Flames [Completed]

Delicate Touch of an Eternal Love

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQRdbjI_oqXxc6Lw8RnWUdR1gYAycu9FW

Look for the * to begin the playlist :) put it on loop if needed!

***

Howling winds buffet me from all sides, hideous voices carried on it's back; shards of scorched glass-like rock falls from the sky. The only light within sight is a crackling line of bright white spreading over the wall of shadow around me, like a strike of lightning slowed down. It flashes and sparks, growing larger and longer as the wind's power increases.

Whispers seep through, sinister words in a foreign tongue sending cold shivers down my spine. Their hissing, spitting tones come closer the brighter the light grows. My feet shift, a tight ball in my stomach urging me not to move. I cannot see the ground. I don't know where it ends or begins.

"We...are...coming..."

"We...are...returned..."

"We...see...you..."

Fear digs it's clawed hand into my chest, it's unrelenting grip painfully tight. My feet shuffle backwards, my eyes wide in horror as something pulls itself through the light and into the shadow, rising to stand on two legs, towering above me. It opens it's mouth, a dim orange light the only indicator of the existence of a mouth, speaking two words. But that is all it takes.

"Jordan Scaloree."

Blazing purple light erupts from my hands, clashing with the suffocating darkness like paper and flame. The thing recoils, shrieking in a hellish voice that hurts my ears and rattles my teeth. I control the claws in my chest, forcing them deeper, until they reach the fire, and vanish in a cloud of ash.

I send a beam at the shadow being, hitting it in the face, whilst using my other hand to reduce the cracking lightning, my magic stitching it together again. The effort causes my arms to shake, and a yell to build in my lungs, my teeth grit to prevent it escaping.

The thing looks me in the eye. Despite being unable to see anything but it's outline, I know it is looking at me; I can feel the heat, the stinging venom from it's gaze on my skin. And reflected back at me, is an image of myself. Eyes shining like a beacon in the dark, the only source of light in this abyss of horrors, my form pulses with a deep purple glow.

It smiles. "You have no power here, Nala'si."

***

"Jordan."

"Jordan!"

"Jordan, you need to wake up!"

Anguished cries urge me up from my place, knelt on the forest floor, seeking my family. Ice seeps through my empty veins when I find them - backed up against an ancient oak, faced with a demonic horror like nothing they've ever seen.

Somehow, in the forest, it seems bigger, a vast, hulking form of darkness that seeps into the trees beside it. Branches decay and fall, turning to ash and dust, leaves shriveling until they do not exist anymore. Green grass turns to scorched soil, rotten and infested with bugs; centipedes roil and crawl over one another as they rise from the earth, devouring everything in their way.

Standing on unsteady legs, I draw the beast's attention. Two endless pools of black smoke stare down at me, a faint screaming sitting on the very edge of my hearing. It is not human. The longer I hold it's gaze, the louder it becomes, and the colder I feel.

"You cannot stop us, Nala'si."

"We are eternal."

"You cannot save anyone."