Ion Pt. 1
Strange sounds had been seeping from the woods on outside of town for years. When the wailing cries began the alarmed neighbors had called the police urgently, fearing some sort of gang activity. The squad had been sent into those woods hundreds of times and never found anything. The woods were rumored to ha haunted due to the strange, high pitched cries that leaked through the dark trees like blood from a shallow wound. As nothing was ever found in the wood the calls were dismissed as people over reacting to a prank pulled by local punks.
Thus it was with a heavy sigh and a huge dose of skepticism that Archer Oracle pulled his cruiser to the curb. He had quite literally drawn the short straw and had to listen to the rest of the guys chuckle and rib him over the radio while he looked at the tangled mess of landscape before him. The trees in Goyleswood had grown close together and formed a thick canopy that blotted out the little light the stars provided on the clear summer night. Archer had to wade throught thick brambles that grew high enough to touch the dripping spanish moss that draped from the trees like a curtain. A thick fog left droplets on his skin. Every few minutes one or both of his feet would slop wetly into the foul smelling swamp.
Between moments of sickly stillness, unbroken due to the lack of wildlife, was a sick high pitched cry. The voice was neither that of a woman nor a man. It cracked and broke through the night as if it had screamed for years.
Archer searched more than an hour but every time he came close enough to be right on top of the sounds source there was no one in sight. Fed up, he turned on his heel the next time the voice grew silent. He grumbled and cursed beneath his breath about kids their stupid sound recordings keeping him from a hot meal. Chambri would be in bed by the time he got home. Ingred would be furious.
"Please..." He was nearly out of earshot when the now tiny voice sounded. "Up."
Archer looked upwards into the trees. At first he saw nothing... then he saw a white skeletal hand reaching out of a blackened, charred whole near the top of a tree. After calling for backup, Archer slowly made his way up the ancient trunk. His skin was scraped raw on the rough bark. A massive canyon scarred the trees surface where it had once been struck by lightning. Archer tried not to gag as he moved the skeletal arm aside and hesitantly reached into the blackness of the hole.
The hand that gripped his was warm, shaking and small. Propping himself on his knees and elbows on a bough he pulled his flashlight out of his mouth with his free hand and looked down the hole. He immediately turned his head to the side and vomited. The entire hollow of the tree was filled with the bodies of children no older than the owner of the black eyes staring up at him. The boy was young, about twelve and had pale, clammy skin. He appeared frail and far too thin and was in obvious need of a bath. He was bound to the inside of the tree, his entire body wrapped in thorny vines. Around his wrist snaked a black tatoo that stood in sharp contrast against his cadaverous looking skin. A tatoo of sharply thorned vines. He hung onto Archer desperately, as if the older man was his lifeline.
It was the beginning of a long night for Archer. He spent a good portion of the rest of the night in the office trying to wrap blankets around the boy and coax some food and drink into him while medics checked him out. The boy spoke rapidly in some foreign tongue. His english was so bad that most toddlers were more fluent. After hours of talking all they could gather was that his name was Ion.
Someday soon his name would be Ion Oracle. Someday later everyone in the world would need his help...
