Twenty-five years ago, I self-published The River of Rain, a philosophical exploration of freedom, human nature, and the modern world. To mark its anniversary, I’m releasing a fully revised edition, one chapter every Wednesday. This is the novel as it was meant to be.
The night was cold and unforgiving. The wind blew fierce and fast, battering the small figure that trudged through the black woods. Ariana pulled her jacket tighter around herself, but it did little good. She stumbled forward, tripping over branches and fallen logs, with no clear sense of where she was going. Her eyes were red and half-closed, tears streaming down her face. Confusion crashed through her mind like the thunder overhead. Branches whipped at her legs.
Without warning the ground gave way beneath her feet. She slid down the slope, tumbling through leaves and loose earth before finally coming to rest far below. The world around her went black.
“Ingram!” a voice shouted. “Ingram! Where the hell is that bird?”
A young man, no more than seventeen, burst from the thicket. His hair was unkempt, his clothes dirty from the woods. His eyes glistened like a hawk’s, sharp and searching, yet something deeper lingered behind them. Victor—that was the name he remembered. He had run away from home long ago and had been living in these woods ever since.
From somewhere to his left came a harsh screech.
The boy smiled and ran toward the sound. He stopped when he saw a large black bird perched atop the shattered trunk of a tree that lightning had split open. The bird cocked its head toward him and screeched again.
“What’s the matter, you old crow?” the boy called as he stepped closer.
The bird glared at him and spat.
Victor froze.
Beneath the broken trunk lay a bundle in the leaves. At first he could only make out dirty legs and a scrap of red cloth, the body curled tightly in a fetal position. Too large to be a child, yet too small to be an adult.
The boy glanced up at the bird, then back down at the figure.
The raven screeched once more and flew off into the darkness.
I hope they’re not dead, he thought.
Victor crept slowly toward the figure and knelt beside it. Now he could see long, dirty blond hair spilling from beneath the red jacket. He reached out and touched what he thought might be the person’s shoulder. Relief washed over him when he felt the hard line of bone beneath the cloth.
He pulled gently, turning the body toward him until it rolled onto its back.
It was a young woman.
Her face was beautiful beneath the grime, though dark smudges streaked her cheeks and half concealed the scabbed cuts along her skin. The sight of those scabs struck him suddenly. She had to be alive. The wounds were fresh. He figured she must have gotten the cuts during the storm.
That’s comforting, Victor thought.
He carefully shifted the girl so he could lift her. It was easy enough. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds.
“Ingram, get back here! It’s just a girl!” he shouted.
Only a distant caw answered him. Cradling her as gently as he could, Victor carried the girl over the fallen logs and scattered branches.
M.A. Kleen 
What are your thoughts?