Member-only story
Fiction | Fantasy
Cast into Darkness
When I was a child, running in the night
Afraid of what might be
Hiding in the dark, hiding in the street
And of what was following me…
Kate Bush
Matilda groaned. Her eyes fluttered, rolled back till only whites threaded with fine red veins showed. Her body jerked in tiny spasms.
“Mam!” Liora cradled her head in her lap. “Mam, wake up. Please wake up!”.
Her mothers voice rose, speaking words Liora couldn’t quite understand. Whispers and hisses. Breathed sounds and croaking growls. The air grew cold. Colder still. Liora’s fingers stiffened as she held her mother’s twitching body.
Mist, cold and white wreathed from mam’s contorted face, puffing from her mouth and nose. Mam’s shivering grew worse. Her heels beat the dirt floor, her dress tangled in the mat.
Something broke above them. Something heavy. A rafter? It cracked like a thunderclap and shook the air. The ground shifted uneasily. Tiny cracks opened in the dirt like mouths.
“Mam! Please Mam!” Liora’s gaze rocketed around the tiny room.
What was happening?
Dried herbs on the table, ruffled as if in a high wind. Groaning sounds came from the walls, the roof. She looked up in horror, her heart hammering in her chest.
The room seemed to grow just a tiny bit bigger. Light fingered in through the thatch. Dust and bits of straw fell around her. The air changed again. She smelt pine and grass and musk as if a large beast nested nearby.
The walls around her thinned. Faded. She could see right through them. In the village, people gathered. Men trudged towards the commons, their faces grim. Ulric gestured, his hand pointed to their house.
Beyond the village, the forest opened out like a carpet of soft green. Far in the distance hazy mountains sawed at the sky.
In a moment, the ground tilted and Liora’s gaze swept high into the clouds. She looked down in terror. A rabbit hopped in the thin brush next to a twisting silvery…
