I curled into a ball trying to protect myself from the fog. I closed my mouth tight so that air could not escape and even better the fog could not get into my lungs. Nevertheless, since I wasn’t getting much air I was shortly unconscious and fell into a deep sleep. I couldn’t see anything, it was as if I was blind, then I saw two shapes; one in black and one in white. The black shape was more of an all consuming blob than any distinct shape; however, the white shape was a single ball of light shinning bright. The white light was just floating around the air in a line horizontally all of a sudden the black blob surrounded it. The white light had no choice but to be engulfed by the blackness.

I didn’t really think much about what I was seeing; that is until I heard a familiar voice. I turned around in curiosity and saw someone I never thought I’d see. Linley.

He said, “That is what’s going to happen if you don’t take control of your darkness. It will consume whatever ‘light’ within you and leave you with only blackness.”

Before either of us could say another word Linley brushed away from my view; like a ghost. In shock of seeing Linley I couldn’t process what he was saying, I could only think of the possibility of him actually being alive. “LINLEY COME BACK!!!!!” I paused and waited for him to return. This time when I loudly said, “Linley come back” my voice cracked as I began to cry. This time I didn’t cry because I missed Linley, but rather because I was helpless and Linley couldn’t help me get back the right path. I kept calling for him, into the emptiness before me, but every time called out more and more tears would pour out of my eyes. Until finally, I couldn’t make any noise because I was crying so hard.

I dropped to the ground and cried and cried until my face became sore from crying so much. ‘Without Linley there isn’t any point continuing my training. I mind as well give into the darkness inside of me, since I clearly can’t control my light magic the same way I used to.’

Coming to this conclusion made me proud to some degree, in some way I was proud with my decision. ‘Even though it wasn’t my original path, maybe I was supposed to give into the darkness all along’ I thought. Nevertheless, there was still Linley’s voice in the back of my head telling me that I had made the wrong decision. ‘NO’ I thought, ‘This is my decision. Linley is dead, therefore can’t help me anymore. If I want to embrace my darkness I should.’

With this thought in mind I straightened my arms out beside me and as I spun around as fast as I could, I pushed my dark magic out of my hands as hard as I could. No matter how much magic I forced out of my hands it never hit anything, it was as if where I was had no walls. I spun faster and faster, on my toes, just to see what would happen. I kept my arms out as straight as I could, even if the pressure began to push down on my arms I still held them up with all of my might. When I began to slow down I noticed that my dark magic had created a dark shell around me, and once I completely stopped the dark magic around me kept spinning at the speed that I was spinning at.

I took a step, nothing happened, then I took another step and the darkness swarm followed me. I began to take bigger steps and it still continued to follow me. I sprinted a few feet and then stopped suddenly and the swarm still followed me. Without any magic coming out of my hands I began to spin around and I started to giggle, like a little girl, at the fun I was having.

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This went on for hours.

The fun stopped when I wanted the darkness to disappear so that I could see where I actually was. Also with darkness around me I couldn’t fight anything if it came at me. I put my hands out straight in front of me, closed my eyes and began to suck the darkness back into my body. However, this technique wasn’t as affective as it had been in the past. I tried again, only this time I concentrated harder than I usually would, but only little bits of darkness faded away. I pushed myself as hard as I could to try and suck in all of the darkness, using my hands, but nothing happened to the darkness. From the amount of pressure, I was putting on my body my nose started to bleed, because I was concentrating so hard, my arms and hands began to violently shake uncontrollably and my legs eventually gave out because they couldn’t handle the pressure I was putting on them anymore.

After putting all of the effort I had into getting rid of the darkness around me nothing worked. I was stuck with a swarm of darkness surrounding me. I collapsed in exhaustion. My entire body became numb and ached with pain, pain that I had never felt before. My eyes and head felt heavy so I gave into the feeling and I curled into a ball and fell asleep.

When my brain tried to create a dream all I could see was giant needles being stabbed into every part of my body, and no matter how hard or loud I screamed it never stopped. The pain never stopped. Not even when I woke up. In shock to my dream, and to the pain, my body began to throb and my arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably. My breaths were shorter than usual. It felt like the giant needles were still stabbing me and I couldn’t wake up from my endless nightmare.

Not being able to move my body that much I rolled my head, gently, to the side and saw that the darkness that surrounded me before was now gone. With every ounce of strength, I had I moved my hand towards my face and saw, that covering the back of my hand, was a dark symbol. It was a black oval covering the entirety of my hand, and within the oval looked like little tear drops with a single black dot carefully placed in the middle of each one. I rolled my head, gently, to the other side and looked at my other hand. It had the same thing on it.

I rolled my head so that I was looking straight up and I closed my eyes, trying to make the pain go away. Just then I felt something on my hands and when I opened my eyes my hands were glowing. The tear drops began to float above my hands; very slowly. When they were all an inch above my body they formed a circle and began to spin in an oval going from my head to my toes.

Once they gained enough speed, that I couldn’t see them, they began to expand and then suddenly they crashed into my body. I gasped for air as I opened my eyes in surprise. I could feel the tear drops creep through my body fixing all of the pain that my body previously suffered.

The creeping finally stopped and I could breath and move properly. However, the black mark was no longer just on the back of my hands, it made its way up my arms. I lifted up my shirt and found that the blackness had spread to every part of my body.

I had no choice now. I had to embrace my dark magic since it had now consumed every piece of light magic that I had within me.