PROLOGUE
Nothing of pure intent came after midnight.
Two minutes into the zero hour, the distinct rap of knuckles on wood sounded from the backyard.
From the shed, locked and bolted three different ways.
Someone homeless, Kloii thought. Everybody knew better than to wander at dark except those who existed permanently within it. Using the fork from supper as a placeholder, she pinched the book shut and jumped to investigate.
Night swallowed the landscape in a cloak of tangible darkness. She could taste it from behind the cabin walls. Boogeymen is what village folk would say if anyone asked what waited when the sun went down. Only creatures with sharp teeth and bloodthirsty eyes could haunt an entire land as well as they.
That’s the only image that ran through the young woman’s mind when she heard another knock.
To her regret, the shed doors shook from an inside force.
“How…”
When Kloii locked the doors before supper, there had been nothing inside except an assortment of tools and lawn equipment. No hiding spots, secret entrances, or tunnels. There was no way inside the shed except the door.
Despite the safety of four walls and a crackling fireplace, the interior became just as frightening as the exterior once Kloii realized she was without help in either. Alone for the week, there was no parental guidance nor friendly neighbours to hear her should she shout.
The only listener was the one that beat against the shed.
Quickly giving the forestry of her backyard a once-over, Kloii decided that there was nothing in life more important than saving what little her family owned.
She grabbed the butcher knife from the counter and held it in her hand, a lantern outstretched in the other. Boogeymen waited in the shadows. Kloii held the light high and pretended she could erase both.
Creaking under her weight, the front door opened to deliver a wave of cold air through the cabin. Kloii forced herself on the other side and slammed it shut before the warmth ran dry. In preserving the cabin’s heat, she had thrown herself into complete deprivation of it.
Turn back. Turn back. It’s not worth it.
Nagging thoughts of regret sat so heavily upon her that a headache presented. Twenty feet separated Kloii from the shed, the shed from the door, safety from danger. Twenty feet between her and unknown danger.
“Hello?” Kloii’s voice croaked. The declamation sounded more confident in her head.
Instantaneous silence followed. Only the rasp of her breath and chirps of an animal chorus rang through the yard. Closing the distance quickly, stood in front of the door, she gave the lock a yank to find it perfectly intact.
“Just an animal,” she whispered with shaky hands that dipped into her pocket. Ejecting the golden key and popping it into the lock, Kloii winced as it fell to the ground. As she peeled back the hatch, knife raised, the sudden thought overtook her that she should run inside and hide.
It came too late.
The doors blew open from the force of the body that tumbled from them. Kloii fell to the ground, her lantern shattered and knife knocked astray. Wide, bright eyes stared down at her from their frightened frame, the stranger’s face gaunt and bloody.
Screaming would do no good, but Kloii let the noise spring from her lips regardless. She screamed, loud and hard enough to turn her throat raw and force a wince from the woman laid atop her.
Kloii’s shirt turned sticky, coated with blood that poured steadily from the stranger’s gut. Blood streaked across her face where the woman ran her fingers, grabbing tight, shadowed face pained.
“Find him,” she wheezed, coughing blood that splattered across Kloii’s face. Kloii winced, trying to push her away, but her opponent was too strong. Urgency crept into her words. “Find him. He doesn’t know about the stone men. You have to stop it.”
As the stranger fell to the ground, suddenly lifeless, the light shining from the cabin illuminated her features. Where once full of fear, two Violet eyes were now dead.
Violet eyes, Kloii realized.
She was a Breather. The boogeyman that haunted night.
The stranger’s back arched, like the sharp draw of a whip, Violet mist sucked from her lungs and into the air. It spiralled and spun around them, the only splash of colour in a bleak night.
When Kloii tried to draw in a gasp to react, there was none to call upon. Kloii’s air was expiring, leaving her with the tightness of her chest and dizziness in her skull.
Dizziness was the only excuse Kloii had to explain how, when she looked over at the bloody woman, the body exploded into shadows. The only thing that remained of her was a Violet Breath that danced through the air.
As Kloii lay dying, something strange shifted in the air. Life altered around the cabin lost within greenery miles from town. Grass grew thrice its height around Kloii’s body, the moonlight favouring the patch of land upon which she laid.
Kloii Kayrel died.
Only then, once every human breath had left her body, did the Violet mist dive into her lungs.