The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle #1)

Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

The First

Mason came to standing in the centre of an abandoned village. Many of the buildings were burnt to the ground or charred black. Smoke rose from the trees peppering the town, and the smell of ash smouldered in his nostrils. There were no cars, no lights, no power lines, no pavement, and certainly no signs of life. The buildings appeared to be made of wood and stone, and none were larger than an ordinary cottage. Up ahead, he saw a burning pyre with a post fastened in the middle—but no one was there.

“Where am I?” he wondered aloud, the words swallowed by the open space.

“I told you. I’ve come to you.”

Startled by the youthfulness of the voice, Mason spun around to find a boy no older than twelve standing behind him. His hair was a cold midnight black with a slight iridescent glow, not unlike the plumage of a bird. His skin—white like porcelain but with a touch of sickness—seemed lifeless and waxy smooth. It was like the boy was nothing more than a container. But those eyes—those glistening, inky eyes—told Mason exactly who this boy was.

“Gavran,” he all but choked on the name. “Where are we? Why do you look like that?”

The corners of the boy’s lips slithered outward, stretching over bloodied teeth. The sound that left him could not have been less human—a throaty cackle echoing into the eerie silence. He chortled with unfettered glee.

“There,” Gavran hissed sharply, his eyes widening in delight, the tresses on his head ruffling like feathers. His body jerked awkwardly as he hunched over in a predatory stance, stiffening in anticipation of something in the distance. As Mason whirled around, a shadow passed overhead, mutating the scene.

As if having moved back in time, the village was no longer in ruins. The buildings were intact as smoke rose from the chimneys, and the houses seemed inhabited. Up ahead, Mason saw the orange glow of dozens of torches—a group of men and women congregating around the village gates.

Beyond them he could see the edge of a massive forest—one that struck him as familiar. He was still in Black Hollow. The people in the crowd wore archaic clothing, though Mason couldn’t place from what year. They whispered to one another, the air tense as their gazes fixed on someone just beyond the gates. It was a young woman in a cloak. Her face was obscured by a hood, though Mason guessed she was female by her dainty hands and the subtle swell of her hips. She was facing away from the villagers, staring off into the forest, when suddenly a howl erupted from somewhere in the distance—a call both haunting and sorrowful. There was a collective gasp among the villagers before their whispering grew louder, and Mason heard a single word flutter through the crowd:

Dreamwalker.

The villagers battered the hooded girl with mistrusting glares.

“Dreamwalker,” they hissed at her again, the name both accusation and revelation.

Was this girl the fabled spirit that haunted Black Hollow?

Was the Dreamwalker just an ordinary young woman, forced to leave her home behind? There appeared to be nothing supernatural about her.

Yet the scene before Mason was anything but mundane. Around the villagers floated a strange, life-like mist. It slithered through the air, approaching each of the townsfolk and swirling around them until they spewed venomous accusations at the alienated young woman. Only then did the dark vapour move on to the next person. A sinister presence was among them, and Mason wondered if it was the source of the villagers’ malice.

“He was right,” Mason heard someone say, and the dark mist trembled as though laughing. “We should have banished her sooner. No one comes out of those woods alive.”

The presence began to shift, gathering into a pool of darkness behind the villagers. The mass was at first formless, its edges flickering like ebony flames. Gradually, it took the shape of a man, his face shrouded save for two sharp, golden eyes—cold like metal gleaming under a florescent light. Whatever it—or he—was, he couldn’t have been benign. The malevolent entity appeared to have turned the villagers against the girl—the Dreamwalker. While Mason couldn’t fathom what this girl might have done to make him so angry, it was clear that he harboured ill will towards her, that he wanted to punish her.

Mason watched as the young woman began walking towards the forest—towards the howls that echoed from within it. Yet even though everything suggested she was being exiled, Mason sensed a longing in her that matched that of the howling wolf—a yearning to return to something. Was she accepting her fate, or had she chosen it for herself? He couldn’t tell which it was. As she moved away, the villagers began shouting, pumping their fists in the air, spitting on the ground she walked on and cursing her name.

Her choice did not matter; the villagers wanted blood, and the malevolent puppeteer stalking the grounds behind them would have nothing less than her damnation. As her figure grew distant, Mason’s anxiety mounted. Feeling the need to act, he bolted forward, trying to reach the crowd—yet no matter how hard he pressed his feet into the ground, he didn’t get any closer. Frustrated, he called out to them, but his voice was sucked into a vacuum.

The villagers didn’t hear him—but he did. The shadowy being turned its attention away from the scene, taking note of the intruder for the first time. His bright eyes lock onto the young doctor.

Mason stumbled back as the dark flames dancing along the creature’s form twisted erratically, sweeping outward and rushing closer. He looked towards the village gates and beyond, but the young woman was far out of sight. It was too late to stop her. When he turned back, he was face-to-face with the entity. A low, distorted growl reverberated from the murky depths of the molten black silhouette. The phantom drew nearer with every breath, his gleaming eyes widening with rage as his essence bled out, cloaking the land like a plague.

“It’s time to go,” Gavran hissed, the boy’s breath cold on Mason’s cheek before something seized his shoulders. Hands—no, more like talons—plucked him from the ground as sharp, curved nails cut into his flesh.

As he was pulled up, the entity below shrieked with monstrous fury. Colour drained from the landscape as the entity dispersed, swallowing the village—and its inhabitants—until nothing remained but a boundless sea of black miasma.