Vampire Storm (Volume 1 : The Hurricane Journals)

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  Reggio climbed up out of the waist deep water that now filled the swamp after being carried back to the tree shelter by the Strength. He was halfway up the rope ladder with the Speed and Strength following up right behind him. He crawled into a room full of dirty looks and tried to ignore them as he helped the Speed pull the Strength up through the hole. He tried not to look at anyone as he stood up, even though he could still feel their glares upon him. But he could not help but notice the one happy face in the room. It was that witch, the young one that convinced him to go out after Jane in the first place, the same one that seemed to have been watching him ever since his arrival. But as soon as she realized that there was no one else coming up that ladder, Reggio watched as her smile slowly faded.

  “I’m sorry.” She mouthed to him from across the room.

  He didn’t want to hear it, though. He had failed and he knew it. He just turned his head away and sat right back down in the center of the room, with his back to the tree, right where he was before he left. The storm was growing worse outside with each passing second, seeming to push the tree around and bend it with its ever mightier gusts of wind. And to make matters worse, he could not get the thoughts of Jane out of his head. He knew she had been lost, but hoped that somehow she could have survived that collapse, if she even survived the attacking witches, that is.

  The more he thought about it, though, the more he seemed to understand what she had done. He knew that she was ready to die to protect him. He just couldn’t figure out why. What made him so important? He had no clue. All he did know was that her words would echo within his mind until the day he drew his last breath. And just as she seemed to remember him from some long distant past, so would he always remember her.

  The storm outside, however, let him know that this night was far from over. But then, without warning, he felt the clutches of the wind suddenly release of the tree they were hiding within. And the next thing he felt was the pull of the moon from above, something that the clouds had been interrupting his connection with all night.

  The sound of the rain pounding on the structure ceased almost instantly, prompting him to stand up and look around curiously, along with several others. He saw a few witches run over to one of the walls and open up a small hole to peer out of. He glanced through it as well to see that the rain had stopped, the clouds had gone, and the moon was now hanging full up in the almost clear night sky, almost as if the storm was never there. He shook his head just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, and was having trouble believing that such a violent storm could actually end so abruptly. But there were others in that tree that had no such trouble declaring it all to be over, for everything to be safe once more.

  “It is over! The storm has passed at last!” One of the witches exclaimed as he backed away from the window.

  But just before the entire room burst into cheers, the lead warlock, Sanfrond, stood up to stop them.

  “I would not be so sure just yet.” He said, trying to stop the premature celebration. And just as he spoke, something else reinforced his statement.

  Reggio felt the tree pull suddenly and violently in the opposite direction than it had been, and heard the rain start to pound on the shelter once again. Everyone began to scramble, all at once, with many that had stood up getting knocked over by the sudden sway of the tree. The storm had returned all at once, in full force, this time with even more strength than it had before, and Reggio noticed that the wind had, for some reason, shifted directions entirely. It was now blowing in the complete opposite direction than it had before the storm had stopped. He did not understand why it had happened, but he did realize, rather quickly actually, that the wind would now be blowing the river towards them.

  He had seen earlier what it looked like on the opposite bank and could only imagine what it would do to the settlement and the church where Jade was. But after a few moments, it was clear that he would not be able to worry about anything that was happening elsewhere. The wind was now blowing all throughout the shelter he was in, entering through the hole that the witches had opened moments earlier.

  “Everyone needs to remain seated and stay draking calm!” Sanfrond yelled out to everyone as he too sat down against one of the smaller tree limbs. “Many of us have waited through storms like this before, only never this one. She has proven to be one of the strongest we have ever witnessed, but we must wait her out no differently than all the others.”

  “That’s fine… but we need to close that hole!” Reggio shouted as he stood back up, against the warlock’s orders.

  “No! I said that everyone must remain seated!” Sanfrond ordered the vampire. “We cannot have you doing anything else that puts us all in danger!”

  “But that hole is putting us all in danger right now!” Reggio argued. “This storm will tear this place apart, starting with its weakest point! And that wall is…”

  “Enough… be silent!” Sanfrond demanded. “Do not argue with my orders, Arken! Now sit back down and stay quiet!”

  Reggio was glaring at him as he turned back around and sat down, but it did not take long for his point to be proven.

  Suddenly the wall buckled and one of the witches stood up abruptly. “Oh!” She shouted. “I can feel the wind coming in from the floor!”

