The Shayde

Prologue

My first impression of the place was brown. Brown dead grass, brown broken fence, brown bricks and dust on the windows that perfectly matched the brown swirling clouds above. So this was definitely the place, I could tell without even checking the note in my pocket. Id read and re-read it countless times on the ferry over to island. 36 Stafford Street, previously owned by the supposedly 'suicidal' 78 year old, Mr Lennon. But now, it had fallen into the possession of the wraiths.

I took a breath and pushed open the heavy door. Immediately, the raw stench of sweat, fear, blood and something sweet - maybe rotting? Some sort of drug? Invaded my nostrils. I physically recoiled; If it smelt so much at the door, what would I find inside? Had I come all this way just to find a body? Was she just bait? I shook my head, pressed my shirt collar over my nose and proceeded through the doorway into the dimly lit hallway. Either way, I had to know, and turning back now would just confirm my fears. At least this way there was a chance she was okay... even if it were considered a small one.

I stopped in my tracks as I neared the end of the hallway. A shuffling upstairs. A dragging sound as if something was being pulled along the carpet. Foolishly, I turned around and headed towards the noise. I was getting close. I could feel it, and I could see it in the shapes on the wall. Hastily daubed in a thick dark liquid, they were the triangular patterns from my dream, just looking way more ominous when painted on peeling wallpaper in a creepy house than superimposed on a violet sky. But that's just the way things go, I guess, when your sister gets possessed by a sort of un-dead alien demon and you have to track her down

I reached the top of the stairs and caught sight of movement behind a door that was hanging off its hinges and swinging slightly in the winds from outside. Looking back, maybe i should have checked behind me before heading straight towards it. I then would've seen the thick dark mist almost pouring up the stairs behind me, but no, I ignored all shreds of common sense and started running up the remaining steps and crashed through the door, sword drawn and humming with energy. But I froze

The front of the house had just looked derelict. As if it had just been broken into a few times in the years since the unfortunate Mr Lennon had come across wraiths and, not realizing what it was, had tried to take it on with his walking stick. But at the back of the house, it was almost a different world. One whole wall was missing. Instead, there was what looked like a giant mouth. Toothless but with jagged edges that could pierce the sky, and right in front of it:

Carmen.

I didn't know what to do. In all my training, I had never encountered, nor heard of a giant mouth into another world, and you'd think that that would be pretty well documented. But no, and in the absence of an idea, I stayed still just long enough for the 'mist' that had been following me up the stairs to solidify right behind me and push its tendrils into and around my spine, lifting me off the ground, helpless as the darkness closed in around my eyes.

All I could do was scream her name.