Rebecca R. Cohen78,233 words
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THE FALLEN SHADOWS: INTO THE LIGHT
(Book One)
By
Rebecca R. Cohen
1
THE DESCENDED
It was on top of her before she had a chance to run. Katharine could feel its rancid breath on her neck. It was warm and smelled something terrible. This is it, this is how I am going to die, Katharine Mackelmore thought as the creature’s force knocked her onto the hard stone ground that lined the walls of the quarry.
She had taken the same shortcut from Carnegie High School through the quarry nearly every day and she never once felt unsafe. Her parents often warned her not to walk through it at night, as she was an easy target for rapists and other criminal minds.
Small and slender, she had been given the gift of perfectly shiny black hair with streaks of red. Of course, the red streaks were put there a few months earlier when she decided to make a change to her everyday look.
She was imperfectly beautiful, the kind of girl that guys swooned over; but Katharine never gave them a real chance. She considered the boys in her school to be far too simple-minded and easy to figure out. She liked to be challenged and the boys at Carnegie High School just weren’t challenging enough.
Katharine actually preferred to walk through the quarry and its surrounding woods at night because the moon would reflect off the water casting shadows that she always found breathtaking, like something from another world.
The quarry was one of Meadowbrook’s only landmarks; without it Meadowbrook was practically hidden from the rest of the world. In fact, Meadowbrook was so small you’d need a magnifying glass to find it on a map. The woods surrounding the walls of the quarry were filled with an even combination of willow and pine trees that provided passersby with the familiar smell of Christmas morning.
In the winter, right after a snowstorm when snow covered the ground, Meadowbrook residents would gather to build snowmen and compete in snowball fights. Katharine was always one of the last to be eliminated from the competition. She had sensational aim and rarely ever missed a target.
Despite her parents’ suggestions, Katharine continued to venture to the quarry once the sun had set. It became a place where some of her favorite memories came to life. It was her sanctuary and her escape from the stress of everyday life.
As she lay on the hard ground the moon made its way from behind the clouds and cast a light on the creature’s face. What Katharine once thought was a disfigured human, when it was just out of focus, looked like something she had only seen in horror movies. The beast’s face was pale and covered with grotesque scarring. It looked as if it had lost a fight with a chainsaw.
Its hands were like anyone else’s hands, were it not for the sharp, thick black claws that rested where fingernails normally would be. The claws hooked underneath themselves, creating a loop ending inches away from piercing right back into its skin.
Katharine was pinned underneath the creature’s enormous body, which was being covered only by shredded sheer white pants. It wore no shoes and no shirt. Its exposed toes were likewise equipped with sharp, black hook-like claws.
“Tracker,” the creature hissed, breathing a wretched stench on Katharine’s face, as foul as rotting eggs sitting in the hot summer sun. Its eyes caught Katharine’s gaze; they were black and solid and entirely unnatural.
She felt her stomach churning, filling with bile. The creature slid its tongue on her cheek, hissing, while using its claws to scratch at her skin. It tongue was rough like a cat’s against her skin. The smell of its rancid breath made her gag.
Katharine closed her eyes and cried a mournful sound. Dying there on the cold ground alone with the foul smelling creature on top of her was not how she wanted to go. With all her strength she willed herself to stop crying and to fight back so she could see the future she’d always dreamt about come to fruition. Katharine swung her arm around, landing it on the creature’s nose with a heavy blow.
When its face returned from the hit she landed a second one to its right eye. Yellow ooze, thin and fluid, flew out of the gash Katharine had made on the creature’s face. The ooze landed on her face burning her. She screamed in pain.
Furious that its victim was fighting back the beast pulled out a large hollowed silver blade from its back where it had been buried beneath the scarred skin. Shoving Katharine harder against the ground the creature placed the point of the blade under her chin. The cold metal dug into her throat cutting her skin.
She grabbed the hilt and tried to push it away but the creature was too strong for her. It pushed the blade against her once more before raising it in preparation to jam it into her neck. She was about to die; she was sure of it and the creature’s monstrous face was going to be the last thing she’d ever see.
A million images saturated her mind of all the things she would never get to experience. She would never get to see her graduation day, the day she had been preparing for ever since she first stepped inside the halls of Carnegie High School. She would never get to see what life would be like as a lawyer or how her best friend Molli Harris would be as a mother.
Of all the images that crawled through her mind one stood out. She would truly fall, in love. Not that she ever tried to find it in the past; she just always assumed once she had her career sorted out love would just find her when she was ready.
The creature smiled murderously as it drove the blade with a mighty force hurtling toward Katharine. She closed her eyes and waited for death - but it didn’t come. Rather, she felt as if a weight had been violently ripped off her. She thought it was the out of body experience that follows death but when she found the courage to open her eyes she realized the absence of weight was the creature falling off her. Beside her the creature lay lifeless with yellow ooze draining from its body.
