Rose Red - DISCONTINUED

Oops it's been a while

Alright so idek if anyone's gonna be reading this, considering it's been years since I wrote this story. But I figured that instead of leaving you with a story I'll never finish, I could tell you guys how it was gonna end :D That way you get some closure, and I'll be able to share the story w/ some people

Sorry if you're expecting an update, this is just an elongated author's note where I tell you where I was gonna go with the story.

Quick recap

So, the vague gist of the story is that there's this leviathan called Zenir who's looking for a Blade because he wants to kill the ruler of the Shadow Realm and take the throne for himself. In the process, he possessed Jamie, and now Lysander's chasing after Zenir. Arisma wants to kill Zenir because with him at the throne all hell would break loose, so the gang went to the Shadow Realm to look for a leviathan's blood, which is needed to kill a leviathan. In the Shadow Realm they get chased by wolves, at first an elf helps Harley dispatch them but later on the whole pack finds them. So Chapter sixteen ends with the gang hopping into a portal to avoid the wolves, and Harley being a self-sacrificing idiot by staying behind so that her friends live.

Here's the last paragraph for a refresher:

I reached into my pocket for the whistle the elf had given to me, and blew it as hard as I could. It was high-pitched, like a dog whistle, and the wolves faltered at it. For a moment I thought they'd stop chasing me, but I was wrong; they lunged at me, causing me to fall over and hit my head against a rock on the floor. As my vision darkened, and my consciousness slipped, I heard a pair of horse footsteps, and then I blacked out.

Rest of the storyline

Alright, so I was gonna introduce the Headless Horseman (a figure in folklore) would save Harley from the wolves (hence the horse footsteps that she heard as she passed out). When the crew comes to save Harley from the Dark Woods, the Headless Horseman lets them know where they can find Zenir. Following his instructions, they head out of the Dark Woods and eventually run into Lysander.

Lysander tells them that Zenir figured out that the book Arisma gave him was a fake, and he was recruiting mercenaries to kill her and the people she's with. They head back into the Human Realm, and since time works differently across the realms, it's been two days since they went into the Shadow Realm.

Alex is freaking out because his sister vanished for a few days without a trace, so she's forced to tell him everything that's going on. I was going to add a subplot where Dani and Alex's family is actually related to a lineage of wolves, and when they turn 18 (which would be soon) they start showing signs of turning into wolves as the full moon nears. Fun fact: it wasn't a bear who attacked their mom, it was a werewolf from an opposing pack.

Anyways, at some point the mercs that Zenir hired try to assassinate Arisma and Dani, but lucky they fail. When Harley hears about that she decides to stay over with Dani for a bit bcs she's worried about her. Do they develop feelings for each other? Perhaps. At first I intended for Alex and Harley to be a couple, but they haven't spoken as much as Dani and Harley.

Arisma also leaves the body of Dani's mom because she realises that if she stays with Dani innocent people are gonna get hurt, and so she finds another body to possess (this time it being someone who was about to die alone, so no one would remember them anyways (that was dark oof))

Eventually they find Zenir, attack him, they manage to injure him severely but he gets away, Quentin's fatally wounded but Arisma saves his life (what a champ).

I hadn't really planned much after this, oops.

But eventually they do manage to exorcise Zenir from Jamie's body, and then kill Zenir. Jamie takes a few days to recover, turns out he remembers everything and probably needs therapy from attacking his family and being unable to do anything about it.

There's an epilogue where we see the characters living their lives, and then it ends.

I wrote this story when I was like, 14. So there are plenty of plot holes which I'd resolve if I'd ever rewrite this story. Which is, highly unlikely lmao.

Anyways, that's it! If you're got any questions or anything that you want to know more about, feel free to send me a message. I wrote this all in one sitting without looking through it, so there are probably some errors, oops.

Have a wonderful day!

~ Avery