The Rift: Daybreak in Darkness

By DeAnte BuckmanHarris

After being sentenced for his crimes of murder for his own desires, the young Archlight named Orion was banished to a plain in between worlds known as the Void; a world in which the nothingness is everything.

From here, he plots his escape from his prison in an attempt to find his true love who waits for him in his home, The Ascended Plain. All hope seemed lost when Orion could not find a way back until a mysterious young girl was found floating in the Void, unconscious. Could she be the key to the freedom he so desperately craves? Or could she be the key to his undoing and eternal torment in a world between worlds? Only time will tell what will become of Orion... but in the Void, there is no time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796064100

DeAnte BuckmanHarris

My name is DeAnte "Arthur" BuckmanHarris. I was born May 18th, 1997. I am twenty-two years old and I am a first time writer from Rockmart, GA who thought it was time to shed some light in the dark area's of the mind. I've always thought the bigger questions as to why certain things do not make sense in the human subconscious. As such I have found many obstacles, but they have not stopped my goal in finding out the truth behind the things hidden behind age and repetition. The Rift is a tale that takes the drowned meanings of depression and forms it into a fiction tale that all can understand. A dear friend of mine, April J. Smith, passed away shortly after her and I overcame our depression together and sought out a real meaning to the world we saw in our minds. The world of depression has many view, but this one is how me and my friend saw it.

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Copyright © 2019 by DeAnte Arthur BuckmanHarris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/19/2021

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

The moments of my wake, I always wondered the one question; Am I a monster for what I’ve done? Was I right for putting my emotions and feelings before that of my own morale code and my divinity? Who was I to put my own self-righteous actions before that of my king? No knight, in his code of honor, should ever put his own feelings and beliefs before that of his king… especially one of the royal white wings decent. My race… my Archlight race… I gave it all up for the woman of my dreams; Kaiya, the daughter of my king, Vas de’ Solar Lux. As for my race… the once known divinity I had as an Archlight is gone. My wings were cut from my back, only leaving stubs sticking out. Us being… well, the others being Archlight’s are a fabled race of angels that lived in a world of light known as the Ascended Plain. Below this plain lies the simple, yet medieval world of earth. However, in between said worlds lies something very strange. A rift torn through space and time lies between these lands of good and evil, the Void. Having no light, sound, day, night or even time, I would be forced to stay… forever. Previous worlds had been swallowed by this dark hole, leaving nothing but debris of a forgotten age inside its vastness. I was able to take refuge inside a castle that had been ripped from the ground and had the appearance of being scorched with fire.

I… I loved her so much. I say aloud. However, in my current situation; it matters not on how I feel or how much I question myself because my sentence has already begun. I look down and clench a small silver locket around my neck. It was a gift… from Kaiya. I grip the locket tight in my hands as I stare up into the nothingness.

It’s strange to see everything and nothing at the same time. But this is something I will have to come to terms with in time. The terms of accepting my harsh and dark reality that I am forced to live in for all time. No doors open here… that last one was closed by Vas as I fell into this desolate land.

No matter what it takes… I’m going to find my way back to you. I promise.

Little did I know that five years would pass in my time here…

Chapter 1

I close my eyes and sit. I wonder if I would ever be free from the curse this place has brought upon me. From the balcony of my castle, I aimlessly watch the Void; the nothingness, the ever steady darkness that contains only me. The only living thing in this place is me. The non-living however, they float around in this world carrying hazed eyes with ease. They are specters, ghosts of the Void. They are formless wisps made to float throughout the reaches of the Void, finding whatever floats in the nothingness. Strange that they listen to me, I send them out constantly in order to find anything I can use, if they found anything of course. This plain is like a vacuum, it collects whatever gets caught in its path. I assumed anything the Archlight disliked, they did away with here. In the years now I have spent, all I have been brought are books and old weaponry from past conflicts; resembling that of Archlight machinery and human objects. Sadly the magic in these items have been used long ago, making them useless. The older books have some value though, either telling stories or holding information long forgotten. In these years, hundreds of thousands of books have been found floating in the Void and I have read almost every single one. The one I enjoy the most is a small red book that tells a tale of a princess longing for a prince to save her from a dragon. The prince and beast fight, ultimately leading to the prince’s triumph and the dragons defeat. The stories messages are simple, for they tell the tale of heroism and courage, but the reason I like the story, is because I believe the dragon should have won. History seems to have a knack for telling stories about the conflict between dark and light or good versus evil, but it always mistakes the roles of the hero and the villain. Well, human tales it seems. Archlight tales only provide stories of good, not one conflict. Probably to maintain their perfectionist way, but I digress. I open my eyes and look up into the darkness.

