The Celestial Saga: Realms

Chapter 3

Charmaine

The field looked ordinary, something that made the situation more frustrating. Roman lowered the camera from his eye and slowly turned in a circle, scanning the tree line again. Wind moved through the tall grass in slow waves, bending the green toward the horizon. Birds called somewhere overhead. The air smelled like dirt and summer. Too normal.

“You sure this is the place?” Chloe asked, adjusting the strap of her backpack.

Roman nodded. “Same coordinates. Same time of day.”

Jonathan crouched near a patch of disturbed soil, brushing his fingers across it. “There was something here last time. You all saw the ground.”

“We thought we saw the ground,” Sarah corrected. “We also thought we saw a horse the size of a truck that disappeared into thin air.” Karsyn straightened, scanning the open field with narrowed eyes.

“Well, if it’s real,” she said, “and we catch it on video, that’s not just a viral clip.” Roman smirked.

“That’s money,” he said. The mood shifted slightly at that. The excitement and possibility. Cameron stood a few yards away from the group, quieter than the others. His attention wasn’t on the cameras or the equipment. He already didn’t want to be there, but something about the place felt… off. Not dangerous, just heavy.

“Alright,” Roman said, clapping once. “We spread out along the tree line. Cameras on. If anything moves, we document first, react later.” No one argued. If the creature existed, proof came first. They moved toward the edge of the field. None of them noticed us standing on the opposite ridge. I stood at the crest of the hill, eyes fixed on the open land below.

Serena crossed her arms beside her. Avalon stood slightly behind us, her attention shifting between the tree line and the sky.

“There are humans,” Serena said quietly, watching them move into position.

“They don’t know what they’re looking for,” Avalon replied. I didn’t respond. My focus wasn’t on the people. I was listening. The ground beneath my boots felt unsettled, faint disturbances moving through the soil like distant echoes. Not footsteps nor animals. It was something heavier. Something very wrong.

“I can feel it, I just don’t know what it is,” I said, listening closer as the ground began to hum like a heavy slow drumbeat. “It’s anchored to something,” I continued.

Serena glanced at me. “Darpa magic?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe it’s just wandering.” The three of us moved down the ridge together. We didn’t approach the humans. Instead, we spread out across the field, positioning ourselves in a wide triangle. We were close enough to respond yet far enough to act without drawing attention. Serena flexed her fingers, heat flickering faintly around her palms before she forced it back down. Avalon stepped near a low stream cutting through the grass. I surged energy from my palms connecting to the earth as it pulsed faintly. I felt the vibrations and froze.

Serena saw it immediately. “What is it?” My eyes lifted slowly toward the tree line. The wind had stopped, the grass had gone still, and the air felt thinner.

“I feel it too,” Avalon said quietly, straightening near the stream.

“What the f**k?” Serena asked rhetorically, her voice low and slow, each word carrying a strike of fear for what emerged.

Across the field, Sora lifted his camera. The group had split, not noticing the silence yet. The birds had stopped. The shadows along the trees were growing darker. At first, it looked like the darkness itself was shifting, but then the creature stepped out of the black as if it had been hiding inside the shadow. It resembled a horse, only larger, much larger. Its shoulders rose nearly to the height of a truck hood, its body long and lean with dense muscle built for speed rather than strength. Every movement carried a coiled tension, like it was designed to explode forward at any moment. Its hide wasn’t simply black, it swallowed the light.

The sun touched its body and disappeared, leaving no reflection, no sheen, only a void-like surface that seemed to drink the world around it. Veins of faint heat shimmered beneath the darkness, barely visible, as if something molten burned deep under the skin. Its eyes burned molten orange. Each step it took pressed into the earth with deliberate weight, and where its hooves touched, the grass blackened and the soil smoked, the scorch marks fading almost as quickly as they appeared. Then it exhaled.

Smoke spilled from its nostrils, thick, dark, and slow, rolling outward instead of rising. The air changed immediately. I felt it before I could react and my chest tightened. My next breath came shallow, then thinner, almost not enough. The same was happening to Avalon and Serena. The smoke infiltrated our nostrils. The oxygen vanished around us, pulling away as the creature moved closer, the world growing heavier, quieter, the edges of my vision tightening with every step it took toward us.

“Serena—” I forced the words through tightening lungs. “Can you control the smoke?” The creature paced slowly across the field, its molten eyes fixed on us as dark vapor poured steadily from its nostrils, spreading low and heavy through the air. Serena stepped forward, lifting both hands. Heat flared around her palms as she drew the smoke toward her, trying to thin it, burn it away, disperse it through thermal current. For a moment, the black cloud twisted. Then the horse exhaled again. More smoke flooded the field thicker, heavier, swallowing Serena’s flames as if the heat meant nothing. The fire dimmed, struggling for oxygen that wasn’t there. Serena staggered, coughing sharply.

“It’s feeding on the air,” she rasped. I didn’t wait. I dropped my hands to the ground. Roots surged upward from the soil, thick and fast, coiling around the creature’s legs, tightening, digging deep in an attempt to anchor it.

“Come on,” I torturously groaned. “Stay in place,” I struggled as the horse didn’t panic. It simply kept moving. Muscle shifted beneath its lightless skin, and the roots snapped apart one by one, breaking as if they were nothing more than dry twigs. Its legs held firm, unmoved, heavy, and unyielding as stone. I pulled the power higher. Lightning gathered in my palms, bright and sharp. I drove it forward in a concentrated strike. The bolt hit the creature’s shoulder. The light spread across its body and vanished. No burns or wounds. The energy dispersed over its surface, absorbed or deflected by the dense, shadowed hide. It didn’t even flinch.

“Avalon!” I called. Avalon stepped forward, despite the thinning air, and settled her feet in the grass. One foot stepped forward, knees bent, weight lowered and centered. She drew from the stream. Water gathered around her hands as she reached outward, creating a wide arch around her body. A whip of water snapped forward, compressed and tight like a cable, slamming across the creature's shoulders enough to crack a bone in any living thing. But her expression changed almost immediately.