(Please note that this is the first chapter of a book that is currently being edited and is in the final editing stages. Changes can still be made before the final release.) 

Warning: Genre is Dark Fantasy- Horror/Thriller, swear words are present. Take this as your warning.

Chapter One

The snow clung to my leather boots as I trudged along the boulders down the mountain. Hawk screeched from where he flew above me. The snow thawed in patches around me. I braced myself to view the settlement of Lenost, a small town on an island some way from the Mainland. I half expected to find the factory buildings looming over it like the time I was a child. Ash-filled streets sprung to mind. The soot that never cleaned off your skin and the accidental bumping into a dead person’s body along the way, covered in the dark gray ash. It became sticky when the snow melted. Nothing grew there, and the sky was always black from the smoke cloud the factory belched over the abandoned buildings. This was a few years ago. That wasn’t how I’d left it, either. The snow was all but gone as I weaved through the trees of the forest with the mountains behind me. I stopped at the gurgle of a stream a few meters away. A bird of prey flew down and perched itself on a nearby log.

“I used to play here as a child,” I said to the hawk that tilted his head as if he understood me. “Nip and I scavenged for small rocks.”

The scattered pebbles were something special on their own. We used to believe they had power to them. The hawk’s head moved to one side. Its body grew and changed into that of a small boy. He had a white cloak that seemed oddly organic, looking like it was part of his body. This was Hawk, the angel who guarded the Library that had housed me for the past few years. The structure had been hidden from all people except those who wore the crimson cloak, a sign for being called by Ulhezaoi, the creator of all things, to serve. I touched the faded brown cloak I wore. A crimson cloak would never lose its color.

“These were the places you spent your youth?” the boy asked as it stepped into the water. Hawk appeared as a boy, but I knew better than to believe its current form.

“Why did you convince me to return?” I studied the path that lead to the town.

“It is time. Four years in the Library does no man well. In your case, man means a traveler.”

There was that too. I breathed out the cold air. Something glowing caught my eye, its form waving in the movement of the waters flow. The glow seemed familiar as I grabbed it and a few pebbles from the icy water. The broken crystal glowed ever brighter when I held it close to my face.

“The same crystals are in the Library,” I said.

The angel waited for me to finish examining the stone. After a while, it ruffled its feathers.

“Fine, let’s keep going.” I dropped the pebbles and crystal in the river.

The angel changed to the form of a hawk and flew into the tree canopy. I continued toward the city where I grew up, the place I helped saved then deserted. I was twelve or thirteen when that skirmish drove me into the mountains.

It didn’t take me long to come to a large clearing. My breath caught in my throat, and a bit of hope was born. People worked in the fields. In the past, this crop was nothing but weeds. Now, the golden cobs danced in the wind swaying with one another more than I had ever seen. Hawk’s cry drew the children’s attention to me. Their eyes brimmed with recognition. They ran over, I stepped back when they stopped near me, gaping in awe. The thud-thud from my chest echoed in my head. My lips pressed tightly as I waited.

“Seth?” a blonde girl asked. She had beautiful freckles sprinkled across her face.

I gave her a slight nod.

They gasped and shared a look with large eyes.

“Where’s your staff?” a boy asked and stood on his toes, trying to peer my back.

“Not with me, I’m afraid.” I don’t remember the last time I had my staff.

“How old are you now?” another kid chirped.

I was about to answer that I was seventeen when another interjected with, “can you show us how you defeated—”

“No,” I snapped.

At that moment, the mother hurried over to save me. The muscles in my chest relaxed. I didn’t want to work with kids, not again. She smiled at me. That was when recognition filled her face, as well.

She patted the boy who asked my age. “Go tell Sandra that Seth has returned. I’m sure she’d like to prepare.”

The boy took off.

My legs twitched to move. “Thank you for the warm welcome, but I should go.”

I kept to the shadows of the forest, staying clear of children playing or men and women working in the fields.

