Thread 3: Burden of the Damned, Chapter 1

Thread 3, Part3
Laurel

Burden of the Damned

(there) - thousands of years ago

Chapter 1

On a distant, remote mountainside…

The sun was shining again, but it only appeared from behind the clouds long enough to tease Laurel with its warmth before sliding below the horizon. Laurel crouched shivering, soaking wet. A storm had formed and burst from overhead, at first with large freezing drops of water. The storm began to ravage the mountainside, and for a while, it continued to grow and the rain became mixed with small chunks of hail. Laurel scrambled as close to trunk of a small tree as her chain allowed, but it provided little shelter from the stinging pellets of ice.

Eventually the torrent of water eased to a steady slow rain. Laurel opened her mouth and let the drops fill her mouth, quenching her growing thirst. She thought perhaps she should avoid drinking so as to more quickly slip into Clairambulance. They said that once one achieves the state of Clairambulance the craving for physical necessities drastically numbs. But, Laurel cursed her lack of willpower and eventually drank as much rainwater as she could.

As the darkness drew in, the breeze began to chill Laurel, her clothes soaked through and through. Her spasms of shivers set her chains jingling occasionally. “That was unpleasant,” she thought to herself, though she knew that it was only a shadow of the weather extremes that she would see in the future, desperately bound, as she was, to the side of that remote mountain.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to when she tried to save Evvy from the demons of the Hollow Well.