Chaos (The Realmwalker Chronicles Book 1) (38 page)
Read Chaos (The Realmwalker Chronicles Book 1) Online
Authors: C.M. Fenn
Logan
I lie on
my side, legs curled up, cradling my mangled hands to my chest. I know I should be frightened. I should be terrified. But all I feel is sadness. I’m going to die tonight.
The snow nearly covers me. A loud crack and groan in the distance can only be one of the many trees around me surrendering to the weight of the storm. My vision is flooded with white. White ground, white-covered trees and bushes. The very air is filled with white sheets of angry snow.
I don’t see any of it though. I close my eyes, and all I see is a pair of rich brown eyes framed by long, delicate lashes.
Jessica.
I can’t believe this is how it will end. After everything I’ve lived through. After all I’ve
survived!
Only to die in my sleep? From some
nightmare
?
The sorrow seeps from my heart and fills my entire chest until I’m struggling for breath. This pain drowns out all others. My wrists, which feel broken, and my throbbing hands and knees are nothing compared to the heartbreak that’s crippling me.
The trees around me continue to crack and groan. I don’t care. All I can think about is that when I die tonight, no one will know. No one will be there to find my body. No one will come looking for me. And all I will have to look back on is a wasted life of delinquency and crime.
Maybe it’s best I die tonight. Maybe this is nature’s way of stopping me from becoming something worse than I already am. A true monster. Maybe I even agree.
But Jessica.
An earth-shaking explosion to my right sends snow and dirt and branches raining down on me until I’m covered and there’s nothing left but darkness. The deafening ring in my ears blocks out all other sounds, but the ground trembles and shakes beneath me. Maybe it will open up and swallow me whole.
This is it. Any second now.
As a life of anger and hatred flashes before my eyes, I see hundreds of stupid choices I’ve made. I see dozens of people I’ve wronged, cheated, robbed. I see others who have tried to reach out and help me and I’ve only pushed them away. I see nothing that I can be proud of. This is the legacy I leave behind.
But of all the things I’ve done to regret, the one that hurts the most, the one that’s the source of my current agony, is that Jessica will never know how I feel about her.
She’ll never know that when I imagine myself happy, I imagine I’m with her. She won’t know that I hate the person I am because someone like me can never deserve someone like her. And she’ll never know that of all the people I’ve ever met, she’s the only one who has made me want to change.
The earth is still again. Why haven’t I died yet? The ringing in my ears is fading and I can hear something. What is that? It sounds like voices. I can’t make out the words but it sounds like voices yelling. Something steps on my leg and I jerk reflexively. A muffled voice shouts with excitement.
So I’m to be caught and tortured. This is more fitting, I guess. The snow covering my face begins to shift and the darkness starts to fall away. Words become clearer and I’m able to make out different voices now.
The blinding white of the snowstorm breaks through and temporarily steals my vision. When my eyes adjust, I’m met with a very confusing sight.
Standing over me is a young girl, my age. Her dark hair is covered in white flakes of snow, and her cheeks are rosy from the cold. The warmth of her smile starkly contrasts with our freezing surroundings.
“There you are!” She grins and kneels down beside me.
“How is he?” Another girl, one with fiery red hair blowing wildly in the wind from the storm, appears over her shoulder.
“Not bad. Suffering from shock though.”
The brown-haired girl gently wraps her hands around my wrists, and at the same time a third person joins us. A man holding guns at his sides backs himself against our small huddle and faces out. I’m not sure what he’s searching for, but it’s obvious he’s scanning the area for something. His alert posture suggests it can’t be good.
“Look at me,” the brunette says kindly. As soon as our eyes meet, I know I’m safe. I swallow a sob of relief. I’m not going to die. Maybe I’ll even get to see Jessica again. I don’t know how I know it, but these three people will protect me or die trying.
“What’s your name?” She releases my wrists and places her hands over my ears.
“Logan.” The ringing stops completely, and she moves her hands to my knees.
“Feeling better now, Logan? Do you think you can stand?”
The man with the guns tenses. “We’ve got inbound.”
“I can stand,” I say, awestruck as I support myself on the wrists that were broken only moments ago. “How did you do that?”
The two girls each throw one of my arms over their shoulders and guide me through the snow-laden foliage. I hear something crashing through the woods behind us.
“I’ll tell you all about it soon,” she assures me. “We’re almost to the clearing where the bikes are. A little bit farther and we’ll be home free.”
After stumbling a few more times over broken limbs and roots hiding under the snow, we come to the edge of a large clearing.
The redhead inhales sharply. “Uh Addy, I don’t know about ‘home free.’”
I look out ahead to see what they’re all staring at, and in the middle of the clearing is what can only be the bikes she had referenced—except they’re surrounded by a small army of the most horrifying creatures I could’ve ever imagined.
The beasts glisten with oily black flesh that stands out sharp against the pure snow. They nuzzle and nudge each other, eagerly pawing at the earth. Some circle the sky above the rest while some slither and crawl through the legs of others. The coldness that fills my heart at the sight of them has nothing to do with the weather.
The man touches something in his ear. “Walkers. Looks like we could use some backup after all.”
That’s when the first one sees us.
The air fills with shrieks and shouts and angry bellows, and the ground shakes so violently I’m having a hard time keeping my feet. The three strangers take a protective stance in front of me, but not before I see the herd of demons stampeding in our direction. It looks like I might not make it after all.
Don’t worry, Logan. You’ll make it through this just fine.
The girl with the brown hair—Addy, I think they called her—turns and winks at me. I hear her voice in my head again.
This is what we do. This is who we are. You’re one of us now. Let me be the first to say, Logan, welcome to Chaos.
Thank you for reading
Chaos
. If you enjoyed it, would you please take a moment to leave me a review on either your favorite retailer or on Goodreads.com?
Thank you!
CM Fenn
About the author:
CM Fenn grew
up in Mesa, AZ. Along with being a wife and mother she is a proud veteran of the US Air Force and is currently a full time writer.
Growing up, CM wanted to be everything from a police officer to a professional rock climber. She never imagined she would one day write for a living.
CM is an animal lover and has owned over 14 types of animals and the list is still growing. You can usually find CM spending time with her growing family, reading (always), and stealing a few minutes of video game playing whenever she can.
CM currently resides in Clarksville, Tennessee with her husband and four children.
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: @CMFennWrites
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Chaos – The Realmwalker Chronicles #1
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