Prolouge

This is the beginning of a dystopian-type fantasy/adventure novel. Enjoy!

She has given up all she can for the baby, but it isn’t enough.  And now she races through the forest.  Darkening clouds swarm across the sky, growing and growing, blocking out the last rays of sunlight, making it impossible to see.  If she can only get to the lake, then they will be safe.  The lake promises a mysterious safety that she cannot begin to understand.  All she knows is that she has to get there.

She ducks under a twisted branch and continues to run, stumbling over rocks and weeds.  The light is almost gone and the wind has blown out the flame of her candle.  She can barely see the menacing, twisted, dark trees that loom around her everywhere, threatening to grab her and her little infant, pull them into an unfaltering, vice-like grasp, and hold them captive there forever, or just until it comes.

She doesn’t even know what it is.  The lack of knowledge itself is almost killing her.  She only knows that it is bad and she has to get away.  Everyone else in the village is hiding, their lamps are not lit, their candles are snuffed out.  They are hiding under beds and in closets, anticipating the worst.  But nothing comes for them.  No one is after them.

Her heart is pounding and her whole body aches.  Her dress from this morning is torn and her delicate skin is dripping deep red blood onto the green below.  She must be getting close, she must be.   And then she sees it.  It’s only a speck of light reflected off the waves, and it’s only there for a second, but that is all she needs.  If she wasn’t running as fast as she could a second before, she is now.  But that is when it catches up.

A crashing pain hits her and she screams in agony.  Her eyes fill with tears, not for herself, but for the little baby she holds that she loves so dearly.  The swarming black clouds slam together like a vault door closing.  All the remaining light has now been extracted from this world.  She takes one last, dying leap toward the lake.  She reaches it and places the baby beside it gently on the mossy, sodden ground.  Then death hits her like a bombshell and she falls, limp and lifeless to the earth.

Author's Note

You will find out more about what "it" is, who "she" is, why the lake promises safety, and what is going on later in the story.

Reviews

[Cora Lennox]

This does exactly what a prologue should do- it gets a reader emotionally involved with a story that has barely begun. However, there are lots of comma splices (for example, it should be "Everyone else in the village is hiding; their lamps are not lit; their candles snuffed out). You could have been doing this intentionally, as plenty of successful writers have, however you sort of need to be John Updike before it stops looking accidental.
But I need to focus less on the details.
Overall it is an excellent hook to what I'm sure will be a gripping story.