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Agents of The Keep, The Moon, and The Shadows
Chapter 1.4: Moonlight and Shadows

Chapter 1.4: Moonlight and Shadows

There was a full moon out today and it was easy to see the road even with the slight buzz from Pa's concoctions. Crickets are chirping and Clint could hear the sounds of the occasional owl. Mama always said owls were a good omen, a sign from Selûne, "Our Lady of Silver".

Though the closer he got home there was this nagging almost imperceptible feeling. The back of his mind was telling him something was wrong. The owls stopped sounding off, complete silence and no animal life could be sensed. There! He smelled it. Something was burning. In the distance the house and the barn were set ablaze. The sight of ash floating in the air had Clint shocked, dumb stricken, and frozen. Were those crows, ravens, overcast, and circling? It was unusual to see them at night. There was a grip on his chest and young Clint ran down the path to his house and what shook him to the core were the dead bodies, the carnage and blood soaked ground. Swords, daggers, sundered bows, and broken arrow shafts strewn out of reach of the slashed and gored corpses. The stink of death was in the air.

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"Maaaa! Paaaa! Hey! Where are you? Maaaa! Paaaa!" Clint ran to the front of the house starting to cough due to the smoke and ash. The light is almost blinding. The heat unbearable upon his exposed skin. The noise roared above his ears, crackling, snapping, collapsing wooden support beams.

"Ma! *Cough cough* Pa! *Cough." Clint begins choking and waving at the air futility and hurriedly circles around the house unsure what to do about his home.

Clint sees the boot of his father poking out from behind the stone well that his father built some seasons ago. There the young Clint just stared, unblinking, unable to comprehend. He takes a step forward and falls to his knees with no strength to support him. And there is a screaming resonating from within, it's strangled and guttural with the backdrop of crackling burning hell surrounding him. The fields have started to catch, spreading across the black, shadowed, starless sky, turning it red and orange. Through it all, the full moon is ever silver and piercing, revealing even through the smoke.