First Endings: Apocryphal, #1

By Rowan Rook

"Sometimes, I just yearn to fly—for that feeling where it seems you can reach out and grab the stars in your palm like the world below you doesn't mean a thing. You know what I mean, don't you?"

When the magical island kingdom of Magdellyn defaulted on its deal with entities called the Others, even its memory was erased from the Earth. Now trapped in its own reality, its people slowly fall to the same curse, becoming something between human and Other—becoming Apocrypha.

Izette, a self-declared simple girl, tries to hide her Apocryphal status and live as normally as her world allows, even as the beginnings of war brew between humans and her kind. When a haunted childhood friend wanders back into her life, however, she finds herself drawn into battle—not only against the people who fear the Apocrypha, but against a force far more ancient and deadly.

Apocryphal is a series of YA dark fantasy/LGBTQIA+ novelettes about claiming your place in a world that sometimes fears you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rowan Rook
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393533436

Book preview

APOCRYPHAL

book I: first endings

rowan rook

Apocryphal: Book I: First Endings

Copyright © 2020 by Rowan Rook.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce or transmit this text in any form.

www.rowanrook.com

Current Edition (1st) Published in 2020 with KDP.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Body font is Literata by TypeTogether.

Title font is Dream Orphans by Typodermic Fonts.

Cover image by grandfailure.

Cover edited by Rowan Rook.

Book design by Rowan Rook.

Dedication

This series is dedicated to the fanfiction communities that revel in stories.

Thank you for giving me courage when I was a young writer.

This book is also dedicated to my Patreon followers,

including Joaquín Ceballos and Geri Meyers,

and my newsletter subscribers.

Thank you for your support!

Content Warnings

Major content warnings: suicidal ideation, self-harm, familial abuse, violence.

Full content warnings: https://www.rowanrook.com/content-warnings.

Night Plague: Read for Free

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Humankind will soon be extinct. A mysterious pandemic cut through two-thirds of the population in just four short years, and within another four, it will decimate everything—and everyone—left.

As the last days tick by, relentless and ruthless, the reclusive Mason Mild finds himself torn between a peaceful end and a brutal immortality. Between his hopeless, but comfortable days with his family, and something new…something violent and wild.

Have the fang marks above his heel dealt him an early demise or a second birth?

Night Plague is a post-apocalyptic vampire thriller searching for what hopes survives through horror.

Get your Free Copy

Hope on, dear Heart, and you will see

The walls of worry fade and flee;

And sane of soul and sound of mind,

You 'll go your way of life and find

The paths, once barren, suddenly

In blossom; and from Arcady

The summer wind blow sweet and kind

Hope on, dear Heart.

Think what it'd mean to you and me

This life if Hope should cease to be!

If Hope should die what doubts would blind!

What black despairs go unconfined!

What sorrows weight us utterly!

Hope on, dear Heart!

—Madison Julius Cawein

CHAPTER INDEX

CHAPTER ONE: sleepless night

CHAPTER TWO: apocryphal

CHAPTER THREE: the runaways

CHAPTER FOUR: reunion

CHAPTER FIVE: bloody feathers

CHAPTER SIX: first endings

CHAPTER ONE: sleepless night

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Rain tapped on the roof and ran down the window like tired fingers feeling for a way inside. Branches scraped at the walls, as if they too wanted to break into the room and seek shelter from the autumn breeze.

The girl shuffled in her bed, turning away from the watery drops gathering on the glass and glowing like eyes in the lantern light. She pulled the blanket closer to her face, covering her body up to her nose in a battle against the chill seeping in through the walls. But a much colder shiver came from inside her, the all-too-familiar tingles welling up in her shoulder blades.

He’s here, isn’t he? I know it! I can feel him!

She clutched her shoulders until her nails sunk in. The icy throb spread down her arms. It reached her chest, pumping through her veins with each pound of her heart.

Somewhere close!

The girl curled into herself, her knees held to her heart. Her muscles tensed until her lungs refused to let in air.

Why won’t he leave me alone?

She fixed her eyes on the lantern’s flickering flame—the only pinpoint of color in the otherwise black room. She could understand what he was saying, even if she couldn’t hear his words.

Come. Won’t you join me…‘Cana’?

No! No! No! Please, leave me alone!

A gale threatened to blow her apart from the inside. She twisted herself tighter, as if she could hold the sensation in place and stop it from flowing, boiling, erupting. It wasn’t quite pain…pressure ached to burst out from beneath her skin. A sickening, stabbing urge.

You’re afraid, aren’t you?

No…I… I’m not afraid. Not anymore. I want nothing to do with you!

Do not think you can lie to me. I understand how your mind works better than you do. I know the fear that you wear as armor against yourself. Against your own desires. There is no reason to be afraid of what lies within. No reason to fear your own heart.

You’re wrong—you don’t know me! Stop it, please, just stop it! Let me sleep!

Oh please, do not play this game. Your pain should have ceased so long ago. Let tonight be when this ends!

No!

Never.

I can’t—

Fear exploded through her, shaking her brain and her bones.

No!

She reached for the lantern. Not thinking. Not caring about anything but stopping it all—the throbbing, the fear, the voice in her head. She thrust her hand into the flames and held it there. She screamed as she let it burn, let the pain distract her from the different sort of burn inside her. Her body wanted to draw back, but she was still its master—I’m still in control. She felt the fire.

Then she was alone.

The connection between her and the voice was severed, silenced.

The throbbing in her shoulders faded more slowly. The haze in her head receded with it, leaving her with only the ache of her burnt hand. She shook, panting for breath as the night settled back into stagnation and seemed to take much of its darkness with it.

No…

CHAPTER TWO: apocryphal

The woman stopped to watch the sunrise as it peeked from behind the hills. The sky was so perfectly clear, cleansed by its own wind and rain from the previous night. The first morning of autumn. She couldn’t deny the chill in the air, but the day promised to be beautiful. She savored a breath, letting the crisp breeze cut through her sleepiness. It was still too early to be busying about the farm.

Hey, Izette, hurry up! The carts will be here soon!

Izette blinked, thrown from her quiet thoughts. "Oh…sorry. I’m