Prologue: The door

A great black door stood alone before Alyssa in the middle of the road. Engraved on it were golden patterns like nothing she had ever seen before. She was pretty sure that it had not been there when she had got to the town earlier that day. I would have noticed a giant door leading to nowhere in the middle of the road, she thought. She placed her hand against it. It was cold like touching ice. It creaked loudly and Alyssa jumped back as it began to open. The whole frame was shuddering violently as if it was about to explode. Alyssa watched in cautious curiosity and shock. The other side of the door was not simply the other side of the road. Inside was somewhere completely different. Leading from the door was a silver brick road. On both sides of this road were ginormous trees that rose as high as 500 meters into the air. The bark of these trees was pure black and shined unnaturally. The leaves were bright red and golden vines wrapped around the trunks and branches. What is this, she thought staring at the black grass with golden tips that covered the ground in front of her. It was beautiful in an alien way and terrifying at the same time. She was frozen in awe for what could have been an eternity. Then she saw golden dust swirling in the distance down the silver brick road. She strained her eyes to see, the dust was doing what she could only describe as dancing now. Should she go in and see what it was? This thought was suddenly cut short when the dust solidified. Now there was something horrifying standing where the dust once was, all beauty gone. It stood at about seven foot tall and was humanoid in form. Its arms were too long for its body, almost touching the ground. Its entire body was covered with exposed red muscles except for its face. The face was covered with a saggy hood of skin. It stared at her with shining bright blue eyes and began to walk forward with its long claws at the end of its hands scraping the ground as it went. It began to scream a blood-curdling cry like a dying animal and picking up speed. Alyssa threw herself back against the door in order to close it. She had barely made contact with it when it slammed shut violently, leaving her lying on the ground. She lay there for a while with her heart beating faster than she thought was possible. Her mind was almost empty. All that was there was fear.

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Finally, she picked herself up and looked at the door again. A shiver ran through her entire body as she saw a crack on the door stretching from the top right corner to the handle. She turned and ran. Had coming here been a mistake? Where had Tye gone? She had to find him. He might know something about this.

The sun was shining brightly into her room when she woke up. Had she been asleep? She must have been. It was morning now. Why couldn’t she remember the night? She always remembered. Her stomach turned violently as she wondered had she lost her power?