A Kingdom of Bones

XIV | fourteen

The air around me is frigid, and something stirs in the bushes to my side. Fear pulls at my heart, making it beat frantically against my chest. It's loud, so loud I think the thing watching me can hear it. My skin crawls and my breath fans around me in a cloud. I can't feel the cold, only the thing's eyes on my skin, boring into me like a parasite. Something crunches to my left.

I run.

The wind howls in my ears, but even through it, I can hear the thundering of my heart and the cracking of twigs and hissing behind me. It's giving chase. And it's winning.

A scream pulls at my throat, but I know it won't help. The smell is rancid and seemingly all around me, but nothing hits me as hard as the stiff, primal fear that settles deep into my bones. It keeps me on my feet and running despite my muscles and lungs screaming for me to stop. Something runs alongside me, and I know the thing has caught up.

It's toying with me.

The realization knocks the air from my lungs and I cry out, screaming for my father to help me. But he's gone. Everyone is gone. And soon I will be too.

A deep, terrified scream echos through the forest and suddenly, something slams into me.

"Alycia!" Merilda's voice drags me from my dream and back into reality, and the weight on me eases as I hastily attempt to pick myself up, the panic and fear still carved into me from the dream. Merilda climbs off of my stomach, but she grabs my shoulders and slaps a hand over my mouth at the same time as a distant scream breaks through the wooden walls of the building. I stiffen, and so does Merilda. She pulls her hand away and stares hard at the door. I follow her gaze, my muscles tense in unease.

"What's going on?" I force out a tight whisper despite the adrenaline coursing through me. I could barely hear my own voice over my heart beating in my ears. For a moment, Merilda doesn't answer, and I start to ask again when she looks at me.

"They're real. I saw them," her voice is flat, but she's breathing hard and her jaw is locked in what I can only imagine is fear. The feeling is contagious, and it crawls through my body at an alarming rate.

"Who's real?" I ask, despite already knowing the answer.

"The Nor," she says and looks back at the door, "We need to go. Judging by the sounds I heard, they're towards the East of the village. I didn't see anyone outside either anymore. We have to leave now, we're wasting time." Merilda stands and grabs my shoes and a robe, shoving them towards me. I hurry and throw them on, my fingers numb from the cold and the panic. What I had seen before in the woods had been the Nor; deep down I knew that for a fact. If I had tried harder to warn West, we could have been prepared for this. I shouldn't have backed down. This could have been prevented.

The torrent of emotions inside me makes my legs shake as I stand. Thankfully, Merilda doesn't seem to notice. She grabs my hand and pulls me towards the door, opening a small crack in it to see outside. I move to peer around her shoulder, darkness engulfing my vision and freezing air hitting my skin through the opening. There is no noise or movement outside, besides the rustling of the tree's leaves in the frigid wind. That is, until someone screams. The sound makes us both jump, but luckily it's distant like before.

"We make a run for it, towards the stables, but we'll go through the woods where we have coverage," Merilda turns to me, her eyes wild and grip on my hand tight. "We grab a horse and we get the bloody Hell out of here."