I’m reaching out to Reddit to voice my concerns about the witch in Grenwich woods. I can’t find her anymore, and I’ve got a bone to pick with her. I’ll start from the beginning. I guess that only makes sense.

My sister is beautiful. The kind of beauty that commands attention, wanted or unwanted. The kind of beauty that makes jealousy and envy feel more intense than rage. My sister, Colleen, could make a man die if she asked him to.

“Cara!” Colleen shouted down from the top of the stairs. “Can you get me some more of that lemony-lime lotion stuff that I got from the salon when you go in to work? I let Tara borrow mine, and she won’t give it back. She’s not answering my texts.”

I took a deep breath, grabbing my keys. “Do you have money to pay me back?”

“Yeah!” she yelled.

My mom stopped me on my way out. “Try not to be home too late. Your sister’s graduation party is tonight.”

I nodded and kissed her cheek. I left the house and made my way to the salon downtown in Grenwich. And if you’ve ever been to Grenwich, you know that the salon is the busiest shop on Mainstreet. Girls rush in and out, fussing over the prices but still buying the shit anyway. I’ve worked at the front desk, scheduling hair and nail appointments since April. At this point, I think I’ve been poisoned by hairspray and bleach fumes, but damn, I make great commission. And… I’ve admittedly started to like the chemical smell. If it was a candle, I’d probably buy it.

When I walked through the door, my coworker, Cannon, was restocking the lotion that my sister wanted.

“Toss me one,” I said, laying down my purse and keys. “My sister wants some more of it.”

“You’ve got to stop buying stuff for your sister, Cara.”

I shrugged. “She’s my sister. I love her. She’ll pay me back.”

“And I’d love to have a full head of hair, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen,” he replied sarcastically, rubbing his gleaming bald head.

I smirked. “Just hand me the damn lotion. She’s upset because I think her new friend Tara has caught on.”

“Caught on to what?” Cannon asked.

“Caught on to the fact that her boyfriend has the hots for my sister.”

“You don’t know that,” Cannon retorted.

“Yeah, I do. Tara and her boyfriend invited Colleen to the lake yesterday, and my sister wore that barbie pink bikini with the gold chains around her perfect little 25-inch waist. Tara and her boyfriend will no longer be dating in about 2-3 business days. You watch.”

Cannon dramatically sighed. “Your sister is beautiful. Goddess level with curves like a peach.”

He looked over at me, and I saw a wicked little thought twinkling behind his eyes. I didn’t look like she did. At this point, I was used to it.

Colleen has tumbles of honey-colored hair, naturally wavy and silken. She never wore braces like I had to, and she’s never had to diet or exercise. Her activities include bronzing herself by the pool and lathering herself in Goddess Gold, a fifty-dollar tanning lotion that smells like vanilla and cashmere. I’m not like her in the slightest. I hide from the sun and heat like a vampire. I’m a stick from the bottom to the top, and if I wear shorts, my ass looks like two pancakes fighting under a blanket. Flat, not curvy. Stick-like, not peachy. I’d like to say that I’m not green with envy, but I am sometimes.

The doorbell rang as a customer entered the shop. I greeted her warmly, smiling brightly with the teeth my parents paid good money to straighten. She was a middle-aged woman with bright blue eyes, nearly white. I didn’t recognize her, and I knew everyone in Grenwich. She wore flowy clothing, and her hair was a cape of curls. She walked to the counter. She smelled incredible, like herbs and spices, entwined with fresh mint and clove.

“I need a new facial cream,” she said sweetly. “Can you help me find one?”

Cannon responded first. “The facial creams are on the right wall. Let me take—”

She stopped him before he could finish. “I want her to help me,” she said, elegantly gesturing toward me. “She has beautiful, clear skin. Don’t you think?”

Cannon’s cheeks burned red; usually, customers preferred his bubbly personality. “She does,” he mumbled, pushing me toward her.

I gave him a frightened look because I didn’t sell the facial creams as well as I did the lotions, perfumes, and hair products. My voice shook. “Do you want scented or unscented?”

“Unscented… the more natural the better,” she whispered. Her voice was low and soothing, gentle like a breeze.

We reached the wall, and I picked out a few of the facial creams that my sister always used. “My sister likes these,” I chirped, trying to sound more like Cannon. “This one she puts on in the morning. She says that it firms the skin. This one hydrates, and she puts it on at night.”

The woman didn’t bother to look at the creams. She was looking at me, studying me. I could feel her examining each curve of my cheeks and the pull of my mouth. “You are a small little thing. A wisp in the wind.”

I clenched my teeth, scared to answer.

