Chapter 1

Adam

Her eyes were full of tears.

I couldn't do anything to stop them. They fell one after another like pearls to the ground. Each one felt like a slice across my chest.

"Yen, no, please stop" I stuttered. My breathing came in heavy and uneven. Her clothing was ripped from our struggle and the blood was seeping through.

"I'm so sorry" I said.

She wouldn't even look at me, my world won't even look at me. The crowd didn't even notice as my life fell apart around me, as she fell apart. I tried to drudge up some words, something, anything to make this right, to do something right but I came up empty. The tall walls remained silent, the ceiling hung firmly and the crowd continued to pass us by.

Her eyes were full of tears

I took one step forward and she took one away from me. She looked so hurt, that I would just die, just vanish from this planet if it gave her respite.

"Yen please" I begged. I felt a hand on my shoulder, Sam was standing there. He looked disappointed in me, why wouldn't he. I looked at the red on my hands, and then at the blade lying a few feet away in the corner, painted crimson red.

I fell to my knees, my face gaunt and broken, my jet black hair were messy and wet and I let out a broken sigh before collapsing to the ground. There was a sudden silence, as the soft notes of the piano started to flow through and the lights dimmed.

Each heartbeat felt like an eternity as I lay there with my ear pressed to the wooden floorboard, waiting to see what came of all we had worked towards.

A loud applause breached the silence. I stood up to my feet smiling and waving at the crowd. The crowd was cheering so loud it shook the ground. The lights came to life and showed me everyone, my friends, my teachers, and the massive and I mean massive crowd, I got Goosebumps with the spontaneity of it all.

The curtain fell.

"Bro, we nailed it" I heard Sam practically squeal as he bear hugged me to the ground. I was laughing like a mad man, happy airy laughs, it was like a burden had been lifted off of my shoulders.

"We did it people!" Praj shouted, throwing a copy of the play into the air. Sheets landed around me, somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of the still cheering audience. I was still practically under Sam but my eyes were searching for Yen. After all, she was the master mind behind all of this. I found her peeking behind the curtain and looking at the audience with a nervous face.

"Hey guys, give me a minute?" I muttered pulling away from the group, Sam saw where I was going and winked at me as the group started to laugh again. I peeled myself away from the main buzz of the celebration. Something caught my eye in the rafts, for a briefest second there was a white spark. I looked up and just blamed it on me being tired. Excitement bubbled within me as I got nearer, we hadn't really gotten to talk, and at not at length. I silently sneaked behind Yennefer.

"So…we did it. Our very own play" I whisper shouted, afraid to alert the audience, who seemed to be murmuring. It was good murmuring, I could tell. This was all making me reckless, I fake pushed Yennefer off the stage, but caught her before she fell.

Yen jumped and turned to look at me, "Oh my god you scared me, warn me next time you wanna act like a stalker" she said, playfully punching me, her Londoner's accent like a shadow over her voice. I made a fake apologetic face. "Oh spare me, I taught you how to act, those fake eyes aren't gonna work on me." She muttered turning back to the crowd.

I chuckled, "well it was worth a shot wasn't?" I moved to stand behind her and slowly peeked out the curtain as well. I wrapped my arms around her and surprisingly she didn't even complain, she just sighed and leaned back into me. I breathed in the rose scented perfume under the make-up. We stood their silently for a little while watching the crowd make their way out. The feeling of performing, of coming this far, it was surreal.

"Something on your mind?" I asked lightly, afraid to break the moment.

"Hmmm?"

"Is something bothering you Yennefer?" I asked again.

"No, it's just…" she made a hand gesture to try and say something she couldn't quite put into words, I loved that about her and I loved that I knew exactly what she meant every time.

"I know" I said, pulling her in closer, the stage light above us went out as the cast moved backstage. I was thankful that no one asked us to join them. We stood there comfortably in the darkness. I heard a slight creak of metal somewhere in the ceiling. Probably just rats. I pooled all my focus onto her. The way she was breathing, leaning into me but not giving up staring at the crowd. It was just so perfect I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. To think orphans like us could stand atop the world, and it was all because of this little fragile looking thing in front of me. I cleared my throat, pushing down the emotions.

