the lights in the hall went out, as did the projector, plunging us into dusty darkness. Cara let out a shriek.

“It’s happening!” she wailed, clutching at her garlic clove, which, not being securely fastened to her jacket, fell to the floor. With another shriek, she dived underneath her seat to retrieve it.

“Calm down! It’s just a power cut.” I furrowed my brow, trying to read my notes. Everyone talked amongst themselves as Mr Darton struggled to turn the projector back on. I couldn’t see any lights outside in the corridor, either.
A whole school power-cut. Great.
And why did I feel so
cold?

A stream of faint winter sunlight shone through gaps in the blinds that covered the windows, lighting the myriad dust motes in the air. I sighed and tilted my head back, rubbing my eyes to stop them from closing. I could feel a headache building behind my temples.

Then a pair of eyes appeared amongst the rafters and stared right into mine.

They gleamed violet, with vertically slit pupils like a cat’s. They blinked, looking down at the confusion below. Then they locked onto me.

Once, when I’d cut my finger on a kitchen knife, I’d gone into shock and nearly passed out. My vision turned blue around the edges, and everything acquired an odd, blurred quality. Right now, looking into those sinister, alien eyes, I felt exactly the same.

I’m going mad. It’s not real. Cara’s superstitions have made me start seeing things.

That, or the lack of sleep. I realised I’d stopped breathing. I could feel sweat on my forehead, but, at the same time, I felt cold all over, cold as the frigid December air outside. As if fresh snow covered me, slowly seeping into my skin through my hoodie and jeans. Simultaneously, however,, it felt more like the kind of paralysing chill I associated with that moment in horror stories when someone saw a ghost.