As I approached the town square, a large statue of myself loomed. I was holding a staff, posed as if I faced off a demon. My cloak seemed to be pulled by wind. It was ridiculous. Wind had never caught any of my clothing and flicked it behind me with such a dramatic flair. I inched past the statue and pulled my hood over my head. They’d gotten my nose wrong on the younger version of myself when puberty had hit me for the first time. I half expected the statue to squeak if it tried to speak, deepening with fluctuations.

This was the rich district, where all the mansions belonged to the monsters and demons we called masters. None of them made an appearance amid the laughing children running around, who seemed about the same age too. When I was here, it wouldn’t be strange for a naked child to be mocked by monsters. That was what we’d fought to end. I gave another turn when I neared the central park. There used to be no living thing but dead trees. The sight of small saplings that sprouted around the cobble stone relaxed my hands. Something in the far side of the open area of new green caught my attention. A hidden girl in gray stone weaved a crown of weeds. I drained of warmth as I drew nearer.

I fell to my knees to be eye to eye with the statue. Smaller than the one of myself, it was of a girl with curly hair. It used to be deep red, and she had freckles. I rubbed her cheeks. I almost expected her to smile at me. She’d call me her prince and stated we would search for her brother soon.

“Seth?” A woman towered over me.

I closed my eyes and readied myself for the reunion.

Sandra was a tall woman with a deep caramel skin and fire red hair. Not deep copper red like Lucy used to have but a fire red light.

I removed my hood and tried to smile when she hugged me. My arms lay limp at my sides. The emotions I’d tried to leave behind clawed in my chest, trying to find a way out.

“You’re back.” She squeezed me.

“Yeah, for now at least.” I pulled away and glanced at the statue.

She gestured around her. “What do you think? We’ve made some improvements.”

“You don’t say. Any masters left?” I asked.

She grinned and shook her head. “That day, after you and Adam killed Piper and Gum, the rest fled and were hunted down.”

She’d been a witch the last time I saw her but without the power to kill demons. The crimson cloak she wore must have been the reason why she could fight them off. Her words reminded me of that day and just how utterly useless and frozen I’d been amid the battle. The most powerful being there and I couldn’t save the girl who weaved a crown of weeds.

“I see you have transformed the events of that day into legends.”

She motioned to walk with her. I fell in step beside her as we meandered out of the park.

“We all lost someone that day, Seth. It wasn’t just Lucy. I lost Adam, and he left me with a boy.”

The children running outside in the street were laughing.

I tilted my head. “Timmy, isn’t it? How is he doing?”

“Not wetting his pants anymore. Having you around might have made it easier. There are days where he doesn’t remember his father.”

“That’s no surprise. I grew up not knowing who my dad or mom was. It can be hard bringing up a child like that.” The city felt alive with the white-washed bricks that were being repainted in different arrays of colors. The days end was drawing near, and there was a pulpable change in the demeanor of the people busying themselves with living. The mansion we approached was different from the one that I grew up in. The biggest difference was the abusing demons that had once ruled in it.

“Come, some people came to meet you.”

“How did they know I’d be here?” I guessed the answer before she said it.

“You told them… Future-you, that is.”

There it was. The burden thrusted upon me as a child. At night when I sleep and dream, I travel across time and appear in physical form. This, coupled with only four travelers recorded in history, makes me quite the topic of discussions when it came to legends.

“Why did I send them here?” I asked when we entered the house. At a gasp, I turned to find Timmy staring at me. He dropped his stick and launched himself at my unguarded leg.

“He remembers you,” Sandra called, striding away.

“Hey, kiddo.”

He had tanned skin like his mother but lighter thanks to Adam’s snowy complexion. The boy had deep green eyes with dark brown hair combed to the one side. He let go of my leg to get hold of the stick that he must have picked up or broken off a tree. With a flourish, he gave it to me.

“Remember, like old times.” His lips scrunched into his face as he tried to hold the stick up to me as high as he could.

When I was a kid, I’d take a dead stick and make leaves sprout from it before Timmy’s eyes. The energy from the unseen world pumped through my being. The power hugged my insides. It burned under my skin. It was a word on the tip of my tongue.

“Not today.”

