Aamaya's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

The vision struck Aamaya while she was washing a plate, and it dropped from her hand and broke on the cabin floor. Her obsidian eye flashed red. She saw teeth, wet grass, something running through the dark. Then it was gone. She gripped the counter and breathed hard. This kept happening. Ever since the eye turned black, it showed her flashes she couldn't hold long enough to read. She was nineteen, and she still didn't know why she saw these things, or what she was becoming when her skin rippled and her bones tried to change shape. Her black cat sat on the table and watched her with steady yellow eyes. It did not flinch at the broken plate. It never did anymore. Aamaya knelt and pressed her palm to the floorboards. She closed her green eye and forced the black one to stay open. The visions came like water through her fingers. She needed to slow them. She needed to focus. She thought about the cat, calm and still, and she tried to hold that stillness inside herself. A knock hit the door. "Aamaya? You're late calling me. I got worried." It was Alana, her sister, the deputy who checked on her every week. She let herself in before Aamaya could answer. Alana saw the broken plate and the girl on the floor. "Hey. Hey, look at me. What happened?" "Don't touch me," Aamaya said. "Not yet. I almost have it." Alana froze in the doorway, one hand near her belt out of habit, the other reaching for her sister. She didn't understand the eye. She never had. But she stayed. The cat jumped down and pressed against Aamaya's knee. Warm. Present. Something clicked. Aamaya stopped fighting the visions and let them slow around that one warm point. The flashes stretched. She held them. She saw the wet grass again, a grove of trees she knew. She saw dark shapes moving between them on too many legs. She saw their eyes, red like her own pupil. She counted six. Aamaya opened both eyes. Her hands shook, but her mind was clear. "I can read it now," she whispered. "I finally saw it." "Saw what?" Alana crouched beside her, worry cutting her voice. "Creatures. In the grove near here. Six of them, coming." Aamaya looked at her sister. "Tonight. They're coming tonight." Alana's face went hard. "You're sure." "The eye doesn't lie. It just wouldn't let me see. Now it does." Aamaya stood, the cat winding at her feet. For the first time the visions obeyed her. But the first clear thing they gave her was a warning, and she had no idea how to stop what was coming.