Lightbringer - The Patron Saints of the Damned Book III

Chapter 1 - Hell on Earth

Three Months Later

Megan Michaels sat at her wooden desk, in her darkened bedroom. It was noon, but her curtains were drawn shut. Not long ago, she had been a teen full of rightful angst and a plan for a better life far from home. But Megan had changed in the tragedy that befell her brother and the kids she’d all her life caring for. Her once neat, straight chestnut hair was now tied in an unkempt mess of a ponytail. Her room, once neat and orderly, smelled of old coffee and was littered with clothes. Megan opened her laptop at her desk strewn with food wrappers and dirty dishes. For an instant, she saw her own reflection on the briefly black screen. She thought she looked aged by several years, though she was still only eighteen. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, there were wrinkles that she hadn't noticed before, and she looked as tired as she felt. This wasn’t the only change, however. 

Megan’s previously thin body was leaner than it had been, due to a mix of malnutrition and rigorous exercise. It was difficult for her to force herself to eat, she did put as little effort in it as in her cleaning. But she at least needed some calories to keep up with her recent exercise habits. Every morning, she was up by four and running five miles. At noon, she went out to a firing range; the ammunition, a .50 magnum, and ammunition had eaten a large chunk of her life savings. Every evening, she went to a boxing class that had turned her somewhat athletic form into something that even looked more dangerous.

The irony had occurred to Megan that, had she wanted to, she could have made herself look stunning by other people’s standards. Except for the neglect in her physical appearance that came because of how entirely pointless other’s perceptions felt. She had no desire to look good for the world, no desire to dress up for the cameras who wanted pictures and videos of the sad little girl who had been kidnapped by the famous serial killer. And the more ragged her appearance became, the less of an interest anybody showed. This gave her the isolation she needed to prepare for what was to come … whatever horrible war Exousia had died trying to prevent. 

Oddly enough, however, Megan wasn’t afraid of the future. As bad as the woods had been, what she’d really learned was that coming home was far worse. At least in the woods, her feelings had felt … valid. Even those mystical things which were beyond them abided by some set of rules. They were fighting for real outcomes, in a battle that had meant something. Here, everyone acted like she was crazy. The words she heard repeatedly were PTSD and Stockholm's Syndrome. Megan knew they were wrong … except for sometimes, when doubt would creep in. What if her brain was somehow damaged by all the trauma; what if she really had just fallen in love with her tormentor? 

No … Exousia had protected them as best she could.

Megan clicked on the internet icon on her laptop and checked her email. This was the first time she'd done so since before the woods, when she'd been applying for schools. The overwhelming number of messages were from all the colleges that had accepted her, with scholarships. There were even a few inviting her personally to apply–usually those with prominent psych programs. It was … everything that she'd once wanted, her key to escaping Alabama and making a real life for herself. Maybe she would accept, at least until war came to the human realm. Or would it seem as artificial as the world back home she had returned to? Either way, Megan would still be in the world where her brother was dead, half their friends gone with him, one in a coma from poison, and the rest under severe psychiatric evaluation. 

There was a knock at her bedroom door.

“Dear, may I come in?” her mother asked, from outside her room, and then entered anyway. She sat on the bed, bit her lower lip, and seemed to look for something to say. Somehow, she seemed somehow like a stranger … like an acquaintance from another life. She was wearing her uniform—a blue vest over a white button-up, and black slacks. Her brown hair was also tied in a pony-tail, albeit a much neater one. “How are you?”