Dark Fantasy Winning Features

The Shadow Trials - July 2023 Winner

Perhaps the moonshine was not her most brilliant plan.

Cradling her head between her knees as she leaned forward, she allowed everything to settle and vowed to not do the spinny-spinny again. Lifting her head slowly, she peered out the window since she hadn't really been paying attention before.

A flash illuminated her face, and she froze, breath stolen as she waited for the boom of the thunder. Five seconds passed, and nothing. Relaxing, she sat back down in her spinny chair, sans spin, and dragged herself to the window with her high ball in hand to watch from the comfort of her chair.

Ice water trickled down her fingers, condensation, and as she brought the glass to her lips, the sky split in two with a crash of such proportions that her glass shot out of her hand and the remnants spilt, in equal parts, onto her lap and on the floor.

"Fuck!" She shouted, her lap sopping wet as the ice cubes traced the line of her inner thigh through her slacks, pretty much melting on contact. She avoided the broken glass and stood up. Peering around, she snatched her long, white lab coat and dabbed at her pants, trying to soak up the pungent scent of nearly pure alcohol.

The effort was futile.

Groaning, she hung her coat back up and moved to the window, stumbling only a little.

Looking at the large pane of glass once more, she stared hard into the sudden night sky; once more, her breath was seized. Rubbing her eyes, sure the sky was some delusion to which she owed to moonshine, she peered again, unbelieving.

A strange cloud formation was collecting above the forest by the cemetery.

Lenticular clouds are a fascinating adornment to a baby blue sky, poised like a white halo above the landscape as though all below were angels. However, they are a bit disconcerting when they are instead a scarlet ring suspended in a dark, foreboding sky.

It was too easy to imagine that if the white and blue were of Angels, the red and black were of demons. Morella could easily shrug off this sentiment. What she could not shrug off was the timing of it.

Chewing on her lip, she adjusted her telescope, opened the window, and peered through as the wind buffeted her robe around.

In the sky, peeking out from the centre of the cloud disc, every planet was aligned in more or less a straight line, and the moon was nowhere to be seen, though that was to be expected on a new moon.

What was worse—the planets perfectly aligned with the towering Library.

"Damnit."

Ripples of sensations burst over her flesh, though she knew it had little to do with the wind or the temperature, and she squirmed in response. She counted the planets across the sky.

The urge to smoke suddenly hit her and her fingers crawled into her pocket in search of a joint, a... herbal blend courtesy of her friend and former classmate, Percival. There were none to be found, though a matchbook sat glumly in the lining of her linen pocket.

She sighed, realizing she would not be sleeping well tonight.

Above her, the darkness of the sky seemed absolute, like it was sucking the life from everything that beheld it, draining even the stars of their radiance. In fact, she couldn't see a single star in the night sky, perceiving only a blanket of night at... (she looked at her pocket watch) three in the afternoon.

Snatching up the baggy from the false bottom drawer of her desk, she slips some rolling papers inside too and makes for the window. Praying her belly has relaxed enough, she perches on the window sill, bracing herself against the wind.