  “What?!” Sanfrond groaned curiously as he stood up and went over to investigate.

  “Right now, everyone needs to get away from that wall!” Reggio said after only a quick glance at the wall behind the witch. The peek-hole was right above her.

  “Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?!” Sanfrond shouted as he pointed a finger at Reggio. “You need to stay out of this before you get us all killed!”

  “Can’t you see that I am only trying to help?! You need to get everyone away from that wall… now!” Reggio tried to reason with him.

  A few witches did heed his advice, stepping away from the wall as Sanfrond went over to investigate, but most did exactly as the warlock ordered and remained where they were. The young witch was against that wall, and she looked over at Reggio to ask him, “What in fury is going on?”

  “You need to take my hand.” He told her, extending his arm to reach out for her, not prepared to lose another familiar face so soon.

  The Speed and Strength took a moment, seeming to examine the situation, but eventually stood up from the wall, trying to figure out what the vampire was doing.

  “Now, damn it!” Reggio told the young witch, now ordering her.

  She looked at him oddly, her eyebrows raised, possibly wondering if she could truly trust him, before finally heeding his advice and taking his hand. And just as her fingertips latched around his, his grip tightening around hers, the wall behind her began to break open.

  One pop, then another, and another, followed by a loud snap, and then, just as Reggio pulled the young witch into his arms, the wall was completely ripped out from behind her and everyone against it was sucked out violently into the storm, their screams blotted out by the raging wind.

  Those pops were the sound of a strip of the wall being snapped open, from the hole down to the floor. More witches did try to get away from that wall, but none before it was too late. After that strip was opened up, everything started happening too fast.

  With the wind now gushing in and swirling furiously around the room, the wall was almost instantly ripped open at the floor, being torn straight up in one violent motion and thrown out into the sky, taking all those witches and a large chunk of the floor with it.

  The young witch was lost for words as her eyes became frozen on the carnage behind her, her eyes left wide and streaked with horror, watching so many familiar faces… Jasika, Tegan, Renlo, Vinson, Parlo… plunging down to the flooded swamp below, all while Reggio was pulling her out of the suction and over to the opposite wall. The roof was already being ripped apart above them, with wood from the shelter along with the branches of the tree, all snapping and flying around them. And at the same time, the floor was bein
g torn out from beneath their feet, seemingly chomped away, one inch at a time.

  Each gust of wind was like a fist knocking away another piece of the shelter, and tearing away at its insides. The panic was suffocating, but Reggio tried to remain calm as, suddenly, an entire wall beside them was stripped out and then torn away. Another dozen witches were thrown out into the howling storm. Their muted out screams sent chills through everyone’s skin as there was nothing anyone could do to help. Each one could only think about their own survival as they each knew that it was only a matter of time before it was their turn to tumble out into that storm. None of them was sure what to do. But Reggio refused to sit around quietly any longer.

  He began acting on instinct alone, keeping his thoughts clear of any pessimism in the face of such an immense danger. He calmly brought the young witch over to one of the thicker tree limbs.

  “You need to hold onto this until this storm is over!” He yelled out to her over the shrieking wind. “This structure is not going to stay together much longer, but this tree is not going to fall!”

  Reggio then tried to gather all the remaining witches together to do the same. “I need all of you to grab onto this tree and hold on for all your lives! This storm is going to rip this place apart! And this tree could be all that separates you from…”

  Before he could even finish his sentence, the other wall beside them was ripped sideways and smashed against one of the outer tree limbs. Luckily, though, no one was near it any longer.

  But Reggio had to ignore the chaos. “Quickly! Everyone,” he yelled out, his eyes filled with purpose. But it was simply too late.

  Before everyone was able to grab onto a tree limb, the back wall was ripped away and the floor beneath them torn out, dropping the Speed, the Strength and about two dozen more witches down into the surging floodwaters of the swamp below.

  Reggio, though, managed to latch onto the largest branch, right next to the young witch, just in time. But as the floor slid out from under them, a nearby witch lost her grip on the tree, and the floor tried to drag her down. Her yelp of horror, however, was cut short as Reggio reached out with one arm and latched onto her ankle.

  The young witch looked up at him as she dangled upside-down in the air, her golden orange hair blowing in the wind. “Please, don’t let go!” She cried out as Reggio made easy the task of pulling her back up to the tree limb.

  “Don’t worry about me. You’re the one that needs to hold on.” He told her, letting her reach out and grab hold of the tree.

