The Legend of the Plith: Stone & Blood

Chapter One: The Eye.

Everyone was concerned about his next move. Intergalactic relations were quickly falling apart as everyone scrambled to somehow gain a controlling hand on the situation. The planet Elys was in ruins, a new species was wrought, fights were breaking out over the right course of action, and now a universe-wide war seemed imminent. And yet, there was a sliver of hope upon the horizon.

Carrie woke with a start, clutching her head. The searing white pain faded and she caught her breath. What happened? A nightmare? Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her room was the same cluttered mess it had been last night, except there was an envelope on her desk. Her brows furrowed. She hadn't even got up to grab the mail yet, and nobody was supposed to be home. Had she grabbed it last night before sleepily walking to bed? No, no way, she would remember that, she was sure of it. She lowered her hands from her head and sighed. She had an inkling she had had a nightmare but she couldn't remember it. But whatever. Nightmares were her 'normal'. And she was glad she couldn't recall it this time. Time to get up.

She shoved her bedsheets off her legs and shifted to stand. She pulled on her jeans and tank top, belted her buckle and looked around for her boots. There they are - on her desk chair, right next to the new letter waiting for her. She yanked her boots on and sat down. The letter had no address on it, no stamp, no printing on it all. In fact, it didn't seem like a commercially bought envelope. The paper was slightly yellowed and rough. And on the back was a symbol that seemed drawn on in red. It looked like an eye with several wavy lines coming out of it. It was nothing like she had seen before.

As she continued to admire it, her brain trying to find if she recognised it from anywhere, the red ink began to glow. That was very odd. There was no light shining on it. Getting brighter and brighter and brighter, Carrie dropped the envelope and stepped away from it. What was happening? But she couldn't look away from the eye symbol. It was like it was looking back at her and had frozen her eyes in place.

Then the red symbol lifted off of the envelope and shone like a star in the air, shimmering and quite clearly staring at her. Carrie's breath caught in her throat as she tried to say something. The symbol shone brighter still until she had to cover her eyes. At the same time, the light disappeared and suddenly Carrie felt as if she had been hit with the force of a truck. She collapsed against the wall and looked up. The symbol was gone, as was the envelope.

What the fuck?

She rose to her feet again and examined her room but there was no sign of any envelope or symbol. It wasn't until she reached for her university bag, having decided she was most definitely hallucinating again, that she noticed a red mark on the back of her hand. Faintly glowing... Alarmed, she took a closer look. There was to be no doubt - it was the same symbol from the envelope. She spat on her other hand and rubbed at the red. Surely it was just ink and would come off? She rubbed it more and more but it didn't change at all. Carrie, slightly panicking, rushed out of her bedroom, down the hall and into the bathroom. She turned on the sink and doused her hand in soap, using a sponge to try to wash it off. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, it wasn't fading or changing shape...

Carrie turned off the tap and tried to think of what to do. The faint glow had gone completely now and the symbol almost looked like it had been scarred into her hand. It even felt different to the rest of her hand. She opened the medicine cupboard and retrieved a wound bandage. She tore open the packet, placed the gauze part on the back of her hand and began to wrap the rest around it.

As she did so, she decided she would call her mum at work to ask about it as she headed to university. Carrie's mum had a lot of experience with odd occurrences, considering she used to be a demonologist, so if anyone could explain this, she could. 

Carrie returned to her room and shouldered her university bag. She glanced outside; it was an overcast day. 'At least it wasn't raining', she thought. She left her room and headed downstairs, not forgetting to grab the house keys and lock the door before she departed. She could tell that it was going to be a long day today. She walked down the street and pulled her phone out of her pocket, and dialled her mothers' number. But it came up engaged. 'That's odd, she rarely takes calls at work unless it's me calling'. She pondered this for a moment and decided that this wasn't an issue to harass her mother with more than once. She would discuss it with her when she next saw her.

Pocketing her phone, Carrie sighed and decided she would just power through until she came home. She just wouldn't worry about the eye symbol until then.