SONG OF LOCKE: Prelude (sample chapter)

SONG OF LOCKE will launch on Kickstarter very soon. [UPDATE: The Kickstarter is live!] In anticipation, I’m sharing a sample of the book with you. Unfortunately, the first chapter needs some key issues fixed. So I’m only sharing “Prelude” with you, which comes before the first chapter, and which introduces the narrator, Picke. Enjoy. : )


PRELUDE

I don’t breathe.

It’s ironic, I know.

Unless you count me etching these words into this scroll.

Some would call that breathing. And if it is, then this song is my first breath.

But this isn’t breathing. It isn’t like what you’re doing now. Yes, you. Right now. No, don’t stop, I love it. Breathing is enviable. Magnificent. I am drawn to life, as all sylphes are. And life is drawn to us.

But life takes more than breath. It takes flesh. And blood. And light.

I have breath.

I am breath.

But I do not breathe. At least, not like an elphe does. Not with lungs. We sylphes breathe in a sylphe sort of way. Our own sort of way. Not like an elphe or a hyuman, not like any animal or other kynde. And not like you.

You breathe. And because you do, you know the panic that strikes when you can’t breathe. It seizes all mortals at one time or another. This emotion. This sensation. I’ve felt it.

And I felt it that night.

But I was not experiencing it through someone else, as I usually do. I felt it all by myself. And that made it all the worse. The horror gripped me. A feeling that something was wrong. Not nearby. Something inside me was wrong. Something in all the sylphes around me was wrong. Something in the wide world was wrong. Something very wrong.

It felt like I couldn’t breathe.




The Kickstarter campaign has launched! I would love it if you became a backer—I have some great rewards for you!