The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of the ring bell, and a voice asked for me.
“Is Hayden Darce at home? We need to make him some questions, if you please.”
The police was back. I covered myself in the blankets from the terror, instigated by the mental image I had of police from cartoons.
Darrell called me from the door. “Hayden, are you there? I know it’s difficult, but...”
I retreated inside the blankets further.
“Hayden, be a grown up boy!”
I didn’t answer.
Eventually, he had to take me out physically and bring me to the two policemen sitting on the couch.
“Excuse me gentlemen. He’s very scared...”
“We totally understand, Mr Khyntelig.”
To my great surprise, the two policemen were quite gentle with me. They asked my name, sat with me on the couch, spoke to me calmly. The questions they did were one worse than the previous one, but they looked genuinely sorry to have to do it; each time I cried, they caressed my head.
“We’re sorry, Hayden,” the one on my left said, “we wouldn’t ask you these questions if we could, but we need to know exactly how it happened, so that we can arrest those thieves.”
“I know...” I sighed. Encouraged by them, I somewhat managed to continue, until they finally announced they were satisfied and got up. As they left the flat, Darrell turned back to me.
“Now that we’re alone, you can finally learn the truth about me. And you, most of all.”
The truth, finally. For the first time since the previous night, the memories of I had witnessed left me alone.
Darrell proceeded to close all the windows. “Before I begin, you must swear to me that you won’t tell anyone anything.”
A shiver of fear was crossing my body. A truth that involved invoking your worst emotions to make fireballs appear in your hands could never be a nice truth.
Did I really want to discover it?
Regardless, it was too late to decide...
“You must know, first of all, that you and I are not the only ones in the world with our powers,” he began, standing still in front of me like a menacing statue. “Some happen to have a...let’s say, a natural capacity to extract a highly destructive energy from their worst feelings, which manifest themselves in the form of those fireballs. All of us, with absolutely no exception, are reunited into a worldwide secret order.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s called the Darkfire Order.”
“The...what?”
“Darkfire Order. Its first purpose is to track any living human being with our same powers. We cannot leave anyone like us to roam free in the world: the consequences may be catastrophic. You’d likely hear the triple of tragedies you normally hear on the news.”
Darkfire. I let the word enter into my brain and be memorized.
“You’re a member, right?”
“Yes, and soon you’ll be one too.”
With that, I realized something.
“Is this what made you move next to my house?”
He sighed. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before you’d realize it. Yes, Hayden: I moved here specifically to find you. Many years ago, I discovered a descendant of a deceased Darkfire who lived south-west from London, someone who belongs to the line of the Darce family. The gene that gives our power is transmitted over several generations, but rarely does it get activated: usually, it takes several centuries. The last one of that line, according to my research, had lived around four hundred years ago; a decent timespan to assume the gene had a high probability to reappear. So I came to this town, with the goal of finding the home of the Darce family and spying their son. Trained Darkfires like me can perceive that distinctive aura only one of us has; it was very easy for me to find that descendant and feel the aura I was looking for. That descendant, of course, was you.”
Yes, indeed it was an awful truth. Darrell had spent time with me only because he had to. I couldn’t believe how happy my life seemed to have become until yesterday.
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Worst, he hadn’t even finished. He had one last detail to share.
“However, tracing and recruiting Darkfires is only one of our two main missions. The second one is the most important. Without this last mission, you wouldn’t just listen to more tragedies: all life on Earth would cease to exist.”
I sweated heavily. What horror was he going to unveil to me? I didn’t even have the force to say ‘What?’ or any other simple word.
Insensitive about me, Darrell continued with the same solemn tone. “Even when a human is blessed by not being marked by the Darkfire gene, they remain a creature deeply maneuvered by fear and its dearest children, anger and hate. Those feelings give life to the most horrific monsters you could ever imagine, creatures only those like us can to perceive. They’re made of the same energy your fireballs are made of; but they have their own, independent mind. Their kind of mind, though, is completely different from humans’: their only purpose is destruction. The more people feel hate close to each other, the more of these demons take life.”
“Are you p...laying with me, Darrell? It isn't funny...”
“I wish I was playing.” He was deadly serious. “I’d have a normal life, and so would you.”
“No...that...can’t be,” I said, trembling.
His eyes, for a moment, seemed to shine with a red light that reminded me terribly of the fireballs. “Tell me, Hayden. What makes you think I’m joking?”
“I...don’t...know.”
“Then you know what I am saying is true.”
“Yes...I...do.”
