The Awakening

Dark Presence

A/N: hello there!! pre-warning : there are 100% going to be spelling/grammar mistakes in this chapter . . . sorry in advance!

Sophie's POV

I'd been trying to teleport for around two hours, at least that's what it felt like.

No monsters or elves had shown up, and I didn't detect anything in the water surrounding Lumenaria, so I figured I was safe at the very least.

But, the burns on my arms were starting to bother me. No matter what kind of water trick I did, they wouldn't heal. It made me wonder what Fintan did with his Pyrokinetics, if he'd been experimenting with them on a genetic level.

Anyway, this would now be my twentieth attempt at teleportation in the the long period of time I'd been stuck here.

Fingers crossed.

I backed up a few paces from the top of the small cliff. Taking a deep breathe, I channeled all of my energy into my weak muscles, breaking out into a full run.

The edge of the cliff came up fast, and soon I was in free fall. I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate fast before I reached the water. It was the shortest cliff that I'd ever tried to teleport off of, but I was pretty desperate.

My Telepathic communication with the people back home, or even the Councillors and Collective, wasn't working. I didn't know if there was a block on my part, or theirs, but I was worried.

Very worried.

I let out the breath I was holding when the familiar boom sounded in between the tranquil sounds of nature from the area. The void surrounded me quickly, and I welcomed the darkness.

My mind was running through the possibilities of places my friends and family would likely be. The new hideout was promising, but if they'd been out looking for me then I wouldn't know where to find them.

I could have tried Havenfield or Everglen, but I doubted that they'd be at their homes during my absence. Even though I wished they could just let me escape on my own and worry about other things.

Like the fact that my kidnapping was a distraction.

I had a whole lot of time to think about my abduction, and they didn't necessarily put me through or do anything to really hurt, terrify, or get information out of me.

The Neverseen always had a reason for everything.

With that in mind, I focused on an image of the new treehouse hideout; the name of it escaping me at the moment.

I had more important things to worry about, no offense to the treehouse.

The void dissipated as the image became more prominent in my mind, materializing in front of me like magic. Fitz would never let me live that down, thinking the elven world was magical when I first came here.

I immediately grew increasingly more worried at the sight of the treehouse.

It was a mess.

Bodies of ogres littered the front steps of the treehouse, their weapons strewn all over the grassy area next to the entrance. The doors to the treehouse were thrown wide open, one clearly broken off its hinges.

I tiptoed over the corpses, recognizing the lot of them as dead. Their wounds covered most of their bodies, especially the fatal gashes on their heads and deep cuts on their abdomens stood out to me.

I was almost through the doors when something wrapped around my ankle, pulling me backwards. Yelping a bit, I stumbled to keep my balance, willing myself not to fall flat on my face. What I determined as a hand around my ankle did not have as strong and tight a grip as Jelly, so I was able to kick their hand off fairly quickly.