Prologue
The thick woody scent, rotten with centuries of decay.
The ground beneath me was no longer the vibrant green of summer but the dulled blackness of burnt wood and muddy footprints. Trees and bushes wilted, their leaves curling in on themselves and browning. The sky above me didn't glow with the wonders of the night or the brightness of day but began to fade from a burnt copper into a rustic red, now tinged with the black cloud of ash floating towards me.
Slowly I teetered to my feet, my movements seeming to stretch into blurred whiteness. The piercing ringing within my ears was deafening, sweat glistened on my skin and my head sluggishly lolled to the side. The energy within my body evaporating into the weltering heat with all sense of knowing.
I was starved with a hunger and thirst which could never be quenched. My body numb with pain, but my mind absent from the sensations. Like my conscience and mind were separate from my being.
I stood to the side, immobile as my eyes scanned the ruin all around me. A baby's cry tore through the stifling silence which deafened me.
My head turned, gaze trailing frantically round the ruin of the woods to find the source of the sound. I slowly edged towards it, the dead grass and burnt leaves crunching beneath my feet.
There, crouched beside a woman – who lay, bloody and panting – was my uncle. The man, Alistair, was a vision similar to the one I knew now. He however, lacked the laugh lines around the bright brown eyes, or the grey that has begun to coax his hair.
He was younger ... more troubled, his face pale with horror as his brown eyes grew dark with emptiness.
Two terrified young boys, with bright blue eyes and brown hair clung to one another in despair. They hid, almost out of sight, crying silently in each others embrace, watching the scene with agony too raw for such young souls to bare.
"My -" A sickening wheeze left the beautifully wounded women with hooded eyes. "- My baby." My heart clenched at the tender love which rasped through her dying voice.
As if hearing her mother for the first time, the bundle in Alistair's arms began to cry once more. The woman's arms trembled with the strain of lifting them, blood trickling from the side of her pale lips. She reached for her baby girl, her smile fading with her last dying breath.
She was coated in thin sheen of sweat and somehow her golden skin looked cold and lifeless. Her short brunette hair was swept across her face, her clothes splattered in blood from the waist down and her eyes glued shut. Through the strands of damp hair was a flawless face, but the light blush had vanished from her cheeks and the pinkness drained from her lips. Yet somehow she was still beautiful.
The child's eyes fluttered open and seemed to peer right at me over my uncle's shoulder. I stared back at the bright reflection of my own violet eyes in astonishment.
Suddenly everything began to fade. Black ribbons of darkness curled around my arms and legs, imprisoning me and dragging me down into the bed of leaves.
I seeped through the floor ... ... Falling into infinite darkness. Weightless in the descent which had no concept of time.
I hit a bed of ash and rubble. My skin welted and singed with the hiss of flames flickering tauntingly from the ground. I was in a waste land of a once thriving compound. Buildings fallen and crumbling into fires so fierce and large that they consumed the plain.
A sudden blood curdling scream erupted as soulless howls of agony cried from within the limitless fire, which stretched into the pitch black sky like towers of desolation. A large stone white building was in flames. All I could do was watch as the fire consumed everything in it's path. Including every soul – innocent or impure – in those buildings.
Faceless figures of people I felt I should know, emerged from the crumbling building frantically throwing themselves in any direction possible. They ran, their movements stretched and smeared as if the forces of the world were gravitating them back toward their ultimate demise. Most of them limping from their injuries, some of them carrying corpses of their friends and loved ones.
They continued to run. Right past me – through me – as I stood, a hopeless spectator.
The further they got, the faster they became, until they dispersed into the shadowed depth of the trees not far away. I turned ready to follow them but I couldn't move, the vines beneath me had rooted my feet to the ground.
My uncle Alistair materialised beside me, clutching the tiny hands of his two twin sons. "Don't look back. We need to go. Now!" He yelled over the screams from within.
One of the twins extended a pale clammy hand toward me, instinctively I reached out. The hand that slipped into his, was not my own. My skin was not tanned and it was less smooth, as if youth were behind me.
I looked down at myself to find I was trapped in a body which was not my own.
An enraged bellow ricochet through the ash filled air. We all turned to see a bloodied man in white, staggering toward us. He was faceless, but not familiar like the other figures who fled. Something in his hand shook by his side.
Suddenly a gun was pointed toward me.
A shot fired.
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Sneak peak of what's to come - the first of a planned trilogy. It's collaboration between me and my best friend lostin_w0nderland
We'll start uploading after more has been written. I'm glad to say four chapters are already done but we want regular updates for you guys. It's just a taster so let us know what you think and if we should continue.
Hope you like it as much as we do =)
Jen and Becky xx
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The Corrupt
Teen Fictiondifferent ˈdɪf(ə)r(ə)nt/ Not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form, or quality. * * * Thea James had always known she was different but for reasons that were a mystery to her, and at the age of eighteen she had yet to figure ou...
