Chapter Three: The Night of No Return
1694 Words
The cold gnawed at Nessa’s skin, sharp as needles, as she pushed deeper into the forest. Her lungs burned, her breath coming in ragged gasps, but she couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Her sneakers sank into damp earth, each step swallowed by thick underbrush as towering trees curled overhead like skeletal fingers, the night pressing close around her.
She barely felt it.
Her mind was still back there—in that trailer, with him. Her uncle’s voice echoed in her skull, slurred but dripping with venom, each word replaying whether she wanted it to or not. You think you can run? You think you’re too good for this? You’re useless…
The memory sent ice through her veins, sharp and sudden, cutting through the adrenaline still coursing in her body.
But she was gone.
She had done it.
She had run, and this time—she wasn’t going back.
The wind moved through the trees, carrying the scent of damp pine and earth. She had walked this path before, more nights than she could count, nights when she needed to be anywhere but that miserable excuse for a home. Nights when the forest had been an escape, a temporary silence that let her breathe.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, she had nowhere else to go.
Her throat tightened, but she forced her legs forward, pushing past the ache in her muscles, past the sharp pull in her ribs. The pain in her body—the bruises, the throbbing soreness—she could handle. That kind of pain was familiar. Expected.
But the ache in her chest, the one that came from remembering what almost happened tonight… what could have happened…
That was something else entirely.
She shoved the thought away.
Focus. Survive.
The trees slowly opened into a clearing, the one place she had always escaped to. The branches parted overhead, revealing a wide sky filled with stars, distant and steady, untouched by everything that had just happened. The familiar sight should have calmed her.
It didn’t.
She stepped into the center and bent forward, hands braced on her knees as she fought to catch her breath. Damp curls clung to her face, dark against her pale skin, and she shoved them back impatiently. Her eyes—deep green, sharp, guarded—scanned the space like she expected something to follow her out of the dark.
The weight in her chest didn’t ease.
It never did.
Slowly, Nessa sank down onto the damp ground, pulling her knees close, her arms wrapping around herself without thinking. The earth was cold beneath her, seeping through her clothes, grounding her in a way nothing else could.
This was the part she hated most.
The quiet.
Because in the quiet, she remembered.
Her mother’s warm hands brushing back her hair. Her father’s voice telling stories about places she had never seen, places she wasn’t even sure existed.
“One day, Ness,” he had whispered, “you’ll go farther than the stars.”
A tight knot formed in her throat.
They were gone.
She had been eight years old when she learned that nothing was permanent. That love didn’t always last. That, sometimes, even the best people disappeared without warning.
And sometimes the ones left behind were given to monsters.
Her fingers curled into the dirt, gripping it tightly.
She wasn’t crying.
She didn’t cry anymore.
But the rage—That never left.
It sat beneath everything, buried deep, something she had learned to control because losing control had consequences. She had spent years forcing it down, swallowing it, locking it away so it wouldn’t make things worse.
But tonight—Tonight, she was done holding it back.
Nessa lifted her head slowly, staring up at the sky. The stars glittered above her, distant and unreachable, cold in a way that felt almost indifferent.
She wondered if her parents were watching.
If they could see her now.
If they were disappointed.
A gust of wind swept through the clearing, stirring the leaves in a sudden rush that broke the stillness.
Then everything went quiet again.
Too quiet.
No crickets. No wind. Not even the distant call of an owl.
The air tightened, like the night itself was holding its breath.
A chill crept down Nessa’s spine.
Something felt… wrong.
Then—A pulse of light exploded in the clearing.
The brilliance was blinding, turning night into day for a single impossible moment. Heat rippled through the air as the light expanded outward, distorting the space around her, making her curls whip wildly around her face.
Nessa threw her arms up to shield her eyes, her heart slamming violently against her ribs.
“What the hell—?”
Slowly, cautiously, she lowered her arms.
And saw it.
Something hovered in the center of the clearing, just above the ground, radiating a soft but overwhelming glow. The light wasn’t harsh anymore—it pulsed, alive, shifting.
A creature
A massive bird, formed entirely of light.
Its wings shimmered with shifting colors—blue, violet, and gold—like a living nebula. Feathers of pure radiance rippled along its body, every movement sending sparks of starlight drifting through the air like embers.
