Hey guys. So this is my first story so there are probably going to be a couple stylistic improvements that could be made as well as the usual spelling/grammar that I might have overlooked.

Before I forget, the Mortal Instruments belong to Cassandra Clare. Happy reading :)


Prologue: The Solitude

He awoke screaming into the dark. Drenched in cold sweat yet again. He struggled to sit up and flailed blindly against the restraining bonds abruptly around him.

Amid the sudden stress his heart began to strain, beating wildly like a bird trapped in a cage, and he could feel his breathing speeding up. There would be no escape for him. That he knew. The restraints were too strong, made to withstand even the most desperate struggles. Then without warning, they were gone. Just like that. How I wish I could do the same for my thoughts.

Releasing himself from the arms of the now tangled jacket thrown hastily over himself, he ran a hand through his rumpled hair, once shining gold, now a tarnished matted bronze.

He grimaced slightly as he stretched. The hard ground had not been kind to him and there was a chill in the air. Still, there was nothing but to go on. So he did. He didn't look back.

In the dimness of a half-awakened world, he picked his way through the debris left behind from people long gone, the people who had left him for dead. His eyes clouded over for a second as the memories threatened to spill over, but he squeezed his eyes tightly together and when they reopened, the amber irises were clear once more.

Something glimmered among the wreckage at his feet out of the corner of his eye and he paused. A jagged shard of a shattered mirror lay half buried in the dust, a haunting reminder of something once beautiful. Its fragmented surface reflected a kaleidoscope of sunken eyes staring at him and he looked away quickly, not wanting to see the torturous hurt that screamed out from the hollowed depths. He wasn't sure he'd recognized himself.


The dawn came, guiding the delicate rays of sunlight that inched almost painfully through the dusty air, but he barely looked up from the rhythm of his blistered bare feet, lapsing into indifference as he walked. Uncaring. Unfeeling. There was nothing that the dawn brought to look forward to; nothing that he cared about, anyway.

Indifference. It was so much more effortless to sink into than to grapple with the invisible emotions that tormented him from the inside. The night wasn't much better either. He could hear the wind howling across the blank canvas around him as the temperature dropped. Nothing to be found but destruction and desolation.

He kept going until he could no longer tell which way was up and which way was down. Walking away from the toxic thoughts that clung to him like oil on a bird's feathers. Weighing him down. Suffocating him in a sea of poison that no one could see. Only the mantra that he chanted soundlessly kept him barely sane.

My name is Jace Lightwood.
I am 17 years old.
I am a Shadowhunter.
I am a survivor.

Then exhaustion washed over him and extinguished the world, plunging him into the welcome abyss of oblivion.


Let me know what you think. Did it flow well? Clarity? How easy was it to read? Were you intrigued? Did you get bored halfway through? Pace – too fast/too slow? Length - too short/too long?

It will (hopefully) relate more to Jace as a character as the story progresses. Leave a review!

- midnightintheashes