***
Meanwhile, inside the blackened air of Loshendu Forest, Luca’s eyes opened up to total darkness, and he panicked. Stricken with fear, he raised himself up from the ground where he had been laying for some time. He turned to the sky and saw the tops of trees with their branches reaching out, as if they were in some infinite duel against each other.
“Loshendu Forest,” he whispered. How did I get here? It must have been the Umbrador. He turned his head to his left and right but could not see any speck of light around him. He reached to his side and felt his traveler’s bag, which somehow had been miraculously tied to his waist. He reached inside the bag and pulled out what he needed to build a small fire.
Luca labored for a few minutes in complete darkness, huffing and puffing at the flames. And in the silence, one could hear the grinding of sticks. After much strain, a small spark appeared and brought life back into the dead space. Luca blew on the small fire, and it steadily began to grow into something more useful, and now he could see about ten feet on all sides of him. Though, he insisted on seeing more of the space around him, so he kept at it.
The boy knelt in front of the fire once again, trying to breathe life into the flames, when it happened: all the little hairs across his body shot up in full attention. A dire feeling crept up his toes and surfed on the waves of his nervous energy, sparking currents of anxiety swimming through his young veins. Never had he felt the need to discern as much as he needed to that very moment. Nothing could ever have made him feel that way except for something utterly horrible. He was frozen; his thoughts were impotent.
Something had crept up behind him, something he had never come across in his entire life. He saw a shadow sweep up and totally drown out the light given out by the struggling fire. It felt as if the largest living animal had come in for the kill. He sensed the stench of fecal matter all around him rapidly turning into a disarming bouquet of flowering scents.
And the beast breathed down Luca’s neck. Its breaths bullied the fire into submission, and Luca’s heart sunk.
“Turn and look at me, my son,” the Gremleh said.
And Luca’s eyes trembled in horror.
*End of Book I*