The boy’s shoulders fell along with his face as he studied his feet. He took my hand and pulled me to an open door. I entered to find two Cloaks sitting at a table with steamy meat on their plates. Two curved blades were ornamented on the wall.

Sandra must have noticed me staring at it. “Those are mine. After you left, I received my cloak and weapons.”

As I took a seat, I wondered whether I should take from the meat or not. “What is your gift that came with them?”

Timothy jumped up and down on the spot. “She-she throws them then they do this spinning-thing in the air then she can just boom-straight to wherever the sword goes. It’s amazing to watch her fight. The monsters never know where she is.”

The adults in the room laughed.

“So you can appear wherever the blades go?” I took the plate handed to me while waiting for her to answer.

Sandra sat in her chair and took a swig from her drink.

“I’ve been training and developing a two-handed fighting style that will allow for a continual attack without interruption.”

“That sounds taxing on the body,” the man at the table said. He was big with a short haircut and his muscles threatened to tear out from under his cloak. The slender woman, who sat opposite him, was pretty. Her eyes glowed with daring ambition. Though modest in her appearance, she carried a presence with her, tangible in the cramped room.

“That’s why it’s called training, but you don’t have a fighting style, do you, Seth? You just spin your stick and hope for the best” The modest woman smirked and busied herself with her food.

She took another bite from her meat, waiting for my response.

“It’s not a style, no, rather I use Alhalma as inspiration for power.”

At their confusion, I continued with my explanation, “Alhalma is the place where the demons and angels came from, an unseen world.”

The woman was unswayed. She chewed while taking turns to look at us from under her tilted head, then she swallowed.

Realizing she wasn’t going to say more, I placed my arms on the table, and asked, “Why did I send the two of you here?”

The man stood up and gave a small bow.

“I am Sword, not my real name, but to you it will be so. You defeated me on the battlefield but spared my life. As is the custom of my people, I am in your servitude until I have either saved your life or died in my quest to do so. You told me to be here. Something about helping you get off your ass and do something about the world.”

I lowered my arms and glanced at the woman, who still wore that grin of ambition.

“Genevieve. You told me I would meet you and another man here and that I had to tell you the Deadlands are waiting.”

I’d read about that place. I didn’t do much else in the Library for years on end. The Deadlands was a burned forest clouded by a poisonous fog, and inside of it, where the first trees used to grow, everything was ash. There lies the gate the monsters used to enter this world. I’ve been told many times before that the first traveler betrayed humanity by creating that very gateway. Of the two travelers who came after him, one allowed for the angels to enter the war, the other created the Libraries. I have seen from the eyes in the room what they’d revealed. Would I end the war? Would I save humanity?

“So, my plan is to storm the Deadlands, then what? Close the gate? You two won’t survive in there. I am the only one who might.”

“If I may interject.”

I turned to the window where the hawk perched.

It jumped off and changed to its keeper form I saw the most at the Library. The large build of a man but the head of a hawk walked closer with an almost holy presence. This was the reason I’d named it Hawk.

“Closing the gate is essential to winning this war. When you kill a demon in the physical, that gate allows them to pass through and re-enter. Killing them doesn’t stop them. It only delays them. It’s not a plan, Seth. It is the only strategy left.”

All gazes fell on me.

A familiar pressure pressed on my chest. “Fine, but the two of you will come to the Library first. I need to train you before we set off.”

“For how long?” Sandra asked, the haste clear in her voice.

“At least a year.”

She glanced outside at the late afternoon sun. “Are you going to portal your way back?”

I shook my head. It’s not that I couldn’t but that I shouldn’t, at this point. The last battle in Lenost left its mark in what I could only describe as a curse.

Sandra cleared her throat as she sat forward. “Then sleep here tonight. Tomorrow, the three of you may leave refreshed.”

After some resistance, I gave in and agreed. I listened while they talked about idle matters, like the changing times and the different Cloak camps that were being revived across the mainland.

###

I woke up during the night, disturbed by an uneasiness in the unseen. I pulled myself out of bed. My steps grew colder as I crossed to the large glass doors that led to the balcony. I opened the door, staring into the night as I tried to find where the uneasiness was coming from. There was no sign. The silence stretched on, peppered by insects and the plaintive cry of an owl.

