The Mask

Release Timeline (and small sneak peek!)

This is an original work I've been working on since early 2022 on and off. It is currently under rewriting and will be released after the editing process is complete. This will hopefully be around March, depending on when that finishes. This is a novel-length work, albeit on the shorter end of that scale, so it's been a while in the making! I will most likely be publishing some short stories onto this site at a similar time as well (been working on those, too). So until release... (a sneak peek!)

'Then there was a rumbling sound.
The crunching of leaves, over and over.
"Do you think...?" Erend asked in an unfinished question.
The Shadower nodded, eyes still wide.
The cry of an animal.
And a stampede of Meladrone Deer shot through the forest ahead of them, behind them, and next to them.
The Shadower and Erend reacted immediately, and Illia curled up into a ball.
The Shadower reached out to the trees nearest – towards any plant life she could find – and threw them up in a barrier, blocking the Meladrone. A shuddering series of studding and thudding broke out against the wall as the animals hit it, and a branch let out a CRACKKK as it snapped.
As soon as he had seen them, Erend had thrown himself at Illia, rolling and tugging her behind a boulder a few meters away. It was behind the barrier, but still some deer came near it. The Melandrone that did galloped and leapt over the boulder, and he held Illia tight as the sound of splintering wood echoed around them. He knew what was happening: the spiked, almost metal-like antlers of the Meladrone – an aggressive species – were slamming into the wood, and the repeated impact on the wall weakened it. The Shadower's barrier defied gravity, having no supports other than the strength of their own limbs, and when Erend looked back, he could see her tiring from fighting back against the stampede.
The Shadower nodded her head towards the pair behind the boulder, telling them to run.
"We can't; we're encircled!" Erend shouted back over the deafening ruckus.
"Please, get us outta here," Illia cried, and Erend could see the terror written out on her face.
"We have to wait, Illia. It'll be okay," was all he could say, and he took a deep breath.
Then, suddenly, in front of them, a bridge wound up into the sky, a twisting pile of trees.
"Run now, 'Lia," said Erend, before he grabbed her hand and ran forward, knowing he'd need his other arm to make it up the bridge safely.
As they half-crawled half-ran up the angled wooden bridge into the sky, three Meladrone smashed into the base, and the two siblings slid back down a foot.
"Hang on," Illia heard her brother say as he grabbed her hand when she slipped. But she couldn't hear what he said next through the cacophony of screeching deer and crumbling rock.
A moment later, the Shadower rose into the air next to them. "I couldn't hold the barrier any longer," she signed, reaching towards them with vines. As they hung on to the bridge for dear life, another five Meladrone hit the bridge, and Erend lost his grip on his sister's hand.
Everything happened in a matter of seconds, but it felt like years.
Illia lost her footing on the steep slope of the bridge, and as Erend was thrown in the other direction, her hands scrambled for purchase while she slid.
Then she fell off the edge of the bridge and into the cloud of dust kicked up by the Meladrone on the dry ground, Erend's cry of despair sounding out through the storm.'