It was raining within the small town of Pennisville. Children in brightly-coloured rubber coats gathered around and jumped in the mud while many frustrated mothers hurried their children inside. And while the rain pelted against windows and the fog blurred the big blue backdrop of the sky, the two children whose mothers hadn’t come stood on the street. The boys waited patiently on the street, shivering in their rubber coats.

Clara opened her eyes to inky darkness and a quiet humming sound resonating in her ears. At least, she thought she had opened her eyes- the darkness around her was no different to the darkness of that when she had her eyes closed. The space was hot and clammy and hard to breathe in as well as an overwhelming smell of earth flooding Claras senses. She tried to sit up by pressing her hands firmly against the varnished, smooth surface and heaving her aching body up- only to bang her head firmly against a varnished, smooth roof that lay around thirty centimeters above where she had lay. Clara yelped, and as soon as the raspy, spluttering sound that her voice made dispersed into the surroundings, it all flooded back to her. How long had she been in there? How long would she have left?

                  Chaewon creaked open the door, her heart racing. The air was thick with decay and smoke. She stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. The rumors were true; the Nyxs did live here, at least something of them did. Suddenly, she felt a chill run down her spine. She was being watched.

                “So, I’ll see you in Ultimate Adventure tonight, then?” Michael asked, “There’s a new update.”

They were outside the school gates, about to break up for the first half term holiday of the calendar year and Jonathon was more focused on getting home into the warmth than some silly game – he’d left his jumper at home that morning.

                “Oh, dammit!” he slapped his forehead, “I completely forgot. I’ll do it when I get home”

Julia Haworth was an extremely intelligent woman. Not in the typical fact-spouting, full marks, know-it-all type that comes to mind, but one of those rare, driven individuals whose eyes light up at the sound of something they love, as if every mention of it spirals into a new and wonderful idea. The kind of idea that you yearn to know about, and yet can never quite reach. Perhaps that was why people pressed and pushed her for answers, delved into her life in the naive hope that she would let them in and share her discoveries - only to be turned away like embers from a flame.