I woke up with a two foot long centipede on my face. In the process of jumping in surprise and brushing it off, I very nearly fell out of a tree. The disheartening memories of the day before came rushing back.
I had found my way into the thick woods bordering Castellum and spent nearly two hours stumbling around in the dark before finding a tree large enough to sleep in.
After half scrambling, half falling down the tree's thick trunk to the mossy ground, I realized I had not eaten anything since lunch the day before and was absolutely starving. A cursory search of the surrounding foliage revealed nothing that looked even remotely edible. "I guess I'm going foraging." I sighed to myself.
After twenty or so minutes of poking around in bushes and nearly getting decapitated by a flying horseshoe, (no, I have no idea where it came from either), I came across a small shrub with glossy, dark, leaves and a roughly even mix of ash grey and bright orange berries that hung in small clusters like grapes. I wasn't quite hungry enough to take a chance on that, and so wandered off into the woods without the slightest idea where I was going.
That evening, I was still walking. Not that I was sure where, of course. The setting sun was painting the horizon with beautiful shades of red, orange, and pink. As incredible as it looked, the air was getting colder, and I needed to sleep sometime. No sooner had I lain down beneath a towering oak tree, I instantly dropped off to sleep.
I am falling. Falling through darkness. A deathly certainty that something sinister awaits at the bottom is clawing at my rationality like a caged beast. I cannot contain it. The blackness around me feels almost slimy, folding in, cold waves of nothing crashed on my head. Then my body turns in it's free fall, and I catch a glimpse of the beast in the deepest reaches of the pit. Dark red eyes like blood and the fires of hell glare up at me in unmistakable fury. Even seeing it now, like this, I can tell, the beast is darker than the space between stars.
YOU ARE READING
The Space Between Stars
FantasySaelem Noxe has just turned 13. She's never been superstitious, but this year might just be her worst yet. Having violet eyes is bad enough, but getting thrown out of your lifelong home and the being whisked away to a different world tops that a tho...
