*Book One of The Accursed Chronicles*
August was a man from a normal world, living a mundane life until one night everything changed, and he was sent spiraling into a world stuck forever in winter, full of magic, creatures, and a curse that has grip...
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My ears hadn't been tricking me. Gloom had said I was a hybrid: half human, and half demon. It didn't make any sense because I'd lived a normal life and never had anything out of the ordinary happen, but maybe that had been a lie, maybe my life hadn't been what I had thought.
I didn't see how any of that mattered now though. It wasn't as if questioning my entire existence was going to change anything. Gloom's harsh words had finally reached me and I realized that no amount of complaining was going to get me home. Laelmos was my home now and I had to be grateful that I had been lucky to fall into someone who had chosen to give me a chance. That seemed rare in this world.
I'd been given the choice to either stay or leave, and after experiencing firsthand the cruelty of people in Laelmos, I had made my choice. Anything was better than becoming like Isolde, a deranged mage, or becoming an experiment of someone's. Besides I got the better of the deal anyway since I got to admire Gloom... when he wasn't pissing me off.
After I had hidden away in my room, the last thing I had remembered was lying down atop my blankets on my bed. I'd been holding my old jacket from my world, holding onto it like it was a part of me. I had felt that if I let it go that I would be forgetting Ashedale forever. That thought had stuck with me as I had drifted into sleep, only to move into a restless dream of pitch darkness.
Then an orb appeared, floating above the ground, and shifting slowly in place. It created a soft light and the only light in the darkness, shining a glow onto the rippling ink beneath my feet. I tiptoed forward, inching towards it with a careful gaze until a sound entered my ears.
Drip, drip, drip. It reminded me of a leaky water faucet.
I couldn't shake it from my head as it grew louder and closer together. It came from me from whatever rolled descended my skin and off into the blackness beneath me. I looked at my left arm and watched a trail of thick oil that slid down my skin, down to my fingertips and dripped onto the ground.
Then the ink formed into a misty vapor and floated off my skin, shaped into another arm and hand before it struck back into my arm. When it sank back into me, my entire arm turned black then the light in the darkness collapsed.
It had me.
I woke with a gasp, startled by a loud thump on my door. A trickle of sweat slipped down my forehead before I swiped it off and climbed off my bed. I grumbled as I stumbled over to the door, then yanked it open to be met by Gloom gazing down at me. His eyebrows were knitted together, and his eyes were clouded in worry.
"Do you know what time it is?" he asked seriously, and I shook my head. "You've been asleep since yesterday afternoon. It's midday now."
I did a double blink, not taking in his words. He had to be kidding, right?
He hummed and then pushed the door open the rest of the way before he stepped in. "You are pale. Are you not feeling well?"
I cocked my head and moved back to look at myself in the mirror before I gasped in horror. Why didn't he tell me I looked this bad? My hair stuck up everywhere, bags hung under my eyes, and my face looked drained of blood. My shirt was untucked, and my pants drooped around my waist. Compared to his put together, handsome appearance, I looked like a trainwreck.
