EDIT 2019: I am so so sorry for how bad this chapter is. But I'm not doing rewrites so sucks to be y'all. My husband and I had way too good of a time making fun of this chapter, so there was that. Fun fact: I wasn't even dating my husband when I started this. We dated, got engaged, and got married within the horrendously long time frame of this story!

So! Decided to try my hand at fanfiction... Probably not going to be good, so be patient with me... hahah.

Um.

The Forbidden Game is not mine. Kind of obvious, but yeah c:

It was as quiet as it could get in the Shadow World. There would always be the howling wind, and horrible clashes of thunder when lightening struck, and the subtle tapping of snow blasting against every exposed surface, and the far off moans and cries of the wandering creatures that made this world home, but those were all taken as a given. Other than that, the world was quiet.

The figure had hardly a trouble at all finding the entrance to the cave. They were small, dressed in all black, with their hoodie pulled down to shadow their face. The figure was careful to make sure they were alone in the massive stone structure - it would be no good to begin, then discover that one of the monsters was in here with them.

But all was still quiet. All of the outside noise was blocked out in here, leaving only the hollow sound of a place truly massive and the echo of the intruder's feet. Another short peek around assured the outsider that they were alone - perfect.

With no monsters around to stop them, they sat down, forced themselves to concentrate, and chanted the name of a few runes in quick succession. They repeated this little 'spell' until the air before them started to glow. The figure continued to chant, raising their hands towards the light. It grew brighter and brighter, and something began to form at its center.

After the spell hit its climax, the light faded away, and a stick of some sort fell heavily into the figure's hands. They held it, felt its smooth surface, looked over the runes intricately decorating its surface for a long moment.

It was almost inconceivable to the figure that they had so easily retrieved the stave - one would think that the monsters outside would guard something so precious far more closely. Of course, they were sure that the stave was already missed, and if they didn't finish their business soon, the monsters would soon be upon them, but it was still difficult to grasp that they had won. That they had gotten the stave in the first place.

The figure caressed the stave one last time, feeling its power thrum beneath their fingertips. It was difficult to squelch the urge to carve every blasted rune off of it, start all over, when the person retrieved the knife from their pocket. But no, the monsters would be upon the figure twice as fast, and would destroy them twice as furiously if they were to do that rather than what they had originally planned.

Right, they had no more time to dawdle around and think. They quickly carved a series of new runes into the soft wood. It bled as they did so - thick, silver blood - and almost seemed to screamed in pain. Its energy thrummed even more powerfully. The situation was growing more urgent, the figure needed to finish carving and leave, as the monsters could undoubtedly sense the stave's pain. They would find the cave shortly, and if the figure was still there, this little escapade would be for naught.

After carving in the name and setting down the stave, the person did not have to wait very long (thankfully) for something to happen. The shadows along the walls of the cave twitched, twitched again, then began wiggling. They writhed and skittered across the floor, moving towards the space right in front of the stave and the figure. The shadows collected, congealed and began to morph - steadily becoming more human in appearance. The figure watched quietly as shadows formed bone, flesh and skin, as shadows molded into muscular arms and legs to hold the shadowy being up on hands and knees, as pure, snowy white hair grew and fell into place over a noble, beautiful face. The figure almost smiled to themselves as they looked down at the fully formed man before them. He was perfect.

The man stayed still for a while, merely staring at the ground. But finally, he managed to lift a shaky hand to gaze at it in wonderment. He clearly never expected to live ever again, this must have been quite the surprise.

Eventually, eyes the color of the sky just before dawn raised to look at his rescuer, but he found that they had turned their back to him. He felt a flash of anger - how dare they turn their back on him? Before that faded into confusion. He stood, looking down at himself - had they turned because he was naked? He could hardly see what the problem in that would be.

A million questions suddenly rushed to his mind, the main one being - why was he back? He could feel all of his memories sitting there at the tip of his tongue, but at the moment, he was still too groggy to access them. This annoyed the man - he wanted to remember! He hated this feeling of forgetting something important. Particularly the one closest to the tip of his tongue. It started with a 'J' sound. J… J… Je… Jen - Gender? What about his gender? That couldn't be right. Generator? No. Jelly? No, but whatever he was trying to remember sounded like that -

"Who are you? Why did you bring me back?" He spat, fed up with trying to figure out what the mysterious 'J' word could be. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn't think of what the word could be, when it seemed so important.

"You were dead for an entire year, you know." His memories suddenly flooded free at the mysterious person's voice. He knew exactly to whom that sweet lilt belonged to, and it nearly brought him to his knees. "The way things were left wasn't fair, so I fixed things." They explained quietly.

He lurched forward, grabbed their arm and spun them around just as they started to fade from existence right before his eyes. Their eyes met in the split second before the mysterious person completely faded away, and his eyes grew wide. Julian knew exactly who that had been.

Everything about Jenny had changed in the year since the games. Her interests had changed, her life's direction had changed, she had changed. She was newer, somehow - a fresher, more confident update who glowed twice as vibrantly as her past self.

Her parents often wondered what had spurred the change, because indeed, their daughter was very different now. She was confident and driven, and she was fully willing to speak her mind. No more was the timid girl who allowed her boyfriend to think for her! In fact, he was one of the first changes she made - moving Tommy-boy from the center of her attention to the center of the curb's. It had only taken her about a month after the games to realize that it had not only been Julian who was overly controlling, but Tom as well. Except Julian had been a thousand times sexier and more romantic about doing so. After such a discovery, it was only a matter of time for poor Tom.

