The Beautiful Ones

by Lori Brighton

It was the rain that woke me.

  A biting drizzle that pattered against my face and arms like tiny pebbles thrown by angry hands, stinging my skin so that I was forced to either wake or die from the elements.

  I was cold. So very cold.

  Shivering, I opened my eyes. The world around me wavered in and out of focus; a myriad of blues, grays and greens that swirled together like spilled paint. Where was I? I curled my fingers, feeling damp grass, gritty wet earth that sank beneath my fingernails. I grimaced, the air too cold and the light above, no matter how dull, making my aching head pound.

  Too soon. I’d opened my eyes too soon.

  Dizzy, I waited for a moment until my body and mind connected. Another moment just to make sure. When I finally felt somewhat normal, I shoved my palms into the grass and slowly sat up. But the world still spun. Confused and unsure, I realized that I sat in the middle of a field, trees in the distance, nothing else. I touched my bare shoulders, coated with a fine mist of rain. And then I noticed the dress. The large white dress with the puffy skirt wavering in and out of focus…a skirt covered in blood. Rusty-colored blood.

  The memories rushed back, bursting through my mind with a clarity that had me gasping. I pressed my trembling hands to my temples, as if that could stop the images. “No. No. No!”

  Sally was gone. Dead. Not just dead, but murdered. Blood, so much blood.

  Terror had me stumbling to my feet, but my knees wouldn’t hold and I fell to the damp ground with a sob. Dead. Destroyed. Torn apart. Tears raced unheeded down my chilled face.

  Murderers. Monsters.

  Thanatos.

  The sound of his name seemed to whisper to me on the breeze. My heart slammed wildly in my chest, fear bitter on my tongue. Frantic, I looked around. Alone. I sat in the middle of a hill of weeds and clover, the perimeter of the field lined with thick forests, dark forests. Gray clouds hovered low in the sky, tumbling and rolling menacingly toward me.

  Where was I? Where was Thanatos? Where was the castle?

  I didn’t dare call out for help. No, I needed to find somewhere to hide before they found me. Thunder rumbled a warning. I grabbed my skirts, bundling them close. A chill wind swept across the field like ripples on a pond, peppering my bare arms with bumps, insisting I go. Hide.

  It was all the urging I needed. I jumped to my feet, tripping over my skirt in the process. Shelter. Shelter. I swiped at my damp cheeks. To the unprepared traveler the weather might mean disaster, but it was what I needed to spur me into action. Murdering demons I didn’t understand, but a storm, at least, I knew. I had to take cover…to hide somewhere…but where?

  A twig snapped. I sucked in a sharp breath and froze there in the middle of the field while the rain slashed mercilessly down. The musky scent of damp earth that surrounded me seemed almost oppressive. Slowly, I scanned the area, my skin prickling.

  A deer bolted across the field, bounding over the weeds in graceful arcs that at any other time I might have admired. My fear turned to relief. I’d seen deer along the outside of the fence, but never out in the wild and for a moment I watched her until she jumped into the trees that grew along the perimeter.

  It was only as the animal disappeared into the forest that I realized there were so many places to hide. So many shadows. The silence almost overwhelming, watchful. Who was out there? Slowly, I turned. All around me the world went on, and on and on. There was no fence. There was only space. Pure, open sky. Rolling green hills. Grass, so, so soft.

  My heart sped up, whether from hope or despair, I wasn’t sure. I’d wanted this. For so many years I’d dreamt of this moment. But now that I was out in the world I felt only terror. Alone. So much space. Anything could be out there waiting.

  Alone. Alone.

  A twig snapped, the sound echoing across the field.

  I spun around.

  Another deer hopped through the tall grass, disappearing into the trees. And I was alone once more. The world felt as dark and heavy as the clouds above. Thunder growled, rumbling like an irate mutt warning of attack. I had to get out of there and fast.

  “Shelter,” I whispered. “Need to find shelter.”

  I stumbled back, tripping on the hem of my dress, and almost fell to my face. With a growl of frustration, I jerked the long skirts up into my arms and bundled them close to my chest. I couldn’t return to the compound. I couldn’t return to the city. I had…nowhere, nothing.

  Rain trailed down my face, dripping like needles to my shoulders.

  With no other alternative, I fled toward the forest, seeking shelter where I could. Why would Thanatos risk his life to save me, only to leave me here to die from the elements? Unless he hadn’t been saving me after all. Maybe he had been stealing away to feed off of me, yet had been interrupted and decided to dump my body here.

  Just inside the woods, I paused a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the lack of light. Around me large trees grew in abundance, their roots inching under the ground, while their branches and the new spring leaves formed a natural roof above. The forest stretched on and on forever, into another world. A world of shelter and safety. Perhaps it was only a façade of safety, but for now it would do.

  “Amazing,” I whispered.

