We’ve finally made it to our forever state! Now… if we could get to the home part, that would be GREAT!
Whoever said closing on a house was stressful deserves a medal for it being the understatement of the year. I’m impatient. Probably the most impatient person in the world. I just want to scream, “let me in my home! It’s mine.” Honestly, what I really want to do is write. To do that, I need to be in a space where my head is right. A small Airbnb with 2 kids, 2 cats, and a dog is NOT it. lol
Despite the chaos, I did manage to write the prologue of a story that has me intrigued. Will it turn into anything? I have no idea. What I do know is this story taps into a part of myself I’ve been missing for years. In a way, it’s almost like coming home. I have an idea for this story, but we’ll see if I go through with it.
Can you say extreme dark paranormal? Ahhhhhh! It’s a dream of mine. It’s like Marko but DARKER.
Since I have no idea whether I should continue, I leave the Prologue here for you. Maybe you can convince me.
(NOT VAMPIRES OR WOLVES/SHIFTERS. WE’RE CREATING SOMETHING NEW. Maybe a hybrid of something. The possibilities are endless.)
Prologue
Colson
Betrayal. Or was it nature—instinct?
Perhaps I should be honest and admit that despite the way things had turned out, the outcome was inevitable. You couldn’t pay off a force you couldn’t see, nor could you bargain or plead with a transition that not only affected emotions but an intended path.
Fate.
I never stood a chance. She… never stood a chance.
But didn’t I know this? Hadn’t I had my suspicions?
You didn’t gravitate towards the town of Denmon without becoming consumed by it. Everyone knew that. Where one might be in awe of the picturesque little village, anyone who grew up near the area knew the nightmares associated with it. Violence. Disappearances. Strange sightings. Why else would their police force employee three times the number of officers it needed? It didn’t make any more sense than mine or Leana’s behavior.
Love? Stupidity?
I knew better than to step foot in Denmon—had grown up being warned against it. The town was as mysterious as its citizens, and my feelings for Leana allowed me to let her lead us right into the heart of the charming café she’d gushed about. Our trip should have ended there, it hadn’t. We stayed the night. We went back the next weekend. And the next. Back… to heaven disguised as hell.
It wasn’t days after I pried her away that I knew how grave my mistake was. Leana quit returning my texts. She rejected my calls. She went completely off the grid until finally, I found her. Found her outside an abandoned cabin… in Denmon.
Beaten.
Dehydrated.
Nearly unrecognizable.
Leana wasn’t the woman I’d fallen in love with. I didn’t even know the empty shell who had stared up at me from the porch where she’d been kneeling. Kneeling, like a fucking zombie-drug addict. And maybe that’s what she’d become over the small time she’d been missing.
But how?
I was baffled. Sick. My girlfriend was gone, replaced by a stranger who had screamed and fought me whenever I tried to get her off that broken-down porch. She didn’t know me anymore. It was like the months we’d been a couple never existed. I spent hours trying to get her to recognize me. I failed and took her away from that house by force.
It was all for nothing.
Leana chanted. She made unrecognizable sounds. She wouldn’t say anything more than a single word. She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t drink. She just rocked back and forth and cried, shutting down completely. The hospital hadn’t helped. Not even the restraints I’d secretly tied her in made a difference once I got her home. She astonishingly broke free in the middle of the night, and me… I’d been so consumed with trying to save her that I should have been paying attention to my own internal alarms.
Surrender.
Surrender.
Her mantra of the word looped, worming even deeper into my mind. The term meant nothing. It meant everything.
I didn’t understand what to submit to. Maybe I didn’t want to.
A person didn’t infiltrate Denmon without it claiming a part of them. One especially didn’t steal something out of the town and get away with it. And I had, and lost Leana in the process.
Perhaps I should have left Leana on the porch.
Maybe I should have just kneeled next to her and submitted to the hypnotic pull that was whispering for my own return. Whispering me home. But I couldn’t. The rage I harbored far outweighed my need to give in. I wanted answers. The real question was… how did I get them without losing myself in the process?
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