Good morning readers! I wanted to take a moment and share with you the opening scene from Tuatha Dé Danann Episode I: The Aes Sídhe. I have spent a ton of time outlining and refining the first episode to bring you the best possible storytelling that I can produce. I am currently deep into the drafting process, hard at work revising and finalizing the first episode. Fingers crossed, I will have Episode I upon the website before the end of the week. While this is later than I had initially planned, it seemed far more important to me to put out a work that I was proud of as opposed to rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline. As I have said before, Tuatha Dé Danann is the culmination of almost a decade’s worth of writing and is by far the most ambitious project that I have undertaken in my writing career.

Without further ado, here is the opening scene to Episode I: The Aes Sídhe.

Fiona fished her phone from her pocket and tapped on the screen. The display came to life and revealed to her that it was just after five in the morning. She browsed through the massive selection of music available to her before finally deciding what to listen to on her upcoming run. Satisfied with her selection, she pressed play, turned off the phone’s display, and slid the device into a pouch on her sleeve. As the distinct combination of strings and horns came to life in her ears, Fiona began to her run along the banks of the Charles. In the early hours before dawn the path was mostly abandoned, meaning that Fiona had the entire length of the Charles between her dormitory at Boston University and the Museum of Science almost exclusively to herself, the only exceptions being other early risers or the occasional homeless that chose to camp out along the edge of the river. The empty running path mixed with the classical music playing in her headphones made the scene feel exceptionally serene.

The sun had not yet risen on Boston, the only illumination cast by the buildings flanking the Charles River on either side and the sporadic lamppost along the running path. The cool October air blew in over the river, signs that autumn was upon the city once again, ready to usher in another frigid winter. The running path was littered with leaves of all shades of orange, red, and brown that had abandoned their brethren in the trees flanking the river and the path. Autumn was Fiona’s favorite time of year in New England. The weather was cool, but not so cold that she couldn’t spend her days outside should she choose to. She had a momentary touch of homesickness as she recalled fall fairs back near her hometown of Easthampton, but those thoughts were quickly replaced by the excitement of spending her first autumn in the city of Boston.

Fiona was able to push herself a little harder today thanks to the cool temperatures, vital in her preparation for the upcoming soccer game this afternoon. The season was just passing the halfway point and she had worked her way onto the team’s starting lineup; an impressive feat for a freshman like herself. Her coach had attributed her success to her fitness, so Fiona strove to continue to improve her endurance and ensure she kept that spot in the starting eleven. The thought of losing the spot after all her work drove her to up her pace, moving her along the path just a tiny bit faster.

The path split in front of Fiona as she neared the Esplanade and she kept to her left along the edge of the river as opposed to the pathway that ran next to Storrow Drive. The intersection marked the end of the first quarter of her six-mile run and a glance at her watch showed her just past the eleven-minute mark. She did the math in her head and realized that if she could keep this pace she could finish her run in under forty-five minutes, setting a new record for herself. Excited at the prospect of accomplishing this new milestone, Fiona pushed herself onward, increasing her pace yet again. She focused on her breathing and tried to keep any distractions out of her mind. Her only goal this morning was to finish her run.

As she continued along the pathway on the water’s edge a chill ran over Fiona’s body. A sense of foreboding washed over her, causing all the small hairs on her neck to stand on end. She slowed her pace as she scanned the area around the path, her body still chilled to the core. Fiona came to a stop and pulled the earbuds out of her ears, using her visual and auditory senses to try to pinpoint this gut-twisting anxiety that had suddenly grasped onto her and refused to let go. The path along the Charles was eerily silent and dark, the normal background noise of Boston, such as emergency sirens and car horns and planes taking off from and landing at Logan were absent. It felt as if Fiona had stumbled out of her own reality into another, albeit this one devoid of any sound. The darkness started to play tricks on her as well, with shadows taking the shapes of people behind every tree and lamppost, only to vanish the moment she tried to focus her vision on one. Her heart began to race and she cautiously took another step along the path. As her foot touched the concrete, a loud splash in the river startled her, sending her jumping in fear and letting out an abrupt scream. Fiona lost her balance and fell onto the dirt next to the running path. She quickly gathered herself up and ran a few steps away from where the splash had come from, brushing the dirt from her exercise pants.