  Clutching my skirts, I made my way through the trees, marveling over each and every tiny thing I found. Orange mushrooms with funny pointed hats. Small white flowers that reminded me of the stars at night. Beetles that scurried back and forth attempting to get away from the rain that managed to pierce the branches. It was a land of mysteries, a land of so much more than I’d expected; it was exactly what I had always wanted to see, what I’d always dreamt of. Exactly as my books described.

  For a second, only a second, I thought I might be dreaming. Gingerly, I reached out and ran my fingers down the damp bark of a nearby oak tree, over the soft moss clinging to the trunk. Beautiful and real. So real. So many mysteries. My awe overtook any feelings of fear. But it was as I was turning that I spotted something odd…something not of nature. Or so it didn’t seem.

  The wonders of the forest forgotten, I moved around the trees, toward the large, rounded object. The closer I got, the more confused I became. What was it? As large as a carriage, but it looked like no wagon I had ever seen.

  I tripped on a large chunk of rock, my thin slippers providing little protection. But as I crouched to rub my aching toes I realized it wasn’t rock at all, but one of many pieces of some sort of dark material that trailed ahead almost like a road…a broken road.

  Pulled by some strange desire, I stepped from piece to piece, following the broken bits toward that large object that looked like a carriage.

  “Don’t touch it,” Tom’s voice whispered through my mind. “Go back. Hide.”

  I ignored the voice. There were large gaping windows in the front, back, and on the sides of the carriage. Weeds and moss crawled up the doors, coating it in a green blanket that said it must have been sitting there for quite some time.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Sally’s voice whispered.

  “You’re in prison,” I whispered harshly to Tom. “And you’re dead,” I snapped at Sally. “So both of you shut up!”

  I stepped onto a stretch of road and suddenly I was next to the object, so close I could smell the scent of earth, moss and…metal?

  “What do you think it is?” I whispered to no one.

  Vaguely I realized that if I was talking to myself, I must be going insane, but I pushed the thought aside. Talking made me feel better, and not so alone. Made me forget, for a moment, that I was shaking with cold and fear. As I dared to step closer, something crunched under my feet.

  “How strange.”

  I bent down and found pieces of what looked to be broken glass sparkling under the low light that seeped through the branches. I was right; the carriage had had windows. I reached out and touched the horseless vehicle. Through the moss that covered it, I could see something that looked almost like metal.
I reached out, pulling the moss from the frame and ran my hands over the surface.

  When I brought my fingers back I found the telltale mark of rust on my skin. I glanced at the object again. Yes, rust. The massive object was metal.

  “What is it,” I murmured, slowly making my way around the metal beast.

  “Don’t touch it,” Tom whispered.

  I frowned, annoyed. What did he know anyway? Nothing, because he hadn’t read the books I had read, he hadn’t studied in school the way I had. A million thoughts raced through my mind, things that I didn’t quite understand, memories from the books about societies I’d never known. But one novel rang out true and clear…

  George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

  A book that had seemed so strange and foreign at the time I couldn’t possibly understand it. A book about wars, dominant societies and lost civilizations.

  I stepped back from the metal object, trying to take it all in, but in the end I just shook my head in bemusement. “Another world? A long-lost society?”

  “No. It can’t be,” Tom whispered.

  Yet, something odd had happened long ago, was still happening. He couldn’t deny what we could see around us. Slowly, I moved around the large metal object, only to see another about ten feet away. No, not just one more…many. They formed a row, almost as if they’d been placed in a line, abandoned along a road of some sort.

  A twig snapped.

  I froze, thoughts about the metal carriage falling to the wayside. My gaze darted around the forest, attempting to decipher movement in those shadows.

  Another deer?

  I started to turn, intending to find a place to hide when I noticed something shift in the shadows across from me, half-hidden by one of the large metal carriages. My mouth went dry.

  An animal? But as I saw the shadow move, I realized it wasn’t a wild animal; no, only a human, or beautiful one would move like that. Frantic, I tried to find a weapon. There…only a few feet away was a chunk of black road that I might have been able to lift. But before I could lunge for it, a person suddenly stood, the whites of his eyes peering at me through the shadows.

  “Run!” Tom’s voice whispered through my mind.

  Instinctively, I spun around and bolted.

  Terror made me faster than I thought possible. I raced around one of the metal boxes, weaving my way in and out, the way I’d seen rabbits run across our commons area. But I wasn’t used to running and my body had grown cold and numb, useless. My terror could only last me so long.

  “Damn!” I snapped, as I stumbled, using the curse word I’d read in one of my books. I couldn’t die now…not out here.

  “Wait!” someone called out.

  “Trust no one,” Sally whispered.

  I could hear the thunder of feet pounding closer…closer. Rationally, I knew that I would never outrun them…not dressed as I was with my heavy skirts weighing me down. But I couldn’t give up. I darted from the trees, fear pulsing bitterly cold through my veins and urging me on. I would not die…not after somehow escaping the castle.

  As I was running down the hill, gripping my skirts to keep from tripping, I dared to glance back. Five men. Five men headed straight at me, their long legs eating up the hill. With a cry of panic, I darted left, behind an outcropping of trees. I felt my shoe slip from my left foot, but I didn’t dare stop to grab it. The slipper tumbled away. I kicked off the other shoe and I raced barefoot down the damp grass.

