Eliska sprang backward and straddled Yann’s fallen body. She couldn’t let him get pulled away in this mayhem.

“Stand fast!” she roared into the howling wind. “Stay where you are and stay connected!”

“We need weapons!” Yvan yelled over the noise.

“You’ll never survive if you leave now! Stay where you are!” She backed another step until she stood right over Yann. “Give me my staff!”

None of the Watchmen turned around even to look for it. Yann dragged himself off the ground to pick up her staff. He tried to pass it to her, but he couldn’t rise. She didn’t dare to turn around.

She extended her hand behind her groping for it when a Darkling tentacle whipped through town. It unwound between a few of the remaining houses and cracked straight for the party.

The tentacle snapped in Eliska’s face and she struck out with her bare hand. She slapped the tentacle away and it snaked out of sight into the darkness. She didn’t dare to put her hands down again as more tentacles hissed all around her.

They struck random people running through the street. The tentacles snatched livestock and yanked them away into the storm. Scraps, splinters, and razor-sharp debris peppered Eliska’s skin and she heard screaming in the background.

Someone grabbed her ankle. She dared to glance down just long enough to see the cuff of Yann’s sleeve surrounding the hand holding onto her leg. She didn’t move nor did she try to shake him off. She wanted to make sure he stayed near her.

He crawled over to her and held onto her leg while he hauled himself to his feet. He planted himself between her and another Watchman on his other side.

He wobbled on unsteady legs, but at least he was upright—not that it would do any good. “Why don’t they attack?” he yelled into her ear.

“I don’t know!” she called back. “They don’t have to, I guess.”

“What do they want?”

She could only shake her head. She didn’t want to take her attention off the Darklings in case they attacked again.

He turned aside, bent over, and picked up her staff, but when he straightened up to hand it to her, the Darkling right in front of them lunged for the party.

“Stand fast!” Yvan yelled again, but it was too late. That one Darkling reared high into the air and dove down on top of the town. Its enormous mouth widened to a colossal size and it crashed down on top of what was left of Middleborough.

The Darkling swallowed the town and an unbelievable force struck Eliska all over.

The black void enveloped her and she felt herself pinwheeling through space. Bodies and random stuff pounded her from all sides and she slammed down hard on some solid surface.

People landed on top of her grunting in pain and she groaned when they crushed her under their weight.

She scrambled to get out from under them trying to orient herself in the darkness. Her hand brushed her staff, but when she tried to pick it up, someone yanked it away from her. “No!” Yann yelled.

“It’s me!” she called into the darkness. “It’s Eliska!”

“Eliska……” His hands patted her all over, but she couldn’t find her staff again. “Where are we?”

“We’re in the Coil. Get up—quick!” She picked him up and pawed up to his face. “Is your head okay?”

“I’m fine. Where is everyone?”

She strained her eyes to see in the dark before the howling wind and tornado of debris hit them without warning.

It started as darkness and widened to include the murky whirling Layers, clouds, and mayhem of Middleborough….except that the group wasn’t in Middleborough anymore.

Wesh, Mael, Yvan, a handful of Watchmen, and a few other townspeople got to their feet in the same positions where they started when the Darklings attacked.

None of the houses were there anymore. The Darklings were gone, too. Chaos and shadow surrounded the party.

Eliska pulled Yann into position between herself and Wesh, but she could already see that it was no good.

She didn’t see her staff anymore. She just had to wait and pray the Coil spat the party out in some relatively safe place.

“Where are we?!” Wesh hollered.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“It looks like….” Eliska squinted into the shadows. “I think we’re in Serenity Valley.”

“Serenity Valley!” one of the Watchmen roared. “You call this serene?! It isn’t a valley, either!”

Eliska remained tense and watchful as the Layers built to a punishing wind.

The townspeople tightened together into a knot facing outward from the center. Sections of darkness gathered into shapes out in the Layers.

“Here it comes!” Eliska yelled over her shoulder.

Yann bumped into her from the side. They both backed up a little more until he stood touching her on that side, but she didn’t want him anywhere else. She didn’t want him to get lost.

He started to say, “What is it…..?” and then he saw it, too.

The shadows collected in certain places with orange, red, and dark purple vapors slashing and crackling all around them.

Those shadows started to take shape and expand into Darklings, but at that moment, the ground under Eliska’s feet caved in. The earth quaked and split apart.

The whole party tumbled into the fissure. Yells echoed out of the darkness and Eliska yelled out, too. She tried to grab out for….anything…..

She cartwheeled through multiple Layers, crashed into things, ricocheted off a few Watchmen, and slammed down hard on a shelf of solid rock.

Her face bounced on the stone hard enough to stun her. She shook the stars out of her eyes and tasted blood in her mouth before she dragged her head up to look around.

Her hair hung over her eyes, but at least she landed on something solid. Wesh, Yann, and the Watchmen writhed and groaned on the same rock shelf near her.

