The rain had stopped, but the road still glistened like obsidian glass beneath the forest canopy. Sera Vale leaned her head against the cracked window of her father's pickup truck, counting the trees as they blurred past. One pine, two birch, a dead oak with moss like claws. Her headphones pulsed low, but nothing could drown out the silence between her and Jon Vale.
She hadn't seen him in two years. Now, he was dragging her to the middle of nowhere for a "reset." Reset what, she didn't know. He barely spoke more than three words since picking her up from the foster home.
"You should sleep," he said suddenly. His voice was rough, like boots on gravel.
"I'm not tired."
He grunted. That was the end of it.
The truck turned around a bend, headlights sweeping through dense fog. And then..
Bang!!
The impact threw Sera forward. Tires screeched, metal groaned, and the forest was filled with the sharp scent of blood.
Her door flung open, her heart pounding in her ears. Something massive lay sprawled across the road, steam rising from a shattered, golden-streaked body. A creature, feathered like a bird but shaped like a lion, its wings folded like broken umbrellas.
A single eye opened, deep blue with galaxies in it.
And then it whispered.
"They will come."