If you're interested in a more mature paranormal/urban fantasy story, then check out my other COMPLETED story, The Dark Between Dreams! It's about blade-wielding wlw ghosts that fight monsters in the afterlife. ...Yes, really. Find it on my profile!

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Skye is dead.

With death, all semblance of living fades, including her memories. Now, there is only After, a makeshift city of souls surrounded by infinite darkness and terrifying monsters that tear ghosts apart. She's forbidden to leave and eventually becomes a scavenger—a ghost that searches the Dark, the wasteland that is the afterlife, for lost and buried relics carried over from Earth.

But while all other ghosts slowly lose their emotions and begrudgingly accept the eternity of darkness ahead of them, Skye refuses to spend her afterlife in a world without light. She knows there must be some way to escape the monsters that keep them all trapped in the Dark and return to the realm of the living, and she's going to find it...Even if she has to face the Prince of Monsters, himself.

Joined by other scavengers named Webb and Vale, Skye risks her existence and escapes the walled city of After in search of the truth. Venturing into the black reveals untold perils, but that's not all.

The Dark...and the Dark Prince, are guarding a terrible secret...

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Chapter 1 🔻 The Dark

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allen Poe

I wanted to scream.

But no matter how much I strained my lungs, only a strangled keen escaped my throat. No matter how fast I tried to run, it was as if some thick miasma slowed my movements—like I was stuck in a dream. Or...like I was trapped in a nightmare.

Because monsters were hunting me.

I couldn't see them, for either I had gone blind, or the world had been plunged into heavy, pulsating darkness, but I could hear them hissing and shuffling behind me on long, spindly, and numerous legs. I could feel them when they reached out with mangled hands and clutched at my clothes and hair as I ran.

"Help me!" I wailed, grasping at more of that darkness ahead of me. My voice didn't carry far. The echoes of my pleas lingered in the air like flies in a web, barely a breath away from my face. My foot caught on something I couldn't see. With a pitiful gasp, I fell into what felt like sand.

Hissing surrounded me and clawed feet of unseen creatures kicked up the sand. I expected my breath to quicken as the noise that ricocheted in my spinning head increased. I expected my heart to race. I expected my blood to turn to ice.

But none of those things happened. I felt nothing but a sick emptiness within me.

Something else's breath beat down on my face. I swore I heard the slow, wet sound of toothy jaws parting.

And then there came a light.

A red beam cut through the dark, illuminating everything in my immediate vicinity.

I wished it hadn't.

I clapped my hands over my mouth to stifle the urge to spill my guts onto the ground at what I saw. The vaguely humanoid face before me drew back its black lips in a squeal of pain. It snapped milky white eyes shut against the light that scorched its flesh. Spewing spittle and dripping in cascading black mist, the monster recoiled from me and raced back into the darkness with its many, many pairs of spider-like limbs. The other creatures lingered with muscles tensed beneath black sagging skin, about to pounce.

Before they could strike, a glowing blade sliced through their limbs from out of nowhere. Black fluid sprayed from severed appendages and splashed over me.

The maimed creatures screamed and fled out of the crimson light's reach. When the shrieking silenced and the severed arms on the ground stopped twitching, someone moved to stand beside me. I looked up from where I lay to find a masked figure shrouded in a billowing, ratty cloak. Still wielding the flashlight that kept the monsters at bay, the person brushed her cloak aside and sheathed her blood-stained machete. At least, I thought it was a machete. Its blade glowed red hot like nothing I'd ever seen before. The wind kicked up flecks of black sand, making them fly like swarming gnats in the dim light of the flashlight the figure now pointed at me.

"Are you going to keep lying there until the shadows come back, or are you going to come with me?" the girl said with a British lilt. "This torch won't keep them away for long."

Her voice came out loud and clear despite the dark leather mask that covered her face. The only discernible features of it were the frowning mouth made from crude white stitches and the two red lenses that glared down at me.

"I...Wha—?" was all I could utter, my throat inexplicably dry.

The girl huffed and made what I assumed was a rolling-eyes gesture beneath her mask. She snatched my hand in hers and hauled me to my feet. Then, without pause, she took off running as if pitch blackness didn't engulf us. I barely kept pace with her.

"Keep up!" she called over her shoulder while the wind shrieked around us. "My bike isn't too far away!"

