The Return

The room was still trembling. The earth shuddered beneath them, the walls howling like living things tearing themselves across some dreadful power far beneath the bedrock. Serena's fists were balled up at her sides, but her body was rigid, wound up tight with tension, her eyes trained on a spot in the corner of the shadow.

His heart beat in his chest. The weight of that moment was too heavy for him, bore down on him. He wanted to move, to do something but his legs felt like cement mixed with iron and glued to the ground. The room was getting colder, chill seeping into his bones like poison—slowly. The fear that he had not held in his head for so long broke into his head and beat the nerve out of him.

Then the figure moved into the pulsing light.

It wasn’t just anyone. It was someone they all believed to be dead.

Lucian’s throat clenched around the sound. His heart raced as the figure’s face began to solidify in the dim light. It was a face he had seen once, a face that came to him at night, in the shadowiest corners of his mind. A face he thought he would never see again.

“No,” he said, quietly enough for it not to overpower the room’s rumble.

The figure smiled, a contorted grotesque smile that turned Lucian’s blood to ice in his veins. It was a smile both well-known and horrifying. And then, he knew he had underestimated what would follow. He thought he knew what the dangers were that they faced when they came to Craig, but this … this was something different altogether.

“Oh, you thought it was going to be that easy, huh?” the figure said, his voice oily to the point of parody. He edged nearer, his eyes flashing with something dark, predatory. "The prophecy? The packs? You think you’ve won?"

Serena took a step forward, though her body is shaking a little, but she stood firm. “You should be dead,” she said, her voice heavy with anger and confusion.

The figure chuckled, a vile sound that left Lucian trembling. “Dead? No. Not dead. Just… hidden. Waiting.”

Elias hesitated, taking one careful step forward, narrowing his eyes and shattering the silence. “Who are you?”

The figure hesitated, as if pondering the question. “Who am I?” This time he laughed again, louder, more animated. “That’s a good question. But the more pertinent question is, who you are? You who think you can walk in defiance of what I am, what’s to come.”

Lucian clutched his weapon tighter. All his instincts screamed at him to act, to fight, but he knew this time was different. Whoever he was, he was not just any foe.] He presented a threat unlike any they had confronted.

The little smile fell off the figure, and his eyes turned ice cold. “Five of you were so caught up in your little rebellion — so high on the idea that you could change the prophecy — that you forgot something very important. You have no idea what is coming for you. Do you consider the Elders your greatest enemy? No. That’s small compared to what’s about to be unleashed.”

Serena’s eyes hardened. “Then tell us. What is coming?”

The figure’s grin came back, but this time different — more sinister, more knowing. “You’ll see soon enough.” He cornered himself into the dark; his form melted passed the shape of him. “The real war has not yet even started.”

It was dragging out in the room, and Lucian’s heart was pounding in his chest while everyone else held their breath. The walls of the chamber were still shuddering as the tremors faded, bathed in a thick silence where sound was a thing of the past.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” “Elias asked, crisp but hint of lacing through it. Lucian could tell that — Elias had no idea what to do with any of it, nor did Lucian himself.

Serena stared at the spot where that figure had vanished, her face turning pale and determination welling up in her eyes. “No matter what the hell it is,” she said, her voice steady even as panic surged in her chest, “we’ll deal with it. Together.”

As her words landed on him, Lucian blinked. Together. This was never where he thought it was headed, where they would be together when the darkness arrived. But it was happening. And, he had to admit, even if he still didn’t understand all of it, that Serena was right. They had nothing else to do but fight.

But something was still gnawing at him. “What doom will I bring?” said the figure, his voice cool, assured about the doom he described. Lucian couldn’t shake the feeling that this was bigger than any of them had realized. They had believed that they had fought the Elders at the end, an end that now in hindsight, they knew was only the beginning of the real fight.

“Come,” Lucian said, voice low, commanding. “We’ve got to get the fuck out of here, back, regroup. We’ve got to get preparing for whatever this is.”

Elias nodded, although his expression was inscrutable. He had no answers any better than Lucian’s. None of them did. But they were not in a position to surrender more time. At least they must have stayed a step ahead.

Serena turned away, her face hard and grimly determined. She was prepared to guide them, even if they weren’t entirely sure what they were doing. Lucian and Elias trailed behind, their footsteps echoing in the emptiness of the room that had once been: empty of throne and floor.

It was strange, walking the darkened halls, a kind of shiver, a fear, horror, of something they knew had always been at the door. Lucian felt it, slithering up his spine, a whisper in the back of his mind.

And as soon as they got to the door, Serena stopped. Her eyes flew wide open, her lips fell to a surprised gasp.

He’d caught a glimpse of her face, and his heart had almost jumped out of his chest when Lucian faced her. "What is it?"

She didn’t answer at first. Her eyes appeared to see not what was before her but something distant, her body taut as if she had bore witness to something others hadn’t.

Lucian stepped closer, his heart pounding, following her gaze, looking for what she was seeing. The room had gone dark, the shadows elongated grotesquely, an aura thickening in the air that hadn’t been there seconds before.

Then the ground under their feet trembled — again. But this time it was not just a rumble. It bore a roar, blast, explosive ripping that sent the whole building vibrating deafeningly.

Lucian’s blood froze as a voice, low and sinister, hissed from the dark.

“It’s here.”

The voice rang out in the chamber, and a wave of panic surged through Lucian’s chest. There was protection, and his hand went straight to his gun. But the air weight that surrounded him rang so false. The aura around them was palpable, thick, stifling.

Serena went pale, with wide terrified eyes. She pulled away, insouciantly, a tremor running through her. “No,” she said, her tone falling.

Lucian’s heart pounded awkwardly as he rotated to ensure what was occurring. But there was no time. No time to process, no time to gear up.

And then, from the darkest shadow in the room, a man.

A person they all assumed had faded into the mists of time.

The same crooked smile that had haunted Lucian’s nightmares stretched slowly across the figure’s face.

“I deceived you into thinking I was dead,” the figure purred, his voice dripping with malice. “But the real darkness … is only just beginning.”