“I wouldn’t lie there for too long. When a Descended dies they decay quite rapidly and the smell is rather unpleasant,” a male voice said. The voice was soft but carried a confidence that Katharine had never heard before.
A male figure stepped out from behind one of the taller pine trees that surrounded Katharine and the fallen creature. Nothing at all like the creature that attacked her, this was a beautiful boy with bright green eyes that shone in the moonlight and hair that rested softly on his shoulders. He advertised his rebellious personality with multiple ear piercings and a small nose ring that just added to his leading man looks.
The boy’s attire consisted of a sheer white shirt with three of its top buttons missing, exposing part of his chiseled chest, white pants made up of a thick material and harboring more pockets than Katharine could count; each one had been stuffed with weapons. The seemingly rebellious boy’s outfit was completed with a golden jacket that was not made of any fabric Katharine recognized. The mysterious fabric and bad boy image wasn’t what threw her; it was the golden bow and arrows strapped to his back that had sparked Katharine’s curiosity. The boy looked like a soldier from a fantasy movie.
Katharine backed away slowly like a crab, her eyes never leaving the newcomer. She was very weak and still too frozen with fear to try to stand. At first glance her rescuer looked like just another attractive teenage boy but Katharine had been too traumatized to notice much else.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said raising his hands with his palms facing her in a surrendering position.
“Get away from me!” Katharine shouted, her voice gravely filled with fright. “I’ll sc
ream!”
“I’d best be careful then, since clearly that was working out quite well for you before I came along.” The boy chuckled as he walked cautiously toward her. He knelt down in front of her and lowered his hand offering to help her to her feet. “I am not going to hurt you.”
Katharine stared at his open palm contemplating for a moment to take it but since she had already felt like the damsel in distress, a role she never wanted to play, she wasn’t going to continue playing that part.
She brushed his hand away swiftly and used her own to push herself off the ground into a standing position. Her legs were shaken and crumbled beneath her sending her falling back to the ground. The boy rushed to her side and held her arm just below the shoulder. His touch was gentle, secure and made her muscle tighten. She felt exhilarated. “It doesn’t make you weak to need help,” the boy insisted.
He was right, besides she didn’t want to sit on the cold ground all night. She took the boy’s outstretched arm and allowed him to help her over to a bench a few feet from where she had just been attacked. The moonlight followed them continuing to cast a spotlight on the mystifying boy who came to Katharine’s aide. He carefully helped her down on the bench and took a seat beside her.
The still nameless boy touched a small gash on Katharine’s neck where the Descended had cut her with his blade. Concern was written all over his face as he pulled a golden cloth out of his jacket pocket and carefully wiped the blood off Katharine’s face. His touch was comforting and even though the wounds were painful Katharine didn’t flinch; she was too focused on the boy’s lustrous eyes.
“Thank you,” Katharine said delicately, “for saving my life.”
“Thanks for not dying before I got there. That would have been a pain for me to clean up,” the boy chuckled.
“How about the fact that I would be dead?” Katharine snapped. She was too worn out for jokes that came at her expense, especially after an ordeal like that.
“Well yes I suppose that wouldn’t have been pleasant for you.” He smiled and placed the cloth back inside his pocket. Katharine didn’t care for his attempts at being witty.
“You really know how to make a first impression don’t you?” Katharine retorted sarcastically.
“Oh my gosh you’re right. How terribly rude of me, I’m Ash,” he said, standing up military style and saluting Katharine. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Typical. Ash was not the name Katharine pictured him having. She thought he would have said his name was something more super-hero-like than that considering his getup. He didn’t look like an Ash, then again not many people did.
His confidence was overwhelming but he wasn’t like any of the boys Katharine knew. Before Ash she used to find his type of confidence unappealing, but there was something about the way he carried himself that made him entirely too intriguing. “You’re quite the first impressionist yourself.”
“What are you talking about? Is that even a real word?” Katharine snapped. “Its hard to make a good first impression when you’re being attacked by a grotesque creature.”
Ash chuckled wildly as he moved around Katharine the way wolves would circle their prey. His stride was steady and broad. She could see, even in his pace, he believed himself to be her savior. He showed no signs of fear or concern; he was a young man completely out of place and yet completely at home in these surroundings.
Katharine, though irritated by his smart remarks, was fascinated, by his pure knowledge of just who he was. He seemed to have no doubts about himself, no inklings that perhaps he was meant for something more, not like herself who always believed Meadowbrook was far too small a place for her. “Lucky for you this wasn’t my first time seeing you.”
“What?” Katharine felt a rush of cold blood flowing through her veins. “So basically you’re a stalker, a psychopathic stalker.”
“I have been aware of you for quite some time now. The first time I ever saw you, sitting at that long empty table in the library buried in your books, you gave off quite the geeky impression,” Ash said nudging Katharine on the shoulder gently. “It isn’t a bad thing. Actually I think its quite endearing to know that a girl with your looks is so dedicated to her studies. That kind of dedication is hard to come by.”