  As she hugged it tightly, Reggio looked out into the storm, through the trees, and realized he could see the river beyond the swamp, its water tumbling onto the land like a nightmare invading a dream, rushing to meet the water of the lake. He knew those witches down there did not have much time. He needed to act quickly if they were to survive.

  “You all need to stay up here and hold on for everything your life is worth!” Reggio yelled out to those that were clinging to the tree. “Do not allow the grip of your fingers to loosen lest death is the future you seek!”

  “What about you?!” The young witch asked him, her nerves frayed. “You speak as if you are not staying with us!”

  “That is because I am not!” He yelled back to her as he looked deeper into her eyes, the wind throwing rain at them, stinging their faces to break their gaze.

  “You can’t go down there! You’ll get yourself killed!” The young witch warned him, a strange pain streaked across her face.

  “I’m sorry but… I don’t think I have any more time to waste! I have to go!” And with those words, and not a second thought, Reggio leapt off of the tree and back flipped gracefully through the air, diving down through the rain like an elegantly descending droplet, his arms arcing out to point below him as he splashed down into the floodwaters below, cutting into the depths of the flooded swamp.

  He broke in through the water with a splash, his momentum quickly plummeting him towards the bottom, head first. His ears were ringing as he flipped himself over beneath the water and kicked off the swamp floor, the same swamp floor he had been running across all day long, to bounce himself back up to the surface.

  The water was much deeper than before, and beneath it, the rain sounded like the muffled gun fire that would fill that same swamp one hundred years later. The sound filled his ears, becoming all he could hear. But he emerged above the water to hear a much different sound, the sound of tormented and desperate screams, echoing all throughout the swamp, being carried by the turbulent wind. They were coming from all over, from every direction at once. The wind and rain hid them well, making it difficult to pinpoint each one as they dragged the screams all around him. The sheer number of them, though, made it seem that it did not matter which direction he went. He figured the current was pulling him in the same direction it had everyone else, so the vampire just decided to just swim with it until he spotted someone to help.

  Before long, he began to see movement coming from everywhere, all at once, making it even harder to find anyone. The waves were splashing against the trees and small animals were swimming and climbing and scurrying for their lives, all over the place. The wind driven rain blinded him, each droplet like a millimeter sized knife slashing at his eyes, and thousands of them were falling at once. The current he was caught within moved up and down in large waves as it pushed itself further into the swamp, trying to drag Reggio along with it.

  It was pure chaos.

  For awhile, Reggio seemed to be just as helpless as everyone else, finding himself lost within the fierce current. But along his way, hiding within all of the madness, he could still feel eyes upon him, watching him from every tree he passed by. He could see them in the darkness, glaring at him in defiance, completely unwilling to do anything to help at all. He figured that it must have been the native witches, and he was right. He had sensed their disdain for the other witches since the first time he met them, and did not expect to receive their aid. He was beginning to feel lost, though, able to hear the screams but not being able to find anyone. Then, just up ahead of him, he spotted the Speed and the Strength.

  The Speed was having trouble trying to keep the Strength afloat, so Reggio swam over to help them. Once he made it over to them, he realized the Speed’s problem. It was hard enough trying to swim alone in the current, but to actually drag someone else against it seemed almost impossible. But Reggio and the Speed managed. They eventually pulled the Strength over to a nearby tree that was standing out of the water. But just as they got there Reggio heard a scream from nearby. Just beyond that tree, he saw another witch flash passed his line of vision, young and being dragged helplessly by the current.

  Reggio raced over to her, moving around another tree and grabbing hold of her. Then, with her in his arms, he swam her over to the tree where the Speed and Strength were and told them to hold onto her. Before he swam right back out into the flood as something else caught his attention. At first he just heard it, loud cries that rang out above the wind, but then he saw it, a small child, an infant, floating by on a piece of shattered wood. He quickly snatched it up out of the current and swam back to the tree, holding the small infant above the waves, and then handed over her off to the witch he had just saved. She took it without asking any questions, and Reggio was gone again.

  He now seemed to be much closer to all the screams he had been hearing and began to chase after them. At the end of each scream he found a helpless witch struggling in the water and helped them over to the nearest tree. The looks upon each of their faces were those of pure fear as he picked each one of them out of the water, a look that the vampire was accustomed to seeing but not used to helping.

  It was a look that accompanied death, usually preceding its imminence.