Mael lay right in front of her staring at nothing with his eyes open. He was dead. She didn’t see any of the other townspeople who’d gotten out of Middleborough alive.

Eliska pushed herself up on all fours and crawled over to Yann. “Are you okay?” she choked.

He groaned, hugged his arm over his stomach, and howled through gritted teeth while he grimaced in agony. “NO!!” he gasped.

She extended her hand to touch him and heal him, but right then, a deep rumble shook the rock shelf underneath her.

She glanced around searching for the source of the noise. The shelf extended a dozen yards in every direction from where the Watchmen lay.

Then the rock cliffs plummeted away to nothing with Layers and Darkness on all sides.

The Layers swirled in a torrent of chaotic madness all around the shelf. The Layers whipped against each other and the colors slashed and pelted back and forth, but those howling winds didn’t come onto the shelf itself.

“Where are we?” Yvan asked.

“We’re in an Island.” Eliska turned back to Yann and flattened her hand on his chest.

She felt right away that he had life-threatening injuries to his internal organs. He would die if she didn’t heal him now.

Wesh went through the Watchmen attending to their injuries while he searched the surroundings, too.

“We can’t stay here,” Eliska panted. “We have to move.”

“How can we when there’s nowhere to go?” Yvan asked.

She made a face at him and then concentrated on sending a rush of magic into Yann’s chest. “You don’t know much about the Coil, do you? It will change soon. This part of the Coil is too unstable.”

“The Islands are supposed to be stable,” Yvan pointed out. “If we’re in an Island…..”

The same deep rumble vibrated the rock beneath the party and cut him off. Everyone stopped what they were doing.

Eliska looked around again, but she didn’t stop sending her magic into Yann’s body. She had to work fast, but his injuries took too long to heal.

The rumble kept getting louder until it built to a thunderous boom. No one could ignore it anymore.

Yann’s eyes snapped to Eliska’s face. He stared up at her in desperation, but she couldn’t work any faster than this.

Tremors pounded the rock until the whole shelf jolted with deep, crushing blows. Without warning, sections of rock around the shelf’s perimeter erupted upward into spikes.

They kept growing into hills and then cliffs and mountains. They grew outward as well as inward. They expanded to take up all the space on the shelf—the only space left for the party to stand.

Eliska lunged to her feet and grabbed Yann. “Everybody up! Get up! Come on! Run for it!”

She took off running, but she couldn’t move fast while she dragged Yann with her. He staggered to his feet, stumbled, and kept going. He barely stayed upright, but at least he was still alive.

The rocky cliffs kept growing and growing and growing. They converged inward on the party.

The walls would crush everyone in the center if the group didn’t keep running.

The shelf wasn’t big enough for any of them to run anywhere. They would have run straight off the edge into the chaos Layers, but the landscape morphed and transformed too fast.

Eliska ran straight into another cliff rumbling, sprouting, and jutting out of the shelf in front of her. She didn’t know what it would become or if it would crush her and the rest of the party any second now.

The Watchmen slowed down when they saw themselves running into a stone cliff. They dropped back, but Eliska sprinted forward.

She raised her hand to use her magic to blast the cliff apart, but Wesh got there first.

He fired a crackling bolt energy from his palm. It struck the cliff face, but the impact only made it expand faster.

Eliska raced to his side. She had to take one hand away from holding onto Yann.

Wesh glanced over at her, and when he saw her about to unload her magic on the cliff, he raised his hand a second time.

They both fired simultaneously this time. The cliff shuddered and boomed, but it still didn’t collapse.

The Watchmen crowded around for protection from the upheaval. The surrounding cliffs rumbled, pounded, and crashed against each other as they all kept growing out of control.

They chewed up the shelf until no space remained. They would smash in on themselves and crush the party in the center.

“Again, Eliska!” Wesh bellowed over the noise.

She took both hands off Yann and plastered both hands against the cliff face in front of her. He buckled to his knees, but she could only help him one way.

“On three!” Wesh roared. “One…..two……three!”

Eliska summoned every scrap of magic she possessed and channeled it into the rock.

The cliff evaporated in a curtain of falling rock, rubble, and gravel falling right on top of the party standing underneath it.

The Watchmen yelled out. A brick-sized stone smashed Eliska in the head. She screamed in pain and raised her arms above her for protection.

Her magic formed a barrier over her and the others, but only for a second before the walls smashed together and the whole shelf dissolved in a deafening explosion.

What had been a rock shelf disintegrated into the Layers. Rock, dust, and boulders wheeled off into the surrounding chaos.

Eliska lost sight of everyone and everything in the Dark until she hit another solid surface.

This one wasn’t stone. It gave a little under her weight, but only a little. She smelled dirt and pine trees, rolled down a slope, and landed in a puddle of freezing cold water.

End of Chapter 5.