AZALEN Chapter 1 – Fantasy Novel

Azalen watched as emerald flooded the sky. It grew darker and darker until it finally turned into a navy blue, gray, and green glow.

“It’s getting dark quickly today,” said his mother, who entered the kitchen as Azalen took his last sip of tea. She was brunette, like him, with dark blue eyes, like him. But her face shape was different, which he had inherited from his father. “Is it going to rain? They didn’t say anything like that on TV, but it looks damp and muggy outside.” She touched the window with her finger and where she did so, a streak remained, like when you draw your finger across frost or rain, only more delicate – she was surprised. “It was supposed to be clear and cloudless.”

“Mych, maybe it won’t rain,” he replied, “but it does seem strange.” he added. – The weather didn’t look promising, but it was already quite late, he mused. Only the sky… it was indeed peculiar. But it was only the sky, what harm could it do them? Rain? He didn’t want to think about it anymore. He grabbed the cup, washed it, and headed for the hallway.

But it’s just the sky, what could threaten them? Rain?

“Where are you going?” asked his mother.

“To Mor,” he replied, surprised by the question.

“Oh, yes, you mentioned that,” she replied in a way that made it unclear whether she actually remembered. Did she even hear him say that? “Will you walk the dog?”

“I already did,” he said, this time without surprise in his voice, although there should have been, because he had said that too.

“Well, go on then.”

Azalen put on his sneakers, thought for a moment about his raincoat, and glanced at the window from the hallway, but the weather outside wasn’t improving. Still, he decided not to wear it. It was summer, and the weather was strange, but not necessarily rainy. If it did rain, at most he would get wet.

“I’m off,” he said and left the apartment.

The neighborhood he found himself in was already covered in darkness, the streets lit by the windows of apartment buildings and streetlights. Anyway, he had lived here for 15 years, his whole life, and knew this neighborhood inside out. Like the back of his hand, inside and out. It could be completely dark, without a single ray of light, pitch black, and he would still find his way out. He looked at his apartment building and the windows of his apartment. Fifth floor, top floor. In the kitchen, he saw his mother. And in the large room, the dog was glued to the window. The brown, white, and gray mutt seemed happy and embarrassed at the same time. Happy because he saw his master, embarrassed because he was asleep and didn’t have time to say goodbye to him.

He was only awakened by the sound of the door closing, but by then it was too late. Azalen waved at him, and he responded with a wagging tail and a bark that couldn’t be heard through the closed window. The boy heard a beep and looked at the message displayed on his watch reminding him of the bus leaving soon, and seeing how much time he had, he rushed to the stop. He made it in time and took the seat. He didn’t have to push his way through. Apart from him, there was only one girl on the bus. The bus was leaving from the terminus, so many people could still get on in the meantime. But he was surprised anyway. Usually there were more people, many more. On the other hand, the weather wasn’t encouraging people to leave their homes. The girl sitting a few seats in front of him was about 10 years old, with a nice face and short brown hair that fell just below her shoulders.

“Call me when your grandmother picks you up from the bus stop,” he heard a woman’s voice say. Then he noticed her mother standing behind the window.

Her first trip alone? he thought. Or her first trip at this time of day and in this weather.

“I’ll call,” she replied quietly, so that her mother couldn’t hear her, but she read her lips.

“Call!” her mother repeated firmly. Grandma needs to know to call, but so do you.

“Mom, it’s only four stops.”

Her mother stared at her with a reproachful and protective look at the same time. She was very stressed about her daughter traveling alone and didn’t want to hear any objections about the phone call.

The girl nodded and added again, “I’ll call.” Then, still staring at her mother, she leaned against the seat in front of her and drew a smiley face on the window, and her mother responded by drawing a heart.

Azalen looked at the display on the bus. Departure in a minute, but the driver was missing. He looked out the window; it was quite humid and the glass was covered with a delicate mist and dew. He glanced at his neighborhood, then at the nearby road and sidewalk, where a fast-food stand stood. The fast-food vendor was nowhere to be seen, although the light in the fast-food stand was on. It seemed kind of empty. The driver was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t sitting in the bus, nor was he anywhere nearby. He glanced toward the park, thinking maybe he was smoking a cigarette. Then he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. The trees and plants were darker. Or maybe it just seemed that way to him. The weather… But no, probably not. Not only were they darker, but some of the plants had changed color from green to claret-black. Here? Azalen was surprised. In the center, okay, but here. Here, they had always been green, completely green. Could Tumult have added new laser points, the kind that strike near his neighborhood? Or maybe he had turned up the power of the two old lasers and the emission had reached all the way here? He opened his phone to check the latest news.

Maybe he’ll find some news on the subject. But since the trees started turning claret-black in places where they hadn’t before, there’s definitely something going on. They started absorbing more poison, which changed their color. Maybe that’s why the sky became so strange. From the radiation? From the poison. He started typing “Tumult-Trees” into the browser and, while typing, looked for the driver. The bus should have left two minutes ago. He looked to the other side, where the girl was sitting. The dew and steam made it difficult to find the driver, and on top of that, the city had mercilessly increased the power of the lights. Or maybe they were broken. Because the red light coming from the traffic lights was blinding. The girl’s mother smudged the heart on the window, apparently ready to draw something new for her daughter. The damn light was getting so intense that he couldn’t even see her, and she and her hand, under the pressure of that light, seemed for a moment to be a black figure before the red light covered her again. Azalen glanced at the window, curious to see what the mother would draw, a cat, a sun?

