Alright continuing onward. Aryel was holed up in the confines of her family's house with the monster on the outside.
Things to look for.
Does the pacing seem alright?
How about the action versus showing and telling?
Anything about the character both Aryel and the beast?
Other observations?
Chapter 2
Years later, I returned to the place where it all started, and looked as hard as I could for any remains of what happened to my family. I didn’t do this out of any urge neither of sorrow nor for family sake, as cruel as that sounds. It was simply looking for evidence so that I could safely say that I knew what had happened and could finally seal that part of my life shut. After some investigation it turned out I didn’t need to worry about not finding out.
Aryel awoke to the blinding light of morning filtering in through the tight cracks of the walls of the cabin. I fell asleep? She had thought she would never get any rest. Between how tightly she had gripped that rifle as well as how hard she concentrated to hear any sounds from outside the cabin she had assumed she wouldn’t find a single bit of rest. Now, gun still rested in her hands, but it had fallen more limply to the ground as she had fallen asleep.
“I’m alive,” she whispered aloud. No sounds beyond her voice and her breathing whispered through the cabin.
She eyed the door suspiciously, wondering if the animal was still awaiting her escape on the other side. But that seemed unlikely. The animal must be silent and quick, but it wasn’t that quiet. I’d have heard it. At least she hoped she would have heard it.
Her gaze remained locked on the door as she willed her body to rise up and exit out of the cabin. What felt like hours passed before she finally summoned the strength to stand up from where she sat on the ground. She stumbled forward on weak legs for the door, but a moment before her hand grasped the knob a thought entered her mind. She looked back toward the dresser that she had futily tried to move the night previously.
Another of her parent’s greatest taboos was touching that dresser. Going through her parent’s personal effects was a violation of the highest order, something she would have been terrified to do had there been any chance of either Ma or Pa walking in on her. But now…
She didn’t hesitate another second and threw open the drawers. She discarded articles of clothing in her search, not even paying attention to what she pulled from the drawer. In the second drawer that she searched through, Aryel found the ammunition for the rifle. She knew that the bullets had to have been stored somewhere; Pa wouldn’t just have the few bullets loaded into the gun on hand.
She shoved the bullets into one of the pockets in her pants and then looked back towards the door, this time with a façade of grim determination painted over her features. She brushed a lock of her long auburn hair out of her eyes and she locked down at the gun before shifting back to the door. As she brought the hand back down from brushing the hair, she caught sight of the caked red substance covering her fingers. Her thoughts drifted back to the pool of blood out in the dining room and she suppressed a shudder.
Life on a farm certainly wasn’t easy and she was no familiar to seeing blood. But this wasn’t just some accident when someone got cut. Her family was gone and she didn’t know where they had disappeared to. I need to find somewhere safe. Could she find the others though?
She eyed the door again, the only barrier between her and the outside world. She would be safe as long as she stayed in this room behind the strong copper-bark walls But an indefinite stay was completely out of the picture. There was no water, no food, nothing beyond the four walls and the bed and dresser in the room. She let out a sigh of resignation and moved to the bed. With an adrenaline filled yank, she tugged the entire piece across the floor and out of the way. As it moved, the wood protested such treatment with a loud shriek as it scraped across the floor. Aryel had barely set it down before she threw the door open and brought the rifle up to bear.
The light of the morning peaked in through the open doorway casting odd shadows about the room from the assorted broken furniture and other pieces of furniture. Several chairs were broken into almost unrecognizable pieces, the product of something in what had to be an unimaginable fury. The antique table that was a family heirloom on her mother’s side, supposedly dating all the way back to the Martyr, lay broken in half in the middle of the area.
And then she saw the blood stairs that were splattered about the floor and walls. She choked back panic and tears at the gruesome sight that greeted her as well as a dank and rancid smell that emanated through the room. Her own boot prints marked in red showed her passage through the house the night before. Her breaths came in more ragged gasps as she gaped through the room. Everything she saw came as if she were looking through a foggy or smudged piece of glass. Each part of the room she looked had had an ethereal and unreal quality to it that made Aryel want to doubt her own eyes.
Another pathway traced through the room leaving marks at odd angles on the floor and the lower parts of the wall. These marks all matched the tracks of the keyl she had followed out in the woods—she was sure they were the same tracks—and these traveled through the kitchen and up against the door to the bedroom she had slept in. Scraps of the wood had been rent off the wall as the animal had used its sharp feet to try to pry the door open. Some markings were fresher while others were old and slightly faded. Did it come back in the night? Whether or not it had, the beast had not gotten inside, and that was what counted.
The only thing she was sure of was someone in her family had to be dead. Oddly, she didn’t feel much sorrow or fear at the thought as she would have expected would accompany the belief that a close family member was dead. Perhaps her distant relationship with the rest of her family at least had some dividends now. Nothing to grieve over, she thought with very little mirth.