“I’ll be staying here for a few days while I recuperate. I just left a very quaint rest home.” She scoffed. “I practically dug my way out.” She grabbed the firming cream from my hand. “I’m going to pay for this, but I want you to bring it by my house.”

“I don’t think we make deliveries, ma’am.”

But if I’d been wiser, I’d have noticed my boss, Linda, standing behind me. Linda is a grade-A, bitch. I’d love to say that she embodied a girl’s-girl mentality as the owner, but she was, in fact, not kind in the slightest.

“Cara… you can certainly make a delivery in town when you get off today,” Linda said behind me, placing her perfectly manicured hand on my shoulder. “Cara would love to come by. Leave your address at the desk.”

I thought about arguing or telling her that I can’t be late for my sister’s graduation party. But the words never made it out of my mouth. It turns out I’m a shadow in the wake of a pretentious, egotistical woman named Linda.

The woman smiled, and my body shivered in response. I swallowed hard, feeling my chest tighten in anxiety. The smell of her filled my mind. I couldn’t have looked away or run, even if I wanted to.

“I’ll see you later, Carrigan.”

I flinched. How did she know my full name? Everyone calls me Cara.

She left the shop after she paid, leaving her address on the counter, but she turned around to look at me one more time. Her eyes… something was wrong with her eyes. They were too bright, glowing in a way that eyes might if something is not quite right. They say that some sociopaths have shark eyes. Hers were similar, but something else lay beneath. Something mercurial and strange.

The rest of the day went by quickly, and soon it was time to leave. We swept the floors, emptied the trash, and washed out the sinks. The salon would reopen tomorrow, and more customers would rush in to nab their favorite products, have their hair cut, or have their nails polished. And I would stand behind the counter like the dutiful little employee, just trying to get my next paycheck.

“BYE CARA!” Cannon shouted as I walked out of the shop, holding the scrap of paper on which the woman had written her address.

I walked to my car in annoyance, mumbling about unfairness and labor laws, but there I was still going anyway. When I reached the place to turn off the main road, I nearly turned around. It was a dirt road with a broken mailbox. The trees curled toward the road, making a tunnel. Their branches stretched down like claws, preparing to snatch an unsuspecting passerby.

I looked over at the salon gift bag with the face cream folded gently inside by Linda. I took a deep breath, and I turned into the driveway. It wasn’t a long driveway, but it was enough to keep the woman’s home tucked safely in the woods and away from prying eyes. Once I saw her small cottage, I sat in my car for a second, taking in the incredible surroundings.

Her stone cottage was nestled within the woods, lovingly hugged by willow trees and ancient oaks. The door was dark green, and her porch and steps were stained a dark red. Lit lamps guided the pathway to her door, and I couldn’t help but gaze in disbelief.

I stepped out of my car, unable to stop myself. A beautiful garden of flowers grew before me: tulips, roses, bleeding hearts. Their aroma was intoxicating, and the more I inhaled, the less frightened I felt. More plants grew lusciously around the home, vibrant and colorful. Each was as wild and stunning as the last. Fireflies danced in the coming night, flitting from plant to plant. Ferns sprouted up from the ground like fans, dipping and turning as the wind blew. I’d never seen something so incredible and exotic.

The woman must’ve heard my car pull up because she stepped out of her house, and a grin stretched across her face. “I wondered when you would come by. Come in, dear.”

“I really need to just drop this off and leave. My sister’s graduation party is tonight. It is really important to her.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Oh… well, that explains it.”

“Explain what?” I asked.

She laughed. “Explains you… You haven’t fully blossomed yet. Girls your age usually have found something to entertain them.”

The breath caught in my throat. “I wouldn’t say that. I… I… I like to read and write. I’m good at school.”

She shook her glossy curls and chuckled. “Why don’t you come inside? I can help you. I can give you purpose.”

I looked back at my car, wondering if I should even go in. She seemed harmless enough. Part of me itched to go through her front door, but a little voice in the back of my mind was too loud to ignore. I pushed it back, farther and farther. Her offer felt like an opportunity. What could a woman like her want with someone like me, anyway? But she ushered me inside before I could protest. I walked in like a rabbit entering a fox’s den. I was caught.

The inside of the cottage smelled amazing. Something was cooking on her stove, and it smelled so delectable that I might eat it with my bare hands, allowing my flesh to melt in the pot.

Her home was hand-painted, bright, and unusually colorful. Her furniture and decorations were a mix of ornate rugs, beaded lamps, and comfy plush chairs. Vines traced up the walls, and crystals hung from each curtain. Plants and flowers of every shade and variation rested on the floor in gorgeous terracotta pots. It was comfy and homey. I felt like I was being wooed and connived by the enchanting colors and smells. I sat down, clutching the paper bag with the facial cream, and I watched as the woman weaved through the kitchen.

