Chapter 1
Nights like this were rare
A night without clouds , a night without a stars .
Yes, there where only a few , but it was during one of this one, that her life was shattered.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see your whole family die? Or worse... to see all the people you ever loved die in front of you, and there’s nothing you could do about it?
No, of course not, these are not things to think about. It can’t happen, not to us. You only see these things on TV, it only happens to other people.
Well, that’s what we like to think, like when we were children and we were sure that a terrible monster was going to come out from under our bed to eat us and our parents were there to tell us that nothing like that existed and that we were safe.
Unfortunately, these monsters are real... not like the bogeyman or other things from our imagination, they are people like you and me, at least... in appearance.
Perhaps you have crossed paths with one of them... in the metro... or while walking down the street. Nothing will ever tell you who they really are until it’s too late.
Where are she ?
It’s so dark...
Dalianne can’t see her fingertips, she’s been walking for what seems like an eternity. The scenery doesn’t change, always the same suffocating darkness. Recently, something has been added, a smell, with a metallic aftertaste that the young woman couldn't recognise, but which, however, isn't unknown to her.
She continues to walk, barefoot, in a hot viscous liquid that she can’t distinguish.
The smell was getting stronger and stronger, and now, something was dripping on her, making her aware of her nakedness.
Suddenly, a noise, the first she hears. Someone is coming... but who? She doesn’t want to know. A feeling of pure terror overcomes her. She needs to run, but her feet won’t move. The stranger laughs, an abominable laugh, a laugh that makes you feel abused just by listening to it.
He is here , next to her .
“-don’t be afraid my dear.”
His voice is deep and salacious. Dalianne want to scream, but no sound come out.
The light turns on. Blood, everywhere, that’s all she can see. And then... comes the laughter, the crying and the supplications. For the first time, the young woman sees his face, his horrible face.
He smiles, with his yellowish teeth, his greasy hair falls like ropes covered in oil on his face, and his eyes.... his horrible, hungry eyes that threaten to devour you at any moment.
He looks at her, like a predator ready to pounce on his prey at the first opportunity.
Soon he will be close enough to touch her, so close she will be able to smell his fetid breath.
He is here.
He is coming.
She scream.
Bip , bip , bip
Dalianne woke up, and without much conviction headed to her bathroom to shower and get ready. She already had too many dreams like this one, now it hardly mattered.
Maybe these dreams could have something to do with her forgotten past, maybe not... The fact is... they were the oldest thing she could remember, the only thing she could remember.
She had woken up two years earlier from one of those dreams without any memory, and strangely enough, she didn’t want to remember. The present was more important to her. What she could do, what she had to do now, was what she needed to know.
The young woman got out of the shower and went to get dressed.
Since her recovery, she had been working for a detective agency called “The Last Hope”. The LH was no ordinary agency because Axel, the boss, refused most clients no matter how much they offered. He only accepted assignments that interested him, which meant... not much.
He was the one who had rescued and taken in Dalianne, and now, to pay off her debt, the young woman was working for him.
She left her house and went to the nearby agency.
The LH offices was a dilapidated old building that contrasted horribly with the rest of the houses. The paint was cracked all over, and the dirt that covered most of the windows made it impossible to see through. The interior wasn’t much better, the wallpaper was peeling off here and there with indefinable stains, the handrail on the stairs threatened to give way at the slightest touch, and the floor creaked so much that a bell announcing the arrival of a customer was useless.
The state of the agency was not surprising when one considers that the boss refused most of the clients, and without clients there was no money, and without money there were no repairs.
Dalianne entered the office and found Axel on the phone talking gravely, wich surprised the young woman . She was all the more surprised to see that he was there at 10 a.m. knowing that normally he rarely showed up before 2 p.m. and she didn’t know if it was a good, or a bad sign.
Axel, 35 years old, looked a lot less, his hair moved with an almost unreal suppleness with the slightest of movements, his grey eyes gave the impression of seeing through your soul, and it was perhaps not just an impression, his perfectly muscled body, suggested that he paid attention to his diet or that he practiced a sport regularly, but... it wasn't the case, he spent all his time sleeping and lazing around in front of the TV or reading magazines and other stupidities. Besides... in addition to being an extremely intelligent person, he was also one of the most narcissistic people Dalianne had ever met. But he was also the only person she could trust, even if most of the time she wanted to kill him...
