Starbright (The Starbright Series)

Copyright@
Rachel Higginson
20
12

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Any people or places are strictly fictional and not based on anything else, fictional or non-fictional.

Editing services provided by Jennifer Nunez.

Printed in paperback September 201
2
and available in Kindle and E-book format as of
September
201
2
through Amazon, Create Space
,
Smashwords
and Barnes & Noble.

To Stella Victoria, my star.

Chapter One

             
The night had never been darker, the blackness surrounding the car, never so suffocating. Even the piles of snow pushed to the sides of the narrow road, did nothing to break up the oppressive darkness. The
S
tars above, shone brightly,
I
was sure of it, but
they did so
from behind a curtain of clouds that blocked the light from reaching the road
.
I
felt swallowed up by emptiness.

             
I
gripped the steering wheel tighter,
my
knuckles stretching
until they gleamed
white
in the glow of the dashboard
and my
frozen fingers work
ed
numbly against the cold plastic. The headlights of
my
old
J
eep
reached only a few feet in front of
me
and then stopped abruptly against a wall of
darkness
.
I
shivered violently, nestling
my
chin further into the down of
my
heavy winter coat and cursed the Nebraska winter for being equally as cold as it was desolate.

             
The farmland rolled away from the winding road, buried beneath
several feet of iced over snow
in every direction. Trees, planted for the privacy of farmers, lined the
way home
with empty branches and snowcapped tops.
My
breath puffed out in front of
me
, fogging up the frozen windshield and reminding
me
that the heater to
my
fifteen year old Jeep Cherokee
remained unfixed.

             
“Tristan!”
I
growled furiously into the frigid air. “Why I let you talk me into
another
movie I will never know!”

             
There was no one there to hear
my
complaints, or sympathize
with
me
against
my
best friend, but it felt comforting to make noise in a
n empty antique
without a radio. Still, receiving not even a groan of empathy from the
J
eep
,
I
sat forward and peered into the impossible night ahead of
me
.

             
I
knew these roads;
I
had each curve and turn memorized. The distance between Tristan Shields
’
house and
my
own was well traveled and practically sacred. Still, out in the country where street lights were for city-folk and the deer and the antelope tended to play, their familiar territory became a dangerous, never-ending expanse of nerves and tension.

             
Even in summer, unless the
S
tars and moon were bright and friendly, the country roads of the Nebraska farmland became shrouded in a heavy obscurity, the headlights of the best of cars mapping out the only visibility
in the heavy
cloak
of night
and beyond those flickering lights the world seemed to drop off the edge of a cliff into nothingness. But now, in the dead of winter, with temperatures well below zero, the night around
my
old
J
eep
seemed to have a life of
its
own
, oppressive and angry. 

             
I
cleared
my
throat and mentally determined to conquer the
creeping feeling of being afraid.
I
bit down on
my
lower lip and clutched the steering wheel tighter.
My
breath came out in shaky puffs of air, reminding
me
it was more than the roads and the night that
curdled
the most terrified places of
my
heart. It was more than the late hour and bitter cold that
forced
me
to
shiver and shift
my
eyes suspiciously in every direction.

             
It was the
D
arkness.

             
Not the country night, or the moonless sky. But the real
D
arkness. The
D
arkness that moved secretly through this world and threatened every living, breathing creature. The darkness that slithered in unseen places and survived on the death and ro
tten things. The darkness that I
would fight until
my
dying breath.

             
But not tonight. Tonight
I
wasn’t ready. Tonight,
I
was still only sixteen, and
my
parents were still off saving the galaxy while
I
stayed home to finish high school with an elderly woman as
my
keeper.

             
Something moved out of the corner of
my
eye.
I
could swear it. Swirling
my
head around, and keeping a steady hold on the steering wheel,
I
peered into the darkness, searching out the moving creature.

             
Nothing.

             
Nothing beyond the snow banks piled in the ditches
and the swaying lifeless trees that were becoming sparser as
I
passed expansive fields blanketed under the white of winter
.

             
I turned my
attention to the road again and with a numb hand, brushed
my
platinum blonde hair under the brim of
my
stocking cap.
My
fingers snapped with electricity and for a moment the cab of
my
J
eep was lit with the sparks of static. Only a few more miles till home.
I
could make it. There was nothing to be afraid of.

             
But why did tonight feel so different?

             
So dark?

             
And then out of
my
peripheral vision
I
saw it move again. A swift shadow sliding effortlessly through the night, riding the whipping wind like a wave and
dropping the frozen temperature several degrees lower.
The
pungent
smell of rotting eggs drifted through the air.

             
I
didn’t have to turn
my
head this time to confirm.
I
knew it would be gone before
my
head could move in the right direction. Besides, they only existed in the peripheral, in the slight glances and far off places.

             
I
had seen them before. Since before
I
could talk
my
parents would tell
me
about them,
explain to
me
of their existence, warn
me
of their danger.
I
saw them everywhere, even during the day
I
could spot them, because they
were
everywhere.

             
Foot soldiers of a greater evil, sent to Earth, the last remaining inhabited planet, to prepare the way for their master. They were the evil in all things, the tyranny, the oppression, the hunger and violence. The Darkness. The force of wickedness that battled against the forces of good with one purpose in mind, to abolish the Light.

             
I
was the
l
ight. And because
I
was the answer to their destruction
I
hunkered further into
my
winter coat and braved the bone-chilling cold.

             
It could be easy for
me
to warm
up; even in a car with a broken heater it was the
natural reaction of
my
body.
I
was born of the light, of the warmth. And to suffer against the natural elements was difficult enough, but the extra layer of malevolent chill became
excruciatingly
painful even in small doses.

             
Still, they couldn’t know what
I
was. They couldn’t discover
me
after all this time.
At least not yet.
So
I
breathed in the frosty air, feeling the burn
in my
lungs and forced
my
self to push forward a few more miles. 

             
My
parents had worked so hard to hide
my
existence and to blend in with normal humanity
that no matter how easy it would be to ease
my
pain,
I
had to fight against the elements.
I
was
brought to Earth as a baby, with the sole intention to one day take over as Earth’s
P
rotector. And so
my
parents had given up their positions as two of the greatest
W
arriors of their generation to raise a
n alien infant
in the middle of farmland.

             
And it was here, in Western Nebraska
,
that
I
waited for the day the
Earth would become
my
charge,
my
responsibility.

             
But that day wasn’t today.
I
had years before
I was supposed
to deal with that kind of duty!

             
Years
….
I
promised
my
self
.