A Nameless Dark

Chapter 3

There was no warning tremor. No slow quaking shift of the Earth's crust beneath the farmland soil. One moment I stood with my boots planted in the cold Ohio dirt, the next I felt the ground tremble as it cracked in two along the trench created by Trent's fall. The ground at my feet split apart with a single violent motion as red hot liquid magma shot up from the earth, consuming Trent's body in an instant and surging toward the night sky in a blast of heat and fire.

My brother's quick action saved my life.

Samuel's hand latched onto the back of my sweatshirt and yanked me backward just as the rushing lava punched through the air where my head had been. The air around us was super-heated into steam, throwing Samuel and me backward away from the stream of molten rock and scalding our skin as we fell.

We landed in a heap of thrashing limbs and singed extremities. I scrambled backward on panicked hands and feet, watching in terrified fascination as the eruption of molten lava rocketed into the sky. I expected it to reach the peak of its ascent and then fall back to earth, but it just kept shooting upward — higher and higher — pouring from the earth in an endless, angry river of liquid stone. Samuel and I climbed to our feet and stood dumbfounded as the seething column of crimson magma rose into the frigid air until it met the clouds and began to spread across the sky in all directions. The clouds began to boil, surging like an angry sea as a sickly red-orange stain spread from the pillar of rushing magma and claimed more and more of the overcast sky. As I turned to meet Samuel's eyes, a slow rain of black ash began to fall, coating our clothes and skin in dingy soot. Heat flared along my flesh where the falling ash touched me, like tongues of living fire slithering over my skin. I saw my own fear and uncertainty mirrored in my brother's eyes.

We ran for our lives.

My heart hammered in my chest, pumping fear along with blood into my limbs. My senses were on overload, fighting hard against the impossible sensations they were being fed. Clearly this could not be happening. This was not how the world worked. Volcanic eruptions didn't happen in rural Ohio, and lava couldn't defy gravity, surging into the atmosphere to paint the sky in hellish shades of red and black. But it was happening, and so I poured every ounce of speed I possessed into my flailing limbs. I felt as though I'd slipped into a dream where some nameless terror chased me and my legs wouldn't move fast enough, made sluggish and heavy by some invisible weight. Visions of my mother and father flashed through my mind, both young and strong as they smiled down at me. I bit my tongue to keep myself from crying out to them, lowering my head and running harder.

The broken ground of the field was made even more treacherous by the tremors rumbling through the earth. Samuel and I both stumbled and fell more than once, each time stopping to drag the other to his feet again and continue our panicked flight. Once I hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs. I spent long seconds in the trembling dirt, gagging and choking on the ash filled air. Samuel finally hauled me upright as the world around us descended further into madness. The sound of the eruption was an endless deafening roar and the acrid stench of sulphur mingled with the pungent scent of overturned soil. Volcanic ash rained down in a thick sheet of smoldering soot, turning our reality into a spectral world of black and gray. High above our heads, just barely visible through the falling ash, that otherworldly crimson glow continued to crawl its way toward the horizon like the unstoppable courier of some inevitable doom.

When we reached the edge of the field and found the smoother surface of the bike trail, we picked up speed, running as hard as we could to escape whatever fate had come for us.

I had no idea what was happening, but I knew it would be bad for our family. We were all in danger. I could feel it in my bones like the warning ache of a coming storm, growing stronger and more threatening with each passing moment until my vision blurred and my heart beat as though it would jump from my chest. Only one rational thought crawled its way to the surface of my mind to rise above the panic and fear: We had to get home and warn Lara and Uncle Aaron. Whatever was coming, the only way we stood any chance of escaping it was together. Our family was gifted with a terrible strength and power, each of us possessing an equal share. Alone, we were formidable, but my father had always taught us that, together, we were unstoppable. Samuel and I needed to get home so we could face the consequences that my actions had brought down on our family together.