The Keeper's Guardian

Chapter 1: The Call of the Mountains

Layla POV

The scent of damp earth and jasmine clung to the air. Moonlight fractured through the trees, pale and splintered. Shadows twisted between gnarled trunks—long, unnatural, reaching.

I stood barefoot in the tall grass, breath shallow, heart hammering. The air shimmered with something ancient—smoke and sorrow threaded through silence. Not even the wind dared stir.

Then I saw them—

The Drakensberg.

Familiar. Unmistakable.

They rose on the horizon—jagged silhouettes against the starlit sky.

I knew this place—the ridged slopes, the hush between peaks, the mist clinging to the valley like held breath.

This wasn’t just a dreamscape.

It was home—drawn through a veil and made strange.

A figure stepped from the dark—bare-chested, scarred, carved from midnight. His eyes blazed molten gold. Fierce. Unrelenting.

They didn’t glow.

They burned.

Power radiated from him—an unseen force that made my skin prickle, my pulse stutter.

I had seen him before. In dreams that left me breathless—forgotten upon waking, but never fully gone.

I noticed the pendant hanging around his neck, silver on a thin chain, catching the moonlight.

A wolf, etched in relief—its jaws parted in a silent snarl.

My breath caught.

Gran had one just like it—tucked in an old cedar box she never let me touch.

A family thing, she’d said.

Déjà vu crawled down my spine as something about him pulled at me—like a forgotten melody I still knew by heart.

He was achingly familiar, but at the same time unnervingly foreign.

Like something dredged from the corners of my soul.

The wind shifted. His scent wrapped around me—woodsmoke, rain, and something wilder.

“Layla,” he said.

His voice curled around my name like it belonged to him.

“Who are you?” My voice cracked, barely louder than the night.

He didn’t answer right away. Just watched me like I was the only thing keeping him from breaking apart.

“I found you.”

His voice was a rough caress, low and deep, like it had been scraped against stone.

A guttural sound split the clearing—deep, primal, wrong.

It rumbled through the ground, through me, vibrating in my bones.

His eyes turned toward the darkness, sharp and full of warning.

Darkness swelled at the edge of the forest—inky tendrils slithering between the roots, coiling like living shadow.

His jaw clenched.

Then his gaze sharpened. “It’s coming.”

The air thickened, the dream shifting, pulsing.

“What is?”

The pulse in his eyes flared brighter.

“It feeds on what you forget,” His voice dropped, rich with warning. “On what you leave behind.”

I didn’t understand. Not fully. But the fear in his voice was real.

“You have to wake up.”

It wasn’t just a warning.

It was a plea.

A pulse of gold flickered in his eyes—bright, fierce, unspoken.

I didn’t know his name.

But I trusted him. Without question. Without reason.

The growl came again—louder, closer. The trees quivered.

Shadows thickened like they were alive, pressing inward.

Whatever it was... it was close.

And it was looking for me.

The light around him dimmed. His outline flickered—like a flame fighting to stay lit.

I turned to chase him—

But the earth split beneath my feet.

A rush of cold.

A thousand shards of light.

A scream.

I tore out of sleep like falling through glass—gasping, tangled in sheets that felt like vines, wet and clinging. My shirt stuck to my skin, my mouth so dry it felt like it was full of dust.

The air shimmered, unreal. My heartbeat slammed against bone, too loud, too fast, like it didn’t belong to me. For a second, I wasn’t sure where I was.

I sat up slowly, pushing damp hair from my face, limbs heavy with dream-hangover. My sketchpad lay open beside me, a charcoal smear across the page. Another half-finished figure. Another failed attempt to remember his face.

He always vanished too soon.

I hated sleeping during the day. Naps left me feeling displaced and foggy, like my body floated somewhere above me—untethered and hollow.

Outside, the city stretched under a sky swollen with the promise of rain. A storm waiting to break—one that would soak the pavements and charge the air with static.

Somewhere below, taxis blared through tangled traffic, their honks and shouts ricocheting off restless buildings—alive and impatient, like the city was wired on no sleep and always on the edge of boiling over.

I swung my legs off the bed, the sheets clinging to my damp skin, and stumbled toward the kitchen.

I didn’t bother with a glass—just cupped my hands beneath the tap and drank. The water was cold, metallic—it hit like ice in my chest. I let it run over my fingers for a moment longer. Water roared from the tap as I splashed my face, the shock made me inhale. It stung my skin, chasing away the last of the dream’s heat. I stood there, dripping, the chill sinking into my collarbones.

I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt. The cotton clung to my cheek as I pressed it there—rough and familiar, something real to hold onto.

As the water dripped down my neck, I turned slowly.

The canvas waited across the room, right where I’d left it. Unfinished. Accusing.

Brushes lay scattered on the floor like fallen soldiers, dried streaks of color smudging the tiles.

I meant to go to it—meant to try again, even if I had nothing left to give.

But halfway there, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror—and stilled.

My eyes, hazel flecked with green and amber, were rimmed with exhaustion. Long lashes did little to hide the haunted look beneath. My skin, usually warm with a russet glow, looked muted under the stormlight.

My hair, thick and untamed, fell in chaotic waves to my waist. Dried paint clung to the strands—remnants of too many nights spent chasing inspiration that wouldn’t come.

