Chapter 8: Chapter One – Drowning in Fear

Livid found herself surrounded by a darkness so black that she could see nothing at all. In fact, it was so dark that she scarcely believed she had even opened her eyes.

Within this utterly shadowed world, she felt herself being carried helplessly along upon waves that endlessly rose and fell around her. All the while, she struggled to keep herself from going under. The sounds of her rapid desperate breaths and the noise of her thrashing limbs were the only things that echoed out into the nothingness that engulfed her.

Then suddenly, the darkness of that place was interrupted by a twisted bolt of silent lightning that parted the shadows and illuminated the world with flashes of bluish-white light. Like the gnarled and crooked branches of a tree, the lightning struck out across the night sky, and then, only seconds later, the silence of that place was shattered by the booming of thunder so loud that it shook the heavens. It was so powerful that Livid could feel it deep within her terrified soul.

In that instance, as the world was filled with light, she caught sight of the sea that surrounded her. The frightened gray-maiden saw the waves as they seemed to swell and coil across the surface of the black water, and to her wide terrified eyes, they looked like a huge sidewinding serpent. Within these dark swells, there moved what looked like far darker shadows, and these seemed to drive the whole of the deep forward like a marching army going to war.

The light vanished as quickly as it had come, and how Livid longed for its return. Though the lightning was dreadful in its power, she preferred it over the empty blackness that stretched out around and under her. The utter vastness and darkness of the sea was far more terrifying than even the most furious claps of thunder.

To Livid’s relief, the lightning danced across the ominous clouds a second time thus shedding its dazzling light upon the sea. In this next illumination, she beheld a black shape rising out of the water before her like a massive glistening pillar.

During the third flash of lightning, Livid saw that the waves, which carried her along, were racing forward and crashing into this dark rising shape. They struck its base with such force that she was sure it would be toppled, but despite this attack, it stood firm.

After a fourth flash of lightning, Livid realized that the pillar-like structure was actually a lofty round tower standing in the midst of the angry sea. The storm’s thick dark clouds seemed to slowly swirl around the black tower’s pinnacle.

Within the fifth explosion of light, Livid beheld a lone figure standing upon the tower’s battlements. The person was clad in a long black robe and a matching cloak. These both fluttered about in the storm’s angry gale.

When the lightning illuminated the world a sixth time, Livid found herself standing upon the tower beside the cloaked figure, but she could not see the person’s face because their cloak’s deep hood completely shrouded it in shadows.

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Then, with a sudden great gust, the wind tore back the black hood revealing a seductively beautiful woman. And yet, like the clouds overhead, her beauty contained an ominous darkness.

While her smooth skin was pasty-white and colorless, her long hair, which now whipped about in the wind, was coal-black. Her lips and eyelids seemed to be shrouded in shadows, and even her white cat-like teeth had been stained by some foul black juice. Her eyes were darker yet, for they were like two black glistening pools of midnight completely devoid of all whiteness and color.

“Behold the gray-witch,” a deep voice declared from somewhere behind Livid. The words seemed to rumble from above like the storm’s thunder.

It was clear that the witch did not hear the voice, nor did she seem aware of Livid or even of the angry tempest that raged around her. Calmly poised upon the edge of the tower’s battlements, she held out a small bundle in her pale thin hands. With ritual solemnity, she slowly unfolded the sable-colored cloth exposing a tiny baby that was hidden within it.

The child was beautiful and completely different from the woman who held her, for she was full of color. She had large sparkling eyes which were the color of a blue-green sea, and her skin had a rich golden hue. The baby’s small head was crowned with curling locks of hair, and these were a colorful mix of bright gold and fiery red.

The witch gently held the bundled child out over the tower’s edge and the precipice beyond. In response, the waves seem to crash with even greater anger.

“Or was it hunger?” The question came unbidden into Livid’s mind.

Giving no heed to the swells, the gray-witch whispered in a low voice that could not be heard over the roar of the sea. And then, with a cold, heartless expression upon her thin pale face, the witch dropped the beautiful child.

Flinging out her tiny golden arms as she fell, the baby gasped and then let out a loud angry cry as she vanished into the darkness below.

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