2003-11-13 + 11:22 p.m.
Chapter 11 - Gabriel's Story
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Hannah was right. My dreams would not leave me alone that night.

Gabriel knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task to find this Goddess of Light, but he was up to it. It was in his blood to always be ready for the next adventure. Gabriel loved his life, and he loved having so many adventures. He never understood the reason for his adventures until his father came to him one stormy afternoon.

“Gabriel, there’s something I need to tell you. I couldn’t tell you until you turned 22, and now that you have, it’s mandatory that you know this.”

“What is it father,” Gabriel asked excitedly.

“We’ve put you through so many adventures in your life because it was all leading up to something. We’ve given you the finest experiences as a boy for one reason.”

Gabriel’s father told him about the war against light and dark that hadn’t yet begun to be fought. It was just common knowledge that they would compromise with the light of the day and the darkness of the night, but the dark people of the world didn’t want that anymore. They wanted to be able to exercise their demons at all times, not just when the sun went down.

“Son, there’s a movement called Shadows that want to banish the light. They picked you before you were even born to be the leader of this movement. I can’t tell you why they picked you because I don’t even know why.”

“What’s wrong with the current arrangement, dad?”

“Son, do you know how you feel when you want to steal Xander’s horse in broad daylight for some kind of revenge, but it’s impossible because there’s so many people around, so much light?”

“Of course, father. But you know I’ve always managed to do it anyway.”

His father laughed a little, and nodded.

“But you’ve also gotten into a fair amount of trouble too, son. If it were dark, if the world was no longer light, we could take it over. The Shadow faction could band together and take what we want. We could take over the world, son.”

Gabriel nodded enthusiastically. He was ready to take this on. They all were.

After Gabriel’s father told him about the Goddess of Light, he began searching for her. He used all the resources he could to find her, and he kept coming up short. His father would tell him that her people were expecting this, and they kept her shielded from strangers. Gabriel would just have to come up with a foolproof plan. For that, he spent 3 whole days and nights coming up with something. On the third day, his mother came to visit him.

“Gabriel, what are you doing? You haven’t slept for days.”

“I’m looking for the Goddess of Light, mother. I have to come up with a way to find her. I can’t do this without her.”

Most mothers would be concerned that their sons were about to become the leader of darkness, but Gabriel’s mother, Cynthia, was an exception. She was born evil, and she wanted to help her son do whatever possible so that the world could be cloaked in darkness.

She sat down with him, and they came up with a brilliant plan. They both knew it would work, and if it didn’t, they were screwed.

“It will work, Mother. It has to.” She nodded. She gave him a kiss and he left to pursue his destiny.

The dream stopped there. I could not see what lengths Gabriel went to in order to find Cyra. I was disappointed, but not surprised. I didn’t think Gabriel would have the balls to show me what happened that day.

The dream picked up after Cyra and Gabriel met. They were sitting at a table together, sharing a meal with some white wine. Cyra looked like she wanted desperately to resist Gabriel’s charms. After all, she had been trained from a very young age to be weary of strangers.

Essentially, Cyra should have known about Gabriel. In fact, she knew from the very first words Gabriel uttered in her presence that she should be afraid of him. She knew she should probably kill him when she had the chance. But she felt something for him, as well. She felt something foreign, something she had never felt before. It scared her, but it renewed her. In Gabriel’s presence, Cyra felt like she could be a different person. All of a sudden, she was not Cyra, Goddess of Light. She was just another girl.

Truth be told, Gabriel was not the same around Cyra, either. He was charming, yes. He was doing everything he planned to do with her, which was true. But something unexpected was happening as well. He didn’t plan for it. He totally ignored it. But somewhere, lurking in the back of his mind and the front of his heart, was love. A festering and behemoth love that could so far be ignored, and he was hoping it would stay that way for a long time. He hoped he never had to face it.

Everyone around them was affected by the love that was obvious between them. It was infectious, and it grew everyday. Gabriel’s parents were desperately worried about the situation, but they couldn’t bear to talk to him about it. They trusted him.

They especially trusted Gabriel when it started to get darker earlier in the day than ever before. Sometimes, in the middle of the day with the sun blazing in the sky, clouds would appear and darkness would fall much earlier than usual. Cyra wasn’t doing her job, and she knew it. More importantly, Gabriel knew it.

Gabriel didn’t mean to get Cyra pregnant, but it happened anyway. The second she told him; he knew he had to kill her as soon as possible. He couldn’t do this to himself anymore. He tried to forget that he loved her, and it worked for the time being.

The day Cyra went into labor, Gabriel went into action. They had been lovers for almost a year now, and he didn’t want to sever ties with her. But it was long overdue. He knew he shouldn’t have gotten so involved. He knew he should have killed her the first month they were together. There was something about Cyra that held on to him, and it wouldn’t let him go. But when she went into labor, he knew he had to do something, or things would start getting very, very bad.

Cyra died in childbirth. Nobody knew why, but Gabriel knew. He had poisoned her. He meant to get her any the baby, but it only got to her. Gabriel wanted to be a father, but not this way. He cared about his baby, but he also knew it would be best to get rid of both of them at the same time. He wasn’t even there when she died. He knew she would. What he didn’t know was that the child would be born healthy and alive. He didn’t know that his own child would rise up against him and create an army to defeat him. If he had known that, he would have stayed.

Anistean was born to Cyra and Gabriel, and everyone, once they learned the truth about what Gabriel really was, assumed that Anistean had both their powers. When he made an army to defeat the darkness that was surrounding them at all times when Cyra died, everyone again assumed that maybe the dark side of Anistean’s genes had evaded him. They thought maybe Cyra’s powers were so large and imposing that they canceled out the genes that Gabriel passed on to him.

Anistean never told anyone but Saitia the truth about his powers. He always felt the darkness surrounding him. It was a constant struggle to fight for the power of the light, but he did it because he never knew his mother. He wanted to carry on her legacy, and not his father’s. He hated his father with a deep fury, and the war he started was meant to defeat him. The war raged for many years, outlasting both Anistean and Gabriel. But Anistean got the last laugh. He got to kill his father like his father killed his mother. It was beautiful.

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