The window above me on the next floor squeaked on its hinges. I spun, facing the façade. A shadow seeped into the crack of the window that slowly swung open. Without thinking, I climbed onto the rail built along the balcony’s edges. Ikulme, the power within, bit into my muscles, injecting the strength I needed. I jumped and caught the ledge. I anchored my feet on the small round exterior protrusions of the white brick wall. The window where the shadow entered wasn’t wide enough for me. Ikulme shifted, and the muscles in my legs lightened, the strain they took gone. The unseen was palpable. Ikulme became something I could move outside of my body. The window opened with nothing touching it. First the one then the second. I pulled myself up and into the room.

My blood ran cold at the enormous shadow with a tall hat standing over a sleeping Timothy. It was facing me. Entering Alhalma was like falling backward into water and opening my eyes to the new world around me. I was no longer in a bedroom but a field with an ash-covered floor. Before me stood a man in a hat and glowing red eyes. He was biting a fingernail when I appeared.

“Ah, Seth… Here we are again.”

This world was dark with no stars. There were plants with people in them. No, that was wrong. There were people with some parasitic plant growing in and out of them. The plant bore fruit that hung with a blood red color to it. Piper’s grin split open the human flesh of his face, revealing rows of teeth.

“Aren’t they lovely? My source of power, you know.” He plucked one fruit and bit into it. Blood ran over his fingers.

“What are you doing in Timothy’s room?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Gardening.” He launched himself at me. I held my right hand before me by instinct. He hit a barrier that sparked with light and threw him back. His laughter echoed around me, filling the void of the unseen.

“There is something else, isn’t there?” He scrambled to his feet, challenging me to admit any hidden secrets I had.

There was another reason I hadn’t used my powers again, and it was getting nearer. His sudden burst of laughter made me look at him, his mouth fully open as more and more tongues grew and hung out of his mouth. The demons loved playing with the visual effects that were unnatural and grotesque.

As if my legs were made of iron, I watched as the creature approached me. I had to build up the courage. “You are trapped in Alhalma. You need power to leave. So you leech on the souls of those alive?”

It swallowed the tongues into his mouth and strange root-like threads sewed it shut. Another mouth appeared on its hat. “Look at you learning big words from the Library. True, little Timothy will make a fine dinner, don’t you think?”

“You don’t have permission. That is a law in the unseen. You cannot harm one who cannot give consent to their soul.”

“But I can… All I need is a parent to allow me in. How do you think you came into my service all those years ago? Sandra first served me, remember? I introduced her to witchcraft and, like a drug, she cannot stop using my power.”

I braved forward. The ash-mist erupted with each step as light sprung forth from the ground.

Piper’s smile turned into a snarl. “What are you doing?”

The plants with people in them, there wasn’t much I could do to save them. The law of influence wouldn’t allow me. “I’m doing what I can to save Timothy’s life.”

I took another step. The crash of thunder rolled around me, and lightning played in the darkness’s distance. Light seeped through and entered the unseen space we were in.

“Fuck you, Seth. You and that fucker of a whore. I am glad Gum killed Lucy. Did you enjoy seeing her being ripped in half?” He laughed again.

My blood boiled. I let my hands fall to my sides. The demon launched itself at the chance I gave it. It was too late. As I watched it, a force pushed past me. The world became vivid as light and darkness fought each other. The darkness was on his side and the light from mine.

“I will take a stance of authority in Timothy’s life. You will not harm him unless you get through me.”

The seal was made in the unseen, that meant Piper couldn’t touch the child. Another thunder clap echoed, and we glanced to my right as the reason I abstained from using my powers drew nearer. A dark figure strode toward us, except his appearance was like mine.

“Or until you go through yourself… Isn’t that right,” Piper twisted to me with a smile, “little traveler?” He retreated.

The surrounding space bloomed in to light. I fell back to the physical. I stopped myself before slamming against the window. The shadow was gone. I cursed myself for getting involved in yet another child’s life.