The Secrets of the Stormforest by L. D. Lapinski

Author:L. D. Lapinski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2022-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Flick’s eyes strained against the darkness. She could still make nothing out. The unseen ground beneath her shoes felt stable enough, but even with her arms outstretched, she felt the need to shuffle forward in case she walked into something.

“Can’t we do something about the dark?” Avery hissed. Flick didn’t blame her for whispering. The darkness felt as though it could be concealing any number of things, and Flick felt she’d rather not draw attention to herself.

“We’ve still got the light-balls Tristyan gave us,” Flick said, checking her pocket. “But I don’t know how long they might last. We should keep going in the dark, for a while.”

“Going where, exactly?” Jonathan asked from her left, the question dripping with acid. “This is the Inbetween. It’s nowhere. The exact opposite of somewhere. There’s only us.”

“If there’s us, there could be something else,” Flick said, flinching as her hand brushed against something, then realizing it was only Avery on her right. “We can’t go back to the House because Azarus is waiting. So we just need to keep walking.”

“Poor Danser,” Avery said. “He’s there by himself against Azarus.”

Flick couldn’t stand to think about it. She could only hope that he had somehow managed to get away. “I think he will have escaped somehow,” she lied. “He seemed quite… crafty. Or he might have managed to hurt Azarus. The Seren are physically weak, after all.”

There was a silence. “How long are we going to keep walking when we don’t know where we’re going?” Avery said. “We can’t even tell how big this place is. If we can even call it a place.”

Jonathan muttered to himself. “I don’t think we can call it a place. Felicity’s right. This is the Inbetween. There’s nothing here. No magic, no worlds, no time. This isn’t anywhere anyone should ever be.”

As they walked on, Flick was able to make out the shapes of her friends on either side of her. There was still no light to see by. It was merely that their bodies were condensed darkness that moved, as opposed to the static dark that was as still as frozen air. Flick wondered what they were breathing, what it was exactly that they were walking on, what they were moving through. The sheer nothingness of it all was saddening, and empty. And yet it was difficult to be frightened of it, somehow. It was as though their emotions were being scrubbed out by the darkness all around them.

No one said very much. The nothingness seemed even to be stealing away the urge to speak.

“Let’s stop a minute,” Flick said at last.

They sat down together. Flick drummed her fingers on the suitcase, trying to get her brain to work, while Jonathan handed out biscuits from his backpack. Avery didn’t say much at all. It was strange how the place wasn’t cold or warm, wasn’t uncomfortable or safe, wasn’t frightening or pleasant. It just was. Flick felt as if she were sitting in a bowl of tepid soup.

“I don’t know how to get out of here,” she said.

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