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With that, I left. Emotions mingled in my stomach, a distraction I couldn’t afford. I’d hunted the cause of several disappearances, tying each of the victims to Marshmallow in one way or another. Upon digging deeper, I’d noted each of the victims had visited not only Marshmallow, but had attended a funeral in the area within several weeks of their disappearances.
Like many cases the library took on, at first glance, it would be easy to dismiss the circumstances to mundane human causes. But the magical signature left on the victims’ belongings led to an investigation—namely me traveling about and determining the cause.
I’d visited multiple funeral homes, cremation centers, and graveyards in my search. Today’s hunt would begin in a large graveyard that I knew for a fact connected to the extensive underground tunnel system which sprawled beneath Marshmallow’s streets. Much of Marshmallow connected to the underground, including the basements of many of the homes and the little outhouse in the woods behind my mother’s magic shop, but I knew of no other entrance that connected so closely to those who had disappeared.
Unearthly cold greeted me in the graveyard like a choking grip on my lungs. It was a promising sign that I was in the correct location, given it should have been at least eighty degrees this time of year. A clicking sound came from inside one of the mausoleums.
I opened the door. Inside, the noise grew louder.
Click click.
I readied a scroll, choosingfreezefor its ability to immobilize without damaging my target. There was no way to know what or who I would find down the dark stairwell in the corner.
I lit a lantern and took the first step down the stairs. Excitement jittered through my limbs. This was the thrill of the hunt. Soon I would solve the mystery, but not before an exhilarating fight.
What kind of monster awaited me? Would I recognize it or would I need to figure out its weaknesses as I worked? The final possibility was that all of this would be the work of a normal, boring human. But as the hairs on my arms stood on end and the eerie coldness gripped my lungs, that possibility faded.
Come closer.
A voice spoke to me, yet I heard no words with my ears. The voice somehow projected directly into my head. Whoever was down here had a psychic capability, which meant I needed a layer of protection immediately.
I pulled out a glorified tinfoil hat from my bag and attached it to my head. The magically imbued tin cap would block psychic energy from invading my mind, or so I was told. The technology was still new, and likely untested.
With my freeze scroll at the ready, I proceeded down the stairs.
The scent of death filled my nostrils. That did not bode well for the missing.
There’s no need to be afraid.
So much for the tin hat.
“I fear nothing,” I told the darkness ahead of me, and pressed onward. I relished a challenge, craved the discovery of answers in the unknown. This was my wheelhouse, and I was going to crush this monster as I had crushed so many others in my near two decades with the library.
Something skittered across the ground. I paused, waiting to see if it intended to strike. Instead, it hid in the shadows. Was it the origin of the mental voice?
A floating figure materialized in front of me, from nothing, or from the shadows, I couldn’t be certain. Her hair was long and white, the same as her nightgown. She smiled, a kind smile. She reminded me of my mom.
She reached out to me.
My mind blurred, knowing there was something I was meant to do, or was it something I was meant to tell her? Either way, I felt more content than I ever remembered feeling. This was my home. I was always meant to be right here, with her. There was no more pressure, no insecurity, and nothing to prove.
All I needed to do was accept this woman, and everything would be fine.
Lulled into a sense of security, acceptance that was so foreign yet so blissful, I gave in.
The woman’s smile transformed from kind to cruel. Anything human about her faded away as her eyes turned red. I had to move. I was supposed to fight—if I didn’t, I had no chance of survival. I had to cast my scroll.
I summoned my intention into my hand, pointed the scroll toward the creature hovering before me.Free—
Heat poured from my chest as she dug her hand through my ribs. All I could do was blink. All I could do was watch as the monster lifted its hands to my neck and twisted.
My body collapsed to the ground. I had no control, no power to do anything but watch. This wasn’t right. I was supposed to prove that I could do anything. I was supposed to win at every turn, then eventually my mother would truly see me. Everyone would know I wasn’t just her shadow. If I lost…everything I had devoted my life to, what was it all for?
It was over.
As I lay dying, and my vision faded, I could swear that I saw my mother racing after me down the tunnel.
For every step she took closer, the monster dragged me two away.
