Never In Silence (Free Edition)

Prologue

         A sweet breeze warms the valley. The twin moons never brighter as the teen girl twirls in their twilight.

        Screams of agony, chaos and blood. A childhood lost. An innocence ruined with the stench of burning flesh galavanting with death's smokey haze.

        Her colorless eyes peered up to the night sky with a hope and wonder while she held the small leather booklet in her hand. She always had the gift that seemed to travel through her family's lineage, as does most magic through other families.

        A family lost with its sole survivor, unaware of the atrocity that awaits.

        The moons begin their flirtation with their peak as she pockets the booklet, and she runs through the forest, dancing with the shadows, and dreaming of the gift she will be seeking to master when the witching hour ends and morning comes.

        Sickening laughter as they degrade their spoils with snide remarks, never to know, nor understand the value the family held in their home and seemingly worthless trinkets.

        Smoke whispers in the sweet breeze of the night.

        Ransacked memories laid to waste.

        Quicken steps, fluttering heart.

        Gut-wrenching nerves and nauseating fear.

        Please be alive.

        Deaf pleas.

        A laugh.

        Over a corpse.

        Mother...

        And two others.

        Father and brother.

        A shattered whimper and a gasping breath as her heart shreds itself against her ribs, earning unwanted attention.

        Delicately reaching out to her loved ones.

        Her reach taken in an unforgiving grip. Her back slammed into the wall that was made a prison by the body of the new warden.

        The familiar smoothness of the wood her father so lovingly crafted graced the palms of her hands along with the tips of her fingers.

        A violating horror ready to take her.

        Her eyes, beautiful and surreal while souls danced through them.

        Panic and scarce knowledge to summon aid in her desolate moment. Veins of death wrap around her. Wailing pain as a symbol is rotted into her flesh.

        Swaying locks of royal indigo, a familiar sight. Sweet Mother, always there for her, with her father always at Mother's side, and brother with his talented blade at the ready to defend.

        The familiarity broken by the shambling movement of their corpses.

        Rescued from the villain.

        Left with his enraged allies. Too many. No hope. Overwhelmed as her vision darkens, and the world falls from her mind.

        Cold nipping at her skin.

They're dead.

        Darkness surrounds her before whispering lights flicker around her.