The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) by Gwyndolyn Russell (e reader txt) 📕

I could faintly remember some sort of dog dragging me by the arm from a void of darkness.

The darkness…. I thought I had been freed of it, but it must have latched onto me like a jellyfish. It followed me all the way from its home and joined me in my mind. I dreamed of it while I slept. It surrounded me. Swallowed me whole. I was in an ocean, sinking like an anchor to the bottom. I held my breath as long as I could, but the bottom never came. It suspended me in the endless expanse of space. The darkness reached out to me. Called my name. Its whisper like a song that lured me in. My heart was ready to explode, my body unable to move from the weight of gravity pulling me down.

I was dying. The warmth drained from my body as the darkness touched my skin. Liquid ice wrapped around me like wild growing vines. It dug into my skin, roots that took hold and planted tiny, monstrous seeds. I scratched and scratched to dig into my skin and get the seeds out. I yanked on the roots and vines. They ripped from my skin. More vines came. I ripped them all away. I scratched until I bled. Then I scratched some more.

They were like an endless stream of maggots, the seeds, wriggling open just barely out of reach of my nails.

I couldn't hold my breath any longer. My lungs were ready to burst. I screamed. Bubbles spewed from my mouth, wrapped around my head.

The roots burrowed upwards across my neck. They took my throat. I scratched the painful itch, my throat clogged.

It was then, as my nails sunk into my neck to rip out the vines, that I saw red lights. Dotting the shape of an enormous figure. They breathed, faded in and out like a waterfall denying gravity. I was like a child, looking up to this mass of shadows enveloping me in a cradle of black wings.

A single claw poked from the darkness above. Reached for me. I froze. I couldn't peel my eyes away. I couldn't shut them!

I tried to breathe, but when I did, I must have breathed the vines and seeds in. They blocked any air from getting in. I scratched harder at my throat, blood muddying my vision. I gasped for air in vain.

I was stuck alone, chained by roots, suffocating in the darkness of my own making. Was this the fate I deserved? Payment for all the sins and crimes I committed? All the people I killed? That creature….

That creature was me! The monster that I am! I could see myself in the darkness. My own finger reflecting back at me.

NO!

NO!

NO!

This couldn't be real! This was just a dream! This was fake! My psyche was getting the better of me. I am no monster! Where else could I have gone? I had no one. No other reason. I chose to enlist, but everything after was an order. I followed directions. My superiors made me do it. I would not have chosen war! I would have killed no one otherwise! Hurt so many people.

This was all a poor excuse….

I kept telling myself over and over again that I followed orders. I was a good soldier. I continue to be so. I chose this life. This life of loneliness, weapons, and death. I surrounded myself in darkness and chaos. To listen to the white noise drown out the cacophony of blood-curdling screams of the victims picked out by those above me.

Maybe I actually enjoyed it. Maybe this was my destiny….

This creature... this other version of me…. I could feel its eyes piercing through me. My soul looking back at me. I watched the lights fade in and out. Felt my lungs contract in time with it. Despite the roots pumping through my neck and lungs, I could feel my chest heave up with the lights, then down as they faded.

I focused on that. Breathing. Breathing the darkness in. Breathing the darkness out. The cold came in with each pull. Warmth pushed it out.

Liam….

The shadows sang to me.

Liam….

Come to me....

Its howl shivered my bones. Flooded my soul.

I reached out to the claw that still poked from the dark.

I touched it.

I woke up abruptly, washed in the warm, bright light. I stared wide eyed up at the ceiling where the light hung. There was something comforting about it. Embraced by the light. If I could hug it back, I would have clung on as if my life depended on it.

I looked to my arms. The rest of my body. Those roots were gone, but I still felt the itch. My fingers could still trace where the roots had been. Just under my skin itched like crazy. No matter how much I scrubbed my nails on my arms, the itch persisted. My chest ached, heart pricked by thousands of needles.

Reynolds came over to me from somewhere else in the room. Her smile, that of an angel's. She glowed with a ring of light all around her figure.

"Liam! Welcome back to the world of the living!" She squeezed my hand.

"Huh? I... I died?" I coughed.

"No, silly! You've been asleep for almost twenty hours. You went through a lot." She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I already called for Arturo. He should be here any minute now. Let me get you something to drink and eat. You must be famished!"

"Thanks, doc."

She smiled again and hopped out of the room.

I was left in silence. The white noise of the machines in the bay hummed in the back of my mind. It reminded me of the dream. My eardrums thumped with my heartbeat.

Was I always afraid of being alone? There wasn't another soul in the room. My arms itched worse now. I swear I felt those vines growing under my skin. When I looked, nothing was there, but soft pink lines from all the scratching. I stared down at my hands.

Was that