Prologue
In a pitch-black dark room with a flickering light source, there was a young boy laying on the floor in a pool of blood. He then comes to, slowly awakening as he feels a sharp pain on the left side of his head. He sits up slowly, feeling his equilibrium unbalanced, and then feels an open gash with sharp debilitating pain following, and wetness on the left side of his head. He then looks at his left hand to see it covered in his blood, then sees a puddle of it on the floor. He proceeds to stand up slowly as he regains some balance and slowly turns to his right to see a mirror, struggling to walk towards it. He comes close to the mirror, seeing his large open wound and bloody face with its emotionless, and transfixed look.
A scream echoes throughout the room, causing the boy to look behind him to see the silhouette pass by an open doorway. Buzzing begins to intrude in the boy’s ears, which makes him look back at the mirror to see a pair of eyes staring back at him. The staring eyes were a crimson hue with the pupils being slit shaped as they peered within the boy’s brown eyes. The boy’s wound begins to heal on its own, with the boy’s left eye turning the same crimson color as the eyes in the mirror. With the boy’s equilibrium resetting back, the crimson eyes disappear from the mirror. Another scream fills the room with the boy hearing footsteps quickly passing the doorway, followed by heavier footsteps that belong to an adult.
As the footsteps recede, the boy starts walking towards the doorway, and out of the room into a dark hallway lined with lockers and doors. At the end of the hallway, he sees a stairway surrounded by bright lights. The boy starts walking down the hallway towards the stairs and hears a struggle coming from that area. From afar, he sees a set of feet running up the stairs, and hears a scream sounding like a young girl, then hears the impact of something hitting lockers out of his view. A tall and heavyset adult man with pale skin comes into the boy’s sight, seeing the man walk up the stairs at a normal pace. Behind him, a young girl around the boy’s age, pushes the man as he reached the top of the first set of stairs, falling on his side.
The girl starts punching the man in the head angrily. “Don’t touch my sister, you goddamn creep!”
Not even fazed by the girl’s fists, the man grabs the girl’s hand as he recovers from the fall, then grabs the girl by the neck as he stands up, lifting her off the ground. He slams the girl into the nearest wall, and throws her aside, causing her to fall down the stairs, which the boy witnesses. As the man continues to go upstairs leaving from the child’s view, the boy walks towards the girl who fell at the bottom of the stairs. He kneels near the girl whose breathing was labored, suffering a broken leg, bleeding from the back of her head, and a broken neck. The boy stares as he was gripped with silent shock, unable to do anything, except touch the girl’s cheek. As he did, the girl’s gaze looks to the boy’s eyes, prompting the boy to remember a name.
“Raylene…”
With that utterance, the girl closes her eyes, never to open them again. The boy starts to shed tears, with his red eye shedding blood onto the girl’s body, and clenching his fists as he slowly stands to his feet. As he starts to walk up the stairs, the paint on the walls slowly peel away, and stair rails begin to rust. He sees a fire alarm, which he pulls down causing it to go off, then rips off the handle with inhuman strength as he continues to walk up the stairs. He hears the screaming once again as he reaches the second floor, hearing it from his left side into another hallway. He walks in the direction of the screams, leading a trail of decay as he grips onto the handle.
The screams become louder as the boy reaches the end of the hallway next to a doorway, and sees the same man strangling another young girl, pinning her to the wall. Seeing the man’s back facing him, the boy’s unbridled rage causes him to jump on the man’s back and starts punching the back of his head with the handle. The man lets the girl go and starts yelling in pain as he tries to grab the boy off him, prompting him to back into a wall full force. The boy hits his back, letting the man go, dropping to the floor. The man turns to see the boy who slowly gets up from the floor, and sees the boy’s red eye welling with blood, dripping down his face. The man touches the back of his head and looks at it to see how much blood he lost.
“You filthy little shit!” He yells angrily. “How the hell are you still alive?! I watched you bleed out!”
The boy did not respond as he glared at the man, clenching his fists.
“I should’ve burned you in the furnace, you abomination spawn!”
The boy’s red eye glows, causing the room to decay. Without warning, the man feels a sharp pain in his middle back, making him turn around to see the little girl with a shard of bloody glass in her hand. “LEAVE HIM ALONE!”
The man instantly slaps the girl down to the floor, then turns around to see claws that slash him across the face. The man yells out as he holds onto the left side of his face, then sees the boy with a bloody right hand with his red eye shining.