"Let's start by saying that you're perhaps very happy" I whispered to her and she chuckled.

"Oh believe me nerd boy I am ecstatic." She said.

"Hey! Being a nerd is probably the best thing I have ever done" I said indignantly. She immediately turned around and looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

"I mean other than asking you out" I mumbled cringing slightly at the slip up.

"Uhun, sure" she said, pushing me away. I grabbed her hand, "But I did ask you out." I stressed on the word 'I'. She rolled her eyes, tilted her head back to look at me, her brunette hair hanging just past her shoulders.

Gods she is pretty, I thought.

"And I did said yes, I believe" she pointed out.

Fair point, "You aren't mad right?" I asked, kind of worried.

"Well, you did say being a nerd was THE best part of your life" she said in a playful offhand voice.

"Oh stop being dramatic" I said tapping her nose.

"I am the lead actress, let me drama"

"I hate you so much" I sighed

"Uhun" she said.

"Oh you know I love you" I said laughing and she maintained that adorable scowl. I looked into her eyes, one of my hands moving to brush aside a stray lock of hair. She stared right back at me, no hesitation. "You're the strongest and most talent person I know" I whispered. Now I really was scared to break the moment. The damn mice in the rafters were being too loud.

She took a step towards me, closing the gap, "You are absolutely correct, I am one of a kind aren't I?" she said. We were barely inches apart, I could feel the warmth from her body as it seeped into mine.

"You know how self-absorbed that sounds right?" I asked.

"Hmm, I'm not so sure about that" she mumbled, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. I felt like I was falling into her electric blue eyes, it felt electrifying, I tried to keep my thoughts straight. Somehow managing to not fall on my knees, using my acting skills.

"AND that sounds like denial" I muttered, wrapping my arms around her waist.

"Uhun sure" she said again, not breaking eye contact.

"That one is avoidance." I chuckled. She rolled her eyes.

"Kiss me Adam or I swear to God you would wish I just stopped at teasing" she threatened. I laughed and closed the distance between us. The chilly theatre air breezed past me, but I was warm, this giddy feeling inside my heart kept me from shivering or made me shiver. The moment our lips met it was like the theatre disappeared, the play disappeared and it was just me and her, in this moment. I hadn't realised how stressed I had been these past few days. I felt all of it ebbing away, disappearing into this bliss.

Something flashed behind me but it was no reason to stop kissing Yennefer. Then I heard footsteps cracking on the wooden stage.

Please not right now I thought and then I heard creaking of metal and finally turned around. The real world came crashing down ruining everything, as usual.

"What?" I asked slightly embarrassed but mostly annoyed.

Sam was standing in the middle of the stage with praj. "Umm, guys, we kind of need you to make your speech so we can start eating." Praj said awkwardly. I cringed when I realised that we were supposed to head the dinner party after the show. I looked for something to say but yen beat me to it.

"Yes, yes let's go, just give us a moment." Yen said, fixing her hair, looking very embarrassed. Sam looked at us in his usual teasing way. I told him to keep moving and he was just turning to leave when I heard the worst noise in the world as a metal beam from the stage ceiling came tumbling down. There was a large crunch sound and crimson and white flashed before my eyes, where Praj was a few moments ago, now lay a five meter long metal rafter. Yennefer screamed and another beam fell smashing the backstage door to pieces.

I couldn't believe my eyes as a glaring white tendril of smoke slammed against a dark blob. I watched in horror as it sent splinters of wood flying everywhere, I grabbed Yen and ducked behind one of the props, my torn soldier's uniform looking more fitting that ever. My heart threatened to tear out of my chest, Praj… he just…

Another large boom rang across the stage. Everything seems to crash around me as I somehow managed to hold Yen. One moment we were kissing and the next, red splashed my vision. My knuckles were white, my body was shivering and it hadn't even been a minute yet, that's when I had a horrifying realization.

Sam?

Horror ran rampant through my veins as I tried to peek around the small table. Sam was bolting straight for us, but he wasn't alone, Praj held on to him, both his legs dragging under him uselessly. Behind them a wave of smoke was cresting as if it was about to slam into the stage floor, its monochrome emission shadowing over my friends. Just before it collapsed Sam lunged for the cover dragging Praj with him and slammed into me with a dull thud.

