Dark Morning By Aisle Landon Novels & Stories

Rosemary The pale light of dawn painted the edges of the horizon, casting an ethereal glow over the quiet woods. The world around me was still and heavy with dew, each blade of grass and leaf sparkling faintly under the soft touch of the approaching sun. I slipped out of bed as quietly as possible, careful not to wake Ethan. His breathing was steady, his face peaceful in the dim light - a stark contrast to the intensity that usually radiated from him during the day. My heart ached at the thought of not telling him, but this was something I had to do alone.

The morning after the inkstorm felt like waking from a nightmare half-remembered. The world was quieter, but not calm—like a song paused just before its haunting refrain. Ayla stood at the edge of the temple ruins, the horizon bleeding faint silver into the dark. The air smelled of ash and rain. Her fingers traced the faint marks along her arms—no longer burning, but still pulsing, like they had a heartbeat of their own. Kian approached from behind, silent as the dawn. “You didn’t sleep.”

I could wait until morning. Outside, the last of the hall's candles went out, and the grounds went dark, and somewhere on an unmaintained road in the winter night, Damon was earning what I had paid him. I watched the darkness and I waited and I did not feel anything in particular. That was how I knew I had made my peace with it.

Chapter 24: The Morning After The first light of dawn was a soft, pale gray, filtering through the cracks in the barn’s wooden slats. It danced across the hay-strewn floor, eventually finding its way to the loft. Caro woke slowly, her body feeling heavy and sensitized in a way it hadn't been in years. The air was cool, but she was wrapped in a furnace of heat.

The light was wrong. That was the first thing Marcus noticed when consciousness clawed its way back through the fog of whiskey and self-destruction. The morning sun was too bright, too sharp, cutting through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his study like a blade. He hadn't closed the blinds. He never closed the blinds when he was drinking. Some part of him wanted to be seen, wanted someone to walk in and witness the wreckage. No one ever did.

*Aria* Dawn came wrong. The first light over the horizon wasn’t the usual thin gray that softened edges and coaxed birdsong from the trees. It was tinged red, thick as diluted blood. The air felt thick, heavy, like I was breathing through wet cloth. The light that seeped through our window carried the faintest stain of rust. No birds called. No insects buzzed. The world held its breath. I lay in bed for one more slow inhale beside Lucian’s sleeping form, memorizing the feel of his arm around my waist, his chest warm along my spine. For one heartbeat, I let myself pretend this was any other morning.

Although she wasn't feeling well, she was very peaceful. So she closed her eyes again, and in her dream, there was a sky full of beautiful and magical stars. Coming to her senses, Aliana squinted her eyes at the glaring light bulb. She looked out of the window. A pitch-black night. There wasn't even a single star. Dark is terrifying, dark is oppressive. After Loretta finished wiping, she looked up at Aliana with satisfaction. The mouth that was about to open and speak was filled with lead. The swollen acid burst in her neck.

Midnight exhales slowly and the entire crowd of twenty-four instantly disappears, nothing but their footprints left behind. The Land of Darkness returns to its eternal state. Quiet, and dark, and peaceful beneath the sky lit by three moons. I rest my cheek against the expanse of Jackson’s back, feeling mildly miserable physically, even if my wolf sings for joy in my soul. The ATV rumbles as Jackson drives it through the darkness of the Atalaxian night. My body moves and shifts along with it, jolting this way and that as we go, Jackson’s backpack shifting distractingly on my back as well. But even if I am not in the most comfortable sleeping position, I doze.

Dawn arrived the colour of a healing bruise. The storm had wandered inland, leaving the coast rinsed and raw. Grey opened his eyes to the taste of iron—blood from where he’d bitten his lip in a dream he couldn’t recall. Lisa lay half-across his chest, hair spilled like split ink, fingers still laced through the belt-loops of his jeans as if even asleep she feared he might slip away. They had moved indoors sometime before first light, crawling through the kitchen window to avoid the sagging front gate now bright with crime-scene tape.

Dark of Night Copyright 2019 Emily Goodwin Chapter One “What do you see when you look at this one?” The doctor holds up a card, showcasing an ink splotch that’s twisted and creepy, with eyes that follow you no matter where you go. I look at it, heart hammering away inside my chest. The mess of ink on the white paper reminds me of the monster that lurks in Nana and Papa’s basement, the one that tried to get Abby and Scott to go downstairs with it.