Chasing Orion
Prologue

Exhausted and out of the breath, the small family of four huddled together underneath the cold cluster of rocks their caravan had settled next to for the night. A young boy and girl embraced each other, nestled tightly against their father. Their mother, a stout woman with dark sun stained skin peered carefully from around the rock looking back toward the caravan. Tonight’s weather was the standard of the Germania tundra with a cold mist hanging heavily in the air. The moon had not yet risen and the crisp air from the distant mountains started to condense and blanket the countryside. Slowly churning, the clouds crawled along the ground nearly engulfing the caravan.

Off in the distance, a quick snap of a fallen branch startled the group causing the kids to inhale sharply and their father to pull them in tighter against him. Quickly, their mother turned to them motioning a single finger to her lips, before turning back to peak around the rocks. Their father gently comforts the twins by rocking the pair slowly and caressing their hair with his work battered fingers.

A slow faint hiss pierced the silence of the night and the woman turned back, slowly creeping up to join them. The young girl crawled in to her mother’s arms driving her face into her chest. They pulled each other in tighter and tried to remain as quiet as they could, fighting the fear as they trembled. The man’s eyes widened as the sound of footsteps approached them from behind the rock. An explosive yell of terror broke the silence as a bloodied man burst past them running in to the darkness of the night.

Limping slightly and frantically trying to run away, the bloodied man turned back focusing on the family then back toward the caravan. He let out another cry of panic tripping on a fallen log and crashing on to his chest. The family cowered in fear as the boulder they were hiding behind became engulfed in a blue glow. The fallen man stumbled trying to get back to his feet, recklessly falling back down on to his back. Terrified, he whimpered trying to scoot himself away.

Accompanied by a long drawn out sigh, the blue glow faded and a thick black mass quickly drifted over the rock. Resembling both fog and liquid, the mass dripped black wisps of smoke as it slowly hovered several feet off the ground toward the man. Frozen in fear the man pressed himself down on the ground as the black mass settled in front of him reaching out with flame-like tendrils. The tendrils slowly wrapped themselves around him as the mass descended dissipating to reveal a dark cloaked figure.

Several feet taller than the frightened man, the figure emitted a soft growl and hiss before reaching out with its hand. Thin elongated fingers tipped with silver daggers for nails, brushed along the man’s face effortlessly slicing his skin. Watching on from behind, the young boy let a short whimper escape his lips causing his father to cover his mouth with his hand. The cloaked figure turned abruptly to face them and snarled, curling back its lips to reveal sharp pointed teeth covered in a silver sheen. Small pools of blood formed at the corners of its mouth as it stared at them intensely.

The monster’s skin took on a scaly texture, dark grey in color, with a faint purple tint to it as its face became revealed. Unlike their own, its eyes were large and lifeless seeming to vanish against the dark night sky behind it. The frightened man behind, took the misunderstood opportunity to try and escape, swiftly getting to his feet and running toward a small cluster of trees in the distance. The monster tilted its head turning back slightly, cracking a devilish grin. In the blink of an eye, it exploded into a black cloud and vanished. It reappeared a moment later in front of the fleeing man now a fair distance away.

In a tangle of dark wispy tentacles and an otherworldly howl, the man vaporized into a red puff of blood in collision with the monster. The family now fully aware of the location of the monster and in its assumed distraction, scrambled to their feet. Each clinging desperately to one of their children, the family ran with all they had back toward the caravan, weaving in and out of the destruction left in the wake of the creature. Seemingly endless bodies of what comprised of their caravan laid scattered about the area, with some still in the last position when they reached their demise. The couple now practically dragging their children over the piles of shattered wood and fabric from the broken carts, snaked through the debris to a nearby field.

Opening into a weak sprint in the clearing, a distant howl bounced off the foothills in front of them, pushing them to run harder. Now crying and peering over their parent’s shoulders at the horror chasing them, the young girl struggled against her mother’s grasp throwing off her balance sending them both falling to the ground. Signaled by their son, the man stopped running setting him down and running back to help the girls get back to their feet. The woman looked up to her son just as the black figure appeared behind him engulfing him in its black tendrils. She screamed out in despair reaching for the young boy as the figure vanished again along with the boy in a low rumble.