The red light in his eyes disappeared –or much more likely, I stopped imagining it. “That’s a good boy. Now let me finish my explanation. These demons I talked about, we call them Apollonids. There’s only one thing that can kill an Apollonid: the very thing it’s made of.”
“Hate...?”
“Precisely. That means, only a Darkfire can defeat them.”
“By throwing fireballs at them?”
“I see you have understood. Very well.”
“And so this is what you have reserved for me all this time?” I said, my fear and sadness beginning to be replaced by anger. “You looked specifically for me, befriended me and my parents, trained me to make those horrible fireballs...all for this? To make me become a man full of hate whose only goal is to defeat demons I’ve never seen? I bet you’ve also-”
It came out all at once, like lava from a volcano. Now I knew he didn’t really love me: he had stayed with me only because it was his duty. But at a certain point, it felt like that same volcano was suddenly covered, and the rest of the lava returned to the depths of the Earth. I did not dare saying something else I had just realized; it was obvious, it was necessary to say it –but I didn’t dare. Darrell was still everything I had left now: I couldn’t break with him, even though I knew how false he had been. New tears left my eyes, for the effort of holding the question that was burning so atrociously within me.
“You bet I have what, sorry?” He said, remaining calm.
“Nothing,” I answered, letting a sigh escape my mouth.
“Hayden, I know what you’re feeling; accepting all this was difficult for me too. But without us...”
“...everyone would die. I get it.”
“Quite that. We have to feel hate so that the rest of the world is free to love.”
“How can we protect the world if we have to hate it?”
Darrell smiled. “Hayden, Hayden, I was expecting exactly this question: every member of the Order asks it before or after. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the answer through words: one day, you’ll fully understand it by yourself.”
“Why can’t I know it now?”
His eyes narrowed. “Because as your mentor, I have very good reasons to decide it so.”
“You’re my what?”
“Mentor, Hayden. The one who’ll follow your growth inside the Order until you’ll no longer need me.”
“Oh.” I simply said. The suspicion I had stopped before resumed at those words. Since his mission was above everything else, then he wouldn’t even mind doing certain things...but first I had to come through it with some related questions.
“How do the members of the Order remain in contact?”
“We don’t organize ourselves in meetings; in fact, you may never meet another one from the Order outside me, for several years. If we met all together, it would be like declaring our existence. But in case of need, we know where to find other Darkfires. You’re going to learn that too when it’s time.”
“You mean like how it happens in some books? You know, those stories where there is a group that must stay undercover or people will panic...”
“Sort of. Well, more than sort of.”
I looked at him. “So you say you don’t know any other Darkfire in real life.”
“Quite true.”
“And that if you ever need to find one, you’d know how to do it.”
“I have some quick contacts. I never met them, though. I don’t even know their names.”
I was ready. “So...if I wanted to hire two people to do something-”
“Hayden, what are you thinking of?”
Now it was time to reveal my thoughts. But I completely froze. No, I didn’t have enough bravery to ask for more truth. I couldn’t ruin my life even more. I would just ignore those voices that were keeping suggesting me that scary possibility.
“...nothing,” I said.
“It looked like you wanted to ask something.”
“I just wanted a confirmation of how it works,” I minimised.
Darrell resumed like no interruption had happened. “Anyway, you have learned what you needed to know. If you want more, I must ask you to wait until your training fully begins.” He looked outside the window. “Tonight I’ll take you out, so you can witness the demons by yourself. This should remove any doubt inside your mind –because trust me, I was full of doubts the first time I had it explained. Therefore, I’d suggest to rest until dinner time. Understood?”
“Okay,” I just nodded, and without waiting for his reply I went to the bedroom. I needed to be alone as quickly as possible.
I was a member of the so-called Darkfire order. I would fight for a world I would learn to hate. I would never have a friend, nor parents to be loved by. And if I refused to follow this infamous path, no one else would be alive.
This couldn’t be true. No, Darrell had to have dementia, something similar...how could I believe all this? I could accept the fireballs, but all this sounded too much like some really sick fantasy book.
But no matter how much I could deny it, if I could make fireballs out of hate, what else could prevent the Darkfire and those demons he mentioned to be real, apart from my desire for it not to be true?
OK, Hayden, I told myself, let’s do this way. If those demons are real, we’ll just stay and follow him. If they aren’t, we’ll escape somewhere. There must be an orphanage somewhere, or maybe find a way to contact your relatives...
How hellish my life had become so suddenly. And that was only the beginning.