“Murderer…”
The boy triggered himself as he glared at the man and dashed toward him, but the man grabs him by the neck. Instantly, the boy impales his claws into the man’s arm, causing him to let go and his arm to be pushed away. The boy then quickly impales the man in the stomach, making the man let him go and fall to the ground as he holds onto his wound. He looks up at the boy.
“You demon child!” He breathes out angrily. “Just like your father and that whore—”
The boy kicks the man in the head, then grabs onto the sides of the man’s face. “I see only one demon in front of me…”
The remorselessness in the boy’s voice matched the force he pushed on the man’s face. The man starts screaming in pain, until he was silenced by the boy who snapped his neck. The boy lets go and slowly stands with a fixated look in his eyes. Visions of Raylene start to flood the boy’s mind, making him stomp on the man’s head and body repeatedly and scream in a fit of rage. Within moments, he feels arms wrapped around his waist, causing him to stop.
“Please, stop.” It was the little girl’s voice. “He's gone. He won’t harm us anymore…”
The boy then turns around towards the girl with a calm face, seeing her crying red face, hugs her back with his red eye returning to normal, and his claws revert to nails.
As they walk out of the room, out of the hallway towards the stairs with the fire alarm blaring, the two walk down the flights of stairs near Raylene’s body. They kneel next to her, with the little girl holding onto Raylene’s right hand as she starts to cry.
“…Amanda…” The boy mutters, catching her attention. “I… I’m sorry. I… couldn’t…”
“It’s… not your fault…” She responds then looks back at Raylene’s body, struggling to hold back her tears. “It’s theirs…”
The girl, Amanda, holds her head close to Raylene’s, while the boy looks on with a catatonic stare. Their attention goes to hearing sirens from outside approaching.
The boy and Amanda walk out of the building and see multiple policemen and paramedics outside of their vehicles, most running past them, and some running towards them to guide them to safety.
“Hey!” One of the policemen speak. “Are you both okay? Are there any more people inside the building?!”
The children were unable to answer, then heard the policeman’s radio static, then a voice.
“120, 120.” The voice calls. “Inform me your location and status.”
“This is 120.” The policeman responds. “Me and several squads are at Mercy Elementary-Middle School. We found two kids and had them secure. Squads are inside right now to find any more people in the building.”
The officer turns off his radio and sees both children have a significant amount of blood on them.
“Are the two of you hurt in any way?” He asks.
“Y-yes.” Amanda responds. “My neck, and I was hit in the face.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll have somebody here to check you both out.”
In that moment, the boy fell to the ground, rendering him unconscious.
“I need some help here!” The officer shouts.
A few paramedics rush towards the officer and the children with one of them picking up the boy and carrying him to one of the ambulances. The officer continued walking with Amanda towards another ambulance truck accompanied by another paramedic.
“What’s your name, little lady?” The officer asks.
“Amanda.” She responds.
“Okay, Amanda. We’re going to go into the truck so the medics can see what’s going on.”
As the officer helps Amanda inside the back of the ambulance, another officer ran towards him, panting heavily.
“Darek…” The other officer speaks. “It’s horrific in there. There’s a lot of fatalities inside, mainly in the right portion of the school. On the left on the ground floor, there’s a dead girl laying on the stairs, and there’s a man on the second floor on the same side of the school that… looks unrecognizable. They found ID on him, and found out it’s one of the clergy men. Randy Dodson.”
Darek groans at the information, brushing his hand through his hair. “Geez… what the hell is going on here?”
He then looks at young Amanda who was now being looked at by a paramedic. “Where are your parents, Amanda?”
“Home.” She responds.
“What are their names? I need inform them about your whereabouts, and the boy’s.”
“My parents are Randall and Arlena Garner.”
Darek and the other officer looked at each other in shock when they heard those names. The officers then see a group of paramedics walk towards a third ambulance truck with two gurneys with two body bags; one small, and the other was large. Darek and the officer walk towards the back of it, put on gloves from their carry bags, and unzip the small body bag to see the deceased girl’s face. Both officers’ eyes widen.
“Oh, my God, Joey…” Darek mutters. “Was this the girl that you found at the stairs?”
“Yeah…” the second officer, Joey, responds.
Darek looks at the face carefully, then looks at Amanda’s from afar, and sees the identical facial features sighs deeply. “This girl and the Garner girl are--”
“Twins.” Joey answers. “This must be Raylene Garner.”
“So… if those two are the Garner’s daughters, then that boy… is the Diamond child... I'll go make the drive to the Garner's to inform them."
