Prologue

It started with shadows, when Laura Jeane was a little girl. At the age of eight, she had made friends with the boy who "lived in the dark corners" of her old house. Her parents thought nothing of it at first, shaking it off as some type of imaginary friend. But she knew what she saw. Later, after a few months of living in their new home in Dover, Delaware, the shadows started to mix in with what looked like real people. But something always felt off, something she could not explain. She knew that they weren't human, and they knew she could see them. For her entire life she coexisted with these entities and as she grew older, the stronger her abilities became. Deep down, her parents knew that what she was seeing was real and not just all in her head. But - like most parents do - they wanted to protect her, to sheild her from anything bad or disturbing her abilities could lead her to see or discover and protect her from any danger the entities may want to inflict upon her. So they tried to convince her that it was just her imagination, they took her to doctors, psychiatrists, shrinks, anyone they could think of to giver a proper diagnosis of a mental health disorder or something that she would believe to be true, rather than her learning that there were things much more mysterious and powerful about the world she was living and growing in.

That was eighteen years ago. Now, her parents have pretty much given up on trying to convince her of anything and are now teaching her how to control her abilities. "There is a Veil, Laura Jeane," her mother would say. "A Veil that is thinner for you than most people in this world." The two were sitting at the kitchen table, her mother, Fiona, had saran wrap that represented the veil that displayed itself to Laura, and a piece of paper that represented how it displayed itself to most other people in society. Although, Laura already knew this. She understood that she was different and she didn't need this lesson. However, her mother still insisted that she be taught it. That was the thing, her parents did not know how much in-tune she already was with the world around her. She could feel everything around her. The life inside the trees, the love inside the flowers, the laughter that came with the wind, the anger that came with storms. To her, everything had a purpose, everything was alive. Her parents would never understand this, and with complete honesty she felt sorry for them because of it. She often found herself wondering how could anyone live in a world where not everything had an obvious soul. Perhaps she would never understand. The only other person who knew about her abilities was her best friend Jonesie. A quiet girl, unlike Laura, Jonesie kept to herself, never going out to parties, rarely going out with friends. She was more than happy to just spend her days in her room listening to music and drawing. It was that love of solitude that drew Laura to her, because while she fed off people's energy, Jonesie seemed to be drained by it. "Why don't you go out?" She had asked her friend once while they were playing Minecraft on her PS4. Jonesie just shrugged and said, "people can be too much. Too loud, too quiet, to energetic, too low-energy." She thought about this for a moment, she supposed she understood what her friend meant but it was still such a foreign concept to her, because to Laura Jeane, even the low-energy people where extremely energetic. When all you've ever known about the world turns out to only be a personal experience, how can one know which one is a reliable source? This question has come up multiple times throughout her life and it annoyed her that no one seemed to have the answer to it. Her parents often told her to "stop being so philosophical", but she could not help it. She wanted answers, real ones. Not just the half-assed ones that adults usually gave when they can't think of an actual answer. She feared she may never get any of them. Until she met Milo.