Read
writer, author, upcoming writer
It's a Shadow World
Genre: Dark, Fantasy
Faeries hold excelling beauty, intelligence, craftsmanship, and communication skills. Despite this, at some point in history, humans classed themselves as a superior species. This drastic declaration led to an unbridgeable divide, politically and economically. One species flourished in the vast forests to the north, while the other survived by erecting stone walls from the mountains that separated the land they all shared. Over the centuries, the stone transformed into brick, and the forests became parks and nature reserves, and the United Kingdom seemed just that - on the surface.
Born of an illegal union of the two species, Shadows are marginalised and expelled from all communities. Shadow is a derogatory term creatively derived from our soft flesh, greyed humanoid features, and green pupils resembling rabid faeries.
Not welcomed by anyone, we tend to float around. In the past, I came across another of my kind, Logan, who provided me a place to live. Like me, Logan didn’t know who birthed him. Calling them parents seems redundant since they deserted us as infants; anyone known to hide, talk to or raise a Shadow is killed. We had taken to living in an abandoned railway tunnel. It was alright if you could forgive perfect faerie sight for spotting smoky creatures hiding in the dark, searching for their next meal, us.
Amid dust, the stench of rancid oil, and the faint glow of daylight struggling to pierce the blackness, we survived the only way we could, feeding off humans.
‘Adam.’
‘What?’
‘Human.’
Having lived alone since young, our language is rough and tickles our tongues when we speak. The unfamiliar words sounded crass and echoed against the barren walls of our home as we agreed to the hunt. Logan had heard a human enter the tunnel. A foolish choice; rumours had spread about dangerous monsters hiding within the darkness, but some people were brave enough, stupid enough, to become our meals.
‘On track.’
‘OK.’
Unsurprisingly, the slur Shadows accurately depicted our twisted figures as we mangled our frames to blend into the gloom. The faerie blood pumped hungrily, allowing us to hunt our prey easily, yet our strength was not heightened. Killing was as gruesome and challenging as if we were no different from a human. By the time dinner’s windpipe was crumpled in my grip, I always felt the peculiar weight of my weakness and strength.
Standing just shy of the average human doorway, I was still at least a foot shorter than a common faerie. With a longer lifespan than either race, we Shadows flee alternately to both sides of the border whenever we are spotted, the anxiety of death clawing at our heels. Human flesh sustains our life, the simplicity of their blood and bone design makes feeding enjoyable and satisfying.
As I watched the faerie part of me glow in the puddles of blood stretching across the concrete, dripping, slipping beneath the iron rails, Logan would grunt, ‘eat.’
‘Eat,’ I’d agree, sinking my teeth into a flabby arm, enjoying the burning sweetness that stained my teeth and dribbled from my lips.
‘And Menelaus, for the woe he had to lose his wife’ (Hume 1644:138-139)
Helen found herself standing by the edge of the salt water. All day, she had felt drawn, pulled by an invisible force to this spot. Having spent hours standing while the sun arched high overhead before tucking itself behind the coast guard’s orange vessel, she wanted to leave. The problem she faced was strange; in all her years, not once had she struggled physically, yet her feet would not move. The pebbles on the shoreline nuzzled against her sandals as the tide inched closer. Resigned Helen waited, waited for movement or inspiration, something as insane as a sign to let her be free.
‘Excuse me? Are you alright?’
Turning in surprise, Helen found herself in the company of a man. One she hadn’t seen before - not that it was impossible to meet someone new - this man felt familiar despite this being their first meeting. Surely, she would not forget a chiselled jawline, straight nose, bushy eyebrows, and dark-honey eyes. No, she would not.
‘Are you alright?’ He asked again, his voice attractively raspy against the sound of the waves.
‘Of course, I’m just enjoying the view,’ she replied, tasting the hotness of her mouth increasing.
‘Sorry for bothering you, it’s just I was walking the other way a while ago, and now that I’ve returned, when I saw you in the same spot, I thought you were in trouble.’
‘Well, lucky me,’ Helen giggled. Suddenly her words dawned on her, and a ruby blush coloured her nose and cheeks. Mortified, Helen exclaimed, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t, I’m so embarrassed.’
The honey-eyed man laughed brightly, his eyes creasing. ‘It’s quite alright. Hearing that from a beautiful woman is the dream of every man.’
The blush refusing to disappear, Helen held out her hand in a gentlemanly fashion. ‘Helen.’
The man’s chuckles concluded as he stared at her pale fingers. Taking her hand in his, Helen trembled at the touch of his rough skin. ‘Mel.’
‘Mel? Where’s that from?’
Not releasing her hand, Mel sighed with a grin, shaking his head. ‘It’s actually a nickname; you see, my mother had an odd sense of humour and named me after a character from mythology.’
‘Would I know who it is?’
‘Would you?’ The two watched each other, lost in the final moments of the waning sunlight. ‘Menelaus,’ He pronounced softly.
‘Menelaus, Mel,’ Helen said aloud, repeating the words, the feel of the sounds, the odd sense of familiarity. Looking at him, everything else faded, and she saw him standing before a different sea, in different clothes, at a different time. ‘Menelaus?’ she whispered.
