The earth had begun to tremble, and the wind picked up, so that the rumbling growl of the earth was joined by the screams of the air, omens that something was coming. The back door of the newly-built house was buffeted open, the wood impacting with the wall with a bang. Next to the bed the black form of a panther got to its feet and began to growl suspiciously, whilst the faeries slept on in the bed unawares that anything was amiss. The wind charged its way through the house once more, this time knocking a clay ornament from a shelf, causing it to smash with a loud noise. The chital buck was the one to look up this time, glancing across the room at the panther with wide eyes, sensing the same thing the cat had done moments before. In the bed Juliette shifted, moving closer to Scott and draping an arm around him affectionately, comforted by the warmth of his presence in her doze like state. Gauge had begun to growl again in warning, and this time, the girl heard him and sat up rubbing her eyes. At first, Julie thought that nothing was amiss, believing that the darkness all around her was nothing more than the blackness of the night. She rubbed her eyes again, searching for the yellow glow of the panther’s eyes, but now she knew something was wrong, Juliette could not even make out shapes in the dark like she usually could. A great sense of panic gripped her, closing around her guy like an ice-cold hand, and she turned her body, reaching her shaking hands out in search of Scott. She felt her fingers brush against him and proceeded to shake him awake, “Scott” she said, her alarm evident in the high pitch of her voice. “Scott!” she said again, louder this time, feeling the bed moved as he turned to look at her, though she could not see his face, ”Scott...I think I’m blind!”
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Charity was not asleep when she the ground began to rumble, she was sitting on a stone in the Silver Cove, her old battered back resting in the damp sand beside her. The girl’s fingers fumbled with the small glass bottle in her left hand, as he right reached down into the bag searching for the syringe. The sea seemed to roar with a new-found ferocity as the wind began to howl all around her, blowing sand into her eyes. When the ground did finally lurch the vial fell from Charity’s shaking fingers, the girl cursed as it hit the ground and smashed, watching angrily as its contents began to soak into the beach itself. Again Charity grabbed for her bag as a flock of seagulls flew over her head calling loudly to one another. The woman’s hand groped down to the bottom of the bag, she needed something, anything, just a pick me up, just something to stop her from feeling so low. Finding nothing she sat up again and shook the bag, hearing empty bottles clank against one another and began to search again. Charity was so absorbed in her hunt that at first she did not notice that the sea seemed to have fallen silent, it was not until she began to shake her bag again, and she heard no noise from the bottles, that she realised that something was wrong. She cursed under her breath, but she heard no sound, her world had fallen into silence, Charity was deaf.
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The golden haired girl lay in her bed, sleeping, dreaming. King Arthur lay next to her, seeming to have a more peaceful night than Lilith was. Suddenly she sat up, gasping openly. She nudged Arthur gently and whispered his name. Or tried to. No words came from her lips. She frowned and telepathically reached out.
Arthur… He stirred but did not wake. Arthur… Still nothing. She quickly got fed up and forced the boy king to wake up. Arthur!
He sat up and mouthed the word ‘what’, frowning when no words came for him either. The curse, Arthur. She said telepathically. It must be… I can’t talk… and from what I hear, other people are loosing their senses… He shot her a questioning look and she tapped her head knowingly and he nodded. He’s coming Arthur… This is it… He’s really coming… Her body trembled and the king wrapped his arms around her, letting her bury her face against his neck as she cried silently for the rest of the night.
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