Fire
Angelina J. Steffort
MK
Fire
The Wings Trilogy: Adam
First published 2019
Copyright © by Angelina J. Steffort 2019
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Print: ISBN 978-3-9504418-7-1
Ebook: ASIN B07MDXSW1D
MK
www.ajsteffort.com
Contents
Prologue
1. Awakening
2. Amnesia
3. Clan
4. The Others
5. Limits
6. The Enemy
7. Aurora
8. The Art of Playing
9. Hunt
10. Rituals
11. Revenge
12. Escape
13. Chase
14. Captive
15. Interconnected
16. Return
17. Visitor
18. Memories
19. Speculations
20. Blodline
21. Plan
22. Betrayal
23. Return
24. Sacrifice
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Angelina J. Steffort
Prologue
Dying wasn’t as they had always described it. There was no bright light at the end of the tunnel. Not for me. Instead, there was darkness. Silent, thick, black haze. No relatives waving at me from far away, calling me toward them. No harps or bells.
If this was purgatory, I deserved it. I had failed to recognize the trap the demons had set for us. Basically, I had driven Claire to fall for it. Every last moment of pain was justified, my death was justified. If only there was a way to find out if she’d survived. Wouldn’t I see her here with me if they’d killed her, too? Or was this part of my punishment, being isolated here in this timeless space?
It was clear I couldn’t see, for I didn’t have eyes. It was clear I couldn’t move, for I didn’t have a body. There was only one thing which had remained the same: that pulsating, beautiful flame inside my soul which had once belonged to Claire. But its flickering got weaker. And the stronger I kept holding on to it, the faster it faded…until there was only darkness…
1
Awakening
Something wet dripping onto my forehead woke me up. I tore my eyes open to look for the source of it.
It was dark—pitch-black, to be precise.
I was lying outstretched on my back on something soft. My posture didn’t feel natural.
I wanted to reach my hand over my head to prevent the liquid from dripping into my eyes. It didn’t move. It was stuck between my body and something hard.
My fingers glided over the material. It felt like polished wood.
I tried to shift my body an inch to the other side just to free my hand enough to search for the source of the liquid that soaked my hair and dribbled down my face to my neck.
Another frame of wood was pressing against my side. It prevented me from moving freely.
I slowly and carefully rolled my head to the side—no resistance. Then I lifted it an inch to estimate the space around me. There was no barrier keeping me from moving my head until my chin touched my chest.
The water flowed down my face and into the collar of whatever I was wearing.
With some more effort, I pulled my shoulders up and tried to sit. My arms and hands were freed as I moved up. I let my body sink back and slid my hands upwards instead, along the wood that was framing me. It was cold. Water was beginning to run down in several places.
My wet hands glided further up until they moved over a corner on both sides, forming the wood into a narrow ceiling. Where was I? I asked myself this question and couldn’t find an answer to it. My hands reached up above my head. There, too, was a wooden wall.
It seemed I was trapped in a wooden box and water was starting to make its way in from more than one side. I had no idea where I was nor how I had ended up here.
Cold hysteria welled up inside me. How big was this box? How much air was in here? How long would it last? How long could I survive here?
I sucked in a deep breath in reaction to the limited supply of oxygen. My lungs screamed. It hurt like someone had stabbed me with a knife. I groaned in pain.
It felt like I hadn’t breathed in a while. I tried to think back—nothing.
I gasped for air for a minute, shorter or longer. I had no track of time at all. It took some deep breaths to even my breathing and after a while, I started to perceive more than the darkness itself. I suddenly saw the darkness and what lay behind it, I saw the wood, the water dripping in from slits on the sides. I smelled the wood around me, and I smelled wet earth.
Knowing I had to get out of there if I wanted to survive, I screamed for help.
No answer, no noise at all. Nothing but the dripping water.
I balled my hands into fists, wanting to hit the wood above my chest in the hope someone would hear the noise and get me out. I took another deep breath and my hand soared up above my chest. I expected the wood to hurt my knuckles as they hit the surface but I felt nothing except the soft resistance of the wall above me. My hand punched through it effortlessly.
Muddy earth ran down my arm and into the space of the wooden box. I felt stones and grime between my fingers as I stretched them. More earth fell onto my chest as I moved my arm to feel around. It quickly swallowed the air around me.
I had no other choice now but to get out—quickly—or I would drown in the mud. I would be buried.
Panicking, I punched the boards above me with my other hand and hit my knees up to break my way through the wood.
A mass of earth rushed down onto my body and I struggled, taking one last deep breath. I tried to move my body as if I was swimming and finally made my way up. After some time, my lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, and I became light-headed.