  None of them had ever witnessed anything like this before, and most of them probably thought they were going to die. But Reggio, not by duty or design, when normally such a scenario would serve as nothing more than a blood-lust buffet for a creature such as
himself, was not going to allow that to happen.

  As he found himself deeper in the swamp, he found more and more witches, both male and female, but all having trouble in the water. And as he brought witch after witch to safety, he began to notice faces that were not in his shelter. He knew then that he must have been picking up witches from other shelters, as well. And with that, he realized that the native witch’s fears must have become reality, and more than just his hut must have collapsed. And that too may have been a reason why all the native witches were all just watching from the trees, not even attempting to help.

  Reggio didn’t care, though. Maybe he should have felt anger towards them for just standing by and watching, but he understood how they felt manipulated by Jade. He figured that maybe they were just in their actions, or lack thereof. But he was no one to judge anything around there. He just remained focused on the task he had at hand and continued to overcompensate for the emptiness that filled him in the wake of Jane’s loss.

  The waves exploded against trees all around him, even sending some of them toppling down into the water, something he did not expect. The wind was continually gathering up waves from the river and ramming them into the swamp with great force. He thought the water was actually going to help keep the trees standing, and his worry began to stretch back to all the trees he left the rescued witches in. They would be battered until this was over. But what else was he supposed to do, he thought, and then had to force it from his mind as he was now finding it harder to navigate with the wind seeming to grow stronger by the second, pushing him further out into the swamp. He found it simply amazing that this water he fought to swim through was covering the dry ground of the swamp that he’d grown accustomed to walking through only hours before. He had watched it happening, worsening throughout the entire day. And now the entire swamp was a battlefield, the frantic and fearful living against the fury of Mother Nature, leaving all within it to fight for their next breath.

  With his thoughts wandering, he had passed up the screams of another witch. As soon as he realized it, he spun himself around to see a warlock caught in the same current as him, just behind him. The current was pulling them towards a patch of five trees, all close together. Reggio tried to swim over to the warlock in time to change his course, but did not succeed in doing so. Before he knew it, they were in the trees, both slipping past the first two. But after that, Reggio had to hold out his legs to delicately stop himself from slamming into the third tree behind them.

  As he tangled himself within its hanging branches to stop himself from hitting that tree, he watched the warlock smash into the one right beside him. There was a loud crack upon the impact, either from the wood or the warlock’s crunching bones, and the current kept him pinned up against its bark. Reggio reached over across the current and tried to pull the warlock loose, but his body was limp and lifeless, his bones smashed to pieces, probably killing him upon impact.

  Reggio could only shake his head in regret and swim away, instantly disgusted with his effort. “No one else can die!” He growled to himself behind grinding teeth, then got yanked out of the flood by his hair.

  “And no one else will, Arken, not after we send you to meet your little witch friend in the draking afterlife!” A young but powerful warlock was yelling into his face, with spit flying from his lips to land upon the vampire’s cheek.

  “Yeah,” a second warlock snickered from beside the first, “To the draking afterlife, Arken!”

  They were easily balanced atop the thick branches of a giant tree, with Reggio’s feet dangling just above the flowing flood below. He had no clue what was happening, or why it was happening, but his instinctual nature to survive began to overtake his actions.

  As the warlock held him by his hair with one hand, the other began to glow. The action caused his memories to flash back to a few hours before, when Jane’s hand had done the same thing. He remembered what that glow did to that warlock back in the underground chambers, and knew he didn’t want to be on the other end of it. So, just as a thin blast of Terra was loosed from that warlock’s palm, the vampire’s hand swung around to knock his arm to the side, sending that released energy straight into the face of the second warlock!

  After a quick yelp, that warlock was swiftly dropped into the floodwaters below. Then, still being held up by his hair, the vampire used the warlock’s arm to swing himself forward, driving both of his feet into the chest of the warlock, knocking him back into a thick patch of branches.

  After using those branches to keep himself from falling, the warlock quickly began to climb back up, and Reggio was more than ready to face him, but found himself getting grabbed from behind by a third warlock. Pulling his head back by his hair, the warlock bent him backwards as he wrapped his right arm around his neck. “Haaaaha! And look at this…” The new warlock howled, “You ain’t even met me yet!”

  Reggio growled as the back of his neck was promptly driven into the branch they were balanced upon, snapping it in half!

