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    Cynus
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Rivers of the Dead - 11. 1-11 - From Night to Day

Don't forget to comment and react to this chapter! Also, special thanks to my Patreon Supporters: Michael, Bill, Charles, Amr, Don, James, Joe, Jos, Mark, Mark, Paul, Steve, and John. Couldn't have done it without them. Ask me how you can help and get access to chapters early! :D

"Are you all right?"

The words felt distant in Liz's ears as she slowly came back to consciousness. The voice didn't seem familiar at all, but neither did her body anymore. She was disconnected, disoriented, trying to make sense of where she was.

"Caleb?" She heard herself ask. This, too, felt distant.

"Ma'am, are you all right?" The voice asked again. She felt someone roughly shaking her shoulders. "Young woman, talk to me!"

"Caleb?" She asked again, and then managed to open her eyes at last, staring up into the face of a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard. She was lying in the mouth of the cave, she was sure of that, but nothing else seemed familiar, and certainly not the man standing above her. "Who are you?"

"Thank God you're okay . . ." The man replied. "what did you take?"

"What?" Liz asked, struggling to get up, but she wasn't able to make it past her elbows before her headache overwhelmed her and she fell back to the ground. She groaned in pain and closed her eyes, trying to shut out what little light was there. Light. Why was there light?

She opened her eyes again and rolled her head to the side. From the level of light outside, she assumed it was midday. Had she really been unconscious for that long.

"Your friend won't wake up," The man said. "What is he on? The paramedics will want to know. Or search and rescue, I guess."

"My friend?" Liz asked, and the memory of Caleb putting the knife to his chest came flooding back to her. She shot upward, forgetting about her head. The man stepped around to help her up, but was blocking her view of where she assumed Caleb would be. She could just see a bit of his blue jeans through the man's legs. "Oh god, Caleb!"

"What are you on?" The man asked again. "There's a syringe in the fire. Don't tell me he's not on anything."

"He's not. I was," Liz said, struggling to her feet. She kept speaking as she staggered away from the man to check on Caleb. "I didn't think . . ." Her words failed her as the blood drained from her face. She stood over the body of her friend, his expression peaceful. His golden hair matted to his sweaty forehead. His clothing was disheveled, but then again, he'd almost always looked that way. She knelt next to him, smoothing his hair back from his face. ". . . Ethan?" she asked, not sure she believed what she was seeing.

"Ethan?" the man asked. "Weren't you just shouting about—"

"Ethan! Oh my god, Ethan!" Liz shouted as reality took hold. He was here, he was real, and he was alive. But he was also unconscious, and Liz had no answers. "Why won't you wake up?"

"Ma'am, are you okay?" The man asked.

Liz didn't hear him. There wasn't any time to listen to a man who had no answers, especially when one friend was still missing. "Caleb!" She shouted. "Caleb, where are you!?"

He's gone. A life for a life.

The voice in her head did not sound familiar, yet she also somehow knew it. It felt like death itself, like the sinking reality that all things end, that she herself would one day cease to be. It had a melodic quality, like a symphony playing in a minor key. She feared it, yet longed to hear it again. It had answers.

Who are you? She thought back at the voice.

But there was no response, and she was certain now that the owner of the voice had moved on. There would be no more death here, not now, but neither would there be more life. Death had spoken, and Caleb was gone.

"Shit, Caleb . . ." Liz said, tears streaming down her face as reality sunk in a little deeper. "What were we thinking?" She stroked Ethan's cheek again, and he let out a soft moan but otherwise did not react. "Ethan, wake up. Come on, wake up!" She collapsed over his chest, her body heaving with sobs as she cried, "I need you, Ethan. Please . . . Caleb's gone. I need you . . ."

 

 

END OF PART 1

Don't forget to comment and react to this chapter! Also, special thanks to my Patreon Supporters: Michael, Bill, Charles, Amr, Don, James, Joe, Jos, Mark, Mark, Paul, Steve, and John. Couldn't have done it without them. Ask me how you can help and get access to chapters early! :D
Copyright © 2017 Cynus; All Rights Reserved.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

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24 minutes ago, Cynus said:

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

-

There's nothing like waking up to a double shocker. Now this is going to be hard to explain. Dead and buried Ethan is back and Caleb is gone or has history itself been rewritten? We will still have one unhappy living boy.

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1 hour ago, Cynus said:

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

 

Oh, what a fantastic twist. You really know how to take us on daredevil turns and unforeseen changes of course. That is an incredible turn of events, and I shall need time to digest it...

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2 hours ago, drpaladin said:

-

There's nothing like waking up to a double shocker. Now this is going to be hard to explain. Dead and buried Ethan is back and Caleb is gone or has history itself been rewritten? We will still have one unhappy living boy.

