Before The Fall

by Kae Aleah

The Cromwell family were legends among old Hunters. They were known to be the best at their job, but in the end, they still died while doing it. The line was broken and Alice Cromwell, after the loss of her older brother Aiden, found herself to be the last of this once legendary family. The only thing Alice has going for her now is her deadly skills and a strong sense of survival.

1. Hunted

HUNTED

Twilight took shape and that's when the monsters began to roam around the earth. Beasts in mostly human form, ghosts in search of revenge, and demons in need for a little fun, but on this particular night, a ghost was put to rest by a pair of two unlikely hunters, siblings...brothers...

The empty space was filled with the sound of clicking heels walking into the destroyed home of Constance Welch, also formerly known as the ghostly Women in White. The whole front part of the wall was torn down and the inside was riddled dry-rotted from the broken furniture. A woman completely dressed in black leather set her motorcycle helmet down on a fallen shelf and started to look around. She stepped down but heard glass breaking under her heels from an old picture framing Constance and her children. The ones she had drowned herself out of rage and jealousy, caused by her husband's unfaithfulness.

"Guess someone took her down before I could." She mumbled lowly and threw the picture down. The glass frame shattered hard against the floor and the fragments scattered. She walked across the rubble of the ruined house and came upon a puddle of water on the carpet, right next to the stairs. "Hmm..." The woman grabbed a hold of the banister leading up to the second floor and saw that they were wet as well. "It was pretty damn recent I'd say." She mumbled and tried her best to walk out of the house, snatching up her helmet on the way out.

The woman's motorcycle was parked outside the house with the engine still running. She reached out to a heavy and thick bag leaning against the back wheel and pulled out a map and red marker from the inside. She opened the map up that was riddled with red marks all over the map, locations with the label 'Hunt?' on it and some even had 'X' marks on them too.

"So Jericho, California is a bust, huh." She marked the location out with a big X with her marker and began to trace along the road with her finger, coming up to another label that said 'Hunt?' The woman chewed the cap of her marker with her teeth and lifted her eyebrow. "Black Water Ridge, Colorado." She muttered to herself and capped the marker, put the map back in her bag as well. The woman lifted her head up to the sound of hooting owls, her blue eyes giving the moon a piercing gaze.

The woman pulled her helmet back over her face and got up on her bike and took off, the engine roaring into the night, giving the monster looming in the dark a warning that a very particular family was on the move.