Page 120 of Visions of Darkness

There was no attendant, and she disappeared into the rooms. I followed her. Energy crashed, and my limbs twitched with the intensity that coiled in my being.

She was on the floor when I turned the corner, her back to the wall and tears streaming down her face as she rocked and rocked the child.

Her eyes widened when they met mine.

“He wasn’t meant to be here.” She mumbled the confession. Her grief. Her torment.

I dropped to my knees in front of her and took her face in my hands.

Cold streaked through my veins, the air ripped from my lungs, while the connection burned.

A fire curled up my arms.

So hot I might as well have been consumed by flames.

A chill raced down my spine, and flickers of darkness encroached at the edges of my sight.

A barren plane. Vapors and mist. Shadows rose and lifted and swirled through the wiry elms. The night thick, the sky low. Evil prowled across the lifeless ground.

Thunder cracked, a whip of wickedness, the force of it strong enough that it nearly tossed me back. I had to fight to hold on to her. To keep the connection as a dark shadow raged and tore and thrashed.

I held firmer, and a rush of images and emotions battered against my mind.

The pills. The paranoia. The voices that had haunted her since she was just a little child.

Hidden under her covers.

Shaking.

Shaking.

No joy. No peace.

End it now.

End it now.

There’d been a flicker of joy. Her hand on her belly as she’d looked at the positive test.

Maybe she had something to live for.

But the child had cried and cried.

“You knew better than to bring him here. You should have killed yourself before you got into this situation. How could you be so selfish to think a child would change anything? You’re a fool, because he is cursed, too.”

Poison dripped from the slithering voice.

“If you love him, you’ll end it now. What’s waiting for him is so much better. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

Gasping against her pain, I tightened my hands on her face.

Her eyes blew wide open as I tried to push my mind into hers.

I leaned up high on my knees to get closer, squeezing my eyes closed so I could see.

And it was there. A shadow that thrashed and writhed, forever trapped in her mind. An aged Kruen of great strength. Its face contorted by the evil that made its shape. Its mouth gaping, a blackened hole of nothingness as it howled.

It hissed when it saw me, and a fiery tendril lashed out. It struck me in the chest.

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