 

This is a VERY strange twist but I don't believe this is Ethan...it may be his body but I really don't think it's his soul.

The soul of the real Ethan is more than likely still lost or I hope that's what happened.

I don't wanna believe that he would take Caleb's place considering that in his journal he had already written that when Caleb went to collage he was going to kill his self.

Please let's get to part 2 soon, VERY soon

Edited by 1brokNangel
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A big surprise, -another one that I didn't expect. I don't envy Liz now that she has this huge new grief and a load of remorse and explaining to

deal with. This is a fascinating tale, I'll be looking for the next part.

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4 hours ago, Cynus said:

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

 

Oh wow! Is that really Ethan? I'm not liking the sound of that voice. Liz is right. They weren't thinking and now there's someone brought out/back from the dead. Who?  And where did Caleb go? I guess we'll see in part 2.  

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5 hours ago, Wesley8890 said:

Omg I feel bad for Liz! Well and Caleb. And Ethan. Mrs pallet is gonna freak!

There's certainly a lot of explaining to do, isn't there? Mostly by me. :P

5 hours ago, drpaladin said:

-

There's nothing like waking up to a double shocker. Now this is going to be hard to explain. Dead and buried Ethan is back and Caleb is gone or has history itself been rewritten? We will still have one unhappy living boy.

Interesting how things turn, isn't it? This was actually a spontaneous decision when I wrote this chapter which inevitably rewrote my intended ending of the story.

3 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

 

Oh, what a fantastic twist. You really know how to take us on daredevil turns and unforeseen changes of course. That is an incredible turn of events, and I shall need time to digest it...

You'll have it. I won't be posting the next chapter until Wednesday. I'm a little ahead of my posting elsewhere, and in order to be fair I need to slow down.

3 hours ago, 1brokNangel said:

 

This is a VERY strange twist but I don't believe this is Ethan...it may be his body but I really don't think it's his soul.

The soul of the real Ethan is more than likely still lost or I hope that's what happened.

I don't wanna believe that he would take Caleb's place considering that in his journal he had already written that when Caleb went to collage he was going to kill his self.

Please let's get to part 2 soon, VERY soon

Relatively soon. :) I think you'll all be invested in the answer when it's revealed. Part 2 is fun for a lot of reasons, and we'll get some answers almost immediately.

2 hours ago, Stephen said:

A big surprise, -another one that I didn't expect. I don't envy Liz now that she has this huge new grief and a load of remorse and explaining to

deal with. This is a fascinating tale, I'll be looking for the next part.

I'm glad. Liz definitely has a lot on her plate now, even more than before. And this was supposed to relieve her, right? How will she proceed?

52 minutes ago, Puppilull said:

 

Oh wow! Is that really Ethan? I'm not liking the sound of that voice. Liz is right. They weren't thinking and now there's someone brought out/back from the dead. Who?  And where did Caleb go? I guess we'll see in part 2.  

Indeed. We're going to get some answers almost immediately. Others you might have to wait awhile for, but from now to the end, there will be some explaining to do, and a journey to unfold.

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Wonderful story - lots of twists and turns! But you better make this right or else! I can hardly wait for the next installment - thank you.

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18 hours ago, Jeugie said:

Wonderful story - lots of twists and turns! But you better make this right or else! I can hardly wait for the next installment - thank you.

And it is here! The story updates pretty often, so hopefully the wait won't seem impossible? :P Thanks for reading and commenting!

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On 9/17/2017 at 10:28 AM, Cynus said:

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

Wow... Ok... so it was Ethan ;)  So now they are going to go back and retrieve Caleb?  I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this.  

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6 hours ago, Valkyrie said:

Wow... Ok... so it was Ethan ;)  So now they are going to go back and retrieve Caleb?  I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this.  

Is it as much as I'm looking forward to taking you there? :D

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On 9/17/2017 at 7:28 AM, Cynus said:

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments. :)

A life for a life. Should have seen that coming. Monumental Ohh crap moment.

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2 minutes ago, BlindAmbition said:

A life for a life. Should have seen that coming. Monumental Ohh crap moment.

And it also heralds the end of our introduction, for the story now truly begins to get interesting. You've arrived at the threshold of death. Welcome. :)

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1 minute ago, Cynus said:

And it also heralds the end of our introduction, for the story now truly begins to get interesting. You've arrived at the threshold of death. Welcome. :)

Your introduction to death is oddly warm and comforting. 🤗

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2 minutes ago, BlindAmbition said:

Your introduction to death is oddly warm and comforting. 🤗

Something tells me you're going to like this story all the way through. Of course, that's ALWAYS my hope. :D

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