The beginning of the round went perfectly fine.
As always, Tempest was eager to jump.
But near the last few obstacles, something in the air changed.
Evelyn's gaze was drawn to one of the windows, instead of the upcoming jump. She was just in time to see the early morning sunlight disappear, replaced by darkness.
As Tempest got closer and closer to the jump, Eve didn't lean forward at all, her eyes widening instead in a kind of primal terror.
Around them, the crowed gasped. Not because of the sudden darkness outside, but because Tempest had left the ground, and Eve was barely holding on.
Evelyn barely noticed, eyes trained on the darkness spreading quickly inside the arena. She barely felt her body hit the firm sand.
She was frozen with terror where she'd fallen. Due to this, the audience assumed she'd been more seriously hurt and started to make their way down from the stands to help her, even though her mind hadn't even caught up to that fact yet.
She watched with wide eyes as the darkness approached her. She let out a scream as it got closer, raising her hands to keep her face safe from it. At this point, it had become almost a liquid, living thing. At the sound of her scream, it reared back, as if struck.
Then suddenly she was aware of the arena around here again. At some point it had become a mess of raging orange heat.
It was only then that Evelyn came back to herself, her lungs heaving against the smoke and ears ringing as if from an explosion.
"FELIX?" she screamed out into the snapping flames around her.
Somewhere, there was a crash as a part of the ceiling collapsed in. But no sound from Felix.
Evelyn forced herself to her feet, wiping dark ash out of her eyes with the back of her hand and staggering toward where she remembered the door must be.
Panicked thoughts flooded her mind. When had she blacked out? Where was Tempest? Where was Felix?
She choked back a sob when she reached the door, only to find a piece of heavy timber from the ceiling had fallen in front of it, barring her escape.
Coughing again from the smoke filling her lungs, she slowly sank down to the ground, her vision going blurry.
"No... not like this" she wheezed, thinking of the disappointment on her mother's face one last time before a different kind of dark closed in. This one so, so much more peaceful.
She never wanted to leave it.
YOU ARE READING
These Dark Eyes
Fantasy19 year old Evelyn Harris is a world class eventer, and a well known one at that. Building up her career from a young age. It's been stressful, for both her and her family, but she wouldn't give it up for the world. Eve definitely never expected it...
