Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SANORA
Oh, hell.
How the fuck could I forget a flashlight?
I stood outside the car, frozen in a mental facepalm. No flashlight, no weapon, nothing smart for a girl about to nose-dive into what was basically the belly of a historical grave. Nimorran had its secrets, and The Crater was the most haunted of them all. Yet here I was, empty-handed.
I sighed, dragged myself back into the car and fished out my phone, switching on the flashlight.
The light glared back at me, weak and narrow in the dense fog, but it would have to do.
I stepped out again, the beam trembling as I lifted it toward the large, almost faded sign, half-swallowed by overgrowth.
Welcome To The Crater: The Scar Of The Moon.
Well, shit. I was really doing this.
I closed my eyes for a second and inhaled, whispering a pep talk under my breath. Still, my feet refused to move. Maybe because they were smarter than the rest of me.
Finally, I took the first step forward and froze. Because something was underfoot. I looked down and bent, picking up what felt like fabric. It was a linen. Long, soft, and white as snow.
Odd. It was too clean and untouched to have been lying on the ground. As I held it in the light, I realised it looked like it belonged to someone recently. Maybe someone who had been here not long ago.
Then that same scream came again.
A screech, actually.
It cleaved the air so violently I felt it split through me. I stumbled back, my spine slamming against the car. My soul damn near left my body.
That wasn’t human.
That sound didn’t belong to anything mortal. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t a cry for help. It was something feral and guttural and raw, like grief ripped open with rage. A shiver rolled up my spine, biting at my nape.
I glanced back at the car.
Maybe I should wait for Thrax. But the cryptid would only stop me from coming here. He’d probably tie me to a chair and launch into some self-righteous speech about instincts, boundaries and common sense.
Fuck it.
I dropped the linen and moved forward, following the winding path of stones, the flashlight barely cutting through the murk.
Every few steps, I had to adjust because the slippery gravel gave way to sharp stones, then bigger rocks that jutted out like crooked bones.
I crouched and scrambled, one knee after another, climbing uneven ground as the chill began sinking into my skin like slow venom.
The cold bit and gnawed at my fingers despite the layers I wore, my breath puffing white clouds that vanished fast in the damp air.
Even though I’d been here twice before, everything looked.
..unfamiliar and wrong. Like the landscape had shifted since the last time.
Did I read anything about The Crater having an effect of rewriting itself when no one was looking?
I didn’t think so. But then, there were probably a handful of things I had yet to learn about this place.
I clambered up one last ledge of rock, my palms scraped, knees bruised, and finally got to a slightly flatter stone ground. I straightened slowly as I swept the flashlight around me.
“I’m not going beyond this,” I muttered, standing still and listening, hoping to hear something.
But there was only the shrill whistle of wind between the rocks.
..until a low thunder rolled somewhere above.
Lightning cracked the sky open in a jagged line, and for the briefest second, everything, The Crater walls, the rocks, the mist swirling below, lit up.
Then darkness again.
“Hello?” I called out, voice high but steady. “Is anyone there? Do you need help?”
My voice bounced back, echoing off the stone in a way that made my skin crawl.
“You need to get out of here now—”
“AAARRHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
FUCKING. HELL.
The sound tore through the air, high and sharp and wrong. That was a shriek from another world, a sound not meant to exist here. No lungs could make that sound. No human could survive the force behind it.
It was in my ears. Inside them. As though someone had pressed their mouth right against my head and screamed into my eardrums.
I jolted, stumbled backward, and slipped.
The rock beneath me was slick, and I crashed down hard, landing on my arse with enough pain to make me see stars. “Shit, shit, shit—” The ache bloomed across my tailbone, and I hissed through gritted teeth.
That sound—whatever it was—had not been human, that for sure. If it had been, I wouldn’t have heard it from my room earlier. And I sure as hell wouldn’t be hearing it now like it was nestled inside my skull.
I pushed myself upright, still dazed from the impact.
And then—another slip. This time, I tumbled.
My foot gave out and my body rolled over sharp rocks, arms flailing uselessly. I screamed as I landed hard on my elbow and clipped my head. My phone flew from my hand and vanished into the blackness, sliding into a space between the stones.
Everything went dark.
Pitch black.
