I sliced the trowel into the ground quicker, eager to get the relic out of my life. I wasn’t sure how big to make the hole. How deep did one need to dig into the earth to bury a cursed key forever?
After fighting past roots and digging shoulder-deep, I figured it was good enough. I set the trowel down and drew the key from my bag. Though it was covered, I could almost feel the slender length of the key. Its weight almost seemed welcome in my hand .
I shook my head against the thought of keeping it. The tendons popped in my wrist, and my palm tingled. It was almost as if my body was fighting to hold onto the key.
My eyebrows pinched together as I worked my fingers loose one at a time. Tilting my hand over the hole was more of an effort than it should have been. The key dropped into the freshly dug earth, and I let out the breath I’d held trapped in my lungs.
I grabbed the trowel and quickly started shoveling dirt over the key as the irrationality of my mind told me to snatch it back up. When finally I was finished, I patted the dirt down hard and pulled leaves and sticks back over the bare earth.
“There. Back where you belong.” The words tasted like a lie on my tongue.
I shoved the trowel and knife back into my bag and stood, brushing debris from the knees of my pants. Hairs rose on the back of my neck, and I peered through the trees, certain someone was still watching me.
Perhaps if I walked away, the sensation would fade.
As I left, I refused to look back toward the buried key, despite the urge to do so. Relief did not come to me as I thought it would. Instead, the more distance I gained between myself and the key, the more dread sank into my stomach.
Leaning my back against the rough bark of an oak tree, I swallowed. My hands were cold and clammy as I clenched them. Every muscle inside me was taut as I fought with myself not to turn around and return to the relic.
It was bad news. The key had already caused me problems, and I’d only had it for several days. I couldn’t imagine what it would have done if I had kept it.
Well, no, I could imagine. Pain, death, destruction...and at my hands. Burying it was the right thing to do.
Wasn’t it?
Surely no one else would find it.
Thinking on it some more, I wasn’t so sure. Finding it in ancient ruins had been extremely difficult, but finding it two feet underground in a public park? Wouldn’t that be a piece of cake by comparison?
Maybe burying it hadn’t been the best course of action. Perhaps I should have worked harder to find out more about it. Doing so would have led me to a better solution.
I looked back toward the way that would lead me to the key. It was dangerous, maybe even evil, but I couldn’t just leave it there. I had to dig it back up and keep it safe. Besides, I had this nagging feeling that I was meant to be in possession of the key.
Groaning, I pushed away from the tree. “This is crazy. You’re crazy.”
As I made my way back toward the key, I internally berated myself. What had I been thinking? I had given up entirely too easily. Where had my sense of adventure, my love for a difficult challenge, my thirst for knowledge gone to?
They had been chased away by those horrid visions, I reminded myself.
Maybe no one would find the key in the park. After all, I’d only found it in the ancient ruins because I knew that was where to find such things. No one would be digging around off the beaten trail of the path of some park.
Yet, my feet still dragged me back to dig up the key.
I stepped over a rotting log blanketed in moss. How long would the visions persist? Could the key actually make me do anything I didn’t want to do? Surely not.
My steps faltered when I realized the key was getting what it wanted. I was returning to unearth it once more.
I ground my teeth. No . This was my decision. If anything, I was only taking it back so I could keep others from getting their hands on it. As soon as I learned more about it, I would be able to get rid of it once and for all. Safely.
As I neared the area where I had buried the key, shadows fell over me. I glanced up, confused to find the sky bright and blue, the morning sun glittering through the leaves. Where had the shadows come from?
Ignoring the bumps prickling my skin, I continued. I was getting close now. Why was it so dark? And quiet? The usual chirping of birds had ceased. Not even the rustle of leaves met my ears. Energy buzzed inside me as my eyes landed on the area just ahead. Just to where the key was buried.
And then, I froze.
There, amid the patch of briars, was a figure.
Someone was already digging up the key.
Chapter 7
The shadowy figure had come through the trees with all the subtlety of a hushed whisper. I had heard no crunching leaves, no disturbed branches. This person had seemingly arrived out of nowhere. No, not out of nowhere . The eyes that had been watching me. I now knew where they had come from. Hardly daring to breathe, I watched.
The man knelt on the forest floor, and his pale hands dug at the ground, long fingers pulling away the freshly dug earth.
As he piled dirt on top of the leaves, I was momentarily caught up in his strange appearance. A deep hood hid his face, and a dark cloak draped across his broad shoulders. Silvery runes patterned the hem of the cowl and around the wide cuffs of the long sleeves he wore.
I squinted through the suddenly dim woods. The familiarity of the unusual shapes of the symbols tapped at my mind. Were they in the same language as the runes in the rainforest had been?
The man shifted and leaned forward to peer down into the hole. Though I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was, I found something ancient and otherworldly about him. The shadows that had fallen over the woods grew closer, as if the man were drawing them in. His hand reached into the earth.
The key. He was going to get the key .
My stomach writhed at the thought, and there was no doubt in my mind that, whoever this man was, I couldn’t let him have it. Would I be able to sneak close enough to catch him off guard and grab the relic?
Half-hidden behind the wide trunk of an oak, I slowly, carefully inched my fingers into my bag and wrapped them around the handle of my knife.
When the stranger looked up, my pulse quickened, and my gaze faltered in the dark depths of his hood.
Foreboding crashed over me like an icy wave, leaving me cold and breathless. The forest fell away as the earthy fumes of woodsmoke and metallic blood filled my nostrils. I could feel the hot lick of flames searing across my skin, and the sharp wind that tugged on my hair carried horrific and terrifying screams.
A rumbling groan sounded from deep within the underbelly of the earth, and beneath me, the ground shook. I held my arms out for balance, knees bending to try to absorb the shock. I glanced over my shoulder and coughed on the noxious smoke I’d inadvertently sucked into my lungs.
The forest had been burned to the ground, leaving nothing but ash and charred stumps. Smoke trailed upward to join the dark, roiling clouds tinted with red.
And then, my surroundings changed.
Across the cinder-powdered ground, the buildings were nothing but piles of splintered timber, broken bricks, and cracked glass. People staggered in the streets that were scattered with rubble. Some of them wailed with loss. Others screamed in pain as blood stained their clothing. Many were lying on the ground, pale and unmoving.
Death and destruction. No matter where I looked, I found nothing but devastation and ruin. It was everywhere, but at the same time, it wasn’t enough.