I fought against the weight pushing me down, pushing back as hard as possible. I was soaked and stones cut every inch of skin they could reach as I worked my way up.
Little stars were dancing before my eyes as one of my outstretched hands finally broke free of the earthy mass. I pushed harder and my other hand and my arms followed.
A few seconds later, I pulled my head out and inhaled deeply, relieved.
It wasn’t dark here. The moon was shining, tinting everything in a bluish, cold light. I looked at the marble gravestone I was facing. It read, Here lies Adam Jonathan Gallager, beloved son and brother.
2
Amnesia
It was still dark. I was sitting at the edge of the sidewalk. The street was wet from the continuous rain. I could see a long trace of mud and earth leading to the spot I was sitting. It started to mix with the flow of water, slowly washing it into the canal. I watched it being rinsed towards the curb with mild interest. The icy air didn't affect me in any way. I could see the white fog rising from my mouth and nostrils whenever I exhaled. For some reason, I knew I should shiver from the cold, but I couldn't.
From the big, pale yellow circle in the sky, I knew it was night. The darkness didn't obstruct my vision—I could see as clearly as if it was bright daylight, except for the grayish tinge of the shapes around me. Everything was pale and almost colorless.<
br />
After crawling out of the mud and dirt, I had stood at the grave for a while, pondering how I had gotten there—without success. Not knowing what to do, I had started running until my feet told me I should be tired. I stopped and sat down on the sidewalk. I must be miles away from where I had woken up. The surroundings didn't look too much like a town.
My clothes were full of dirt, drenched in mud. The skin on my hands and face was smeared with blood where the stones in the earth had cut me as I dug my way out. No wounds were visible under the layers of dirt. I felt no pain. To my astonishment, the cuts had healed in the few minutes I had spent above the ground. I didn't understand how that was possible.
There were several houses to my left. They looked old, in a non-nostalgic way—more withered than historical. The windows were nailed with boards and the doors were broken, hanging loosely on the rusty hinges. The painting on the front was faded and smeared with signs and symbols I didn't recognize.
I tried to replay what had happened. How had I got here so fast? No human being could run several miles in only a few minutes. Why had my wounds healed at such speed? Wasn't human skin supposed to take days to heal minor cuts, and weeks to reseal greater wounds? The earth—why had I been buried? I obviously wasn't dead. And most of all: who was this Adam Gallager? And why had I been lying in his grave?
My head was spinning with the lack of information it was able to withdraw from my brain. I couldn't remember how I had gotten into the grave. I couldn't wrap my head around how I had been able to survive below the ground—a human needs oxygen.
I shook my head in the hope of clearing my thoughts and went back to the beginning. I had woken up in the darkness. I had panicked in the tightness of the coffin. I had dug out of the dirt with my bare hands. I had wondered and run. And now I was sitting in a kind of ghost village in the middle of nowhere without knowing how I had gotten here.
The key was what had happened before I had woken up in the grave. Why had I been buried alive? I came up blank, asking myself this same question over and over again. And then I realized I not only lacked information about how I had gotten myself buried, but also about who I was—I had no idea.
How long had I been lying in the darkness before I had woken up? I was positive I should have died from lack of oxygen, but I hadn't. I should have frozen to death from the icy wetness soaking the ground I had been lying in, but I hadn't. Something was seriously wrong.
I felt the midst of my body tear strangely in all directions; a feeling I couldn't remember ever having had. My brain related it to hunger, thirst, the need for a refreshment.
It was the middle of the night and I was in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where to find food. Worst of all—I had no idea where I belonged, where I could go. I had no home.
Sucking in an unnecessary breath, I got to my feet and without wasting another second looking at either street or ruins, I was on my way. My feet carried me further away from the graveyard. I didn't remember the streets and buildings I was passing by. It was as if I had never been there. Maybe it was true—maybe I hadn't. The feeling in my stomach began to nag at my nerves. I sped up, looking for a restaurant. I was positive that there were such things called restaurants. I remembered that people used to eat there, that they got their stomachs filled. But none of those buildings were anywhere within my line of sight. Neither was any living creature. The village was dead during the night, everyone safely tucked away under their blankets for a good night's sleep. I wondered how I knew such things when I didn't remember my own name.
The streets around me started to blur into one grayish mess when I sped up, my feet carrying me so fast that I almost jumped from town to town. I wondered if that was normal. I couldn't remember if I had ever been able to run so fast. Aimless and empty, I finally stopped after about another hundred miles. I was standing in the complete wilderness. Trees were surrounding me on each side, their branches bare and gray. A singing noise floated to my ears. It was melodious, pretty.
