SJ Eeles

Prologue

 

   She stood on the edge, both physically and mentally, but it wasn’t her fault. He had brought her to this place, to this point. She teetered precariously on the edge of the precipice, as well as on the brink of insanity. Stubborn tufts of grass and stunted scrub clung haphazardly to rock that sheered down away from her to meet the dark, raging ocean many metres below. The icy wind burned her face and whipped at her long brown hair; wayward strands stuck to the tears streaming down her cheeks. It didn’t have to be like this. She had desperately hoped she might have one last chance, but that hope had proven to be in vain.

   Her eyes followed the landscape down, into the dark, angry waves, and watched as the furious white spume exploded against the rocky barrier nature had placed before it. The day had been dark and overcast, the sun never appearing from behind the clouds, and now, with sunset not far away, the gloaming remained dull and grey too. Everything was dull and grey. The sky, the world… her soul. It was the Dark Man’s way of telling her he would have her. His power was inescapable.

   And yet, still she hoped for another outcome. She had tried so hard to fight the forces working against her, but they were relentless. She had nothing left to fight with. She had nothing left to give.

   The growing wind howled and screeched about her, and she imagined it was calling to her, but it was only the wind being the wind. Until it wasn’t.  

   “Cara!”

   The word came to her clearly this time. It was a human voice, but not one she wanted to hear anymore.

   She’d desperately wanted to believe she could still be saved and that she was worth saving. That a hero existed who could, and would, protect her, but the saviour she’d believed in had failed her, and that betrayal burned her heart as much as the love she still held for him.

   The voice called her name again, but there was no more strength to turn around. He’d taken it all. There was only this moment and she stared down to her fate. Everything that had come before had herded her to this point, she could see that now. There were no more options. There would be no escape. If she didn’t jump, the Dark Man would take her, and that would be even worse than the torment she suffered now.  

   No one believed her about the Dark Man. They thought her mentally unbalanced, but she wasn’t. He was real. A beast who’d hounded her ceaselessly and would not stop until he’d devoured her. Again, she wished things were different, but her longed-for salvation would never be realised now.

   Cara’s soul ached with the pain of what would not be as she made the only decision that remained she could make. The only way left for her to be free. She heard the voice call her name again, closer now, sounding more like a desperate prayer than her name, but it was too late. Cara stepped from the edge and the voice in her ears was replaced by her own scream the moment she began to fall. It was the last thing she heard before the roar of the smashing waves obliterated all else, and she embraced the dark before she’d even hit the water.

​​