A cold spike of dread slices through the heat. I break the kiss, gasping for air. My eyes dart to the floor where the fog thickens and crawls upwards. Croía trembles in my lap, her breathragged. Panic flares in her eyes just like a match struck too close to dry tinder.
“Croía,” I rasp, my voice brittle with fear. Her body shudders violently, so I grab her elbows, trying to steady her. Hoping to hold her together even though I don’t understand what the fuck is happening. She doesn’t make a sound and it’s the silence that terrifies me the most. The way her eyes plead with me without a single word. I ease her off my lap, laying her down on the ground as if she’s made of glass. My hands linger on her face, desperate to anchor her here with me.
As quick as I can, I bolt for the bathroom, splash cold water into a bowl, and grab the nearest cloth. My mind is a mess ofdo something, don’t lose her.When I rush back, breathless, with my heart pounding, the floor is empty.
She’s gone. Vanished into the fog that still curls and twists in the stale air, leaving only a whisper of her warmth. I stand frozen. Water drips from the cloth as my chest heaves. My skin prickles with dread and need all at once.
Where am I? This isn’t right. This isn’t what usually happens when I’m summoned. This is all wrong.
With caution, I strain to see through the thick darkness that is pressing in on me from every side. The cold wraps around me as if it's a second skin, slicing through my clothes and settling deep in my bones. I cross my arms over my chest, desperate for warmth, but my shivers only grow more violent. My breath comes out in shallow clouds, each exhale a ghost of itself.
A single light flickers ahead. It’s distant and shifting as though it’s alive. A sour taste of fear coils low in my stomach as I force my legs to move in small steps. One foot in front of the other. Each step sinks into the black beneath me as if I’m walking on a pulse.
The closer I get, the more the light dances away. Darting left, then right. Then vanishing altogether only to flare up againbehind me. My throat tightens as I spin to follow it, my bare feet scraping over cold, unseen ground. The whispers in my head swell and fracture. Turn back, they hiss, turn back.
There’s nowhere to turn to.Níl ann ach an dorchadas.(There’s only the dark.)
Overcome with exhaustion, my knees buckle, so I lower myself to the ground. The darkness is cold and damp beneath my palms. It seeps through the fabric of my leggings, biting into my skin. I try to steady my breathing, but the air here is so stifling and thick, it feels as if it’s pressing down on my chest, squeezing the life from my lungs.
Silence swallows everything. There’s no wind, no distant echoes, only the pounding of my heart like a drum inside a coffin and a dread so deep it rattles my bones.
In hopes to block it all out, I close my eyes, still the darkness seeps in behind my eyelids. It’s not just around me, it’s inside me. Curling like smoke through my veins, whispering old secrets I don’t want to know.
Somewhere in the void, I swear I hear my name. Soft, coaxing. A voice that doesn’t belong to the living. I hug my arms tight around myself, but it does nothing to keep it out. All I can do is sit, trembling, and pray that this nightmare will loosen its grip before I become part of it.
Whispers seep into the air, threading through the dark, and fear sinks its claws into my chest. Gasping, I bolt upright, only to slam my head against something solid above me. Pain explodes through my skull, and I collapse back into the softness beneath me.
Blinking through the sting in my eyes, I force my vision to focus. The darkness is gone and what replaces it takes my breath away. A sea of daffodils stretches endlessly in every direction. Hundreds, no, thousands of them. Each bloom burns gold in the strange, steady light, a living haze of yellow and green. Theysway gently, though there’s no wind, no sound but the soft rustle of petals brushing against one another.
Their faces tilt toward me, as if I’ve stepped into the centre of an audience holding its breath.
Astonished and trembling, I push myself up again, careful not to hit my head this time. My fingertips brush against something cold and smooth just inches above me, like glass, or stone.Táim i mbosca istigh.(I’m boxed in.)
A hush of whispers tickles my ears, and I snap my head around so fast my neck cracks. There’s nothing there. Just daffodils. The voices slither closer, curling around me like tendrils of mist. I twist and turn, but every direction is the same. Daffodils and those damned whispers that fade when I try to pin them down.
Sweat beads at my hairline, dripping into my eyes, stinging. My whole body shakes with a cold that has nothing to do with the air. My mind claws for sense.Cén fáth ar tugadh anseo mé?(Why have I been brought here?)
With my knees hugged to my chest and my forehead pressed to my trembling knees, I curse my weakness as I fold myself tight. Rocking back and forth, desperate for comfort or warmth. The whispers only grow louder. They crawl under my skin and murmur secrets I can’t quite hear. Promises or threats, that I don’t quite understand.
The daffodils lean closer; their petals brushing my arms. I squeeze my eyes shut, praying to whatever cruel god might be listening that when I open them again, I’ll be home or at leastanywhere but here. When I lift my head, I’m still trapped in yellow and shadow. The voices are inside me now, their roots twisting deeper.
I don’t know how long I sit, rocking as if I’m a lost child in the dark. Time folds in on itself until my mind is raw and my eyes sting from salt and tears.
Then a sudden flash of blinding white light rips through the air. I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut, and when I dare open them again, the daffodils are gone.Gach duine deireanach acu.(Every last one of them.)
In their place, there are crumbling gravestones. Extending out from the earth as if they’re broken teeth. Ivy and moss strangling their cracked marble. I’m standing in a graveyard, soil damp under my bare feet. A shiver rolls through me as I test the ground, half-expecting it to swallow me whole.
It holds. For now.
With my nerves shot, I try to step forward, but before my foot can touch down, something yanks me backwards with an inhuman force. I slam onto my back so hard that pain explodes behind my eyes. A scream tears from my throat, raw and jagged, as agony pulses through every bone. I gasp for breath, blinking at the rotting branches above, trying to move. Pain chains me to the ground.
Then I hear it… the clip-clop of hooves against stone. Not feet. Hooves.
Panic claws up my throat as I force my elbows under me, fighting to lift my head but my body won’t obey. I’m trapped in my own skin, helpless as the sound draws closer. Clip-clop… clip-clop. It sounds circles me as if it’s a predator testing its prey.
Cold breath brushes my ear. A hiss of wind or a growl. I can’t tell. The air splits apart, a swirling fog, thick and black, coils around my head like a serpent. It squeezes the breath from my lungs until I’m sure I’ll choke.
When the fog thins, what I see chills me to the core. Standing directly in front of me, towering over me as if he’s a nightmare spat from the bowels of the earth. He looks human from a certain angle, but not others. Horns curl from his skull like jagged tree roots. His skin glows sickly red, with scales glinting as though its wet stone under a harvest moon. However, it’s his eyes that hollow me out. Pits of endless black with burning cores of living flame. As I stare, those flames grow, hungry and alive, eating away at whatever faith I had left.