I squinted against the flying sand that pelted my face. Strangely, no pain stung my eyes or skin. I couldn't see a trace of any sort of bike ahead of us in the red light.

My shrouded savior continued to yank on my arm as she ran. Behind us, I heard more hissing. I swallowed.

"Whatever you do—" she began.

I twisted my head around to peer behind us.

"—don't look back!" the girl finished.

Shit.

Those shadows pursued us. It was hard to tell how many there were, for they all blended into the dark—into each other. All I knew was that they were almost on top of us.

One of them leaped through the air.

I let out another strangled scream as a weight crashed into my back, forcing me into the black sand once again. I lost my grip on the other girl's hand. Her light disappeared.

Talons cut into my arm. A claw severed my flesh like a hot knife through butter. Despite that, I felt no pain, only a pins-and-needles tingling in my bicep and the sensation of coldness leaking out from beneath my skin. The weight continued to press into me, forcing me deeper into the sand. While I lay suffocating, the monster's breath wafted against my ear as it sighed.

With a snarl, I elbowed the creature in its face, throwing it and all of its flailing limbs off of me. Freed from its weight, I heaved in lungfuls of air. No matter how hard I gasped, the air filling my lungs brought no relief. Tossing my jet-black hair out of my face and ignoring the tingling sensation in my arm, I forced myself to sit up in the dark to scramble away.

The monster landed on me again, crushing my chest, and tore into my flesh with its claws. I couldn't see or feel my wounds; I just felt...life seep out of me like a viscous fluid. This was a nightmare. It had to be.

I needed to wake up.

I clawed back. I bit. But it was useless trying to pry this thing off of me. The monster sank its teeth into my neck, and I shut my eyes. Not that it made a difference.

I needed to wake up.

My fingers dug into the sand, searching for a place to hide, or some escape, or just something.

I needed to—

A strange heat filled my core, and blinding flash seared through my eyelids. While the shadow screamed like an animal in a slaughterhouse and fled, I forced my eyes open. Beneath my fingertips in the sand was a small void of pure, white light that was far brighter than that masked girl's red flashlight. Had I...Had I somehow summoned it? Bathed in its glow, I craned my head forward. That hollowness in my chest subsided more and more the closer my face got to the void. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it, or ignore its beckoning call. My lifeless heart kick-started in my chest. I'd found it. The end of this nightmare. My escape.

I reached into the light.

"No!" that familiar voice screamed. Hands grabbed my shoulders and tossed me aside.

I landed in a splatter of sand and watched as the masked girl kicked grit and dust over the void, smothering its light until all that remained was the red glow of her flashlight.

My heart stopped again. I rose to confront her, yelling, "Why did you do that?" Like an addict, I reached for where the void disappeared. I didn't understand why, but I craved that light. The other girl held me back, surprisingly strong.

"You'll thank me later," she said, unaffected by my challenge. I realized then how much taller she was than me. "For now, just get on the damn bike!"

She pointed behind me. I turned and spied a parked metal behemoth of a motorcycle through the swarming grains of sand in the air. Fixed to the bike appeared to be a trailer laden with metal debris and strange, glowing red gems that lit up the dark. Another masked figure waved from the trailer.

When more hissing arose from nearby, the cloaked girl shoved me forward. I clambered into the trailer and settled amongst the cargo of rusted detritus and crystals. The girl turned her back to the darkness and mounted the bike, and off we sped into the night.

While clutching my hand to my seeping throat, I swiveled around to watch more shadows get absorbed by the dark in our wake. The person beside me aimed another flashlight at any lingering monsters like it was a laser. The last pursuing shadow gave up its chase. It bared its teeth at us in frustration before lumbering away. I twisted around to stare ahead at where we headed, but saw nothing in the crimson beam of the motorcycle's headlamp. Save for the sand we kicked up, there was no trace of a discernible landscape whatsoever. I could only trust that the girl knew where we all headed.

I sat back and shivered while cold air continued to leak from my body. I touched my maimed neck and arm, feeling for any blood. I couldn't determine the state of myself in the darkness, so my imagination painted a morbid picture for me. Was I dying? Was this what death felt like?

It didn't hurt.

"Hey," the masked figure beside me said over the rumble of the motorcycle's engine. A line of haphazard white stitches beneath his glowing lenses was shaped in a smile. Yet, I didn't find that particularly comforting at the moment. "You'll be fine. It'll just take you a bit to heal up. I'm Webb, by the way." He pointed at our driver with a thumb. "And that's Vale."