  As he fell through the air, his thoughts flashed back to the moment of his arrival… to that third man upon the river’s crescent, as he finally turned around to see the face of this monster, this beast that was ripping into the flesh of his comrades.

  It looked human, but there was something vicious, something cold about the figure, that separated him from them.

  There was nothing human about this unknown figure, nothing at all.

  “What the hell is this!!!?” The mortal yelled out, stumbling back over the naked woman they’d raped to fall on his own ass.

  That old man’s eyes then turned upward to meet those of the killer, who, with blood running down his chin and staining his chest, sent a cold chill straight up the man’s spine with his mere glance. He stunk of fear as the blood stained figure bent down towards him and growled in a low and painful voice from behind the black hair that hung like vines to shroud his face, “I guess you must not have met me yet.”

  Reggio then flashed to the present as he latched onto a low branch and avoided tumbling back into the flood, swiftly setting his eyes on the two warlocks as they climbed further up the tree, and rushed to catch them.

  Bouncing from branch to branch, the vampire found the foot of that first warlock rather quickly, and pulled him down to face him. “You should have remained on your back while you still had the draking chance!” He growled at Reggio as he threw out his energy charged fist.

  The vampire calmly ducked beneath it, and then rose up to dig four of his fingers straight into the warlock’s throat, commenting as he did, “As you shall remain on your back forever more.”

  “Damn you!” The third warlock screamed out above the howls of the wind, as Reggio pulled his hand out of the warlock’s throat and allowed him to collapse into the flood. “You Arken draking scum! For that, you shall perish slowly!”

  That third warlock then lunged downwards, snapping off a tree branch and sharpening it with his Terra on the way down. Reggio then decided to meet him halfway, and he leaped up towards him.

  In the air, as memories of Jane flashed through the vampire’s mind, he grabbed the wrist of the warlock and snapped it around.

  The sharpened wood was then facing the chest of the warlock as they began their descent into the flood, and just before they splashed into the raging water, Reggio drove that sharpened wood straight through the warlock’s heart!

  After the splash, only the vampire broke back above the surface, and he began yelling out, “I am the true fucking storm, here! And I demand that not another life be taken! The scum in these trees wish nothing more than your deaths! So lead me to you, witches! Allow your screams to guide my arms, and I shall save you from them! If anyone can hear me, I can help you!” And his screams did not go unanswered.

  “Over here!” Reggio heard someone yell from a short distance away.

  While he swam through the flood to find where the voice was coming from, he spotted someone else in the water, a female, maybe fifty yards away, ba
rely visible through the torrential downpour of rain. At first he thought that was who was yelling for help, but upon watching her further, he noticed that she seemed to be rescuing witches as well. He watched as she placed someone in a tree and left for another. It made him feel better knowing that he was not alone out there, that someone else was helping, as well, whoever she was. But still Reggio could not find the voice that yelled out for assistance.

  “Right here, you frening fool… are you blind?!” Reggio heard the voice again, this time much clearer.

  He looked around for a moment, still not able to find the source of the voice, but that was only until he realized he was looking in the wrong place. He had been searching the water, but the voice was coming from a warlock who was already up in a tree and out of the flood.

  “You are as safe as you can be up there! You need to stay where you are!” Reggio yelled back to the warlock as he approached him.

  “No, that is frening apeshit! Whoever you are, you and Heather are doing this on purpose! I just know it! Now bring me to safety! I demand it!” The warlock yelled back at him.

  “I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do for you! You have wasted enough of my time already! You should be grateful you are not dead!” Reggio then began swimming away.

  But the warlock continued to complain as the vampire left him. “Do you know who I am?! I am Wulmuk of the clan Feinling, and you will not ignore me!!”

  Reggio did just that, though, but just as he left earshot he heard his name being called out. He spun around and swam against the current, searching for whoever had called him by name. Then he saw a witch jump off of a tree and swim towards him.

  “Reggio!” The witch called out again.

  He began swimming towards her, telling her to get back in the tree as visions of Jane flooded his mind from out of nowhere. But by the time she turned around, the water had dragged her under. Reggio’s eyes then widened in torment as he swam over to where she was and dove under.

  Luckily, though, he found her struggling just beneath the surface and dragged her back up above it.

  The witch gasped for air as he was left staring at her mournfully. Then, after snapping out of his regretful trance, he realized that she looked familiar. He knew who she was. He was introduced to her upon his arrival, by Jane. Her name was Chelsia.