  “Stop!” one guy called out.

  Frantic, I burst through the weeds only to pull up short as I came to another road. Breathing heavily, I stood there on the hard surface, tiny pebbles biting into my bare feet. It wasn’t cobbled stone, it wasn’t dirt; it was hard, jagged chunks of black, just like in the forest. Another road from long ago? Slowly, I followed that cracked lane. As the trees gave way, something else took their place.

  Buildings…taller than the trees. Buildings that jutted into the sky, higher even than the castle the beautiful ones lived in. Some of the buildings still stood in all their glory, some were falling down into disrepair, their walls broken slabs that piled into mountainous ruins around them.

  Not just one building, but at least five. No, even more in the distance. Eight? Ten? But the buildings were strange, made with a material I’d never seen before: smooth sides, broken angles, windows, so many windows in perfect rows.

  “Stop!” someone cried out from behind me.

  Horrified, I spun around, having for a brief moment forgotten about the men chasing me.

  Too late.

  They stood as a small group watching me through narrowed eyes. A couple held sticks of some sort, a few held swords. Even though they were dressed in plain brown clothing, their faces too dirty and tanned to be beautiful ones, I still trembled in fear.

  “Don’t look weak,” Sally’s voice whispered.

  “Who are you?” I snapped out, proud when my voice didn’t quiver. “Where am I?”

  “It’s okay.” One man stepped forward, separating himself from the group. I didn’t miss the silver sword in his hand. Probably only a couple years older than I was, he, at least, looked kind, with his wavy brown hair, and his hazel eyes warm, if wary. That didn’t mean I trusted him. I had a feeling I would never trust anyone again.

  “My name is Will and we’re your friends.”

  Friends? I took a step back, knowing better. In this new world of death and pain, no one could have friends. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing.” The speaker stepped closer while his little group watched his back.

  I knew without a doubt that if I tried anything, they’d be on me before I could draw breath. I couldn’t outrun them. I couldn’t fight them. I could only talk myself out of this situation.

  “We’re only here to help you.”

  Help me? I resisted the urge to laugh. How could I trust them? I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. But what choice did I have? As much as I wanted to run, I could admit there was something about the kindness in his eyes that reminded me of Tom when he was trying to tame a wild animal.

  Tom.

  Tom who was going to die. Who might have already been murdered. Everything hit me at once, the emotions I’d been trying to keep buried. The fear. The memories of death. A cold rush of reality that crushed me. “No!”

  My knees buckled, and unable to hold myself up I collapsed. But just like Thanatos, Will was there before I hit the ground, pulling me into his arms and holding me close to his muscled body, guarding me from the rain. He didn’t smell like Thanatos. No, he smelled warm and human and safe.

  “Shhh. You’re okay now. Don’t worry.” He set his sword upon the ground and gently rubbed my bare shoulders. “Everything will be okay.”

  But it wouldn’t. Didn’t he understand? There was no one I could trust anymore. I had nowhere to go. Still, he comforted me and I needed it more than I’d realized. Needed it, but I didn’t want it.

  “Don’t trust him,” Tom’s voice whispered to me, a comment I couldn’t ignore.

  Brushing off my damp cheeks, I pulled back, searching Will’s kind face. “Who are you?”

  He smiled, a dimple flashing in his left cheek. “Jane, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  Startled, my heart jumped into my throat. How did he know me? How did he know my name? I shoved his hands away and stood, stumbling back from him. “Who are you?” I repeated, my voice hard, brittle.

  “I know.” He stood slowly, taking his sword with him. “We know everything.”

  “We?” I repeated, wondering what they knew and who they were. But I realized as his gaze shifted to the area beyond my shoulder that he wasn’t talking about his band of merry men.

  “We,” I whispered, turning slowly.

  They stood amongst the rubble, in the doorways and open windows. They stood atop the boulders and on those metal carriages left abandoned along the lane. So many people I couldn’t coun
t them. Dirty faces, brown, dingy clothing, wary eyes.

  “We’re the same as you,” Will said. “The same as all the others who came before us. Relatives, friends of those who were murdered, destroyed. But we’re different because we survived.”

  He moved forward, standing at my side, and for one long moment we merely stared at the many, many people who had crawled from those abandoned buildings and stood watching me as if I was the odd one.

  “We,” Will said, raising his sword into the air, “are the chosen ones.”

  The End

  I hope you’ve enjoyed the prequel to The Chosen Ones, available in the spring of 2014. If you’re interested in finding out what happens to Jane, head to my website at www.LoriBrighton.com and sign up for my newsletter located on the contact page. This newsletter will give you valuable information about upcoming releases.

  While waiting for The Chosen Ones to be released this spring, check out the excerpt of my bestselling young adult series, The Mind Readers. The ebook version of book 1 is free!

  The Mind Readers