Eythreal

Christopher W. Selna

Description

When lost inside a forbidden forest, Timothy Huntsinger encounters an unworldly creature. This creature convinces him to travel below Earth, where the boy finds himself surrounded by an endless number of books for him to choose from. On opening the chosen book, Timothy discovers that his decisions and actions alone affect the book’s content. And each decision starts a chain of events that could affect his world for all eternity.
Soon, a world of much consequence, full of magic and quests, must be reckoned with for Timothy to progress through the book.
Progress through this book Timothy must if he wants to finish it and hope to bring back what has been lost to him.
At his side will be allies, each one faithful to every choice and action Timothy makes, each one willing to give their life to the boy and the finishing of the book.

Sujets

• Gem
• Spider
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 23 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669874065
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Gem and Spider
Book 1
Eythreal
Christopher W. Selna

 
Copyright © 2023 by Christopher W. Selna.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907215
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-7408-9

Softcover
978-1-6698-7407-2

eBook
978-1-6698-7406-5
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 04/18/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
849658
CONTENTS
PART 1
Chapter 1Forest Beyond
Chapter 2Pillars Of Worlds
Chapter 3Blasphemy!
Chapter 4The Scary Black House
Chapter 5Man Of The House
Chapter 6Worse To Worst
Chapter 7Under Lock And Key
Chapter 8The Reckoning
Chapter 9Gawul’s Rising
Chapter 10A Favorable Betrayal
Chapter 11The Stranger That Came In From The Woods
Chapter 12Flee!
Chapter 13Abbigatha’s Reign Of Terror
Chapter 14Camus
PART 2
Chapter 1Eythreal
Chapter 2Sarah Of Cyrcle
Chapter 3Tolan’s Wisdom
Chapter 4One Last Stop
Chapter 5The Party Grows Stronger
Chapter 6Down By The River
Chapter 7Huron’s Crypt
Chapter 8Gladson’s Glade
Chapter 9A Merry Welcoming
Chapter 10The Seven Moons Of Iria
Chapter 11Fireworks
Chapter 12The Promise
 
