The Shadows in the Night

Chapter 7

Hearing the scream was music to Adalide's ears, as if a chorus of angels has come down and blessed Adaliade with their sweet music resonating from the girl. She wanted to hear more, she was sure that if the scream was a liquid that she would bathe in it, washing her body in the blessed sound. She closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure, suddenly feeling overcome with the urge to dance she did just that. Gliding around the room in the hold of a waltz occasionally bringing her arms out and waving them as if conducting a classical piece of music every time the pitches of the scream changed. Then as soon as the screams started, to Adalaide they seemed to stop. She glanced over at Ebony who was breathing heavy and looking very pale and weak. Suddenly Adalaide felt something she had not felt in many, many years. Pity. Her heart reached to the girl. As much as she tried to forget her own turning it was something that stayed with her through everything she had been through.

The sky was overcast, the trees of the overgrowing forest cast light shadows around her and she sprinted and vaulted fallen debris that had littered the forest floor. She was the last survivor of a small group of villagers who were going on a regular trip to the neighbouring town when they had been viciously attacked by the enemy of country they were born into. They were slaughtered mercilessly; men were killed in front of the women and children who had decided to go with them, the women were either slain or raped and killed and the children were taken as slaves. She was frozen in place unable to scream, hidden behind a large bush that was on the edge of the track leading through the forest. Adalaide had seen this entire thing happen, she herself had been on her way to town to sell her wares to support her and her aging mother and father and had lagged behind the group because she had tripped over an exposed tree root and dropped her basket of fruit that she was going to sell at the towns market. For Adalaide this was both the luckiest and unluckiest thing that had happened to her in that day.

As she watched the last of the adults slain and the children rounded up, she went to move out her hiding place, when suddenly

SNAP

A large stick broke under her foot, the noise echoing around the forest. A member of the attacking force looked at where she was and spotted her. Instantly he shouted in his mother tongue and Adalaide screamed, bolting out of her cover into the dense forest that surrounded her, she sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her, pounding footsteps of multiple assailants thundering in her ears behind her, she knew that if they found her they would kill her, so she ran, and she vaulted over trees and logs, not minding that she caught her arms and legs on brambles that littered the unmapped forest floor, she swiped branches away from her face, the occasional one catching. She kept running, the trees slowly twisting and becoming darker, older the brambles and weeds getting higher and harder to pass through, until she couldn't push through them anymore. But she could still hear her attackers, slowly getting closer, so ignoring the pain in her hand as the thorns pierce her skin, she pushed and fought her way through the barrier of foliage until finally she pushed through to the other side, falling to her knees at the edge of a huge clearing, she looked back half expecting the soldiers to be right at her heels, but when she looked back she saw the hole she had made in the undergrowth, sluggishly regrow. The thorns methodically wrapping around themselves until the once gaping hole as big as she was, was no longer there. Hidden completely by the roses that flourished from the thorn that protected them.

Adalaide observed the clearing for the first time, noting how old, withered and beautiful everything looked, like a ruin in a beautiful landscape. The old trees, she now noticed were made of a black bark, and carved to look like they had faces on them, old and lined. They were littered haphazardly growing around the clearing forming a large circle, the painfully beautiful rose bushes rose high in the air and wrapping themselves around each tree, creating the barrier around the clearing. Adalaide noted that if she looked hard enough, she could have sworn they were moving. In the centre of the clearing sat a lake. However, this lake was not like any she had ever seen, its water was that of a deep maroon and the sand and grass that surrounded it where black as raven feathers. The whole place had an atmosphere, what kind of atmosphere Adalaide could not put her finger on. The whole place was deathly silent, her rapid breathing and beating heart were the only sounds she could hear as well as the odd rustle of foliage that blew in the soft wind that Adalaide could not feel. Getting to her feet she staggered over to the lake finally starting to feel all the nicks and cuts she had sustained in her escape and, suddenly feeling incredibly thirsty not caring that the water was not that of a normal colour, she dropped down to her knees at the edge of the maroon coloured lake her feet and knees slightly sinking into the black sand and reached out to the water with a cup hand, when without warning the water jumped to her hand, slowly covering each digit. Adalaide gasped and tried to pull her hand away but to no avail, the liquid gradually shifted up her body, enveloping first her hand, then her arm, it climbed up the beach and wrapped around her other hand progressing up her other limbs. She struggled and struggled as the liquid clung to her, she kicked her legs out as best as she could until she felt the solution clamber up her legs, it covered her torso, cold and heavy, she was struggling to breath. It reached her neck, she lifted her head up as far as it would go in hoping that it would not touch her face, it covered her chin, she clamped her lips shut and clenched her teeth together as hard as she could and forced her eyes shut as tightly as possible but it was no use. The cold solution forced itself in her mouth choking her, it tasted fairly like iron. It shoved itself up her nose, it smelt like copper like the smell of a fresh kill. It went in her eyes blinding her and, in her ears, deafening her, she tried to scream but it was useless she couldn't make a sound. She slowly felt herself slip away as she begged why he let this happen to her, she begged him to make the end come quickly and she endured the pain and suffocation she was feeling, she begged god for her to die, she pleaded and wished it to happen. And god granted her wish to come true.  

A/N

Yoooooo im not too sure about parts of this chapter but let me know what you guys think

Pixel