Woven Shadows

Chapter 9

Darkness engulfed me, thick and suffocating, like I was trapped at the bottom of an endless pit. The wraiths emerged from the shadows, their forms twisting and writhing like smoke made solid. Their hollow eyes locked onto me, empty yet filled with a hunger that seemed to devour the light itself. I tried to move, to reach for something—anything—but my limbs were heavy, as if weighed down by chains I couldn't see. Panic seized me as I stumbled back, my feet sinking into a cold, unforgiving darkness that swallowed everything whole.

Their voices came then, a chorus of whispers like dead leaves scraping across stone, each one a poison-tipped needle puncturing my thoughts. They mocked me, their hisses seeping into my mind, twisting my fear into despair. "Weak," they taunted, their words wrapping around me like a noose. "You were never meant to survive." I reached out blindly, my fingers trembling as I searched for any trace of my strength, but the ability I needed to move, to do anything was gone, hollowed out like the empty sockets of the wraiths' eyes.

Suddenly, one of them lunged, its face inches from mine, and its breath was ice—a frozen blade that cut straight through to my bones. I felt its touch on my skin, a sensation that was both searing and numbing, like frostbite spreading under my flesh. Its fingers were skeletal, digging into my shoulder, pulling me closer to that maw of darkness that promised nothing but oblivion. The world tilted, and I fell backward, my vision blurring as the wraiths closed in like a swarm of locusts, ravenous and unyielding.

As I lay on the ground, helpless and defeated, they surrounded me, their forms shifting into something worse—faces I recognized. My father's eyes, hollow and accusing, stared back at me from the darkness. His mouth opened, but instead of words, only the dry, rasping laughter of the wraiths came out. He turned away from me, vanishing into the void, and I reached for him with a cry that never left my lips. I was alone, utterly and completely alone, as the wraiths bore down on me, their touch a deathly cold seeping into my soul.

They enveloped me, their icy grasp tightening around my throat, suffocating me with their hatred. My vision dimmed, the edges of my world collapsing inward, and just before the darkness consumed me completely, I felt it—the undeniable, bone-deep certainty that I would never wake from this. The wraiths had won. I was already dead, nothing more than a fading echo swallowed by the shadows.

I woke with a jolt, my lungs burning as I dragged in a breath, the scream still lodged in my throat. My heart was a wild thing, hammering against my ribs, each beat like a fist pounding on a door. The air was too thick, too heavy—clogged with the stench of fear and something darker, like smoke and cold iron. My skin felt wrong, the memory of the wraiths' touch still crawling under my flesh, and I couldn't shake it. I couldn't breathe.

I forced my eyes open, my vision blurry and scattered, and for a moment, the world was still twisted in that nightmare's grip. Shadows seemed to pulse at the edges of my sight, curling around me, ready to drag me back down into the dark. I dug my fingers into the bedroll, grounding myself in the feel of the fabric, in the roughness that was real, that wasn't some twisted illusion of my mind.

Then I saw her—Lottie, still asleep. She lay there, her body curled up in her bedroll, one hand tucked beneath her head like a child lost in some dreamless slumber. Her hair, that cascade of golden waves, seemed to catch every bit of light that the morning had to offer, glowing like spun sunlight against the darkness that still clung to me. She looked like something from another world—untouched, unbothered, like the chaos of the night had never existed at all.

The first light of dawn was filtering through the trees now, soft and warm, chasing away the remnants of the nightmare that had held me captive. It washed over Lottie's face, painting her skin with a gentle glow, turning her peaceful smile into something that looked almost holy. She breathed out, soft and steady, and for a moment, the tightness in my chest began to ease, the panic slipping away like the tide pulling back from the shore.