I followed it without thinking. The loveliness of its music tore at my body and I took some slow steps toward the source of the sound to find a narrow creek winding through the trees ahead of me. It was frozen at the edges, with gushes of water springing over the ice every second. They made the beautiful singing sound that had drawn me so irresistibly. I stopped for a moment to appreciate the melody while I watched the line of water roll through the earthy forest ground. My eyes followed the course of the creek far into the woodland until something caught my attention. Ahead of me, within the gray depths of the water, I could make out a distinct light. It radiated into the foggy air as it slowly moved forward with the stream of water.
I felt the urge to have a closer look and my feet started walking at the same moment. I followed the light with quicker steps, unable to take my eyes off of it, and within no time I was close enough to see it clearly.
It was the most beautiful, most desirable thing I had ever seen. And then a part of my mind became independent from the rest of me. It lured me forward and I followed, unthinking. I was compelled to get as close to the beautiful light as possible. As much as I wondered about this unstoppable force that drew me forward, I couldn't help following its call.
The closer I got, the harder it was for me to stay calm. My hands started to shake and my feet forced my body further, step after step. Just a few more and I would be close enough to touch it…
Adrenaline rushed through my body in hot waves like I was a wild animal preparing to jump at its prey. I got down on my knees and my hands darted into the water to catch the light. I almost couldn't feel the difference as my fingers glided into the liquid, it made as little resistance to my hands as the air. And then my fingers touched something new. They curled around it in an unknown reflex and I soon felt a solid shape squeezed in between the palms of my hands.
It was moving in my grip as I lifted it out of the water. I could feel its pulse under the skin and the heat of its living body, rushing through it with every desperate gulp of air as it tried to breathe between my adamant fingers. The light was coming directly from where I expected its heart to be. It was shining through the tiny scales like a pale golden sun. I couldn't help but watch it in wonder as the shine beneath the delicate layer got weaker with every new attempt to extract oxygen from the air.
My mouth hung open as I watched it curl and wind in my hands. It was somehow satisfying, the way its life was visibly fading, running out of it like the droplets of water dribbling down from my hands back into the creek below them.
Within less than a minute, its time was up. The fish lay dead in the palm of my pale hands, lifeless and cold. The beautiful light that had drawn me so much was almost gone. It shimmered weakly on the fish's scales as it grew fainter with every second. I could almost feel how it grew colder in my hands. And then there was nothing but gray shapes and shadows. All the light was gone and I dropped the stiffening animal back into the water. A splashing sound tore the music of the creek as the limp body penetrated the dark surface of the water.
I shuddered as I saw how the dead fish reappeared on the rippling waves of the surface. It drifted along with the stream under the cover of bare trees until my eyes lost it behind a soft curve where the creek vanished in the gray depths of the forest.
I sat down on the ground beside the water, heavy and startled by what had just happened. I was ashamed of myself for enjoying another creature's agony. Had I always been like this? Sadistic, evil?
The water dripped from my fingertips down onto the cold ground and I wondered in bewilderment that I could hear each of them vanish into the earth beneath me.
Something was definitely wrong with me. I couldn't remember a thing about myself, but I was positive this wasn't normal. It was the same way of knowing as it had been with the restaurants. But before I could even start to search for details in the depths of the blackness that was my memory, I drifted into a deep, sleep-like state which was blessed with a thoughtless darkness.
The
sun had already risen as I opened my eyes. I blinked at the bright light, a reflex, but not necessary. The light didn't hurt me. Like the darkness didn't blind me anymore, my eyes seemed to have improved to easily adjust to the glistening white of the bright, winter sun above me. I didn't know how this was possible, but I accepted it as a given for the moment, well-aware that there had to be an answer to all of this, but that it wasn't within reach at this very moment.
My limbs were still frozen in the awkward position I had slumped into last night. They didn't feel cold nor were they stiff or sore, not the slightest bit. I knew that I could jump up the tree behind me from this position without effort. It was as if every at minute of this strange existence, I discovered something new about the way my body worked.
Ignoring the stiff and frozen clothes on my body, I turned to the side and let my eyes slowly glide through the bare trees. The dismal grayness of the forest didn't make me sad. It appeared natural to me. I felt safe in the half-light, half-shadow.
A distant noise tore my attention toward the edge of the forest. I could hear the sound over the quiet gurgling of the creek. It was a low frequency, like a helicopter's rotor blades idling in the distance. I could hear every overtone as if the helicopter was right next to me. I wondered once more at the sensitivity of my hearing and tried to listen more closely.
Fire Page 1
