The Chosen (Contender #1) - SAMPLE OF NOW PUBLISHED BOOK!

Chapter 3

Place: Unknown 

Date: Unknown 

Year: Unknown 

It hung in the air in front of Cade like a glazed sheet of glowing glass. An opaque barrier bisected the chasm, dis- appearing into the red-dust walls on either side and extending up to their summits.

Cade had almost run into it, for it had appeared suddenly in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.

He had been staring at it for the past few minutes, steeling himself to touch its surface. There was no other way out— the creature lay in the other direction.

Cade tried not to ask himself what the barrier was, or who had created it and why. He just needed to get as far away from the injured creature as possible. It could be following him, even now.

He extended a trembling finger and prodded the sheet as if it were a sleeping giant. The barrier was smooth. Smooth and chilly, like wet-slicked ice; as soon as he put pressure on it, his finger slipped to the side. It was strange to the touch, and he pulled his hand away, inspecting his finger for frost- bite. But his fingertip wasn't even cold.

Suddenly, as if it had never been there at all, the barrier was gone.

"What . . . the . . . hell?" Cade said slowly, waving his hand through where the wall had been.

This was too strange. He tried to stay calm, think logically, even as his heart raged in his chest. He had no choice but to follow the path; see where it led.

Cade rounded a shallow bend and saw that the passage widened ahead. He stopped, confused. Rubbed his eyes, looked again.

The chasm ahead of him appeared almost exactly like the area he had started in. The same ledge— the same rocky out-crop opposite.

Had he gone in a circle? But the path he had taken was relatively straight. There was no way this was possible.

Stranger still, the wall above the ledge was caked with dust, and the same kind of rock he'd used as a hand axe was there too, protruding like a black jewel. This was all the same . . . but somehow different. As if the entire area had been sculpted to the same exact design as where he had been before. But how was that even possible?

He heard a bellow. Loud and far off, like a wounded bull. Only — it sounded human.

Cade didn't think. Instead, he hurried in its direction, curs- ing the twisted ankle that sent shooting pains up his leg. The yelling only got more frantic as he neared it, but he didn't care. 

Anything was better than being alone in this desolate hellscape.

Then he saw them. Another monster, crouched in front of a tall kid, his back against another slick barrier like the one Cade had seen before. He wore only his underwear, using his uniform as a matador's cape in one hand, his other in a balled fist.