What a simple drawing she will make for her child. What do you draw for your first independent journey? But she smudged the heart, then changed the face, changing it from smiling to sad. Sad because the girl was leaving. It seemed to fit, but Azalen felt a knot in his stomach, and the girl lifted her torso from the chair she was leaning on with a grimace, and one could get the impression that the face didn’t suit her. The lack of a heart and the sad face looked ominous, even if they were meant to convey nostalgia. was eerie. The light began to grow more intense. What the fuck is wrong with this light, he thought, squinting his eyes. “And where is that damn driver?” He was getting more and more irritated. The girl approached the window looking for her mother, but she was also blinded. Completely. She squinted her eyes, looking for her. Finally, not seeing her, she wanted to make contact and draw something again. She reached out her hand, and Azalen realized something. It’s a loop. There are no lights here, not so close. They’re further away. Much further away. And they would have turned green at least once, instead of staying red all the time. The girl, focused on the window, began to smudge her finger again, redrawing the lost heart. The light faded for a moment, but the focused girl didn’t notice.

When it faded, two small oblong reflections pierced through it, and then he saw it. Azalen’s heart beat faster. A werber appeared behind the glass. A large, long snout with glowing semicircles instead of teeth. Ears resembling horns, with glowing circles on them and on its front paws. Only red, not white as usual, and bent, zigzagged, not straight. Black eyes filled with a blood-red reflection, they pierced through the light and were the first thing he noticed. They became more pronounced when he saw the girl. A slender body covered with extremely short gray-black fur. The werber was covered in light again, disappeared, and a black cloud began to swirl around him, which he began to generate, ready to attack. Azalen knew he didn’t have time, because the werber had clearly locked onto his target, staring at the girl. He grabbed the green and pink disc hidden under his sweatshirt, which emitted a pink and green light. The boy got up and ran between the chairs.

He grabbed the girl’s hand, cutting through the black cloud that had begun to seep through the window and swirl around her body. The werber had already begun its work. The boy pulled the girl behind him and headed toward the bus door, which was fortunately open. They jumped out and ran toward the nearby parking lot. It was their only hope for shelter. There were a lot of delivery trucks there, which unloaded food at nearby supermarkets every day.

When they managed to disappear behind the parked delivery trucks, Azalen chose one of them to hide behind and think about where they could run next.

“Shh,” Azalen put his finger to his lips, signaling the girl to be quiet. To be honest, it’s not clear why he did it; he just did it instinctively, because there was no need for it. The girl was frozen with fear and knew perfectly well that loud behavior was inadvisable.

“Mom,” she whispered.

“Yes, yes, I just wanted to check,” replied Azalen, leaning over and glancing under the car. But in reality, it wasn’t to look for her mother, but to see where the werber was. Crouching down and glancing under the car, he found his way to the bus and saw a woman lying there.

“Not you,” he said to the girl, sensing that she also wanted to look under the car. “Look over there to see if the werber is coming,” he said, waving his hand in the opposite direction. He didn’t want her to see what he was seeing. They didn’t have space for those emotions now; it wouldn’t help them escape. The woman was lying alone, with no werber near her.

A blue glow hovered above her head, which meant that the girl’s mother was dead. There was no sign of Tumult, that is two intensely blue circles intersecting each other, studded with an inverted letter V in a dull navy blue color. Light emanated from these blue circles and hung over the woman. Black smoke swirled beneath the V, similar to that produced by werbers when they attack, but it did not emit much light and was not visible on the woman’s body. The sign was probably, as always, slightly above the glow, but he could not see it because it was obscured by the car. But it was definitely there.

The blue glow meant one thing. Azalen turned his head to look under the next car, still searching for the werber, and then the next, and the next, until he tensed up when he saw it much closer than he had expected. Its two front legs were covered with black and gray fur, on which there were two white glowing circles that Azalen always associated with handcuffs. This werber was different from the other one; this one was standard, the kind he had seen and knew. The other one was red; he had never even heard of such a thing. He couldn’t predict it, so there were at least two werbers. Maybe more. Azalen noticed that the ground around the werber’s paws was covered with an increasing amount of white light. The werber lowered its head, and the light from the circles on its ears illuminated the increasingly damp concrete.

Azalen quietly straightened up and, at the last moment, before the werber’s eyes appeared under the delivery truck, hid himself and the girl behind the tire. They stood glued to the tire, hoping it wouldn’t sense them. It wouldn’t hear them. But the werber was searching and ready to attack, the black cloud swirling around him was so thick that it began to seep under the chassis.

They watched as a black cloud appeared and swirled around their feet, then their bodies. It piled up and grew. It seeped under the car as the werber lowered its head. Azalen felt extremely uneasy, sad, and weak. That’s how werbers worked, and the black cloud meant that the werbers were in the mood to attack. The feeling of sadness and panic intensified the longer the werber stood near them. But Azalen had that pink and green disc that allowed him to defend himself against werbers.