My body lurched unnaturally and there was a loud bang. The shockwave made all four of us and the table skid across into the corner. I grunted as the force of the shock knocked the air from my lungs, I wheezed to get the air back in, everything was chaos, what the hell was happening.

Before I knew it air started tearing itself apart, and more beams started to fall. I heard screams, Yen was tightly clutching my arm and Sam was puffing uneven breaths, tears rimming his eyes. , another beam fell right where he was moments ago. Splinters ricocheted off of the impact and I pulled yen closer hoping the table would be enough to keep anything from hitting us. My eyes sailed over Praj who was panting heavily, head drooping as he somehow kept himself propped up on Sam. His Victorian suit was stained dark, that crunch from earlier was showing its effects.

The mirror ahead of me was cracked, in its fragments I watched as the dark mass crackled and consumed the light in room curling and bulging around its edges, blurring the lines of reality only to be spat back out and causing another loud crash.

"What the hell is happening?" Sam asked panting, I could see he was visibly shaken from what happened to Praj, so was I. The crowd was screaming behind the curtains. Yen held on to me so tight it almost hurt but I almost didn't feel it. Almost.

"Praj are you all right?" Yen asked looking at his legs.

"DO I SEEM OKAY?" he screamed over the mayhem, voice mixed with pain and fear. I heard another scream from somewhere far away.

"What the hell is happening?" Sam asked holding Praj's hand and looking at me.

"How am I supposed to explain that?" I shouted back.

"We need to get the hell out of here." I shouted. On cue, the curtain rod snapped and the red linen collapsed to the ground in a large heap giving us a full view of the extent of the damage whatever this was had done.

"Is this an earthquake?" Sam asked.

I pointed at the flashing lights and the tendrils of discharged energy, "What part of that looks like a ground shaking phenomenon?" I screamed. Another beam crashed somewhere to our right throwing smoke into the air.

"Valid point" Sam muttered, his hands were shaking like a leaf as he tried to calm himself down. "Praj, buddy hold on we got you" Sam whispered, he looked so vulnerable in that moment I felt my heart crack.

Yen hadn't spoken much but instead she had bandaged Praj with the late eighteenth century Victorian gown she was wearing. I nodded at her and she looked petrified.

"I will kill you praj, so don't die" he said. He looked me in the, eye. I saw the pain that was there, I couldn't even imagine what I would have done if it was Yen instead of Praj. I felt disgusted to even think that. Sam turned back to praj, holding his hand, the beaten brown melding into the pale white. Sam was smiling at Praj, holding him in his arms, I instead looked at the legs, and the pool of blood under them.

Another shockwave hit us, this time it was a lot stronger I felt yen's hand rip away from me and I lurched face first into the prop file cabinet. My chest felt like someone shattered it with a sledge hammer, the resulting impact didn't even let me scream as crumpled to the ground.

"Adam!" Yen ran to me, shielding me from whatever this was. I felt black spots covering my eyes, the will to hold Yen losing against the fore coming unconsciousness. I grunted, trying to shock the dragging deepness away but it only came back stronger than before.

Today was supposed to be happy, I thought. I tasted blood. I somehow got dragged back to Sam, he had adjusted the table so we had a way to escape. Praj was now fully unconscious, his hands brushing against Sam whose eyes were wild, and his fine blue suit now an even darker shade than before stuck to his skin. I looked at him, using my remaining strength to just stay awake, giving all it took to not let go.

"I think it's about time we skedaddle" Sam muttered trying to make some decision, his platinum blond hair shining dully in the rising smoke. He switched between tending to Praj and watching the disaster as it threatened to take us all. To kill us. These thoughts sent a chill through me, death was still too real a topic to me.

"I think we could get out through the back door, the main entrance is a jumbled mess.

I couldn't agree with him more, Yen was shivering I put an arm around her, or tried to my hand refusing to rise more than a few inches. I coughed, my lips felt something potent and moist coat them.

"Yen, remember what you promised me?" I asked her coughing and she shakily nodded.

We are not going to die today I swore.