Dragoncrest Cliffs 'Bring on the night.'

“People are almost always safe from ghosts and ghouls and the living dead in daylight, and they're usually safe from them at night if they're with others, but when a person is alone in the dark, all bets are off. Men and women alone in the dark are like open doors, Jessie, and if they call out or scream for help, who knows what dread things may answer? Who knows what some men and women have seen in the hour of their solitary deaths? Is it so hard to believe that some of them may have died of fear, no matter what the words on the death certificates say?” – Stephen King, Gerald’s Game –
 
The cold swept through the terrain with no regard for those who called that portion of the world home. The winds whipped against the sheer stone of the cliffs, dappling the earth in large flakes of snow. The howling of the sea’s gale had become part of the background. All good things had been swept away with the promise of winter. The water beneath the stone foundation roared against the rock each time they met before the ocean carried the force of its current back.
 
From the high perch on the cliffs there was an ink-touched figure who stood much too close to the edge of the earth. The siren peered through the dismal backdrop toward the lashing sea and she hungered to be closer to it. Though her mothers had moved them across the coast and had made a more suitable home for them, Gin could not help but to feel that she belonged even closer to the edge of the water. Each crash of the waves against the stone face was a reminder of where she was meant to be.
 
Though it was late in the night, she had slipped from the family den and into the snowy winter storm. Her hawkish yellow gaze glinted as she prowled across the pack and toward her favorite spot – a jagged and unsteady stone that wavered at the slightest touch. When she had neared the perch, Gin paused and glanced back over her shoulder.
 
She felt eyes upon her, but she could not place them, and she feared that she might have been followed by one of her protective mothers.
 
The siren felt a swell of independence originate in the depths of her gut. She furrowed her brow and inched out further onto the wobbly slab of stone. Gin could feel the shifting of the rock beneath her paws and she glanced down to see the distance that loomed underneath her. Fear stabbed at the back of her throat and urged her to return to her family’s den, but down at the base of the cliffs something caught her eye…
 
Another beast with a dark hood was there. It looked back up to her with the same glimmering yellow eyes and savage expression. Regin was mesmerized. She could not help but to lean over the edge of the stone, trying to close even some of the space between her and the wild doppelganger at the bottom of the cliffs. She had never seen someone who looked just like her before. But far beneath the rocky cliffs was the shape of her twin.
 
She wanted to run to her mothers and confess what she had found. Excitement fueled her, forcing the child to turn sharply on her heels and feel the slab of stone slip from beneath her. For a moment, she felt as though she was suspended in midair. The rush of the wind seemed to keep her aloft for several moments while she endured the rush of feverish terror. This lasted only for a heartbeat’s time before the siren plummeted toward the swirling waters of the ocean.
 
A single cry for help had filled the air beside the rocky cliff face. A single cry that was washed away by the bitter winter storm.