*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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**trigger warning: suicidal thoughts**
I leaned up with a groan, turning to sit sideways on the bed, and rubbed a throbbing pain from my forehead that travelled behind my eyes. After a moment, I lifted my head and glanced around to see where I was. The room only had space for two wooden cots, one I sat on and another right across from me. Beneath the cot across from me, there was a short chest stashed, with swirling scribbled designs and a doodled drawing of a family were etched into the wood.
The chest seemed familiar.
With the familiarity tugging at my mind, I climbed down from the cot and onto my knees before I reached for the chest, pulling it out from beneath the other cot. My fingers traced the dips and lines cut into the wood, and as I felt each mark, I saw flashes of memories of my sister Lissa using a knife to etch the drawings into the chest. I paused my fingertip on one of the spirals and breathed an unsteady sigh. This was Lissa's.
"Mother, Ronan is awake!"
At the sound of my sister's voice, I froze in place, listening only to my heart thudding in my ears. How was I home? I glanced down at myself and saw that I was a boy again as my hands were small and the floor was closer to me. My mind had brought me home, but why? Home wasn't a sanctuary to me and nor was this memory.
And yet I still felt the need to search out my sister.
I stumbled up onto my feet and rushed out of my room. The living space was the same, neat, and orderly as my mother liked it. A broom had been perched against the doorframe of the front door and a pail was beside it. Everything looked the same as the day I had been forced out of my family.
The thought wasn't I wished to think of as I headed for the front door and out of it, calling for my sister.
"Lissa!"
When my bare feet touched the ground outside, I took a step back then looked down at dried sprigs of grass. Then I had to squint as I glanced up and around the yard, at blossoming flowers and lush green trees that blew in a cool breeze. With a trembling hand, I reached out to touch a sunflower that had stretched up to reach the sun before another familiar voice stopped me.
"There's no need for shouting, Ronan."
My head swiveled to my right before my eyes froze upon the one who had spoken. My mother stood from her garden, brushing dirt off her knees and palms. Bits of her mahogany hair had fallen loose from her bun and were dancing with the wind. Her lips upturned towards me, making my heart squeeze in my chest.
"Don't merely stand there," she laughed, eyes alight when they fell upon me. She wiped her hands on her apron, then nodded her chin towards a brimming basket. "Carry in the basket for me, will you please."
I couldn't make a single word fall from my lips. In my day, it had been a little over two hundred years since I had spoken to my mother, yet to her I had just returned from the academy of Roefell. Nothing I could say would make any sense to her or change the outcome of this fateful memory.
