David's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Rue Pallor had not slept in three weeks, and the swamp would not let her stop walking. Every night her feet carried her into the fog with a lantern, down the same drowned paths, though she never chose the route. She only knew she had to follow something. Tonight she followed a trail of churned mud, each print pressed fresh into the muck ahead of her. She needed to know what made them. That was the only question left in her hollow skull. Then she heard it. A second set of footsteps, behind her, matching her own. When she stepped, it stepped. When she stopped, it stopped a half-beat late. The sound sat close, wet and heavy. Her neck prickled. She wanted to turn. But the trail ahead was already fading into the fog, filling with black water. If she turned, she would lose it. She had lost it before, many nights, and each time she woke at dawn with no memory and mud to her knees. Rue kept her eyes forward and walked faster. The thing behind matched her, step for step. Her lantern swung and threw her shadow long across the reeds. Among the tilted headstones of a half-sunken graveyard, a pale lily grew from a grave, its dark center curled like something dead. The trail led straight past it, toward a stone gatehouse rising from the fog. Its wooden doors stood shut and banded with iron. The footprints ended at its threshold. The steps behind her stopped. The silence was worse. Rue made her choice. She would not lose the trail again by turning. Instead she lifted her lantern to the gatehouse doors and found them slick with old fog stains. In the iron bands, she saw a warped reflection. Behind her stood a lean shape, taller than a man, its face smooth and without eyes. Long arms hung past its knees. It had walked in her tracks all along, wearing her own footsteps like a mask. Now she understood. The trail had never been something she chased. It was bait. The prints were hers, pressed by the thing's feet the night before, leading her here each night to this door. She had been herding herself to the gatehouse for weeks. Rue turned at last. The eyeless creature did not flee. It tilted its head and raised one clawed hand toward the doors, as if asking her to open them. Water dripped from its jaw. Somewhere beyond the wood, something large shifted and sighed, a wet rippling weight settling behind the gate. Rue set her hand against the iron. The doors were unlocked. They had always been unlocked. She saw it clearly now: the thing could not open them alone. It needed hands. It needed her. Three weeks of walking had brought her to this, a choice she could no longer avoid. She pushed, and the door groaned inward on the dark.