Sombra Mundus :: Prologue
P.G. Waters, author. Prologue
Sombra Mundus
Angsting over moving to a new town and school, Mina refuses to accept her new school. With her father absent from the family, is it really home at all?
A chance incident throws Mina's thoughts into a whirlwind of chaos and realities. She finds herself thrown into an alternate world that makes her past school and home problems fade into the shadows as new worries arise. Without a familiar face in sight, Mina makes the long journey from pouting to desperate survival with a young girl as lost as she is and a teen boy finding his own way in the world of shadows.
As anxious as she was to get away from the town of Morrow, Mina now finds herself just as hopeful of getting back alive.
PG13, saga; teen, fantasy, non-Sci-Fi world travel, teen romance, clean romance, realm, magical realism, shadow world, school/new school, high school. ♫♪ #ReadFree
Suggested Music: Hidden Threat
Twigs snapped underfoot as she ran through the darkening, foggy forest. Around her the sounds grew, muted growls that were neither wild cat nor bear, but still fierce, ever closing in.
She pushed aside a low hanging tree branch as she dashed, her feet moving as swiftly as she could run in the dense undergrowth.
Something behind her – something unseen, as yet – followed, thrashing saplings and closing the distance.
She whimpered as brush slapped her face, leaving stinging marks on her cheeks. The cold of the fog pressed heavily on her, making breathing more labored with her desperate, weary dash.
“Dad,” she panted, sparing precious breath to utter the word. “Dad!” she cried louder.
He didn’t answer.
The only reply was a second growling challenge from another direction.
She paused, chest painfully heaving to catch her breath as she looked around.
Nothing was familiar. The trees were mostly birch, eerily white in the fog like slender threads shooting from the ground.
She swallowed, her attention going to her right as something large broke small trees in its wake, the sound cutting sharply through the mist.
A rumble began in the ground, quaking her feet, and she knew more of them – more of something – was nearing.
She sprinted in the opposite direction, and behind her the something gave chase.
At her back, the arrow quiver bobbed as she ran, catching on bushes and tree branches, as if trying to pull her to a stop. She put a hand to her chest, feeling no bow string there. Where was it?
Had she lost her bow?
Dad would be furious.
He’d told her not to sling it over herself like she did the quiver strap. He’d be disappointed.
The rumbling in the ground grew stronger with thick footfalls from her pursuer. She ran on, not looking back, running blindly in the fog.
Suddenly the trees broke and the fog thinned to a sparser haze.
It was too late; she was still in motion, her legs at top speed. Before her the ground stopped abruptly at a deep ravine — and then she was over the side.
A scream ripped from her throat as she fell despite trying to bite back the sound. Desperately she grasped in the cold misty air for something, anything, to grab on to. The cliff side was dotted with old dead tree roots and scraggily tufts of weeds. She grasped a handful of root, gritting her teeth as the dried wood slipped through her fingers, cutting into her palm and scratching her arm.
She jolted to a stop and immediately clutched the root with both hands as she hung there, twisting against the raw cliff side. Above her something snorted, sniffing loudly. She remained quiet, trying to stop twisting by putting her knee to the hillside.
She chanced to look up. There was nothing to see but dark fog, the jutted edge fringed with long, dusk-damp grass. She breathed slowly, eyes following the sniffing sound as it moved along the edge above. She blinked, straining to see better in the dark fog now thickening overhead.
Dad, she thought, hoping the soundless word could reach him, wherever he was. Dad, please...please come for me.
In response the sniffing grew to a snort, and then a deep growling that seemed to set off the rumble in the hillside where the girl leaned. She saw nothing, no animal, no definite shape in the dusk a few feet over her head. Her lungs ached from holding her breath, and she let out a slow exhale.
Above her the sniffing stopped. Something listened. Something had heard her breathing.
She closed her eyes and held back a whimper. The rumbling in the hillside was now magnified, as if joined by more of whatever had pursued her over the cliff side. The quaking made her grip slip, shaking her hands, inching her fingers down the knotty root.
Please, no, she prayed, clutching the root tighter.
She looked down.
Below her the foggy darkness appeared mottled, and after a few seconds she could discern what looked to be treetops or large boulders far, far beneath her.
She held her breath again and looked up.
Over the edge a darker shadow moved along the grass and deepening fog. It had no shape; just a mass of darker mist.
And then it was gone.
The darker shape without form was simply gone, vanished, and the rumbling against the girl’s back at the hillside stopped. In her fingers, the root slipped.
The root fibers slit into her fingers and palms, and she changed her hold. Behind her the quiver of arrows caught on another root and a few were lifted by the vanes. To her horror, two arrows freed and fell into the abyss below.
She looked down, watching them fall; they looked like toothpicks, so thin and frail, as they fell away into gray nothingness.
She choked back a sob that built within her throat.
As if in response, a few blades of grass from above wafted down along her side. She looked up. More blades of grass fell.
It’s come back, she thought. It’s still there.
Scuffling sounds came from above, the fog hiding whatever was making the new noise. There was no growling, no rumbling. Only the sounds of something moving.
Dad, she thought hopefully. Please, Dad. Please be there.
Suddenly a hand materialized above her through the dark fog. It wasn’t her Dad’s hand, but it was male, she knew. The arm stretched down to her, the fingers of the hand splayed wide open, reaching, searching.
She dared not free a hand to attempt taking the hand in the mist overhead. She hadn’t seen her pursuer, didn’t know if it was animal or human in form. She took a deep breath and tried to dig one bare foot into the hillside to give herself a few inches of lift. Her foot only pushed her away from the hill, away from the hand.
The fingers made a wild wave, grabbing at the gray fog for her.
She risked taking one hand from the root and made a lunge for the hand. Her fingers brushed his, a fragile touch that was far from a grasp.
As soon as the two hands made contact, the hand dove lower to hers, fingers wrapping vice-like around her wrist in a bruisingly strong hold, and pulled her up.
And then there was a chilling, guttural laugh behind her from the misty air, from an invisible throat in the fog.
The hand around hers pulled her higher.
But then an unseen arm came around her waist, and wrenched her loose, pulling her down.
This time the scream broke from her throat and echoed up the ravine, until she was breathless.
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Sombra Mundus: PG13, saga; teen, fantasy, non-Sci-Fi world travel, teen romance, realm, magical realism, shadow world, school/new school, high school. #ReadFree
Thanks to P.G. Waters for use of her story! Please support her work by subscribing!