“Is anyone there?” Fiona yelled into the darkness, her voice trembling with fear.

Her call was only met with more silence and the fear continued to build as she scanned the area, simultaneously desperate and dreading to see another person. Her eyes locked on a shadow across the inlet on the running path nearest to Storrow Drive. Lights from a passing car momentarily illuminated the shadow, revealing a figure with a hood over its head, masking its identity. The figure was looking straight at Fiona, standing there silently and watching. The sight of the hooded figure sent another chill up Fiona’s spine and she began sprinting, overwhelmed by terror. A look over her shoulder revealed the hooded figure to be following her, matching her stride on the opposite side of the inlet. Ahead of Fiona, the paths merged and she pushed herself to sprint faster, running as if her life depended on it. Her heart was beating so fast that it felt as if it was going to explode in her chest and the muscles in her legs screamed in pain, seemingly moments away from tearing from the extreme duress. Every time she glanced back, the figure was still chasing her, slowly gaining ground.

Fiona was in full panic now as she raced along the running path. She never suspected that anything like this would ever happen to her, her mind showing her all the horrible possibilities that lay ahead should the shadowy figure catch her. As she passed under the Appleton footbridge, she reached into the pouch on her arm and pulled her phone free, readying herself to call the police. There was a large splash in the river again and she looked back over her shoulder. The hooded figure was gone, nowhere to be seen. The hairs on her neck dropped and Fiona stumbled to a stop, resting her hands on her knees while gasping for air. She leaned against the wooden rail just before the Longfellow bridge and tried to slow her breathing, bringing her racing heartbeat back under control. The whole time she kept her phone at the ready and scanned the area around her, looking for any sign of whoever had been following her. After a few moments of rest, Fiona convinced herself it was safe for the time being.

“It’s all in your head, girl,” Fiona reassured herself quietly as she continued to look around. Had she been imagining the figure? Midterms were just around the corner and she was pushing herself extra hard for the soccer team; maybe the stress was getting to her just a little bit. She lightly slapped her cheeks with both of her gloved hands, figuratively trying to knock some sense into herself. She looked down at her phone and realized that she had been resting there for almost five minutes now.

“So much for a sub-forty-five minute run,” she said as she slid the phone back into the pouch on her sleeve. Confident that the stress of school had conjured the shadowy figure, Fiona stepped back onto the running path, ready to finish her run and return to the safety of her dorm room, eager to put this whole episode behind her.

Fiona only made it a single step before she froze in her tracks under the Longfellow Bridge. Standing at the other end of the bridge was the shadowy figure, standing there watching her. The shadow reached an arm out towards Fiona and began to run towards her. The lights illuminating the underbelly of the bridge began to flicker as the figure took a step forward, before extinguishing all together, bathing the path in darkness. Fiona screamed and turned to run away from the shadow. As she looked away from the darkness of the bridge, she found herself staring into rows of massive, jagged teeth. The headlights from a passing car highlighted the horror standing afore Fiona, worse than anything she could imagine in her worst nightmares. The creature exhaled a noxious breath as its tongue danced in between the terrible teeth, saliva soaking the ground beneath it.

Fiona let out a primal scream for only a moment, silenced as the monster’s mouth snapped shut around her. Teeth tore through flesh and bone alike, spraying blood along the running path. With a loud crunch, Fiona’s early morning run came to an abrupt and horrible end.

I hope that you enjoyed the opening scene to Tuatha Dé Danann Episode I: The Aes Sídhe! Let me know what you think in the comments and keep your eyes peeled here and on my Facebook and Twitter for the official release of Episode I in the near future!