finding athenais [teaser chapter] [part seven: the twilight hour]
So I started writing this teaser chapter for Finding Athenais. I’d like to bring this series back :)
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Kayden couldn’t see anything. His eyes were wide open but all he could see was black. Stumbling forward, he moved slowly but deliberately. He could feel untread dirt beneath his shoes and the rising roots of trees under the ground. Kayden knew he was in the woods.
These woods were famous in Cordonia for the dark legends they held. Wolves lived here but so did other things. Things more dangerous than a pack of wolves. In these woods, people entered and never came back out. Screams were reduced to nothing, an unseen evil taking the innocent and keeping them prisoner. If you entered this place, you had to be prepared for anything.
Walking blindly through the woods, Kayden kept a steady breath, refusing to be intimidated or scared. He was a grown man, he didn’t let himself be swayed by ghost stories.
But he felt a horrible sense of threat slowly creeping over him, as if he was stepping into cold water. Goosebumps bloomed on his arms and his heart was involuntarily beating more rapidly than he would have liked.
In a moment, the blackness he could see faded to a deep blue. In this blue, he could see the twisted branches of the trees and the silver stars in the sky that twinkled despite the evil beneath their eternal light.
This was the wood’s version of the twilight hour.
In the deep blue, Kayden could now hear a low, strangled whine.
Quietly, Kayden moved forward towards the sound. As he moved deeper into the woods, the whine became louder, more clear. Holding onto the handle of his sword, Kayden ventured further, preparing himself for whatever horror waited for him.
On the ground lay a deer. As Kayden reached the animal, he could see that she was injured; her leg was seeping with blood. The strangled whines drew out from her throat. Kayden sighed. The only humane thing to do would be to kill this deer so that she would no longer be in pain. Slowly, he began to drag his sword out of its sheath but stopped when he heard a rustling behind him.
Turning quickly, Kayden found a young fawn standing under the shelter of the trees, watching him with wide eyes.
Kayden felt a lump rise in his throat. The deer and her offspring.
‘I’m sorry I have to do this,’ he muttered, feeling stupid for talking to an animal but feeling like he had to explain his actions.
The fawn watched him, unblinking.
Kayden turned back to the injured deer and his fingers gripped onto his sword handle.
More rustling was heard behind him. Kayden looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the fawn, but instead he saw something much more threatening.
The fawn had hidden somewhere deep in the woods, having the sense to get away from the evil that had killed its mother.
The wolf bared its teeth and slowly paced towards Kayden, its yellow eyes gleaming in the twilight.
Kayden pulled his sword out and just as he did so, the wolf leapt at him, intent on making its second kill.
In those last moments, Kayden saw his wife and son in his mind. He saw the deer and her fawn. He saw innocence torn apart by evil.
That was when Kayden bolted upright, waking up from his troubled slumber with his heart hammering inside his chest and sweat covering his skin. Sitting up, he tried to calm down as he reminded himself it had been a dream, just a dream. A nightmare, if you will.
Kayden couldn’t calm down. His heart kept beating frantically. All he could feel was sheer, blinding fear.
He needed to find Athenais and Enzo.
