CHAPTER THREE
She is running. Thorns scratch her face, and walls of them try to keep her back, but she pushes through, because if They catch her, she will disappear, just like her siblings and her father.
Something sharp nicks her right ear, and she knows she has done something terrible; terrible enough to anger the Dark Ones, but she doesn't know what, doesn't know why the Dark Ones want to claim her so soon.
She reaches a small clearing, but she doesn't belong there. She should go back, back to where she belongs, but They are where she belongs, soiling the sacred ground.
An arrow penetrates her leg, running through the thin fat and muscle and lodging in the bone.
Sick with pain, she dashes through the trees, but the Dark Ones are closer now; her moments of indecision took too many of her precious seconds.
She suddenly skids to a halt; a canyon suddenly appears before her, dark and foreboding.
She has to go back, has to escape the Dark Ones and the canyon, but they surround her.
One big one lashes out with something; a long, thick bar of pain opens on her back, and she howls, while the Dark Ones laugh, and the big Dark One signals to another, lower Dark One, and he brings something to the big Dark One.
Most of Them hold part of it, and They surround her, holding it high above her, while her blood drips into a spreading puddle on the ground.
The other Dark Ones hold the same things the big Dark One had, and they do the same thing he did, until all she feels is pain, and while she howls in anguish, the Dark Ones holding the thing laugh and close in, and when they are almost stepping on her, they drop it.
It hurts even more, and she tries to hurt the Dark Ones, even though she knows she can't, knows her father...her father always told her..always told her that the Dark Ones.are..superior.to them.
She wishes she'd listened, but wishing won't do anything, and the big Dark One, the One that hurt her the first time, hits her on her head, hard. And the world goes black.
She is running. Thorns scratch her face, and walls of them try to keep her back, but she pushes through, because if They catch her, she will disappear, just like her siblings and her father.
Something sharp nicks her right ear, and she knows she has done something terrible; terrible enough to anger the Dark Ones, but she doesn't know what, doesn't know why the Dark Ones want to claim her so soon.
She reaches a small clearing, but she doesn't belong there. She should go back, back to where she belongs, but They are where she belongs, soiling the sacred ground.
An arrow penetrates her leg, running through the thin fat and muscle and lodging in the bone.
Sick with pain, she dashes through the trees, but the Dark Ones are closer now; her moments of indecision took too many of her precious seconds.
She suddenly skids to a halt; a canyon suddenly appears before her, dark and foreboding.
She has to go back, has to escape the Dark Ones and the canyon, but they surround her.
One big one lashes out with something; a long, thick bar of pain opens on her back, and she howls, while the Dark Ones laugh, and the big Dark One signals to another, lower Dark One, and he brings something to the big Dark One.
Most of Them hold part of it, and They surround her, holding it high above her, while her blood drips into a spreading puddle on the ground.
The other Dark Ones hold the same things the big Dark One had, and they do the same thing he did, until all she feels is pain, and while she howls in anguish, the Dark Ones holding the thing laugh and close in, and when they are almost stepping on her, they drop it.
It hurts even more, and she tries to hurt the Dark Ones, even though she knows she can't, knows her father...her father always told her..always told her that the Dark Ones.are..superior.to them.
She wishes she'd listened, but wishing won't do anything, and the big Dark One, the One that hurt her the first time, hits her on her head, hard. And the world goes black.