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Chapter 43:THE REALM OF SHADOWS

Author: Joan f . Vanzant
last update Last Updated: 2024-10-29 19:42:56

The air was thick with an oppressive weight, like I was breathing through smoke. My legs felt sluggish, and every step I took sent a chill up my spine. This wasn’t Silverclaw—not the one I knew, at least. The sky overhead was a swirling mass of dark clouds, lit only by the occasional flash of crimson lightning that seemed to bleed across the sky. Shadows stretched in every direction, and an eerie silence hung in the air, amplifying the isolation.

Where the forest once stood vibrant with life, now lay a twisted, gnarled version of itself. The trees were blackened, their branches reaching out like skeletal hands. The ground beneath me was cold and cracked, as though the very earth had been drained of life. This place... it felt wrong. As if it had been born from nightmares, an endless loop of despair.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to shake the suffocating feeling of dread creeping into my bones. The silence pressed in, and I couldn’t shake the sense that I wasn’t alone, even t
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