Its eyes burned molten gold.
And they were fixed on her.
Nessa’s breath caught.
Her body told her to run, to turn and disappear into the trees, to put distance between herself and whatever this was.
But she couldn’t move.
She wasn’t afraid.
She was… recognizing it.
Not from memory. Not from dreams.
From somewhere deeper.
Like something buried inside her was waking up.
The creature stepped forward, its presence shifting the air itself. The ground trembled faintly beneath the weight of it, not heavy in a physical sense, but in something deeper—something older.
Then it spoke.
Not with a voice.
With something that resonated through the air, through her bones, through the space inside her chest.
“Nessa… you have been chosen.”
Her stomach dropped.
She scrambled to her feet, heart racing, her breath catching again as reality tried to reassert itself.
“What?”
She took a step back, shaking her head.
“Chosen?”
The word felt wrong in her mouth.
“I am Cosmos, Guardian of the Light.”
The words echoed through the clearing, humming like distant thunder, vibrating through the ground beneath her feet.
“The darkness is rising.”
Cosmos’ wings shimmered, light bending and folding across them like distant stars shifting in place.
“And the Light Crystals are in danger.”
Nessa stared at it, her mind spinning, trying to catch up, trying to make sense of something that refused to make sense.
“You were chosen at birth,” the being continued, the words settling into the air with weight. “Now you must awaken your true power.”
She shook her head again, stepping back instinctively.
“No. You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Maybe that hit messed with my head. I’m hallucinating or something—”
Cosmos’ golden gaze sharpened.
“You are seeing clearly.”
The light around the creature flared, brighter, stronger.
“I am real. And you are the first of the new Light of the Universe Knights.”
A Knight.
The word felt absurd.
She was just a girl.
A girl who had spent years learning how to survive. How to stay quiet. How to make herself small enough to avoid attention.
How could someone like her be meant for something like this?
She had barely survived her uncle.
How could she fight something called darkness?
Cosmos tilted its head slightly, its presence steady, unwavering.
“You are stronger than you believe.”
The air hummed again, the sound low and constant.
“You may run if you wish. But the darkness will find you eventually. You cannot hide from it forever.”
Its wings spread wide, filling the clearing with light.
“Lord Tenebris is rising.”
The name sent a cold shiver through her.
Tenebris.
It felt wrong.
Ancient.
“What… who is he?” she asked quietly.
Cosmos’ wings flared.
The clearing vanished.
Nessa gasped as the world dissolved around her, the ground disappearing beneath her feet, replaced by something vast and impossible. They stood in the center of a galaxy, stars spinning endlessly around them, light stretching into infinity as if space itself had opened.
“He is the Master of Shadows,” Cosmos said. “The Devourer of Light.” Images rippled through the starlight—darkness swallowing entire worlds, stars collapsing into nothingness, entire skies fading into black voids. “He seeks the Crystals. He will destroy Lantis Island and plunge the universe into eternal darkness.”
Nessa’s stomach twisted. This was impossible. And yet… something inside her responded. A memory. A whisper. Lantis Island. Her mother’s voice telling stories about a hidden place. Ancient Crystals. Her father’s quiet warnings that darkness existed in places most people couldn’t see.
And then—their deaths.
“My parents… did they know?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Cosmos’ eyes burned brighter. “Yes, Neerha.”
The name struck deeper than anything else.
Neerha. Not Nessa.
Her breath caught sharply as the sound echoed through her mind, settling somewhere deeper than thought, somewhere that felt disturbingly familiar. No. This couldn’t be real. It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t.
But deep down—She knew it was.
Her hands curled slowly into fists at her sides, her pulse steadying in a way that felt different from before—not calmer, not safe, but focused. She had spent her entire life running. Running from fear, from pain, from him. Running because it had been the only way to survive.
But maybe… just maybe—She was done running.
Nessa lifted her head and met Cosmos’ gaze, something in her posture shifting, settling, as if a decision had formed before she could fully understand it.
“What do I have to do?”
Cosmos spread its radiant wings, light flooding the space around them, stars bending outward as if responding to its presence.
“Awaken the Knight spirit.”
- Writer