My cheekbones jutted sharper than usual, like they were trying to hold me together. Only the natural fullness of my lips softened the angles of my face.

I looked older than twenty-one. Worn down.

Like a sketch erased and redrawn too many times.

I crossed the room, the floor cool and gritty beneath my feet, and sank onto the low stool in front of the canvas.

Muted shapes bled into one another, brushstrokes left mid-thought—ghosts of motion frozen in time.

The smell of oil paint saturated the room, thick and earthy. Turpentine clung sharp in the air, stinging my nose and curling in the back of my throat like smoke.

Outside, a car alarm wailed—distant and insistent—then faded into the low murmur of traffic and the occasional bark of a street vendor’s voice.

The air in the apartment held a chill, that early spring bite that made the walls feel colder than they should. I rubbed my arms, the fabric of my shirt stiff and cold against my skin.

I was already a week behind.

Another commission slipping further out of reach.

But no matter how long I sat there, the colors refused to speak.

My fingers hovered over the palette, dry and paint-smudged, waiting for something to stir.

But nothing did.

They wouldn’t breathe.

Just like me.

Another day.

Another abandoned painting.

It wasn’t inspiration I lacked—Johannesburg pulsed with it.

The city’s heartbeat thrummed in restless taxis, the neon flicker of storefronts, the amber haze of dusk.

Life buzzed all around me.

But something darker had taken root inside of me—quiet at first, then insistent.

Gnawing.

Growing louder with every sleepless hour.

Sleep wasn’t just a stranger anymore.

It was a snare—with teeth.

And I was caught.

Because the moment I closed my eyes, he was there.

The dreams came like a storm—relentless, consuming.

And every time, he was waiting—carved from shadow, amber eyes burning through the void, always locked on mine.

I could feel him—his presence, his hunger—wrapping around me like smoke.

Thick.

Inescapable.

The air between us crackled, charged with something raw that coiled deep in my gut.

The truth, though? I didn’t want to escape. Not really...

Even as fear rose like static on my skin, I wanted to stay with him.

When I woke—gasping, heart thudding—the worst part wasn’t the fear.

It was the ache.

The desperate need to return.

The feeling clung, quiet and close.

Like something had followed me out of sleep.

And beneath the logic, beneath the insistence that I was fine, a thought settled in my chest like silt:

What if something’s wrong with me?

I sat in stillness, the air heavy with the weight of everything unspoken. The quiet tick of the wall clock marked each second like a slow drip of water—endless, unforgiving. I sat frozen, caught in a trance where time blurred, and the silence felt both a refuge and a trap.

For a heartbeat, the world forgot to move.

The shrill ring of my phone sliced through the silence like a blade.

I jumped, heart hammering, and my elbow clipped a jar of water. It hit the floor with a sharp crack—glass and water spreading across the floor like a slow wound.

Cold water splashed onto my arms and soaked into my skin. I flinched, instinctively rubbing at the bare flesh. “s**t,” I muttered, reaching for my phone with damp fingers.

Unknown number.

I hesitated, ignoring the flicker of unease twisting in my gut, then answered.

“Hello?”

A calm, measured voice came through the line.

“Good afternoon. Am I speaking with Layla Smith?”

My grip on the phone tightened.

“Yes… this is Layla.”

“This is Beverly, calling from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Bergville.”

Bergville.

My heart stuttered.

Why would anyone be calling from there?

“I’m so sorry to call with difficult news…”

No.

“…Anna Maria Smith—your grandmother—was brought in this morning.”

The room seemed to tilt.

My breath caught.

“Is she okay?”

I already knew the answer. But I had to ask.

There was a pause. Just long enough for the dread to crystallize.

“I’m very sorry. She passed away this afternoon.”

The words didn’t land all at once—they hovered, impossible, then crashed down hard. I pressed a hand to my chest. It felt too tight. Too small to hold what was suddenly inside it. They left a hollow ache in my chest as air caught in my throat.

“No,” I said, barely more than a breath. “No, that can’t be right.”

She’d been fine.

A little distant. A little tired.

But fine.

“There was no ID on her when she arrived,” the voice continued, gentler now. “It took us some time to confirm her identity and locate your details.”

My knees gave up, and I sank onto the edge of the sofa, numb fingers curling around the phone like it was the only thing anchoring me.

A memory rose—unbidden and sharp—Gran’s laugh in the kitchen, flour on her hands, the scent of lavender and firewood clinging to her skin.

“Don’t worry so much, Layla,” she used to say. “The wind always brings the answers.”

The woman’s voice softened, but the professional tone held.

“I know this is difficult, but we’ll need you to come in to make the arrangements.”

She was still speaking, but her words grew fainter—blurred by the rush of blood in my ears.

Her voice felt distant, unreal. Like someone speaking underwater.

Outside, the storm had broken.

Rain traced slow, uneven paths down the glass—like tears.

But all I could hear was my heartbeat.

A dull, frantic pounding.

Too loud.

Too fast.

Everything felt like a dream—a weightless haze where nothing was real.

Any second, I expected to wake up gasping.

My mind scrambled for something solid, but there was nothing.

I barely registered the mechanical click of the call ending.

Just that sudden, absolute silence.

I stared at the phone in my hand, still lit with the now-ended call, as if the screen might blink again and take it all back.

It didn’t.