  “Where is Jane?!” She asked him frantically before she could even catch her breath. “Please tell me you’ve seen her! Please tell me she left the chambers!”

  Her words forced Reggio’s thoughts right back to the moment he left her, something he had just forced out of his mind.

  He shook his head, “I can’t… not now.”

  His voice was rugged from yelling all night, and he set her back in the tree after telling her to stay there. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Jane and how he failed to save her. But as he turned away from Chelsia, a loud rumbling sound began to vibrate the air. He looked through the sheets of rain to see what it was and caught sight of a huge wave, nearly as tall as the trees, towering just beside him.

  Reggio froze up for a moment as the outside force of the wave pushed him away. But then movement in its blotted out shadow caught his attention. As he looked closer, he saw the witch he’d spotted just a short while before, and she was pulling another half drowned witch out of the water.

  Her back was to the massive wave as it was tumbled down upon her, and she seemed to have no idea what was coming. Then, without even thinking, being guided by some instinctual system that he didn’t even understand, the vampire was off to save her.

  “Hey! You need to move!” Reggio began yelling as he swam furiously towards the unknown witch.

  “No, Reggio! You won’t be able to help! You’ll get yourself killed!” Chelsia warned him from her perch in the tree behind him, but Reggio paid no attention to her and kept on swimming, his arms and legs churning furiously within the waves.

  Before long he was swimming with the same force as the wave, traveling right alongside it as it knocked over trees beside him. And without thinking, without even trying, Reggio managed to pass the wave up. He was swimming faster than the wind could push it, all to reach a witch he never even knew before it did. The witch saw his movement and spun around, and that was when she caught sight of the wave behind him.

  “Get out of the way!” Reggio and the witch both yelled out to each other at the same time, just as the wave toppled a tree right alongside them.

  The wave was basically on top of them at that point, its mass blocking out the falling rain. There was literally no time to act as it crashed into another tree just in front of them, dragging it down with it. But Reggio, in the blink of an eye, as the tree fell down towards them, reached out and grabbed both the witch and the one she’d pulled out the water to toss them through the air with as much force as he could muster, throwing them some forty feet away, far enough for them to avoid the impact of the wave as they splashed safely into the water beyond it.

  But Reggio, on the other hand, all he saw after that was blackness. Just as the tree smashed down onto him, the wave swallowed him whole.

  His body then sank lifelessly to the depths of the swamp, back to the dirt he’d spent the entire day trudging through, down to the trail he traveled too many times to remember, too many times to care, completely unconscious, with floodwater filling his lungs, until, just before he hit the swamp floor, the witch he’d saved from the wave, the same that was hiding in the swamp upon his arrival, Heather, swam down to return the favor, and pulled him up to safety.

  Meanwhile, as I was forced to open my own eyes back up after leaving the perspective of the vampire, due to him just getting himself killed, something caught my attention. I had myself positioned precariously atop a tree at the time, not too far away from where they were both beneath the water. But as I focused in on that area, waiting for Heather to surface, the almost glowing figure of a witch seemed to just appear within my line of sight. It would turn out to be the first of several sightings, each nearly identical, but none quite as mesmerizing.

  After staring at that very same spot only seconds before, this luminescent witch seemed to literally appear out of thin air, right before my eyes. Just above the rolling waves, feet not flat but almost hovering above them, the all too solid yet somehow faint figure of a witch stood atop the water.

  Her back was towards me, face unable to be seen, with hair black as the angered sky above, stretching down between her shoulder blades to her waist, seemingly unaffected by the swirling wind as it hung perfectly still within the chaos. She wore a long, silk white dress that shined brightly in the darkness, yet was somehow transparent. And it wasn’t transparent to the point that I could see through to her skin, no. It was more like I could see straight through to the water beyond her, and before I could even question what it was I was looking at, just as abruptly as this glowing yet hardly visible witch had appeared, with the blink of my eyes, she was gone.

  It all happened in the span of only a few seconds, and it left me dumbfounded, unable to explain what I’d just seen. It was something that I had no comparison for, something I’d never experienced before, not in all my years of life. It was almost like seeing a ghost, not that I believe such things to exist. But if I did… I think that’s the closest I’ve ever been.

  Nevertheless, I had no time to question it – I’m lucky I even acknowledged it – because there were much more pressing matters at hand, and I was anxious to see what it all led up to.