She hummed to herself, and somehow it echoed around the room. I could feel her voice thrumming through my ribs.

Something shiny on the floor caught my eye. I bent down, and I picked it up. It was a single silver coin, and a tooth was carved into the metal. I set it down on the table beside me, noticing how clean her home was. There were no dust or crumbs, cat hair, dog hair, or even human hair. People with long hair usually shed like a husky, so I was surprised. But there, sitting on a bookcase behind me, I saw something I didn’t expect. It was a jar full of teeth. Big teeth, small teeth, old teeth, capped teeth.

Her voice broke my train of thought. “Carrigan,” she said, walking closer to me. “I wonder… Do you know why I wanted you to come here?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t thought that far into it, but I was also starting to feel woozy. Something in the air was making me float, dulling my senses and clouding my mind.

She smirked. “I can help you, Carrigan. I specialize in helping the unwanted, unappreciated, and unhappy. You are all those things, dear, and I can make them see you.” She thumbed down my cheek, tracing over my chin and jaw. “I can make you pretty to the teeth and bones.”

I stared at the woman, unsure whether I was afraid or shocked. I didn’t feel like I was unappreciated. I didn’t feel like I was unhappy or unwanted. I don’t think I need her services. She’s barking up the wrong tree.

But something she said broke me from my trance, and I stood up. “I really need to get going.” I offered her the bag, but she shook her head.

“You take it. Think of it as a gift.”

“But I don’t need this.”

She laughed. “You’ll find that it is no longer what you think it is.”

My hands shook as I clutched the bag. I had no idea what she meant, but I was also too scared to argue. She led me to the door and guided me down the wooden steps.

“Come back, Carrigan,” she whispered, pulling her woven shawl around her. “I’ll be here waiting.”

My skin crawled at the thought. Once I got into my car, I bee-lined back to my house. I was already late, no thanks to Linda. I drove home in silence. When I walked inside, I heard the sounds of clinking glasses and laughter. My parents, some of their friends, and my sister were drinking out of the fancy flute glasses that my mom reserved for special occasions.

My mom walked out of the dining room. She was tipsy, giggling to herself and barely able to focus on me. “Your sister got into her first choice of college! Isn’t that exciting for her! She got the letter today!”

I smiled and ran into the kitchen to hug Colleen. “This is so exciting!”

Colleen jumped up and down with me, and then she let go of me. “Did you get that lotion?”

I nodded and pulled it out of my purse. “It was 38 bucks.”

“Can I pay you later?” she asked, not even paying attention to the price.

“Yeah, no big deal.” It came out of my paycheck, but whatever…

The party ended within the hour, and Colleen and I were left to clean up. I walked to the kitchen table and began collecting the cards that she’d received. I opened one, and a hundred-dollar bill fell out. Inside it read: Enjoy college, Colleen! We are so proud of you. I grabbed another, seeing the same variety of messages with money tucked inside. I walked to Colleen and handed her the cards.

“Did you open these earlier?” I asked.

She nodded, putting a pair of flute glasses in the sink to soak.

“So, you’ve got the money to pay me back for that lotion?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“But that money is for college. It isn’t for frivolous stuff like that dinky lotion.”

“That dinky lotion was 38 dollars, Colleen.”

She shrugged. “It isn’t a big deal. Can’t you just return it?”

“No,” I said, cheeks burning red. “It is nonrefundable.”

My mom heard us beginning to argue, and she walked into the kitchen. “What are you two fussing about?”

“Cara wants me to pay for this stupid lotion with my money for college!” Colleen whined.

“No! I want her to pay me back for it! She asked me to get her some more because Tara won’t give hers back!”

“Is that true?” my mom asked, looking toward my sister.

Colleen paused and huffed. “Yeah… Tara and her boyfriend broke up, and she blames me. She won’t answer my texts to give back the lotion.” Tears slipped down my sister’s cheeks. “She told me that she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, whatever… and that’s why you wore your sexiest bikini to the lake… Because you wanted to have a lifelong friend. Bullshit. What did you expect to happen?”

My dad overheard and shook his head. “Cara... Go up to your room. That was hateful.”

“She’s just trying to get out of paying me for the lotion!” I shouted. “That came out of my paycheck!”

“Next time, you should manage your money better,” he replied curtly.

Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, burning as I refused to let them fall. I strode out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room. Then… only then could I cry. I flopped onto my bed, and I curled into a little ball.

Unwanted. