IMMORTAL SECRETS: THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB

PROLOGUE - ACCALIA

Each night he comes for me. In my dreams, he's always there. A figure hidden by the fallen night. A monster glaring from the shadows. The Night Monster. This is how I see him at fourteen.

My dreams used to transport me to peaceful places – vales split by calming rivers, forests filled with enchanted creatures to nestle – places offering what I crave while awake but never receive – love. Now, my dreams offer terror.

As I fall asleep, my consciousness rises from bed. For a short while, in my haven, under the opaque shade of camphor trees, snuggled in a unicorn's ivory mane, I'm at peace. Suddenly my surroundings become hazy. The trees disappear, the unicorn is spirited away, and the luscious grass I lay in turns hard, cold. Darkness shifts into place devouring all light. Unwillingly, I rise and step through it, praying each time he's not here. Eventually, I feel him all around. Towering above, stalking to my side, unseen in front of me, even lurking in the earth's crust deep below my feet.

While the internal sound is hysteria – the pounding of my heart against my chest is too loudly pulsing through my ears – externally, the sound of silence is an eerie calm embodied in hatred. Deafening in its own right with miles of empty darkness, concealing the Night Monster. I could cower and shiver from him, like the broken girl when I'm awake. But I refuse to be weak and allow him sole power in my dreams.

I push down the hysteria filled knot in my throat, swallow hard, and adjust my eyes to the distant dark. The world feels as dense as a moonless night. Just then, my eyes pierce through, and I see his silhouette. I decide to pursue him more fiercely than he stalks me. Imitating confidence while the Night Monster turns circles of hatred around me.

Every time I glimpse him from the corner of my eye, he disappears as if he were a ghost. There has to be a reason he's here every night. The urge to catch him is as strong as my urge to run from him, with the hope that if I catch him, I'll be able to force this monster to face me and demand to know his reasons for stalking me. It can't be to kill me; he's had plenty of opportunities. Watching is all he does, but I feel the way he wishes I would die ...

Two years, the Night Monster has stalked my dreams. Two years, I've sought after him with little success. His presence still frightens me more than ever, but I won't back down. I've learned to be bolder and more determined in my dreams. While standing up to my fears here, my waking life is different. I try to be strong, but it's harder when surrounded by an onslaught of hateful words and unloving fists.

Tonight, I've come closer than ever to the Night Monster. He stands planted in the dark as I approach. He's a silhouette of darkest night, hatred radiating in waves off of him. His heavy breathing consumes my ears, a warning to back down, but giving into his threats isn't part of my plan. I continue to step closer, little by little.

A low growl catches in his throat, and my heart skips a beat. For the first time, I hear the Night Monster's voice, "Do you know how I long to crush your bones; to watch you slowly die." A dire warning laced with hostility. "I cannot be held back forever." A threat conveying he's under orders not to harm me, yet he's actively looking to disregard them. Pushing aside the morbid curiosity which brought me this close to him, I stop.

For the past two years, his hatred of me has been obvious. The reasons behind it remain a mystery kept hidden by the darkness surrounding us, swept into the shadows of night. With this short distance between us, though, finally, by the grace of starlight forming above, I glimpse part of the face that has stalked my dreams. Contorted by hatred. Stamped with venom. In his eyes, I'm an abomination, my breathing a direct insult. He views me as vermin, not worthy of life, as a pest to exterminate.

The revelation is a blow to the gut. Any fear of the monster vibrating through me is overcome by sadness as I recognize the face, or more precisely, faces, even in this twisted form. He first wears the face of my guardian, who has never hidden his dislike for me, reminding me daily of how little he feels for me with harsh words and brutal neglect.

As if part of a twisted kaleidoscope, the face then morphs into my stepbrother. The pain of his fists colliding with my face is as brutal now as they've ever been, if he were standing next to me punching me. I recall the bruises, so many over my lifetime.

Finally, the kaleidoscope reveals the face I imagine to be my father, even though I've never seen him, even a picture. I'm keenly aware, though – taking bits and pieces from myself – the face I picture would've belonged to him.

And then, the kaleidoscope turns for the last time. My father but faceless stands before me. The empty face reflects my own emptiness born of his loss and the horrors that have replaced him. My heart snaps as I realize the monster wears a mask of my fears and grief.

Be stronger in your dreams, a small voice whispers. She's who I'd be if my parents were alive to raise me; the stronger version trapped in my head eagerly fighting to break through. You're not the broke-minded soul people evade by day. Here, you can be whoever you choose.

I hear this small voice often. During the day, while awake, it's difficult to hear her, though. The pain from my waking horrors drown out anything positive. For where there's abuse, there's a consuming void holding you prisoner, depression. No thought is really yours. No action granted by you. You're stumbling through the present living in the past. The void silences any hope, giving voice to darkness and loneliness only. But when I'm sleeping, the small voice in my head is released, freed by the peace and quiet of night. She urges me to be stronger. To be the girl I was meant to be.

My dreams had previously been my haven from my torturous life, and the Night Monster has stolen them long enough. I refuse to allow another minute wasted to the fears he brings.

"Why have you come?" I dare ask.

His answer is in the form of heavier breaths.

I try again, "Why are you stalking me? Justify yourself."

My last words are a demand he takes as a challenge. His foot extends, then his other follows, two steps towards me into a path of light newly between us. A distant moon suddenly behind him subtly makes visible black marks on his arms, etched over his disfigured body. Truly, he's a monster with wild eyes narrowed at me and his chin tilted down. My demand brings forth the sage in his dark eyes then shifts his marks from black to emerald, magic fueled by rage. His raw magic vibrates off his deformed skin. Magic which can crush me – or the earth.

I brace myself for an attack. What have I done?

This is only a dream, I remind myself. Let him attack. I'm too broken to fight the ones who should love me while awake, and so I'll fight the Night Monster here in this dream. He'll become the ones who hurt me, and I'll do to him what I can't to them.

The Night Monster smirks, "Feisty little thing, aren't you?"

I don't respond.

A cool, wicked laugh escapes his lips, as if my being is a joke, "You think you can outmatch me?"

I'm petite in comparison to this obvious brute, but I only see the ones who hurt me, not this monster, which emboldens me with a power fueled by hate.

I surmise the odds of my survival increase by throwing the first punch. I am about to take one step towards him, when his words stop me in surprise, "I'm not permitted to kill you today, nor even tomorrow. Your days are numbered, though, Accalia Gerheart." He pauses to contemplate his next words. Once settled, he delivers them with malice, "The day you believe all to be peaceful and right with the world is the day I'll steal you from it."

A wicked grin lifts one corner of his lips. He raises his chin to now gaze arrogantly down upon me, to communicate he thinks of me as inconsequential. When he decides he's wasted enough time, he steps aside, out of the moon's subtle glow, concealed again by the fallen night.

My bold stance goes limp. I realize my dreams are no longer mine but his, and, one day, he'll kill me here. I won't be able to stop him.