He was still a friend, though - she still liked him a little, after all - so all he could do was sit around and pray for the day that she'd come running back into his arms.

More had changed than just that, though. Her family noticed her sudden, almost shuddering hatred of games that had seemed to spring out of nowhere. It was hard not to notice in a family that had game night every Thursday. She even hated the completely innocent ones, like Candyland and Apples to Apples.

This hatred was soon followed a few other… noticeable changes, like her neckline plunging a little lower and her jeans getting a little tighter. Gone were the overly modest tops and the girlish, flowery skirts. One thing that the games had taught her was that she was allowed to feel sexy, and that's exactly what her new wardrobe choices made her feel like.

This alone made Audrey proud nearly to the point of tears, but on top of that, eyeliner, mascara and maybe even a little lip gloss had made its way into Jenny's everyday appearance.

Jenny looked completely the part of the beautiful, strong, young woman she had become.

Since the games, Jenny had taken control of her life. She had collected her things, given herself a serious evaluation and figured out what she wanted to do with her life - following in Tom's shadow like a lost puppy simply was not going to work anymore. Jenny discovered that she wanted to work with kids - maybe an elementary school teacher - and the college she selected was completely different than her friends'. A whole different part of the country. Yes, she had finally become her own person. She was her own master.

Julian would have been proud.

She felt a brief stab of pain whenever she had that thought. He was the one remainder from her old days that she could not change or get rid of. She knew she should have hated him (he had kidnapped her and her friends, and then commenced into some of the worst psychological torture she had ever heard of. He had been possessive, sadistic, an obsessive stalker, and sometimes, downright creepy. Every facet of him screamed 'unhealthy relationship'), but she still cared for him. She had him to thank for all of the positive changed in her and her friends' lives, and while he was the reason they were in the Shadow World, he was the reason they had gotten out of there alive. She owed him her life.

Yes, memories of the blue-eyed Shadowman seemed to be the one thing that she and her newly reformed friends seemed incapable of shaking. Julian had taken root in all of them, and she was not the only one that he had managed to end up changing.

Dee had gone off to college like the others. She hadn't quite decided what she was going to be, but she was working hard in her classes and was doing well. She found that there were even martial arts clubs and classes, where she could hang out with more people like her.

Audrey had centered her attention on lingual studies. Her appearance was just as immaculate as ever, but the air around her seemed far more relaxed. She was more pleasant and friendly, now. She could take a joke.

Michael was now Audrey's faithful boyfriend. They had finally managed to get together, and it had proved to be a very good choice. Both of them seemed much happier. He had begun his first book, and from what he had let her read so far, it was a slightly embellished (as if it needed to be) recounting of what had happened to them.

Zach had come out of his shell. He was friendly and talked to people and from what she got from their phone conversations, was a well received artist in their home town.

Summer was now his favorite model, now that he had branched into sometimes using people in his artwork. Jenny and the others were sure it would only be a matter of time before the two got together. They both were soft on each other. Aside from that, though, Summer was the least changed - though she was now a clean freak.

Lastly in the line, there was Tom. Oh Tom. He had desperately tried to make things work, but Jenny knew they just wouldn't. He was off studying law now, and they rarely talked, but she heard that he had already run through quite a series of blonde haired, green eyed girlfriends. The pathetic display didn't sway her from her choice, though. It actually made her think less of him - but still, she kept him as an old friend. He wasn't entirely pathetic, he had relaxed a bit, and sometimes voiced his feelings, but it was still too rare for Jenny's liking.

She could never go back. She had tasted what it had been like around Julian. That dangerous, beautiful feeling she had gotten. She would never be able to settle for anything less, not with the lasting memory of that feeling in the back of her mind. She couldn't let go and forget it. She couldn't forget Julian.

Her lasting obsession with the blue-eyed boy had driven her to take a mythology course, just for the hell of it. She was finishing a paper for the class at the moment, waiting for her friends, who were visiting for holiday break, to show up.

Jenny was not going to deny that the class had probably been a mistake. Her professor was growing cranky with her never ending obsession with Shadowmen, runes, and Norse mythology - she was probably going to receive a low grade on this paper, as those were the exact subjects she had written about. But she supposed that it didn't matter. This class had been just for fun, and she'd still be walking out with an alright grade.

Jenny sighed, staring at her nearly finished project. Her problem was that she wanted a great grade. It was somehow proof to Julian that she did care about what he was - not that he would ever see. He was dead now.

She shook her head, forcing those thoughts from her head. She could feel self pity later. Right now, she had to concentrate. She wanted to finish her project before her friends arrived - they'd be doing so within the hour, supposedly. At least she didn't have to go sit outside so they could find the right house. She was back at her parents, her old home, house sitting while they went on a winter vacation. Her friends were perfectly familiar with how to get there.

Jenny managed two more sentences before she was interrupted. "What on Earth?" She asked quietly a moment after the door bell quieted. She glanced at the clock - her friends would have called if they were arriving this early, wouldn't they? Maybe it was the postman… Yeah, it was probably the postman.

She ran a hand through her hair and straightened out the wrinkles in her sweats so she didn't look completely horrendous as she headed for the door.

The sight that greeted her on the doorstep made her freeze. This man was definitely not the postman.

"Hello, Jenny."

And now that I've bored your brains out c: Possibly interesting things happen next chapter, I promise!

Oh, and what's with that mysterious person at the beginning? Very interesting...