With grief and sorrow gone, only resolve filled her now. Resolve to get out of here. She took several steps through the room, carefully skirting around the pooling stain of blood that lay on the floor, and she was outside and into the bright sunlight. Aryel shifted back to look at the outside of the cabin, specifically at the door that had been forced in the night. A large chunk had been broken off and there was a large impacted dent as well, indicating the spot where the animal had smashed into the wood.
She quickly took her gaze off the door and turned to scan her surroundings. Her gun was raised as she fingered the trigger, awaiting the revelation of any sort of threat. She didn’t spy the beast anywhere she looked, but she knew that may not be enough indication to show a lack of the beast’s presence. Images of the cows watching the forest the night before flooded into her mind and she immediately looked to the herd. The cows, apparently had made it through the night unscathed, and were busying themselves by devouring vegetation on the ground. They paused to give her the usual vacant expressions that cows gave before going back to their feeding. She didn’t know if their lack of interest made her more afraid, or more relieved. The keyl wasn’t anywhere close by, that was for sure. But that meant she had no idea where the animal had gone in the meantime.
She remained where she stood and shifted her view up the valley towards the direction of the town. Kyl’s Wells lay miles away from where she stood now, easily a long journey even on the best of days. If she got a good start right away, she should be able to get to her destination before nightfall. Having no real measure of time, she looked towards the sun as it peaked on the horizon above the Kemland Highlands to the north and east. She had no real gift for telling time from the position of the sun, only relying on her internal clock to tell her when it felt like and she estimated that it was probably mid-morning.
Then she noticed the storm clouds peaking over the horizon towards the east as well. The world is turning against me, she thought as she saw them approaching far off in the distance. The black angry storm clouds that rolled in off the ocean were always presented great and powerful storms that could sometimes last for days. I thought that the storm season ended weeks ago, she thought as she watched the black clouds threatened to envelop the sun like some great beast.
Leading away from the cabin and towards Kyl’s Wells were two slightly depressed furrows from where Pa had dragged his handcart numerous times whenever he went in to the town. The tracks led away from the valley she had been in the day previously, instead leading towards the west. As long as I follow those, I’ll be able to get there fine.
She cast another gaze up towards the shadowy storm clouds, and then looked back towards her house. The cabin seemed small and nondescript where it sat. Even from this distance though, she could see the long jagged scrapes that the keyl had left on the side of the building as it had tried to get in at her. Her gaze lingered on the house for a few moments. Where I was born. Where I grew up. The more she reminisced, the more she realized just how few happy memories she could remember there. A tear fell down her cheek, not for the misery she had experienced, but because there certainly was no going back now. I need to get out of here.
She dropped her gaze from the house, and turned away towards the road. Within fifteen minutes, she had completely lost sight of the cabin and the fields where she had grown up.
The thunder rumbled overhead, but the rain had not yet come. During the first few hours of Aryel’s journey, she hadn’t heard a sound beyond the soft press of each of her boots against the ground. In this tree-less area, the plants had grown long covering up the furrows left by the wagon wheels, leaving only tell-tale signs of previous passages.
Prysmaflies drifted through the breeze overhead, seemingly uncaring of the world around them as they continued their own agendas in the sky. As Aryel watched them, her stomach gurgled with hunger and she realized she hadn’t eaten in some time. Since breakfast the day before. The more she thought about it, the more her stomach cried out for food Thirty or so minutes passed before her desire for food overruled her own sense of wariness and she knew she would need to find something to eat.
During the years she had spent out in the wilderness she had started to gain a sort of knack for knowing what plants were edible and what weren’t. But she’d have to venture off the road to find anything worth eating. Even though the cows could eat the bluish-green grasses she trod on, she certainly couldn’t, and she knew this from personal experience.
As she walked into the forest, massive trees rose from all sides, threatening to blot out the suns. Lion’s manes draped their leaves down, sometimes almost to the ground and tremendous copper barks and scooter-leaves cast shadows all over the area. Even then, she could see the storm clouds peaking off in the distance through the trees.
The one plant she was looking for, the Hyllberry plant, she needed to look at the base of the lion’s mane trees in the areas. Those plants had the habit of gathering water that dripped off the leaves of the lion’s mane, but were still an irregular occurrence. If she could find one, she could find a decent source of food. She looked back over her shoulder, towards where the road lay. Something inside her told that she hadn’t seen the last of that keyl. She held the gun more closely to her and picked up her pace through the trees.
She finally spied a small bush growing against a tree. Reaching down to grab the berries she noted she was now standing in another large track way of a big animal. Rather than the deep marks of the keyl or makys, she was relieved to find that these tracks were from an old and large aegysback. The tracks were relatively fresh and indicated the animal has passed through here maybe an hour previously. Vegetation that the animal had pounded flat as well as the shredded remains of plants it had feasted on spoke of the testament of the large animal, as well as painted the path that it had used in clear tones.
Aryel only briefly looked at the tracks before she turned her attention back to the plants. While one hand cradled the rifle, she grabbed the berries with the other. She remained in a squatting position her with head up as she watched around her for any sort of danger. She did have to look down at the berries to make sure she only grabbed the ripe ones. Ones that were too young had the habit of making people so sick they would try to vomit their stomachs clean.
