so this is my 1st ever upload if anyone reads this i'll continue. please leave some tips for me THANKS :) <3
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Chapter 1
Reality Strikes
She was so close, she could almost touch it. She wasn’t sure what she was close to, an answer of some sort. This time she knew she would find out the… a distant howl echoed through the wind. Some would call it a shriek for the animal it came from was called a shrembler. It’s thudding feet causing the ground to quake and tremble. She was so close, she couldn’t stop now, but the thudding was getting closer as was her enemy. She was still reaching when they broke through the forest line. Massive mounds of pure beast running right at her. She could feel the answer tickling near her mind, playing with her for she was reaching to some sort of conclusion but had no idea what she was concluding to begin with. Too long she thought about this for the next instant she heard the screams and cries and the ripping of flesh. Before she could distinguish whether they were her own everything went black, all she felt was numbness and her last sight was a shrembler with a blood all over its maw. Possible her own. Shriek, thud, rip, and tear, again and again and again…
Taren woke with a start. Her heart flying, her breath caught in her throat. Her hands flew to her body to see if she was whole, that’s when the gasping started. She felt the beads of sweat trickle down her face and neck. Belonging to fear. Slowly she evened out her breathing, the gasping stopped. Disoriented and trying to piece together her dream, she got off her mattress. She remembered she was so close, then… gone. Just like that. Every time she tried to remember, her dreams were taken away from her. The same thing every night. Sighing she took a quick look around the room to see if she’d woken up any of her family. No, she was safe, her mother and younger sister were sleeping quietly, their deep breathing. Inhaling and exhaling in unison. And her brother, sleeping sprawled across his mattress, his foot threatening to fall into the water bucket. She heard his muffled snores from the back corner; honestly she didn’t think that counted as sleeping.
She sighed, noted that she had been doing a lot of that lately, then put on her jacket, quickly laced up her well worn in leather boots, picked up the water bucket which was now filled with undrinkable water and left to get water a mile or so away from her home.
She looked back at her house, really more of a run down cottage, but it was still home. The long blades of grass that swayed in the morning breeze. The vines that looked as though they were about to crawl up its sides, then took a good look at the house and thought better of it. Preferring to grow near the ground instead of the harsh rubble which made the base of her home. It may not be a castle but it kept her family safe and warm throughout the winter. That’s right Taren, she thought to herself sarcastically; let’s discuss winter even though it isn’t for months. Who cares that my family could easily dehydrate today without me getting the water? Right, she thought miserably, nobody but me.
Nate, she thought disdainfully. Wednesday was his day to wake up and fill the water bu…
Wednesday.
Taren’s mind went blank, then something clicked and the sound of a water bucket as it thumped on the ground shredded the ominous silence. It’s endless echo snapping her out of her reverie. Wednesday she thought, her heart speeding up uncontrollably, no, it couldn’t be. Yesterday was… Tuesday, she thought to herself know fully risen to panic. It’s too soon! She cried to herself. Then another thought brought by the voice of reason popped into the chaotic mess which was now her mind.
Her leather boots silenced the thudding of her feet as she ran franticly back to her house, dreading what she might find… or not find. The lonesome water bucket utterly forgotten in her haste teetered on its side and fell with a thud that returned the stream to its previous, now dreary silence.
