Prologue

The moon hung high in the sky, clouds blanketing it in a soft embrace as the stars quivered beneath its cover, frightened by what arose below. 

 Dark figure's rose from the cold earth, their twisted bodies snapping and contorting to in broken humanoid creatures as they reformed from shadows. Rising one by one they overlooked a small unsuspecting town, their empty eyes oozing thick liquid like bubbling tears almost as if they were in pain. They shifted and made their way down hill, limbs cracking and breaking to unnatural angles, bone barely distinguishable from pale flesh.

 A low pattering of footsteps rushed through the grass and a dim glow of light emitted from the center of the group of monsters before exploding in a massive discharge. Shredded and burnt chunks of flesh littered the soil and began to melt into the thick ooze that leaked from their eye sockets.

 A cloaked figure stood in their path opposing them. 

 One of the creatures tilted it head, ooze dripping from it's pale lips, it's mouth like an endless abyss of darkness and it's eyes filled with hurt. It let out a foul screech, agony and sorrow turning to anger. It lunged forward it's freakish arms stretched outward, it's fingers rippling like water before morphing into elongated claws.

The figure did not budge as a dim glow manifested before them and as the creatures sharp fingers just barely touched the rim of the figures hood. A bright discharge once again tore the creature apart, this time leaving nothing but ash to blow away on the gentle breeze. 

The cloaked figure turned to leave as no more abominations lay before them threatening the safety of the innocent humans below when the oozing remains of the creatures began to reform once again. The eerie slime solidified into muscles and skin once more, but this time into one being. Multiple limbs jut out from it misshapen torso covered in several faces all howling in torment as it attempted to stand. 

" I pity you..." The figure's voice was feminine and soothing almost consoling the poor twisted souls. 

They cried out misery as their shared body dropped down to the ground and darted for her. The cloaked woman once again did not budge as a glow formed around the beast. Drowned and gargled growls escaped its faces as they choked on the black ooze. One face spat at the cloaked woman, the glow fading as she leapt out of the way. The ooze missed but burned through her cloak landing in a large glob behind her. Not stopping the woman fled from the beast as it's faces spat more of the burning slime at her. She muttered lowly to herself while trying not to be hit by the acidic spit, runes of light forming along her aged arms.

 The beast faces hissed as some of its limbs rippled and dissolved into nubs. Reaching out its arm stretched, no it grew to grab hold of the woman. Before she could even react it's claws wrapped around her face and pummeled her into the ground repeatedly, breaking the earth on impact little by little with each strike.

 With a defining cry she was tossed like a doll into the trees, what bones hadn't been broken already snapped with each branch she hit before hitting the hard ground. She struggled to even sit up and leaned heavily on the tree she fell from, she could hear the fearsome beast closing in on her.

 " I'm too old for this." She wheezed coughing up blood. She looked up to the moon, it peeked out from behind the clouds as did few stars, shining dully. 

" I think..." Her voice trailed off as the beast was nearly upon her. She let out a calm sigh and began to mumble once again, runes covering her whole body. As it burst out from the trees, several faces now one gaping maw, the woman only smiled. 

" This is goodbye." 

Reviews

[matrixmark]

Love this, absolutely love it. This is my type of read which I can getmy teeth into. I love the dark side of writing. The wasy you have described the monsters is brilliant and really gave me a vivid images of them. The introduction of the cloaked figure was awesome - like a protector of the land. The whole piece flowed so nicley and was such a pleasure for me to read.
What a great prologue you have uploaded and I shall be reading more.

Mark.

[Masked Shaman]

Thank you very much! Chapters are a little slow to come out but this is a project I will not be giving up on.

[matrixmark]

Good to hear that you will be carrying on with this.

Mark

[Lorne Blaine]

Awesome prologue so far, really liked it. I'm not too much in the fantasy/horror genre, but you got me interested so far and that's good.
Beautifully worded (you don't use overly complexe or less common words, you take whatever word there is and you use it right), and the way the setting is introduced is great (you start with the menace, the abominations which makes the tone quite eery and disconcerting). I wonder why there's only 12(13) views.

[Masked Shaman]

Thank you so much!
I'm trying my best with this story as it's been something I've wanted to write for a long time. I recently had posted the next chapter but I'm revising it. Still not happy with how it's worded, I'm really out of practice. I hope you will enjoy it once it has been made public again.
I'm not all that great with tags or promoting my work, perhaps that's why there's so little views?

[Meat of Dog]

I liked your opening description of the sky, and just description in general. It's very vivid and immersive. You did a good job of making it interesting and your own, rather than saying 'hey look, zombies!' which is a problem I see a lot in writing. You opened with a good action scene that left me wondering what was going on and kept me reading. Dropped into the action, good cliffhanger... I think you have a really good start.

Grammar edits:
“One of the creatures tilted it head” Its.

“rim of the figures hood” Figure's.

Opinion:
* “The eerie slime began to solidify into muscles and skin once more but this time into one being.” Try yo avoid using words like 'had' and 'began' because they slow down the flow. It's a lot quicker and more gripping without the word. “The eerie slime solidified into muscles and skin once more, but this time into a being.”

* “The cloaked woman once again did not budge as a glow formed around the beast.” This is just a little confusing because the figure was referred to as 'they' for the beginning half of this chapter. Because of the setting and feeling you created I would either stick with 'they' for this part or identify her as a woman in the beginning. It is just jarring to suddenly be told in the middle.