It seems though that my sentence will be set true, to spend eternity in the Void, in suffrage and isolation, in the universe’s greatest form of mental pain, and heartache. Kaiya… I say. The last thing I have to remember her by is the locket she gave me, with two silver rings inside. Not a single light can be seen in the outskirts of the Void, only my castle. I am no longer an Archlight, I’m just a monster. Nothing will stop me from getting back to the ascended plain and saving her. A specter fades in, bringing a new book.

The books cover depicts ruins in a world with both day and night. Another human made book it seems. I sigh. However the book had no name as to who may have written it. I open it slowly to see a language that I could not understand. I sift through page after page, but I couldn’t understand any of it. The words continue on, leading to picture after picture. I stop at a page that had a larger picture than others, depicting a doorway with Archlight symbols. My eyes widened, and I began to shake with joy. A human had found a way to the Ascended Plain, but told no one? Clever man, however this information cannot be read so this book is useless to me. Another specter appeared on the balcony. Sire, come quickly! it said. What was troubling it I wonder? I close the book and place it on one of the three pedestals that rose from the ground. With a snap of my fingers, I open a small doorway to the lower half of my castle. I reappear to see the specter pointing off to my right, and tilting its head. I turn my head slowly to see what appeared to be a dead female human. I rush over to her, she was alive. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse was almost non-existent, as if she was in stasis. I lift her up and open another doorway to my chambers, laying her on my bed. I call for the specter that had found her and brought her here. How long had she been exposed to the Void? I said. …Years it said and faded away. She was exposed for years? I began to ponder to myself. She couldn’t possibly be an Archlight, for the doorway was destroyed by Vas years ago and she couldn’t be human, for the human mind collapses at the thought of the nothingness becoming everything that the Void depicts, causing death. I shook and scratched my head. She’s not human… who is she? And more importantly… what is she? I say to myself.

Chapter 2

Hours past and the unknown girl had yet to wake from her death like state. Her breathing returned to normal and her mind seemed at ease from the current exposure of the Void. I order a specter to keep watch over her and to summon me when she wakes up. I return to my library, scanning through book after book to find some information on what just occurred, a possible human who survived years adrift in the Void. She couldn’t possibly be a normal human, there had to be something unique about her, something different, but what? More hours pass by, even though there is no real measurement of time in the Void, it’s good to keep track of the minutes that pass by. It’s a good way to keep my sanity; it reminds me that this world and everything around me isn’t a dream, but a living nightmare. The specter appeared, saying the girl had started to move, as if she was in pain. I walk back to my chambers in awe, attempting to grasp the level of this situation.

I open my chamber door, to my surprise, seeing the girl standing up by herself and throwing random objects in fright. I myself am more worried about losing the material objects that could break at this young woman’s strength versus the specter in which these items completely phase through. I walk through the specter, it then fades away. The girl ceases her frantic uproar; however her bright red eyes still burned with fear and the will to fight. As I slowly approach, her grip tightens on an old clock, one of the few I had been fortunate enough to have brought to me that still work. I stopped my approach and sit down at her level, her grip eases. I slowly stretch out my arm in order to reach the clock in her hands, but she frantically tightens her grip once more, readying to throw it at me. I look down at my hand to what appeared to be claws. I turn to the pieces of material I was able to call a mirror. I see… a man, shifting into a monster. With all the events happening in one day, I had forgotten to suppress the corruption that