Chapter 1

Zea

 

I was destined to die right before I had even lived.

The old towel that tangled me in my mother’s hands as she squeezed me between them was the only thing that blinded me from seeing my true fate. I was not going to be suffocated to death moments after coming into this world. Instead, I was going to be driven to a river where I would be drowned in its icy depths by my own mother.

I was thrown into the back of a car, still tangled within the old towel covered in the blood staining my body. No matter how much I cried or squirmed, I was ignored. I might as well not have even tried.

The towel wrapped around my face and body was the only warmth I had felt in my three hours of existence. The small holes in the fabric hooked my small fingers and toes, making me squirm uselessly as the car was dragged to a halt and I was lifted from the hard seats.

The cold tore straight through the towel while the breeze froze any parts of my body that were exposed through the holes. The person holding me didn’t even care as it yanked the barricade from my body to leave me exposed to the numbing winds.

My mother stood before the silhouette of a thick forest that grew at the foot of at a huge mountain blocking out most of the glittering sky, almost touching the bottom of the half-dimmed moon. Each twisted tree reached upwards, as if trying to reach the dusted sky too.

The road underneath me ended in a pile of rubble; with thick chunks of the tarred rock laying there amongst the slick leaf litter. My mother looked back to the car behind us for support, before she began walking towards the eerie woods with me alone.

The leaves that crunched under her steps were the only thing I could hear as I stared up at her determined face. Her courage quickly faded though as the trees closed in on her more as she walked, scratching her and tangling her hair as she passed. The moonlight coming through the thin branches twisted over our heads was her only guidance. She was completely alone with me.

“It’ll be alright” my mother told herself, her breath coming out in a cloud of fog “I’ll be quick.”

I stared up at her and saw her glance down at me, before quickly averting her gaze.

“You are not my baby. You are nothing” she hissed, stabbing her nails into my sides to cause me to scream out “you are not normal. You know what is happening, don’t you?”

I did understand the horrible situation I was in, but I didn’t know how to express my feelings back to her except through noises and desperate clutches at the jacket she held me against.

Twigs and leaves cracked underneath my mother’s feet as she continued onwards, before the sound of rushing water came from a distance. Accompanying the water were sounds of stuttering creatures and their footsteps as the forest around us came alive.

I could hear her heartbeat increase and her breaths draw short as she started to panic. She picked up the pace until she was running. Nothing but trees surrounded us now; the moonlight above disappearing behind the looming mountain that peered through the tangled branches overlapping each other.

With my head nestled against her chest, I could hear my mother’s hammering heartbeat and her ragged breaths wheezing outwards. She staggered back a few steps and collapsed against a rock to breathe, letting me tumble from her body and crumple to the ground, screaming out from the pain that shot through my spine.

It was only a few seconds before she was able to recover, but she stayed there and didn’t approach me.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” my mother cried out, tossing a handful of dirt from beside her at me “you are not my baby! Don’t cry like my baby!”

While pain sparked through my body, the coldness was smothering me and chilling me to the bone. I was freezing, and she knew it; even before I cried out for her warmth.

Perhaps this is the way I would die?

“I’ll stop you crying” she muttered, dragging herself up onto her legs again “I’ll stop you.”

Before she could leave the rock, a growling sound came from the growth behind me to halt her in her tracks.

I fell silent and turned my head to see two big, golden eyes staring at us from the darkness.

“A demon from the mountain” she whispered, then chuckled and looked up to the moonlight with tears in her eyes “thank you!”

The eyes darted down to look at me squirming on my back, then up at my mother leaning against the rock, where they stayed fixed intensely.

“Take this thing from me” she pleaded “kill it if you have to! I don’t want to see it again. Please!”

The creature kept its eyes fixed on her as it moved forward so it could stand over me. I could only see an outline of it’s bent-over body in the darkness before it gently nudged me onto my side.

“Jacket” the creature growled.

My mother was shocked at the creature’s ability to speak but didn’t dare to refuse its request. She tore the jacket from her body and tossed it to us, before taking her chance to hurry back into the darkness.

As the creature bent over me, I saw it open a tiny slit in its stomach before shoving the jacket inside hastily. The pouch bulged with the new load, but the darkness still cloaked the strange creature’s identity from me as it straightened up.

The creature took one last look at the direction the woman had gone; as if it were checking if she was returning for me.

It hovered above me, waiting, before it finally seized me with its mouth and fought through the last of the trees behind it until it was ascending the rocky mountain face.

As I was carried higher, I could see a town below glittering with multitudes of lights. It was the only view I had while I was carried further away until the rocky ground of the mountain face blocked it out and left me staring at the emptiness.

The creature sprinted up the mountain effortlessly and grappled onto impossibly high ledges metres above us without a second thought. I could feel its warm breath smothering me and the hot saliva drenching my skin that pooled around the huge canines pinning me there in its mouth. I could feel them tighten each time the creature leapt over huge voids, as if it were afraid it would lose me in one of them.

The creature continued well into the night before it made one last struggle up the edge of an overhanging rock then darted along the exposed dirt patch until we were surrounded by long wisps of soft grass.

We had finally reached the top of the mountain.

The grass grew so tall that it gathered underneath the creature’s chin and tickled my legs as we brushed through it. A ring of trees surrounded this clearing, but we passed through them easily since they were so loosely grouped.

The stars still glittered from above, but I could now see the whole dusted sky through the tree branches that swayed gently side by side, never touching. The wind whispered around us, but unlike the intense cold I had experienced earlier, this was warm and pleasant.

I was carried to the other side of the woods where another clearing welcomed us. The creature shuffled over to where the grass grew thinner, so I could see a large hole dug deep into the soft earth. It swiftly yanked out the jacket, then went about smoothing it over the loose soil until it was completely covered, and I was placed on top.

The creature curled around me in the darkness, its claws running along my sides as I whimpered for its protection.

“No need for that, little one” it whispered in a strange metallic voice as it draped one of the jacket arms over me “I’m here now.”

I felt a strange sensation wash over me and could feel a smile spreading across my face while the creature drew me closer and shielded me with its massive body.

“Things are only going to get better from now on, little one” it muttered, stroking my tender back while it looked up at the entrance to the burrow.

With the creature distracted, I finally got a chance to glimpse my saviour.

The first thing I noticed was its slim head that pulled into a point at the back. Its golden eyes were narrow and permanently fixed into an angry glare that stared at the quiet surroundings. Its warm body wrapped around me was bulky, with spikes lining its spine; but its arms were spindly and equipped with long, curved talons that twitched when I reached for them. I noticed a line across its stomach under its arms where the pouch was, but the skin was pulled so tightly that it would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t seen it before.

The moonlight seemed to dance on the creature’s thick, golden skin as it turned back towards me.

“Since you were born today, we need to name you before the sun comes up” it smiled, as it nudged my hand with its face “If you have no name, you have nothing.”

It paused, gazing into my eyes lovingly. It didn’t make a sound as it cradled me in its arm and bit one of its fingers to smear the blood down my forehead and onto my nose.

“Your name is Zea” it smiled and looked down at me, forming a circle on my stomach “Zea Marvolo Green. Welcome to Transamagei.”