Destined to the Hellhound: BEAST

Chapter 3

White puffs of my breath hang in the air as I run, frantically, through the leafless trees. The twisted roots and crooked branches seem to reach out for me. Shadows in the darkness move and creep in all directions. Nowhere is safe.

My wings won't move. They feel like stones on my back, frozen and heavy.

Twigs snap in the distance. I'm not alone here.

I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

Blinking, I try to shake my head clear. My vision is out of focus, blurring and multiplying everything.

Running onto a lonely, leaf-covered road, a path through the trees, I make the split-second decision to follow it. I'm exposed, out in the open, but at least I might find a place to hide.

There is a light ahead, small and flickering. Pushing myself harder, I race toward it. I might be safe there. I let myself hope for some saving grace, something, anything that might help me.

It doesn't seem to matter how many steps I take—I'm not getting any closer. The road stretches out before me, seemingly growing longer as I run.

Each leg is weighed down, tied to sandbags. I'm dragging myself forward, but I'm making no headway.

In the distance, something moves in the dark. I'm drawn toward it. With each step I take, the scene before me somehow becomes more and less clear. I know what I'm looking at, but the questions grow. What is it? What is it doing?

Dark wings hunched over the ground.

Something about the way the shoulders are moving makes a deep pit form in my stomach. This isn't right.

My terrified breaths and the leaves crunching beneath my feet don't seem to alert the thing to my presence here. When I stop walking, and stand in frozen silence to watch, it turns.

A scream of sheer terror rips from my chest, clawing its way up my throat as I fall back and scramble away.

It's me. Or at least, a version of me. My hair is matted, and my tattered clothes reveal dirty blood-stained skin.

Blood is dripping from my mouth, and a wicked smile stretches across my lips.

Jumping up, I run, expecting to be chased by whatever horrible, dark magic-induced hallucination is behind me.

An ear-piercing screech from behind me has me instinctually dropping to the ground. Covering my head with my arms, I wait for whatever evil is closing in.

A gust of wind carrying the smell of death blows over my body, passing me by.

Blinking my eyes open, I gasp, jumping to my feet. I'm home, standing on the road at the mouth of the mountains. Golden Valley, in all her lush green beauty, sits below. The dead forest disappeared as if it never existed.

The usually peaceful, sunny kingdom is burning. Following the trails of thick smoke from the sky, to the chaos below, I watch, shocked.

My wings twitch, brought back to life suddenly. I bolt upward, straight into the sky.

Gliding on the wind, I take in the madness. We're completely overrun. The screams rise into the sky, whipping through the air.

Half of the city is on fire, and the streets are stained red with blood. It flows like rainwater in the gutters. The smell, metal, and smoke, are so thick that it's painful to breathe.

Creatures, inky like the night, slither in the streets, devouring the light. Shadows kill everything in sight.

All around me, people take to the sky, trying to escape. Over and over again, they are snatched from the sky. A nameless, faceless darkness, reaching up and pulling them to the ground with ease.