Chapter 5- The Girl In The Shadows
1162 Words
Lyra POV
Before Silas leaves for the village
I left Noah's home and went to work. Gabby had called me early this morning and asked me if I could step in for four hours, as Ben had called in sick. I told her that I could and would be there.
I help Gabby open up, and while I do, I find myself telling her about my dream again. It is then that Gabby says something to me that catches my attention and makes my heart skip a beat.
"Do you think the man in your dream could be Silas Vane?" Gabby asks nonchalantly.
"Silas?" I ask, surprised to hear the owner of the village being mentioned by Gabby, she has a deep-seated hatred of him, but has never explained why.
"Yeah. He has shoulder-length hair and is fair-skinned. He could be either the attacker or the one who was attacked in both of your nightmares, although I get the feeling that he may have been the one attacked. Would make sense, after all, he has done many bad things." Gabby explains.
"But how do you know that one of them may be him? After all, I have never seen him, so why would I dream of him? And twice?" I wonder aloud.
Gabby laughs, "Lyra, things happen in our lives without rhyme or reason. Not everything is dictated by logic. Besides, I only said that he could be, not that he is."
For the rest of the shift, I keep wondering if she is right, could the man I dreamed of be Silas? If so, then why?
When my shift ends, I quickly grab my stuff and head for the door, but before I can open it, Gabby calls out.
"You forgot these." She says, handing me a pair of binoculars.
I look at her, confused. I don't own them. I am about to respond when Gabby quickly speaks.
"You may need these for your plan in finding out your answer," Gabby says, pushing the binoculars into my hands.
I look at them and Gabby in confusion, but then I realise that she has worked out that I am planning to head to Silas' estate to see if he is one of the men from my nightmares.
"Thank you," I say, smiling at her while taking the binoculars.
"No worries." She replies before quickly running back behind the counter.
I walk to the edge of the village and along the path that goes directly to Silas Vanes' home. Is he really the one from my dream? I wonder aloud.
I do not know how long I walk for, but soon the sounds of the village are replaced with the sounds of nature, and I find myself relaxing and enjoying the walk. Maybe this walk is what I needed.
I reach a place where the trees have become thicker and closer together, giving me enough space to squeeze between them and see into Silas' estate without bringing attention to myself.
I pull out the binoculars, my breath catching in my throat.
There he was.
Silas stood in the centre of a clearing, surrounded by men who looked as if they were carved from granite. He stands there like a god demanding the attention of all of those around him, yet there is also an unfamiliar feeling about him. When he turns his head slightly, my breath gets caught in my throat.
...He... He looks... I cannot even finish my thought. After all, the man in front of me looks just like the man being killed in my nightmares.
My chest began to ache. It was that strange, aching pressure again, but this time it feels slightly different; it feels as if my ribs were too small for my heart. I lean forward, the binoculars pressed hard against my eyes. I watch him dismiss his guards with a violent wave of his hand. He looks frantic. He looks... haunted.
Suddenly, the world went silent. The birds stopped chirping. The wind died in the trees.
Silas stopped dead in his tracks.
Slowly, as if guided by an invisible thread, his head turned. He didn't just look toward the ridge; he looked at me. Across a mile of dense forest and steep incline, his eyes locked onto mine.
The binoculars fell from my hands, thudding into the moss, but I couldn't move.
The air between us seemed to combust. A jolt of pure, white-hot static exploded behind my navel, racing up my spine with the force of a lightning strike. It wasn't a metaphor—I actually felt the hair on my arms stand up. A literal shock of electricity snapped through my body, so violent that I felt my vision flicker. For a split second, I didn't see a man in the distance; I saw a soul made of gold and fire, reaching out for something I didn't know I possessed.
My skin began to itch, a faint, ethereal shimmer dancing across my pale hands, like starlight trapped under the surface of my flesh.
“Run,” a voice whispered in the back of my mind—not my own voice, but something older, deeper.
In the clearing below, Silas didn't hesitate. He didn't call for help. He dropped into a crouch, and then he was moving—not like a man, but like a blur of sheer, terrifying power. He was coming to my hideout with a speed that defied every law of nature.
Panic, cold and sharp, finally broke the spell.
I scrambled backwards, my boots slipping on the pine needles. The shock was still vibrating through my limbs, making my muscles twitch with a foreign energy. He saw me. He felt it too. What am I? What is he?
I didn't wait to find out. I turned and bolted into the deep brush, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my chest. Every time my foot hit the ground, I felt that static discharge again—a phantom touch of his presence pressing against my skin.
I ran until my lungs burned, running back along the track and towards the main road. If I can make it there, then even if Silas somehow manages to catch me, there is nothing he can do, after all, he will also be visible to others.
I start to hear the sound of normal life not too far in front of me, merging with the sound of breaking branches and heavy puffing coming from behind me. The sounds behind me had stopped sounding like a man and more like an animal. But the sound of the road spurs me on, making me tap into energy that I never knew I had.
Unbeknownst to me, my eyes shone purple, my body became lighter, and I was running faster than is humanely possible.
Because whatever Silas Vane was, and whatever that shock had been, I knew one thing: if he caught me, my life was over forever.
- Writer