The man collapsed on to his knees in defeat falling forward onto his hands, succumbing to the reality of his mistake. The woman quickly got back to her feet gathering herself and looking around for her daughter. A flicker of light caught her attention and she focused to the nearby mountain that was now silhouette against a blue light behind the horizon. Taking notice to four humanoid figures watching from the ridge above, she raised her arms up screaming at the top of her lungs toward them. Grabbing hold of the young girl’s arms, she reached for her husband yelling at him to keep running.

The cloaked figure materialized again, jerking the man up by his neck and tossing him through the air several dozen feet away. The young girl yelled for her father and ran for him, slipping from her mother’s hold leaving her alone with the monster. It slowly took on a more human-like appearance still shadowed in its dark cloak. Nearly twice her size, she clenched her teeth and lunged at him swinging a large rock she picked up from the ground. It effortlessly side stepped her attack, spinning in a type of slow dance, allowing its cloak to fall to the ground.

The creature appeared covered in a flowing golden armor, adorned with various purple and blue gems. Expecting to see a grotesque tooth lined face, she stared mesmerized at a black stone textured helm in the shape of a jackal. Its eyes glimmered a faint blue light as it settled to face her again, drawing a long sword from a sheath on its back. The woman took a couple steps back and started to tremble in anger. She roared with rage and lunged at him again, swinging her fists wildly trying to strike him. He quietly chuckled at her futile attempts to hit him, bashing her with the butt of his sword. She recoiled in pain, dropping to her knees as a stream a blood flowed from her mouth.

Catching the monster off guard from behind, the young girl grabbed a rock and smashed it into the hip of the jackal. The rock shattered into a fine powder, sending sparks and a small wisp of smoke up from the armor where it hit. The figure growled turning toward her striking her in the chest sending her tumbling along the ground. He grabbed his hip where the rock hit, mumbling something in a deep guttural language. The golden armor turned transparent and collapsed down into his belt, revealing his purple tinted skin and alien appearance from before.

He quickly vanished in a cloud of shadows releasing a deep roar that trailed off across the field. The light from behind the ridge pulsed slowly and grew brighter as several of the silhouetted figures vanished in flickers of blue light. A sand colored pyramid slowly started to rise from behind the ridge, seeming to birth from the hillside in a fantastic display of lights and colors. It hovered above the ridgeline, spinning ever so slightly. The craft spanned several thousand feet at its base and had various hieroglyphic markings taking up every face of its exterior.

The remaining figures vanished in the same blue light and the craft slowly begun to drift toward the family, vibrating the ground and trees. The mother and young girl stared at the approaching ship, frozen in awe of what they were witnessing. Still kneeling in a broken heap on the ground the woman groaned and pushed herself up onto her feet as the cloaked jackal appeared behind her, scooping her up and vanishing again in a whirlwind of blackness.

Standing alone against the approaching craft, the young girl looked around slowly, tugging at her tattered shirt nervously. Her father groaned, building up enough strength to push himself up on his hands as the monster appeared again behind him. Slowly reaching out with his necrotic looking fingers, it lifted him up by the throat holding him a few feet off the ground. He pulled and tugged at the monster’s grip trying to pry free the hold on his throat gasping for air.

In a final display of courage, the young girl ran up to her father and pulled a stone dagger from her father’s boot, jamming it into the creatures’ chest. The jackal roared out in pain grabbing the girls hand still clinging to the dagger. He lowered his face down to hers tossing her father to the side in a battered mess and growling at her menacingly. Slowly wrapping his four spindly fingers around her throat, he snapped his teeth at her clamping down his grip on the dagger crushing the bones in her hand. She gasped trying to cry out in pain but was unable to produce any sound from his hold on her neck.

Noticing her fear and pain, he cocked his head to the side like an animal and pulled back his lips to reveal his silver lined teeth. Titling the girls head to the side within his grasp, his incisors elongated into two fangs, as he leaned down to her neck. He moved in wrapping his teeth around the side of her throat and she clenched her eyes shut wincing at his warm breath on her skin. A flash of blue light interrupted their embrace, and a delicate female voice commanded him to return to the ship and bring the family to feed nineteen. He growled under his breath and vanished, dropping the girl to the ground along with the dagger, which stood up perfectly in the dirt.

The young girl looked up toward the female voice in time to see a golden flowing robe vanish in a flash of blue light. She heard the jackal reappear at her father’s location and vanish once more. Reaching down for the dagger, one of her fingers touched the tip of the dagger’s hilt just as her vision started to become engulfed by the black wispy tendrils of the jackal.

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