And for some reason, it also reduced the symptoms caused by the werbers’ energy. But… but just because it reduces his symptoms and he can cope doesn’t mean that the girl is strong enough. She’s a child. Weaker, he thought, just as she groaned in pain. Fuck. Less than a second later, the werber’s paw darted under the car and wrapped around the wheel, catching Azalen’s shoe. The boy jumped up when he saw the werber’s paws stretching to grab his leg. Pain and sadness overwhelmed him more and more, it became so dark around him that he could barely see anything, the cloud was growing. The werber was becoming more and more determined to get his prey. The bigger the cloud grew, the weaker Azalen felt, sad, scared, his head filled with dark thoughts.

And the less chance he had of escaping, because his mind went blank as to what to do and where to run. The boy held up the girl’s body with his hands, and she was still standing, but she was starting to faint. So he had no way to maneuver the green-pink disc and cut through the werber’s energy, which would have made his escape much easier, because the werber would have had to produce much more energy to recreate it. It would have weakened him. He didn’t have that option at the moment, so he leaned forward and, despite the mental resistance that told him to stay in the cloud, he moved forward and got himself and the girl out. It was easier for him that way, because even though he couldn’t interrupt the energy, the mere presence of the disc gave him the strength to resist it. The girl was still weak, but after getting out of the cloud, she could run on her own. And they had to run fast, because when the werber sensed that they had escaped, he tried to jump onto the delivery truck.

Werbers were fast, agile, and nimble, able to walk on blocks as if they were glued to them, and they could jump quite high. However, the delivery truck was a little too high. So the werber could either slip under the car—the chassis was high enough that the agile werber could easily squeeze under it—or run around the car and chase them that way. He chose the second option. It seemed faster. Azalen didn’t want to stay within his sight, so he ran between the trucks on his right and started heading towards the park, but then he saw a reflection on the asphalt and noticed that the werber wasn’t behind them after all, but had run around the cars and was where they were heading. So he turned and started running toward the apartment buildings, toward the housing estate.

Actually, he didn’t know what to do anymore. And for a moment, in his frenzy, he wasn’t even sure if he was heading in the right direction toward the housing estate. It was a riskier route than going to the park because the estate was further away. And he had fewer places to hide there. There were many tall trees with thick trunks in the park. On the other hand, would he really be able to hide behind them? Maybe the park was a trap after all. In the housing estate, he could run into a block of flats. But how to get there? Thinking this, he ran out of the parking lot and found himself in the worst possible position, because he was in an open space where the werber had the easiest task. But they had to run into the open space if they wanted to get to the housing estate. There was no other way.

He ran, pulling the girl behind him with all his strength, hoping she wouldn’t fall, because then they would definitely have no chance. He didn’t need to see the werber to feel it running after them. And that it was getting closer and closer. He could feel its body approaching, hear its paws hitting the asphalt, and feel a sadness overwhelming him, growing bigger and bigger and bigger. In addition, he felt the weight on his hand getting heavier and heavier, and that he was pulling harder and harder, while the girl, perhaps due to exhaustion, but mainly because of the werber, was getting slower and slower. She also started screaming something about her mother, as if she had remembered. Not as if he had remembered, but as if the werber had put those thoughts into her head. The initial “Mom, where’s mom?” turned into “mom is dead” and crying. And then Azalen had to turn around because he had no choice. The werber was right behind them. He had no other way to defend himself, so he threw the disc at the werber. Getting rid of his only weapon. The werber did a somersault and rolled over his shoulder. He lay there in shock, the disc cutting through his energy. It weakened him greatly. This was their chance to run into the neighborhood before he recovered. The girl regained her strength and stopped screaming for her mom. They ran into the neighborhood.

“I live there,” the girl pointed to one of the buildings.

“Will anyone be home?” Azalen asked.

“My grandmother.”

“Werbers?” The woman covered her mouth with her hand. They hadn’t been around for seven years. Are you sure?

“I’m sure,” he replied.

– I noticed that the sky looks strange and the phones aren’t working. But, to be honest…

– What do you mean, the phones aren’t working?

– Well, they’re not working, replied the woman. Unless it’s just me. But it seems like there’s a problem with the signal.

Azalen just realized that his plan to warn his mother by phone and wait it out here wasn’t going to work.

“Where’s her mom? I mean, my daughter Zosia.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Azalen replied. I really don’t know.

“She wasn’t with you.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“But she’s not back yet…” the woman began.

“I really don’t know,” Azalen interrupted her and turned to leave.

“Don’t you want to hide?” she said in a shaken voice, hugging her granddaughter tightly.

“No,” he replied. “I have to go to my apartment. Warn my mom. You can warn the neighbors too, but maybe you should hide. I don’t know what’s better. I don’t know. I have to go.” And he ran down the stairs.

“Is Mom coming?” he heard the girl’s quiet voice as he ran down the stairs. He was glad that he wouldn’t be the one to answer that question.

End of chapter. Other chapters and books are also available on this website.

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