Addie Adams — Sample

Chapter One

Carmel, California — August 31, 2020

The hunter wove through the crowd as he scrutinized each passing face, certain that Billy Shivinski was nearby; he had been here every year around the same time.

There was no way the once avid surfer could resist a day like today—the tides were too perfect, and wave riders were out in abundance.

Upon his many years of hunting, he knew that a Lost never missed a chance to torment a newly acquired vessel they had just confiscated.

Billy, born in Monterey, California, had been a renowned humanitarian from Seattle just a few weeks ago. But his life took a dark turn when he became the unwilling host to a dark spirit. Born from Corruption, the dark entity twisted his once benevolent nature into that of a cold-blooded murderer.

It wasn’t until the hunter was sifting through old police records that he stumbled upon a file—one that made his breath catch in his chest.

Layla. A young woman, her life tragically cut short on the very day she had been proposed to. The irony wasn’t lost on him that it had been her fiancé, Billy Shivinski, that murdered her.

It wasn’t necessarily the murder of a newly engaged that had sparked the hunter’s interest. Plenty of relationships went sour, leading to murder.

It was the fact that the coroner’s report had concluded that Layla had been eaten alive for three days until killed by a knife cut to the throat, her blood drained from her body. This part was the work of a Lost.

But once the hunter had seen that Layla’s eyes were missing, he realized this had been the very same Lost spirit he’d been tasked with hunting down so long ago. Having almost killed him several times, the hunter knew this dark spirit particularly well.

Generally, the Lost killed at random, slitting throats, draining blood, and leaving the word “NOK” carved into their victims, but this blackened Samara was special in that his victims were all women with black hair.

After Layla, the hunter was sure Billy would go on the hunt for a victim that suited his preference.

The hunter could only count on one thing—the fact that the police report had no mention of the word “NOK” carved into Layla’s body.

This detail, or lack thereof, either meant an incompetent Seattle detective, which the hunter doubted. The report was clean, all angles considered, the typical talk of potential drugs, an affair, or the fact that Billy had always been a psychopath; all workings of a hard-working detective who cared about their victims and would never leave out a key detail such as a roughly carved word into the body of the victim.

To the hunter, this meant something else. Something he would use to his advantage.

This meant that Billy was still in there, fighting the spirit that was trying to possess his mind.

Despite everything, you still haven’t tamed him yet, the hunter contemplated with a smile. You’ve tried everything to break him. Still, his mind has not torn apart yet. You’re getting desperate on this one.

When the Lost initially overtook their hosts, the first victims always suffered the most. The twisted, evil spirit acted as a puppeteer, forcing its newly acquired host to watch as it used their body to torture loved ones right in front of them.

This horrendous act aimed to make the host recoil into themselves, so they no longer had to witness the horror, thus handing over their bodies and souls entirely to the dark force.

However, Billy resisted, disrupting the Lost’s ritual before its completion.

The hunter often contemplated the nature of how the Samsara and the Lost who took control over their bodies, as he, too, frequently contended with the minds inhabiting the bodies he released after death. This task was much simpler for a Samsara, as wicked minds were easier to quell than the ones the Lost randomly chose to inhabit.

The hunter wished he could somehow free Billy from the dark spirit. He had tried before, capturing one of the Lost and holding it for weeks not only to glean information but also in an attempt to expel the spirit from the person and liberate them from the evil spirit.

This attempt, however, proved futile, serving only to harm the innocence within as the Lost fought back, biting off their tongue when the individual inside tried to speak of what they knew.

There was only one way to end the turmoil: death.

Just hold out for a little bit longer. I’ll end the suffering. For both of you. The hunter promised.

The hunter had no way of knowing which Samsara's death had given rise to this malevolent essence or why it had been him tasked with disposing of them, but he was resolved to end Billy nonetheless.

It was his sacred duty to hunt down the Lost, to prevent them from carrying out their sacrifices. Before becoming the Lost, these dark spirits were once honorable Samsaras who had died valiantly while fighting Corruption.

The hunter had dedicated his entire life to tracking and eliminating these Lost spirits. It was his purpose, his sole calling, and he knew nothing beyond the thrill of the hunt, all in the name of restoring honor to the fallen Samsara.

For the past several months, he had been meticulously tracking Billy’s movements. The Lost could never resist claiming its next victim for long; such restraint was beyond its nature.

The hunter's gaze drifted to the Atlantic Ocean, where a black-haired woman on a cherry-red longboard stood out among the surfers. She rode the giant wave with a grace that made the board seem like an extension of her own body, outshining the men around her who faltered in their attempts.

If Billy were here, he would undoubtedly be observing her with a mix of hunger and murderous intent.