The most noticeable feature of him I could see was that he was pretty lanky, with his skinny legs sprawled so casually across the trailer bed. I spied the hilt of a sword strapped to his back. Was its blade red, too?

"Nice to stumble into you," he said.

My hand left my neck. That cold sensation gradually dissipated, and my shivering eased.

"I'm Sk—" My voice caught in my dry throat. I swallowed and tried again. "Skye. Thank you, Webb, and, uh...Vale." I continued to paw at my body in the darkness. I was certain that monster had sliced me nearly to ribbons a few moments ago, yet I didn't find any blood. Even the shadows' blood that had doused me seemed to have vanished. "Thank you both. What were those creatures? What's happening to me? And where are we?"

Webb's red lenses flashed as he shrugged. "Shadows. They're monsters that live out here in the Dark. No one knows where they come from, but they make mine and Vale's job way harder than it has to be. It's not like it isn't tough enough going scavenging out here by luxlight. Saw you deck one of 'em in the face, though. That was awesome." He laughed behind his mask.

I furrowed my brows while my sluggish brain struggled to make sense of anything. Scavenging? Lux? ...The Dark?

A light dawned on the horizon.

Oh, please let that be the sun! I thought, eager to wake from this nightmare.

Now able to pinpoint where the black land met the black sky, I could tell how freaking fast we sped across the dunes of some vast desert. The horizon grew brighter, and I realized that no, that wasn't the sun we raced toward. I narrowed my eyes, struggling to comprehend the enormous silhouettes of towering edifices—all aglow with crimson—peeking over a giant wall that spanned the entire horizon. Webb, meanwhile, removed his mask from his face. A guy in his older teens or younger twenties grinned at me, his wavy light blond hair whipping in his face as the wall before us grew larger and taller, nearly filling the whole sky. He gestured with his head toward the city. "As for where we are..." he said.

I gasped when Vale brought the bike and the trailer to a sudden, sliding stop at the foot of a colossal wall constructed of sheet metal and other scraps. Even with the light of the ruby crystals embedded into the wall's corrugated surface, it was hard to fathom just how monstrously huge it was. It had to be at least a hundred stories tall. A single huge, sprawling word painted across the wall greeted the three of us.

"After," I read aloud.

A resounding, explosive thud echoed across the surrounding wasteland, creating a shock wave of flying dust. Along the wall, huge chains rattled and pulled taut, lifting a massive gate open in front of us like the maw of an old, abandoned mechanical creature, ready to swallow us whole. The gems and scrap metal I sat amongst vibrated and clattered together as the gate rose. This dream was getting weird. I wondered if I was going to wake up soon. I had to, right? Any second now...

Then everything was still and silent. More crimson light spilled over us all from within the city and projected our shadows backward into the desert. I chanced a glance at myself, afraid of what I would see. I uttered a little gasp when my suspicions were confirmed.

Not a single scratch marred my pale skin.

"I'm healed?" I whispered to myself, staring at my unmarked flesh. I rubbed my arm, searching for any sign of injury. There wasn't even a single fleck of blood anywhere. "But that shadow thing...! It cut me! I thought I was going to die! How am I healed?"

Footsteps crunched in the sand beside the trailer. I looked up into Vale's red lenses.

Slowly, Vale pulled her frowning mask from her face. She looked about my age—eighteen. Her dark skin looked so flawless in the artificial brightness. She brushed her long waist-length box braids back over her shoulder. Unlike Webb, Vale didn't smile. "Well, I've got good news and bad news, new blood," she said to me, her expression grim. "The good news is that no shadows should get you again in the city of After."

Webb fidgeted. He stared past me out into the desert we escaped from, as if avoiding eye contact.

Vale, however, met my eyes with eyes devoid of any emotion. "The bad news is that you've already died," she told me. She gestured to the gateway of After before us. "Welcome to the afterlife."

Now would you pray before you twist the knife?
Yeah, would you take my hand and take a life?
I'm too damn young to give up on the night
I'm used to the darkness, I'm used to the darkness
I'm just a man, I'm only flesh and bone
I can't blame it back on everything I've done
And now there's no-one else left to love
I'm used to the darkness, I'm used to the darkness

https://youtu.be/7MrRi-2nokM