8|Trance

Cadence was nodding off to sleep in her room when she felt the slight tremor, followed by a deafening bang in the living room. She leapt out of bed and grabbed her witch's broom just inside the door in case trouble was waiting for her on the other side, and reluctantly made her way to the source of the noise.

It was pitch dark, since all the lights in the house were out, and she could barely see a thing. So she fumbled along the wall for a few anxiety-inducing seconds, as she frantically ran her hand along the wall, blindly searching for the light switch, cursing when she tripped and almost fell over something soft.

After a few tries, Cadence finally flipped the switch, flooding the living room with brilliant light. She burst into tears when she saw her mom on the floor.

"Mom, what happened?" she asked as she picked her up from the floor and helped her onto the sofa. 

"I had to teleport from the hill. They were after me, Cade. They wanted my piece of the star!" Sonja rambled incoherently.

"You're not making any sense. Who's after you? What piece of the star?"

Before she could reply, Sonja's eyes rolled back in her head, her body convulsing as she slipped into a trance, and she began chanting, switching between ancient languages.

Throughout her babble, Cadence picked up some lines in English, but none of it made any sense.

As much as she hated leaving her mom alone in her state, she had to. So, she dashed to the altar room and gathered up the reagents she'd need for the spell to break her mom's trance. But she was sleeping soundly on the couch when Cadence returned moments later with the reagents. She placed the ceramic bowl on the floor and knelt in front of her mom, wondering if she should take her to a hospital or call a doctor. But what would she say? Where would she start about teleporting and the rest of the weird stuff in her life?

Cadence sighed as she draped a throw blanket over her mom's sleeping form. She sat there awhile and watched her sleep, silently praying she hadn't suffered some head trauma when she landed. When she was sure her mom was out for the night, Cadence headed back to her room and took out her journal. She had to jot down the stuff her mom had said in her trance and see if it made sense. She couldn't remember everything, and most of it was in an ancient language, but she'd caught a few lines in English.

"They live among us

Walk-in our dreams

And see right through

Our deepest desires

They hear our thoughts.

And prey on our fears

Their soft voices

Echo in our minds

with promises of forever

Darkness falls

They heed the call of thirst

The night belongs to them

Eyes burn red with hunger

It's our blood they crave

and it's our bloodline 

They wish to enslave

When the birth of a new day

Peaks over the horizon

And our shadows rise to meet them

They retreat to their sanctums 

And seek solace in dark places

In the sun, we find comfort

In the light, they disappear

They are The Forsaken..."

Cadence said the words out loud over and over, trying to make sense of them. After a while, though, she stopped trying. She rushed to the altar room and leafed through her grimoire, looking for any creatures or beings known as the forsaken. She wasn't really surprised when she came up empty. She'd gone through her grimoire back to back a million times in the past. She would have known if there was such a creature.

When Cadence finally put her grimoire down, it was 3:00 AM, the witching hour. She was exhausted, her eyes were heavy with sleep, and she wanted to hit the covers ASAP, but she darted to the living room to check on her mom again, shaking with relief when she found her still fast asleep on the couch, with her arms crossed on her chest in a prayer-like pose. Cadence kissed her cheek, tucked her in again, and returned to her room. As tired as she was, though, she couldn't sleep. Her mom's words kept her awake and got her thinking.