Page 29 of The Shadows Beyond
Then a sudden compulsion struck him, and Cinn looked up, past the towering skyscrapers, into the hazy red mist that coated the sky.
He wished he hadn’t.
The moon! It was… broken.Shattered.
Fractured pieces of the orb hung suspended beyond hazy crimson mist.
A celestial mosaic of destruction.
Each shard emitted an eerie glow, casting beams that painted the city below in crimson shadows.
Every molecule in Cinn’s body froze as he stared at the moon, the jagged edges of the broken lunar puzzle taunting him.
Something floated past his vision. Something tiny, something dark.
Ashadowmote!Shadowmotes in fact—several more blinked into existence.
How could they appear to be made of pure darkness, but still emanate light? He reached for one, and held in a breath as the shadowmote moved towards his hand, landing on it like a butterfly. Like it was attracted to him. How had he never noticed them before?Because you were too busy having a panic attack and screaming at the spirits to get away from you.
Another shadowmote drifted nearby, and he reached out for that one too. As soon as his hand reached its field of orbit, it floated over to join its friend.
Cinn collected three, four, six, ten. “Hello there,” he whispered. Could they hear him? Were they sentient? Would Darcy or Noir know?
As if in answer, they vibrated before flying off his hand and fading away.
He took a few steps onto the crumbling asphalt, moving towards the nearest red-ivy-covered wall.
That’s when he felt it. The presence.
A subtle shift in the air sent icy shivers down Cinn’s spine, an intangible whisper of evil that curled around him like a phantom breeze. Unseen eyes seemed to pierce through the red mist, and an ominous weight settled in the pit of his stomach, the unspoken promise of something that lurked just beyond the frayed edges of his perception.
A ghost of a breath hit the back of his neck.
He ran.
Sprinting through the disorienting landscape, Cinn’s footsteps pounded against the shattered ground of the once-city. His pulse raced in tandem with his hurried strides, the ghostly breath lingering on his neck hauntingly, urging him forward.
Turn around.
Face it.
See what you’re up against.
But it was Tyler’s,don’t give them an inch,Cinn, echoing through his mind that gave him the final push.
He turned.
An amorphous black mass, a shapeless void that seemed to defy the very essence of form, hovered a distance away from him. No discernible features adorned its shadowy surface, only an indistinct darkness that absorbed the surrounding red glow, rendering it an abyssal silhouette.
Cinn’s breathing became a series of choked, ragged gasps as the creature moved closer and closer towards him. It moved with an unsettling fluidity, tendrils of inky darkness extending and retracting in a grotesquedance. The air seemed to congeal in its presence, and as it drew nearer, an oppressive coldness enveloped Cinn.
Hisssssssssssssss
Then everything fell apart. Literally—the ground below Cinn started to give way, its already precarious form shaking and throwing up thick dust. Cinn’s gaze darted around, his eyes landing on shadowmotes floating nearby, watching the scene.
“Help me!” he screamed at them, and they zipped closer, but then stopped.
He gasped, glaring at them like that would help.
