The Nightling: Darkness Within by Danae Ayusso

Author:Danae Ayusso [Ayusso, Danae]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Geeks on Ink Publishing
Published: 2019-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

The closet was gone.

Andrei was gone.

And I was alone.

In the woods…

“Oh how cliché,” I groaned, getting to my feet.

The closet was replaced by darkened woods that hummed with an eerie blueish-green glow. The forest floor was covered in thicken blanket of moss, ferns, and long grass that pulsed with soft green light. Each tree trunk was covered in dark bark, the lichen growth on each humming with some type of luminescence that I couldn’t pinpoint the source of. The air tasted different and not right, not for the woods in this region anyway. No noticeable pollen motes danced on the air, no earthy bitterness or pine or floral tanginess coated my tongue, and the air felt heavier.

“This isn’t right,” I mumbled, looking around.

It looked completely normal.

What’s how I knew it wasn’t.

“It’s the woods from the book. It would have been nice to know that the book was enchanted!” I shouted, irritated. “This is why you don’t go around touching weird things, Shawny,” I grumbled, my Giovanni impression was pretty bad.

Instead of the sneakers, tank top, and joggers I had on earlier, I was wearing a white hooded robe with a simple white cotton peasant dress beneath. My feet were bare, hair pulled back into a bun, and skin was paler than usual.

“Oh yeah, not creepy in the least,” I complained. “Why does this kidnapping and imprisonment involve unwanted wardrobe changes?!” I shouted. “Vanni, where are you? You’re supposed to be here when I’m stuck in the Realm of Shadows or the unconscious mind.”

I shivered when something cold raked across the back of my neck.

“Yeah, I’m not alone. I know this,” I said, continuing to look around, trying to ignore it.

Again, the caressing of something bone chillingly cold across my exposed skin caused me to shiver and goose bumps covered my flesh.

“You aren’t scaring me in the least,” I informed them. “I’ve been surrounded by you annoying creatures and shadows my entire life. My grandma always told me to grab onto the shadows, grab ‘em by the balls and twist. I’m sure mia bisnonna would have said much the same only much less tastefully. I have no interest in grabbing onto your balls and twisting, or inflicting any type of pain on you. I just want to find Andrei and pull him from this, and yes, I know exactly what it is,” I said, spinning around to face him, “Mara.”

The shadow hovering behind me solidified more, taking the shape of a small person, possibly a child, without discernible features.

For my entire life I had been haunted by nightmares, even before Giovanni died. When I was a little girl, Papà used to tell me that my dreams wouldn’t always be scary, and sometimes those shadows seemingly hunting us in our unconscious minds aren’t actually trying to hurt us; they merely need our help. Papà had a way to make the darkness look so much brighter with his endless optimism. Giovanni, on the other hand, always told me to kill them before they could kill me.

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