‘What’s wrong, Helen?’ Mel asked as he noticed the change in her demeanour. ‘Helen?’ Surprise crossed her face as her own name seemed alien. The expression on Helen’s face triggered something within Mel; this time, he watched her melt into a new background. ‘Helen, Helen, Helena.’
‘My King, is it you?’ she asked tenderly.
Tears poured like mercury from their eyes as the sun left them in darkness.
Genre: Romance
Brothers
Genre: Dark, Fantasy
The wind crawled hungrily along the blistered, black bartizan as it ascended the great tower. Time seemed endless as the winged man rode the clambering gusts to the top where the air was thin, and the sight was all but a collection of forgotten clouds that looked to have aged into the dark rock of the terrifying structure. No sunlight could enter yet it was still aglow; maybe the golden embers that pulsated atop the flag stones from great millennial fires kept the open tower lit.
The man stood with steel eyes cold, as cold as the ageing rock that lifelessly murmured in its hollows; formed by the wind over centuries of heavy beatings, resulting in narrow burrows which vacuumed the water from the caliginous lake hundreds of feet below. After reaching the surface it circulated beautifully around the gutters carved into the circular floor like an altar. The design quilted into the layout of the stones and shadowed by the conical roof emphasising the mystic design.
The thick ashen clouds seemed to infuse with the darkness of the tower enveloping the openings of the Donjon[[1]], wrapping the pillars and hiding two Palisades positioned in opposite gaps within the four misshapen columns.
The man looked along the glowing embers decorating the sunken troughs admiring the broken jewels and ancient engravings that shone from beneath the liquid, laden in the pale light. Simple colours of red, green and gold beamed through the crawling water, glittering against the inside of the empty cone that ventured far above until it could no longer be seen since clouds had forced their way in or formed mysteriously, expanding, darkening and dampening the thick, archaic wooden beams.
The man stepped cautiously towards the centre of the space. As his heels met the ground a soft vibration rippled through the stone forcing the embers and chips from the black rock to dance balletically. A large pillar of red stone floated within grasp of a bronze creature positioned fearlessly in the centre of the altar, its claws creating cruel archways over the channels. Before the man could reach the dragon, its mighty head swung valiantly towards him leaving a streak of weightless, white mist. “You are a long way from home, Lucifer.”
“I thought dragons were extinct.” The angel countered.
“Is this appearance too conspicuous?” The dragon puffed clean smoke from his nostrils as he spoke that hovered momentarily in the air before it disappeared without a trace nor sound. “Why are you here?”
Lucifer knelt humbly before the dragon. “Fortune favours the bold dear Baby Brother, or so I’ve been told.” he claimed, his words sounded warm but empty as he swung an exquisite wing round encircling both himself and the bronze dragon in one fluid motion. The wing shimmered in the faint glow.
“Did you come here to take back this Stone, Brother?”
The angel’s lips curled at the corners as he leaned closer to the dragon. “Brother? You actually remember?” He remained very still, his magnificent feathers ruffling in the gentle gusts dancing through the open tower. “Then, why do you have it and that hideous form, Gabriel?”
“I told Father I would do whatever it took.”
Lucifer’s voice shook the tower as both rage and fear pulsated through the rocks, causing ash to fall violently from the climbing roof above them. “To do what? Ruin yourself?”
“I am tired of this life.”
“That is ridiculous. Stop your actions before you do something that you truly regret. Or am I too late, Angel of Death?”
The dragon glared silently then his face relaxed and puffed two more streams of white mist, which spiralled freely together as if they were a free pair of dancing wings among the purest winds high above. Smiling simply Gabriel said, “Brother, that is why! I no longer wish to bring death.”
In a moment the angel’s wing retracted like a horse from a snake as the dragon raised his head and gazed calmly into the burning amber eyes of the angel. For a while both stood in silence, thinking so profoundly they could almost hear each other’s thoughts. The angel then closed his eyes and retreated the way he entered, without displaying his back to the beautiful bronze dragon that remained vigilant in watching his figure become faint as grey mist began to shroud the angel’s body. As Lucifer’s heel’s hung over the edge of Donjon, their shadows became dangerous monsters in the mounds of lead-lined darkness below, stretching hundreds of feet towards the abyss of the silent lake at the foot of the great tower.
He stretched out his arm in a swift elegant movement and the Stone danced across the space into his grasp and he turned and stepped off the tower floating effortlessly down the terrible, black walls. As he did, the bricks cracked and boulders split. Once he reached the bottom he landed angelically on the water’s surface without a sound, for a moment the silence was held by the heinousness of the angel’s humour. Then once again a vibration spread from him and the tower crumbled in on itself with inhuman fury.
The wind crawled hungrily along the blistered, black boulders that lay emotionlessly in the thick curling laps of water that painted the rubble a stunning, sombre shade of coal. The angel walked lightly atop the water to where the dragon lay pinioned by the heavy slabs and surrounded by the fading orange embers that cried and choked as the caliginous liquid poked at them as they sat on the edges of the dragons claws.
As the angel once more walked away with the Stone floating weightlessly above his hand the dragon screamed, a long, heart-breaking scream seemed too lasted forever. Once the cry ended a dreadful splash resounded round the still lake as Gabriel’s lifeless head sunk into its depths.
[1] 'Donjon' used to describe the castle keep (a tower which was built on top of the motte).