"Through the Dark" Teaser Scene Ten: Woods

Kyla struggled to feel Nathaniel, but she couldn’t feel a thing. Anxiety quickly followed when she was met by a numbed sort of emptiness where she should have felt his vitality. The way she felt him, it wasn’t the same as she felt Caden. She couldn’t feel Nathaniel’s emotions or the state of his physical being; simply his presence. It didn’t matter if he was standing right beside her or if he was on the other side of the world, somehow she could always feel that he was there…somewhere. That he was breathing and alive.

Right now, she felt nothing.

It troubled her, frightened her. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do or believe. She would rather feel anything, good or bad, than nothing at all. Or at least that was what she thought.

Kyla didn’t hear a sound. The forest was oddly quiet for this time of day as the clouds overhead built in an ominous gray shroud. The wind wasn’t blowing and there weren’t any small animals scurrying across the pine needles like there usually were, but she felt it the moment that changed.

She felt it the moment she wasn’t alone anymore.

Kyla froze before she even saw him. Her back was turned to the one she knew was behind her; she didn’t even have to look to verify that. She could discern the presence of evil easily enough. That wasn’t the kind of thing you could turn off; she had learned that when she’d tried. Even if you went into adamant denial of the existence of the supernatural, you couldn’t shut down your discernment to what you didn’t want to be real. Discernment didn’t operate on the wavelength of logic. At times, the two were set up as the bitterest of enemies; logic strengthening the mind while discernment strengthened the spirit. A man could not have two masters, the same way as a woman could not serve two beliefs. And none could keep their soul who was constantly trying to kill it.

Kyla had also learned that by trying.

Even though he made no sound as he emerged through the woods, Kyla knew when Donovan was there. Immediately her head snapped up and every muscle in her tensed. She didn’t look behind her when she felt Donovan approach; at least not at first. Her movement was careful and slow, as if on a subconscious level, she thought that if she took it slow enough, he might disappear; that this might all prove to be a fear-driven illusion.

Kyla wished it was a fear-driven illusion. The moment she laid eyes on his pale, hollow face, nausea ripped through her insides and her face went white as white as his. She wanted to be crazy enough to be hallucinating this, but she knew she wasn’t hallucinating.

Donovan stood about twenty feet in front of her with an evil, familiar smirk on his face. As soon as she made sense of what she was seeing, Kyla’s heart stopped beating altogether, and she was hit with a fear and a horror like she had never known before…not in one single other instance that she had come face to face with this maniacal creature.

She didn’t even care right now that he could kill her; that wasn’t what had her petrified. She only cared that he was here and Nathaniel wasn’t.