Descendants

Chapter I - Discovered

I've written this chapter three times over and it still seems a bit cliche...the next two I believe are much better but any opinions on what you'd recommend will be welcome.

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The air was cool and humid from an earlier rain, and moonlight could only be found in thin beams through the thick boughs of cedar and hemlock. All was near black in darkness, and the ground felt spongey beneath her feet, mixed with slick fallen leaves and the occasional sting of a nettle.

Despite the chilling and muggy air, Claire's lungs and throat continued to scratch and burn, and the half-fae girl was sure that if she continued any longer that those organs would surely spring out of her body in some hideous fashion. She stopped and pressed her back against a large pine tree, its wet moss saturating her already thin and torn nightgown all down the back.

Shivering profusely, the girl felt hot tears running down her cheeks as she caught her breath, each one burning a little less than the last.

Images of Claire's mother intruded her mind. The horror that would most likely strike when she would hear the news of her daughter's disappearance. Insolent prisoners were rewarded with a painful death, and nobody had managed to escape the Ward until now. The fear of what may happen if she were caught was almost enough to dull the pain in her aching muscles.

Stumbling through the forest for what seemed an unending time, and after only occasionally eating what little berries and edible foliage she could find, Claire was becoming reprehensibly famished.

She'd been out since sunset, when all the guardsmen were in a chaotic bustle between schedule changes and swarms of prisoners were retreating back to their barracks from supper and yet the foolish girl had forgotten to smuggle any provisions.

Suddenly she heard the calling of an owl in the distance, and the terror she once felt as a child had set in. Stumbling as fast as she could through the underbrush, Claire was painfully aware of the din she must've been creating.

However, she did not care. This fear pushed a new, rounding course of adrenaline through her body and she exerted as much energy as possible, remembering that her childhood fears were not the only threat to her back.

As the ground began to rise, she started crawling up the small hill, nearly covering the whole of her body's anterior in black dirt and muddied grass. Her thin hair was no exception. Using various roots and vines to her advantage, Claire slowly continued her ascent.

Some twenty minutes later she found herself trudging through thick undergrowth and in between large coniferous trees, black from the sparse moonlight and covered in sheets of thick moss such as earlier in her escape. Her limbs and feet ached, bleeding from countless twigs and sharp nettles that blanketed the mound she struggled to clamber up.

The surrounding trees' long limbs jetted out from thick trunks, masking the sky with arms that bled into it like ink, and seemed to be waiting for the perfect moment to grab her.

Her only comfort was a familiar smell to the air which only the forest could offer, and the cool pine mixed with evening dew would be a rather pleasant scent if the forest floor wasn't covered in decaying leaves, despite having a distinct nostalgic odor altogether.

Despite the trees offering a safer, hidden route away from her captors, she couldn't help but feel a pair of eyes over her shoulder. It was oppressive, and eerily present. The silence was even more perturbing.

Casting any paranoid thought aside, she only wished the leaves on the hill had been covering the nettles, and not vice versa. Grimacing from the pain of already damaged hands, Claire cleared away the underbrush and lain back against the ground.