“You got all that from a trip to the library?” Katharine replied.
“I’m pretty intuitive. I’m sure I know more about you than you think.”
Katharine couldn’t help but laugh. He sounded like a character from one of the many sitcoms she’d stay up late to watch with her parents. They were filled with characters that believed in wild factoids, none of which ever held any validity.
In any other case Katharine would have argued with him that it was impossible to know anyone without having spoken to them or spending any time with them which is why she never believed in love at first sight, but she was too worn out to argue with him.
“So you what? Go around stalking girls, deciding that you know them because you watch them when they least expect it,” Katharine snapped, “and then you randomly save them from vicious beasts to make up for the stalking?”
Again Ash chuckled only this time the sound of his laughter crawled beneath Katharine’s skin the way a worm buried itself beneath the dirt. “You are a feisty one and I’ve quite enjoyed watching you these last few days. You really know how to brighten up a room.”
She wanted so much to slap him for following her around and for dancing around the real issue.
“I don’t have time for this. Clearly you have some kind of mental issues but you did save my life so I guess I will have to give you some credit. Plus you seem to know what it was that attacked me and I am extremely curious, as we don’t have any bears around here. The closest bear sighting was over 300 miles away, no way it could have made it all the way to Meadowbrook,” Katharine stated, because she believed Ash knew exactly what it was that attacked her.
Ash’s playful demeanor changed rapidly. His face folded into a fierce look of concern. He turned his back to Katharine and began to walk toward the edge of the stonewall lining the quarry.
Ash stared down at the calm waters below. The boy remained quiet for longer than Katharine would have liked. She had just survived an attack from an unknown assailant, what he was so contemplative about telling her couldn’t have been much worse than that. Ever the survivor, Katharine mustered up as much strength as she could and joined him at the edge overlooking the water.
“You’re not going to like what I am about to tell you, nor will you believe it. I don’t think your mind is currently of believing what reality truly is,” Ash said, keeping his gaze on the water.
He seemed almost angry but not necessarily angry with Katharine. It was almost as if he was burdened with a task that he despised and was now about to lay on her.
“I was just attacked by some creature with claws and the worst morning breath I have ever encountered. I found out that the same person who saved my life tonight has been basically stalking me for the last few days and is incessantly confident in himself, I think I can handle a few more shocking revelations,” Katharine insisted, chuckling at his serious demeanor. An attitude that he was apparently not too fond of, if his expression was anything to go by.
“You’re all the same, thinking you can handle what is about to come to light, being overly sure of yourself. It could get you killed.” He turned abruptly toward her startling her with a terrifying look in his eyes. “What attacked you is called a Descended, a former angel of Heaven that was cast out by the archangels for committing sins against the garrison. When these sinners are cast out they are sent to Purgatory along with the rest of Heaven’s prisoners. However, a few of them, like the Descended, have somehow found a way out of Purgatory and are now threatening your world.” He opened his jacket and pulled out a golden sphere from the inner lining.
The sphere was small, about the size of a golf ball and was crafted with intricate designs and lettering Katharine did not recognize. The sphere was not c
ompletely solid as there were spaces on each side of it in between the designs and lettering. Katharine looked closely at the object and realized that, though there were gaps, she could not see through it.
Ash held the sphere in the palm of his hand gently closing his fingers around it like a loose cage so it wouldn’t fall. “Otkriti,” The word, foreign to Katharine, sent the round object spinning.
The pace of the spinning began to increase turning the designs on its exterior to a blurry mix of yellowish black coloring. With the disappearance of recognizable designs and coloring Katharine began to notice that her surroundings were beginning to disintegrate like they were being burned up in a fire.
The willow trees that had stood with such sorrow in clusters of ten turned to ash; the pine on the pine trees blew in circles until they engulfed the trees they once found residence on. The quarry water began to boil until smoke rose up and filled it. When the smoke cleared where the quarry once stood was an empty black hole.
The smells that encompassed the surrounding area remained the same; pine, fresh grass and fresh spring water. Katharine could still hear the sounds of cars driving on the roadway beyond the woods and she knew she was still in Meadowbrook, she also knew that what she was seeing was real.
“What is this?” Katharine asked, raising her voice even though there was no reason too.
“This is why I’m here,” Ash replied, nodding with his head for Katharine to look in front of her.
She saw vivid flashes of some kind of fight unfolding in the distance, but it wasn’t some skirmish she could read about in her history books. This war was a holy battle fought atop a majestic hill covered in the brightest roses Katharine had ever seen. The roses lined the hill the way a railing lined high walkways in foreign countries. The hill, covered in dark green grass, stretched up through the clouds.
Atop the rosy perch there were two battles taking place simultaneously. One depicted Angels, wearing similar outfits to the one Ash had on, who were battling one another, throwing their weaker counterparts off the side of the hill to fall into the abyss below.
Into The Light (The Fallen Shadows) Page 1