The Secretly Dark Emporium
Prologue:

There are a lot of places no-one enters and never looks. This Emporium was no different, at all. The Secretly Dark Emporium used to be shown, used to be so easy to find, but now it is so well hidden that you’d now be most luckiest to find it. Sometimes if you come at the right time, in the right place you’d find it. It’s is known.

Though the windows still swarm with eggs and leaping bunnies at easter. Even though, the teddies still try and hug you. Though, you could still smell freshly baked chips or sizzling burgers. Though, you could still see piled boxes of treats.

Still, no-one had entered. The door seemed almost too large and way too dark. It felt as if you’d only enter at your own risk; with your own consequence. But no matter how many walked past they took no look. Except Caleb, who took that risk. A choice, you can never go back from, you’re stuck.

Chapter. 1 Through The Shadows. (past tense)

It had been a normal day, for Caleb. He had always been curious of what the new shop had lurking inside its dark brick walls and if it was so special that it hides away each morning. Caleb chose to figure this out with the little help of his German Shepherd (Rex) who had been by his side since his 10th birthday. With no-more questions, he stepped inside.

Throughout the shop, everything seemed to catch his attention. Though something stood out, something that glared into his curious soul. The object he saw was tall, gold and patterned with large specs of gold that weaved round its skulled base and up to the centre of the artifact a pool of bubbling and popping jam swirled inside the cupped bowl perched on top its stand. He inhaled a sharp breath and tiptoed closer.

He cradled the monument in his hands dreaming of taking it home maybe one day he thought. One day.
Gently, he put it back in its place. At that moment, a compartment opened a silky, ocean blew, leather book exposed itself to the biscuit smelling shop. Without thinking, he clutched the book in his hands and ran the tips of his fingers at the cover Book Of Wonders by Tyson Sword. Caleb could not believe his eyes joy sizzled inside him. His bold, courageous mind forced him to open the tome, and with no other words he opened it up. As he flipped more pages, words read aloud in his brain springing alive by the second like rabbits in a sunflower field, he read.

“Hey! where’d you find that book, I thought I hid it” a voice whispered under a gust of wind the voice frightened Caleb he leaped back slammed the book shut and slipped it back into the object it came from. He peered up at the man, he was tall, muscled and loomed a dark shadow across Caleb’s face. On top his shoulder a talking Macaw squaked, looking at the boy, darkly disappointed.