The Human - Soothsayer *ON HOLD*

CHAPTER 4

He couldn't remember much of his life before Havenridge. Maybe it was because he was too young, or maybe he had lost his memory due to trauma. But every once in a while, a recollection of the past would sweep by in a whirlwind of emotions, and Ty would find himself staring at the shattered remnants of his childhood.

They used to chase each other down at the river under the warm summer sun. Just the two of them, out in their papyrus weaved flip-flops, their tunics untied and open as they skipped tittering through the meadow outside of their home. Their dad would be out in the rice fields, their mother baking in the kitchen. And beyond the hilltop, the small village that was known as Windrop.

That had been his home, his life.

Now before where he stood was a blackened field, the earth scorched beyond recognition and the meadow nothing but a charred wasteland. In the distance where Windrop was supposed to be was now nothing more than ashes. Not even one dilapidated structure stranding. The land was split, crumbled down in one line as if it was two pieces of cloth sewn together. Even the sky looked grim, darkened with granite-grey clouds. The dry air tasted of electricity. He wondered if the river had dried out.

Not that it mattered. Everything was destroyed. Barren and burnt, the soil stained red from the blood of the villagers he probably once knew. Suddenly, Ty was taken back to the anguish cries in the air, the ashes in the wind, the fear running down his spine, and... two obsidian black eyes staring from the bushes. He stifled a surprised gasp.

A flash of lightning revealed the silhouette of a grotesque humanoid creature rising to its feet; sharp talons at the end of long, stickly limbs, like that of small deadly blades.

'Run.'

Ty startled at the voice, turning to see a tall scraggy boy beside him. His gaunt face and vacant eyes — darkened in the shadows — gazed into his own for less than a second before he turned and broke into a sprint, dragging Ty across the rough path ahead of them by the skin of his wrist.

A terrifying screech struck them from behind and they instinctively clutched their ears. His heart pounded; his knees trembled. Something about the sound sonically evoked potency and intellect in the creature, awaking the adrenaline inside of him. The footfalls that thumped behind sounded closer with each passing second.

'You can't run for long.' Its inhuman voice was guttural, almost disembodied as if it was speaking into his mind. Ty would have looked back, if not for the griping fear that kept his gaze forwards.

'Ignore it!' the boy yelled as they approached the ridge. 'Jump!'

And he did. For the briefest moment, Ty felt the tip of his boots touching the ground on the other side. Then, he was yanked back. His screaming busted through his lungs. Like a clipped bird, he dropped straight into the crevice below; the impact knocking the breath out of him.

There was a shout of pain, but he quickly realise it wasn't his. The boy that had been by his side was now hanging from above, seized by the creature was that gleefully dangling him over the edge, its claws digging into his arm with each swing. Something crimson dripped onto Ty's cheeks, and his blurry vision pivoted to the demon's face, or in fact... faces. His eyes widened fearfully.

In the space of a heartbeat, the demon's face flickered from a young dark-haired girl's to an old lady's before finally, settling on one that was uncanny to his own appearances; a freckled, babyface framed with luscious caramel brown hair and round ocean blue eye, a small buttoned nose and rose-coloured lips. His mother.

'You're going to regret running from me.' She leered, spine-chilling with her fork tongue that jutted out in a hiss, even more so with the hunched body of a gangly demon. But Ty didn't have time to observe.