And quiet.
Too quiet.
I stayed there, sprawled on the rocks, blinking rapidly into nothing. The wind had stopped. The air had stopped moving. It was like the world itself had paused, holding its breath.
Was it me?
Had I triggered something? Was it because I screamed?
I twisted and reached down for my phone with shaky fingers, fumbling between the stones. My pulse pounded behind my eyes. Finally, my fingertips grazed the edge of my phone. Carefully, I hooked it between my forefinger and middle finger and dragged it out, cradling it like a newborn.
Raindrops hit my back.
First a few.
Then dozens.
Then a goddamn waterfall.
Of course.
The rain came fast and heavy, drenching me in seconds. My hair clung to my face, my coat sagged with water, and every piece of clothing weighed double. Miserable didn’t even begin to describe it.
I crouched, soaked, holding the phone like it was a baby, then flipped onto my back and let the rain pummel me for a second. Just one fucking second of surrender.
Then I stood up, groaning.
Eight layers. I was basically wearing my own coffin. I yanked at the zips and buttons and peeled them off, tearing down to four layers. The weight lifted, but the cold intensified.
I froze.
Because a presence colder than the rain was behind me.
I could swear it wasn’t the air, but an unnatural, bone-deep cold. Like ice had grown legs and now stood a breath away from my spine, sinking a thousand icy needles into my skin. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. Every nerve in me had locked itself in fear.
There was something behind me. Not someone. Something. It was whispering, quick and jumbled at first, overlapping itself like static on a dying radio station. Then, slowly, the sounds stretched, separating like decayed syllables trying to crawl into speech.
I couldn’t breathe, the air locking in my chest as the wind circled around me. Slowly, like a radio tuning itself, the whisper sharpened and sharpened until I could put the words together.
“Shewantstokillyoushe'dratherhaveyoudie. Shewants to killyou, she’dratherhaveyou die. Shewants to kill you, she’d ratherhaveyou die. She wants to kill you, she’d rather have you die...”
It looped. Over and over. Hissing and mutating.
I didn’t know if the words were meant for me or if they were simply being vomited into the night. But they were like worms crawling into my ears.
I once learned ghosts and creatures weren’t real. They were illusions created by the mind to justify our fear. But this didn’t feel like a trick of the mind. It felt very real. Still, I repeated the rule I’d learned since I was a child:
Do not be afraid. Either real or not, they feed on fear.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward...on something...that cracked.
The whisper stopped. My heart dropped.
A screech ripped through the air unnaturally, as if something vengeful had just found its voice.
My phone slipped from my grasp, clattering onto the rocks as its light flashed erratically, slicing through the rain like a strobe.
The sound—no, the assault—hit me with full force, making me slap my hands over my ears as a stabbing pain shot through both sides of my skull.
Like red-hot nails being driven into my eardrums, the sound vibrated in a way that made my brain throb and my vision blur.
I could feel everything in my head tearing as wet warmth slipped through the cracks between my fingers, thick and hot.
It wasn’t rain. It was my blood.
Just then, a hand yanked my hair and slammed my back against the jagged rocks. A scream so raw tore out of my lungs that for a second, I didn’t believe it came from me. Rain pounded harder, matching the intensity of the thing now pinning me down.
It was pale. Sickly white, as if it hadn’t seen light in centuries.
Its eye sockets were empty, hollow and dark.
Long, wet black hair clung to its face and shoulders like seaweed.
It wore white linen, soaked through and clinging to its small frame.
It had the body of a teenager who was no older than fifteen.
Although every part of it screamed otherwise.
It wrapped its hands around my neck, fingernails sharp and grey, and began to squeeze.
“Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die...”
My breath caught, my lungs screamed, my throat pulsing in agony beneath its grip. Rainwater poured into my nose, making it impossible to inhale. My limbs thrashed out, scraping against the rocks, desperately trying to shove it off, but it wouldn’t budge.
What the hell was this thing?
I clawed at the rocks as my vision blurred and chest burned, legs kicking in panic.
I reached for something, my fingers curling over a stone.
If I was going to die, it surely wouldn’t be in the hands of a blind creature in the body of a child.
Without thinking, I slammed it into the side of the creature’s head with every ounce of strength I had.