FaeBound

The unabridged version of Briar's story.

For those who haven’t been tuned in, I’ve been taking summer classes for my grad school creative writing program. The semester is coming to a close and of course, true to form, I’ve gotten heinously ill. My fever climbed up to 103.8º and I spent the weekend in bed instead of doing what I usually do best—writing. As it is, my final portfolio is coming due and I spent more time working on it than on my current installment in Kylie and Ryker’s story.

This week, I’m going to share the full, unabridged copy of FaeBound, one of the two stories I turned in for my creative writing portfolio. Originally, the idea was for a short story contest that had specific prompts and requirements. While I liked the OG concept, I made substantive changes to the story over the semester and it’s now a full blown ~6500 word short story. The font I used for the notes in the story doesn’t translate to substack (unfortunately) so I’m trying something new by adding them as screenshots to preserve the original feel of the story.

Now that the semester is over, I hope to return to a more consistent schedule, put out a mid-month news letter, and work on some of the bigger changes to my overall website and brand. Thanks for sticking around this summer through my course workload—your support means the world.

Image by Franz Bachinger from Pixabay

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Don’t get caught. Don’t get caught. Don’t get caught! Terror drove the movement of every muscle in my body, and I repeated my mantra over and over to keep panic at bay. Each breath I drew sent an ache through my already burning lungs as I raced, eyes darting back and forth in search of any source of light that wasn’t moonlight. My feet pounded over the debris of the forest floor, the crunch of dead leaves and snap of dried twigs barely audible to my ears over the thundering of my pulse. But I knew the creatures chasing me heard every footfall like I was a stampeding elephant crashing through the trees.

Rushing water began to overtake the other sounds of the forest and I slowed, straining my vision to see the embankment. Pale moonlight shone through the break in the trees ahead, my stomach bottoming out at the width of the stream it illuminated. With some effort, I broke a dead, spindly branch nearly twice as tall as myself and half as thick as my wrist from one of the trees before leaving the safety of the cover they provided. A fallen oak spanned three-quarters of the way across, and hesitation crept into my limbs, stilling me. I weighed my options as my heart hammered against my ribs, fear and self-preservation urging me away from the water.