Revenant - Prologue and Chapter 1

Hey, I am rewriting this in past tense. I would like help pointing out the mistakes and I hope u like it.

Prologue

The Curse

Over six thousand years ago, my ancestor, the great Lord Ashdown, had everything that he could have ever wanted: wealth, a family that loved him, servants and guards willing to do as his every command. As he began to age, he looked in the mirror and realised he did not want to grow old and die. He wanted to be eternally young, that the life that he had was not enough. He spent years researching the dark arts trying to find the answer to eternal life and finally sought out the necromancer Arcanon Decayn. The necromancer refused to give him the answer to his question. Lord Ashdown’s greed made him furious and he had Arcanon’s magic temporally taken from him and he was imprisoned yet he grew no closer to finding the answer he sought.

When Lord Ashdown went to release Arcanon from the dungeon, he found the necromancer lying dead in a pool of his own blood. Aranon’s ghost stood over his now lifeless body. Words started to form from the pool of blood writing out a curse. Every one hundred years on that very same date, a boy of sixteen from Lord Ashdown’s bloodline would die and return from the grave as a revenant. The revenant would then seek revenge for what happened that day, bringing mortal terror to the earth. Lord Ashdown searched the castle for his sixteen year old son only to find his dead body. When he returned to the dungeon to beg forgiveness, Arcanon’s body and ghost were gone. All that remained of him was the curse that lay written out in blood. The message was clear, the curse had already started. A week after his son’s funeral, his tomb was found open and his coffin empty. The following day, Lord Ashdown disappeared never to be seen again, his wealth inherited by his fourteen year old son.

Yeah, not the normal bedtime story parents tell their kids at night when they are young. I never believed the story. I thought it was just a story meant to scare...until it happened to me.

**********

Chapter 1

Nightmares

I stood in a gigantic room but I felt as if it was the complete opposite. The heat was suffocating and my heart pounded, loudly, it deafened me of all other sounds. I was frozen, unable to move as the figures dance around me but I did not recognise them. They were unfamiliar. Bright colours of light flashed before my eyes and it made head spin.

That was when I saw her, a shadow in the background. The familiar face in a room full of strangers: the warmth of a fire in the freezing cold. She moved through the crowds of people. My eyes struggled to follow her. When I thought I had lost her, I suddenly saw her at the opposite side of the room.

She approached me, slowly. I saw her clearly now. She wore a black dress that clung tightly to her body, showing off her curves. Her mint green hair covered her eyes in a full fringe and fell in curls to her shoulders. The colour of her hair stood out from her otherwise black attire. She was beautiful.

She stopped in front of me, looking me up and down. It was as if she was examining me. I tried to say something but words are lost in my throat, all that came out was a strangled cough. She moved closer and whispered something in my ear that I could not hear. Suddenly, I felt her lips on mine, kissing me. My feet were rooted to the ground; every muscle in my body was frozen. I wanted to throw her off me, tell her she was drunk and not thinking straight.

Something pierced my abdomen. She stopped kissing me and I looked down. A knife had been driven into my skin and my blood had started to soak through my clothes. I took my knife carefully from my body. I screamed, finally able to make a sound as the pain shot through my nerves. I fell to the ground. The girl was now gone replaced by a group of unknown people. My awareness started to slip as I clung to my last drop of conciseness. I knew that this was the end.

I blinked, struggling to keep my eyes open for any length of time. My heart pounded fast in my chest, my breathing came out fast and the sweat poured off me. I threw the sheets off me and I pulled myself up into a sitting position against the wall. The cloak on my side table read two o’clock am. As my eyes wandered aimlessly around my dark room, I realised that I was not the only one awake. My brother sat cross-legged on his bed. His eyes regarded me, worryingly.

“Another nightmare?” He asked. I nodded, unable to speak.There was a long silence before Nathan spoke again. “Was it her again?”

“Yeah...” I said, wanting to drop the subject completely.Ever since Nathan and I had turned fifteen, we had started having the nightmares. The nightmares were always the same. We died, stabbed by a girl, a girl with mint green hair. It was not the only nightmare I had had. I dreamt about the story our parents told both Nathan and I when we were younger. The story about my ancestor and the necromancer: the story where my ancestor’s son had been turned into a revenant. Sometimes I thought that somehow the story and the dreams were related but I shrugged off such thoughts. Necromancers and magic did not exist.

The room was quiet. I wondered why Nathan had not spoken again so I looked over at his bed. He lay sleeping atop his sheets, his arms hanging off the side of his bed. I got off my bed and retrieved a large cover from a draw. I carefully placed it over him so he did not get cold. If it had not been for the nightmares, Nathan would have slept through the whole night and day until someone had the heart to wake him.

Over on his bedside table sat a lamp, a book and a small photo frame. I picked the photo frame up. The photo had been taken several years ago and it was of the entire family. We stood on a beach. I had my arm slung over a ten year old Nathan’s shoulders. We both smiled and out faces, haircuts and clothes were identical. It was hard to tell the difference between us back then because with being identical twins, we had insisted on looking the same. My dad stood behind us, his arm around our mum’s waist. She smiled down at our baby sister in her arms. The memory made me smile. A teardrop escaped my eye. If only we had known our dad would had died. If we had only known that it would happen just weeks after the photo had been taken. Our mum had never been the same since. I looked at my parents smiling faces once more before I sat the frame down again.

After several attempts at trying to get back to sleep, I gave up. I unlike Nathan could not fall asleep at will. As Nathan slept, I sat atop the roof. The stars were many that night and they decorated every inch of the endless night sky. The street below showed no signs of life. Even though the street was deserted, I could vaguely hear the distant sound of laughter and music. Ever since my dad had died, I spent most nights out on the roof. Mum never had approved of it. She was always scared I would fall and break my neck or I would end up ruining the roof tiles. Neither ever happened. Eventually she had given up on lecturing me about it.

I was about to go back inside when I saw something. On the other side of the street, a dark figure stood. The person’s features were unrecognisable from the hood covering their head. Their face was shrouded in darkness. However, I could tell that it was a girl from the shape of her body. She neither looked up nor down as she stared at my house. It was clear that she did not see me watching her from above.

A cold gust of wind blew by that made the hairs on my arm stand on end. My eyes had gone wide. Time had suddenly gone into slow motion. I saw a few strands of the girl’s hair lift with the wind from her under her hood. The strands of her hair were now illuminated by the street lights that ran along the length of the street. I saw the colour of her hair. It was not of a natural colour, the girl must have dyed it. The colour of her hair was green. Not just any shade of green: mint green.

I rushed back through the window and dragged my brother out of bed. He complained frequently as I pulled him out onto the roof with me. I spoke in jumbled words and Nathan just complained even more about how he could not understand me. When we were both sitting safely on the roof, I pointed over to the other side of the street.

“That’s where I saw her.” I pointed across the street, looking down at my knees as I tried to catch my breath.

“What the heck are you talking about? Saw who?” He asked, confused. I looked up. The girl from before is gone.

**********