The Dark Avenger - Prologue

*Quote taken from 'Just Like Fred Astaire', James*


She was the Dark Avenger.

I don’t remember how she came into my life. I don’t remember how she left it. All I know is that I knew her, and she comes to my mind as easily as if it was only yesterday I saw her. I know little about her job – I suppose I followed her blindly because it was all I could do in her presence – but I know she was, and may still be, a master of her arts.

She was a mystery, a myth, a mere notion. Some days she could pull words from her mind as sharp and deadly as any sword, and others she was a poet, a wordsmith, twisting lyrics into my life. She was a thief, a murderer, a criminal… but then again, in those days, so was I. She was a figment of time and space, older than the sun but as new as a freshly minted penny. And she burned through life like a firework, and faded just as quickly.

She told me to forget her.

“Forget me,” she said, “because I’ll forget you.”

But how can I forget? How could she expect me to? It was hard enough to be her friend, her follower, when she was here, and when I became her disciple I joined into that until the day I die! And she knew that, she knew I would never forget. But she said it anyway. I suppose she said it to ease the pain. I suppose she said it to give her a reason to forget me, when I think about it.

I told her once that I loved her. If it was love, it lasts. If it wasn’t, I always felt it. Either way, I said it. And she laughed in my face. Told me that love was a… ‘disease. A plague for the naïve.’ They weren’t her words, stolen from a song from long ago. But she believed it.

These are the chronicles of the Dark Avenger. Read them if you want. If by now you have read too much, or you know this much already and do not wish to find out more, then don’t waste your time. This is for her, if she’s still out there somewhere, and for the people who believe.

The Dark Avenger left me.

But she waits.