My Last Words…

In My Own Words
Dear Reader,
You are about to embark on an extraordinary journey that nearly did not come into existence. I sat on this project for many years, not because I did not believe in it. Oh, no. If anything, I believed in it too much (and still do). In fact, I endeavored to write a half dozen other novels through these years but could not keep the fiery passion I first had when starting them; thus, I aborted them. Why? Because my heart was always and will always be with this series of books. I cannot and will not pursue another project until Timothy Huntsinger finishes the book he so magically procured.
But if there is one thing standing in my way, it is my mental capacity to stay stable.
Many of you readers know me from my high school days. I was a shadow of my true self during those years. You might have seen me walking through the locker corridors, going to class, trying out for baseball, attempting to play football, talking to this boy and that girl, laughing, and so much more. But none of you saw the real me. I never saw the real me. I kept on trying to live another’s life. I was never meant for what little I accomplished in high school.
And it showed.
I was a delinquent in high school.
I still remember how I chalked up the school record for detentions, tying a buddy of mine. Let’s call him Gio. We were both to be expelled for the number of detentions we received. He was a heck of a football player. I couldn’t say the same. But I did have a last name that carried some weight and two brothers that graduated ahead of me. One of those brothers I infamously fought at a girls’ softball game. Yes. Brother versus brother rolling around the dirt while spectators of the softball game watched. Our varsity head coach was the one to break up the fight.
To this day, I recall being on top of my much bigger older brother.
That same year, before the fight, I had to approach my father at a football practice with news of being kicked off the team. Why? Because I failed biology. I was disciplined right then and there, before my team and nearly all my classmates. Half an hour later, I was disciplined at my brother’s football practice.
I don’t blame being disciplined in front of everyone. And how could I when I didn’t care?
The real me didn’t exist.
I graduated high school with a 2.1 GPA. Not only that, but my academic peers voted me second most likely to become famous in our yearbook while voting me first in being a jailbird.
Yes, a jailbird.
Again, I don’t blame them.
I wish I could say I improved or found myself right after high school. And what came after high school?
Marines.
But even in the Marines, I floated my way through; I did enough to get by.
Never enough to be seen.
After being honorably discharged from the Marines, I had options. One of these options was to become a firefighter.
I turned that down, which became a massive disappointment to my family.
What I wanted to do and aimed to do made the disappointment worse.
I wanted to move to LA and become an actor and screenwriter.
My time in Los Angeles was relatively brief and yet very constructive, especially the last year. I often saw a glimpse of who I was supposed to be. But still, alcohol, other drugs, the lifestyle of living near the beach, and making good money at a restaurant kept me from becoming the person I am now. And yet, it was my last year or so in Los Angeles that I finally sat down and executed what I always wanted to do.
I wrote.
And I continued to write.
While writing every day, I learned the real me. I also learned I needed to change my lifestyle drastically to be this real me.
It started with me leaving my two-bedroom, hardwood-floor apartment I shared with my brother, only a mile from the beach, for Oregon.
To be a novelist.
Two things happened in Oregon. I learned to live without the former lifestyle, while at the same time, I learned that I had been living with a crutch from way back to sixth and seventh grade when meeting with friends at Northsight Park, so we could smoke weed by using a Coca-Cola can. In high school, smoking weed on a near-daily basis blended with alcohol on Friday and Saturday nights. From there, I only drank heavier (much heavier) in the Marines. After the Marines, I received my first taste of cocaine from a few restaurant friends in Scottsdale, Arizona, only to continue it when meeting friends in Venice, California, while never slowing down on the alcohol and weed.
All of that kept me standing on my two feet.
And without self-medication?
After a bad decision to leave Oregon and return to Arizona, I discovered the truth the hard way.
I fell. And I fell badly. After nearly two years in Arizona, I tried to escape the mental anguish that kept eating away at me, which caused up to six months of sleep deprivation, averaging two to four hours at most on a nightly basis, by moving back to the Pacific Northwest, this time to Newcastle, Washington. I had hoped this move to the beautiful Pacific Northwest would mitigate my mental suffering.
But moving to a scuzzy apartment complex, and alone, to boot, only worsened matters.
I experienced my first manic episode that lasted over ninety hours, never receiving a wink of sleep.
Not even close to a wink of sleep.
To make this long story shorter, my mother came to Washington after an emergency psychiatrist said I was a danger to myself and others. We packed up and drove back to Arizona, where I moved in with my parents. I quickly saw my first psychiatrist outside the emergency one in Washington. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1. I didn’t want to believe him. I saw a second psychiatrist.
Same results.
I’m forty-four years old at the moment of writing this. Until six months ago, I had been off all pharmaceutical meds after years of being on Klonopin and other drugs. But with the birth of my son, I quickly found myself in a tailspin. I knew I couldn’t afford to let it continue to a crashing end. I reached out for help again. I’m back on medication and see myself on them for another year or more. But I do plan on getting off them someday—someday when I reteach myself how to live with my anxieties and manic depression. Maybe when my child becomes a bit less unpredictable.
I don’t know. Maybe never.
But I’ll say this:
I’ve seen the bottom. I’ve strolled along the surface of the lowest level. I once even made plans.
I bargained with myself.
And it was then that God saved me.
This novel you’re about to journey into has seen it all. It has witnessed each surface of my life. It has seen Christopher on crutches and without crutches. It has seen the happy Chris. The depressed Chris. The angry Chris. It has gone through all travels and changes in my very much altering life.
Its persona is me.
I’m the book. I may not be a character. I may not be a single word of writing. But there is no question that the story and the stories that follow this embody my suffering and happiness.
So enjoy. Enjoy and know what travels this story has gone through.
And thank you, for I know how wordy I can be.
Christopher W. Selna
3/16/23
P.S. Please accept my apologies when it comes to my self-editing. All great authors have an editor—seriously. Even Jane Austen had an editor. Some great authors even have ghostwriters. And all subpar authors need an editor. Regardless of where I fall, I only say this: I did not come close to having the funds to hire an editor. So I relied exclusively on my erudition w