Episode 3
1010 Words
Darkness.
A devouring void, thick and endless. Soundless. Sightless. Thoughtless.
It was everywhere and then it was nowhere.
The boy gasped for air. But it felt more like the air was being forced into his lungs.
He jerked, his body flailing as his muddied mind struggled to piece together what was happening.
His eyelids flew open and the sunlight threatened to burn a hole right through his skull.
The memories came in flashes, flooding the boy’s mind.
It was strange and painful, but it was not just one person’s memories. For some reason he was seeing his death in two different perspectives.
But which one was he? Why was he seeing another person’s memories?
The overload sent him teetering on the edge of madness. His Fingers scraped soil, threatening to rip his nails off almost in the same fashion it ceased instantly.
“What-? Where-? Lorien-?” Kael started to remember. The other person was his brother, his twin. He had died, but the details were still fuzzy.
“Kael?” Came the response. The answer felt unnatural. He could see no one but instinctively he felt Lorien was near him somehow.
“I’m here.” he responded, but from within since he could not muster up the strength to utter the words.
The body felt strange, it was almost as if he was just a passenger within, except he could feel everything.
Panic was slowly creeping in. Pain filled his whole existence. Everything was wrong, this body was frail, torn, unhealed. Every breath rattled through the bruised ribs and every heartbeat felt like a blow from a hammer.
“Why can I hear you?” Kael groaned.
“Why can I feel you?” Lorien replied, voice strained with equal disbelief.
This could not be what the afterlife was like right? They both thought to themselves.
The boy rose in jerks and twitches almost purely on instinct, legs struggling beneath its own weight. Blood stains covering almost every inch of his torso. Dried blood crusted their face, and the forest around them smelled of rotting corpses.
The movements were hard and it felt like a war was being waged over what the body would do.
And there she was.
A girl stood not far off.
Selene froze, her breath caught in her chest as her enhanced vision locked with his multicolored irises.
She was petite, slender, with hair the color of raven’s wings and eyes…he could not make out. But she seemed dangerous.
The memories of being surrounded that dark night suddenly flashed once more, sending Kael or Lorien, whoever was controlling the body off the edge, into a state of frenzy.
The way she stood, she was here to finish them off. He would not lose his life or his brother’s before understanding what this existence was.
There was no thinking and he lunged for her.
But the body failed. His legs buckled and he collapsed with a painful grunt. The fact that two of them were in the body did not help matters. The strain and lack of coordination was going to be the end of them
“Get out of my head!” Kael roared.
“You get out!” Lorien shouted back.
The brothers could not withstand the chaos and the sensation pulsing through every fiber. It felt almost as if their very soul was being ripped apart by some invisible force.
The girl watched all this while in silence.
What hole had this creature crawled from?
Selene didn’t move at first.
She had seen death. Plenty of it. The trail leading to this clearing was littered with the mauled, broken bodies of wolves-slaughtered in a frenzy. Blood and death filled the air she could almost taste it.
She could see the pain, in his face and maybe it was what brought on the confusion as well. She could not understand what was going on at all. It was like a scene straight out of the folk horror stories told at night when she was little.
The body seized violently, limbs twisting. Foam bubbled at the mouth and his eyes rolled back as he lost consciousness.
The boy before her, if he could be called that, looked half-dead. His body thrashed one final time before crumpling, limbs bent unnaturally, blood oozing from reopened wounds.
Footsteps crunched through the underbrush behind her. Two figures emerged.
A tall, imposing man with streaks of white in his beard, and a younger woman with sharp eyes and a calm confidence that belied her youth.
“Selene?” the woman asked.
Moira.
Elder Vadum approached silently.
“There was a battle,” Selene whispered. “A massacre.”
“Moira don’t’!”, Selene tried to discourage her from approaching the boy, but Moira had already reached the unconscious body that lay there.
She knelt beside the fallen boy, brushing the tangled, blood-matted hair from his face. Her breath caught in her throat.
He was… beautiful.
Even marred by bruises, even as death clung to his every breath, there was something about him, something tragic that made her heart stumble.
What was this feeling welling up within her toward this tortured soul?
“He’s still alive.” she said.
Elder Vadum raised a brow. “Are you certain?”
“He needs help.” Moira replied, keeping her voice steady.
“He might know what happened here. He could have answers.”
Selene’s expression flickered. “Or he’s the cause of it.”
“Or that.” Moira admitted quickly, but her hand lingered for just a second longer against his face. “But if he dies, we’ll never know.”
Vadum stared blankly at the scene as if doing so would suddenly make answers spring forth.
After a moment, he gave a slow nod.
“Very well. We move.” Vadum finally gave his approval, picking up the boy and placing him on his shoulder in one swift motion.
Moira let out a quiet breath of relief, keeping the many questions that plagued her hidden behind her calm facade.
- Writer
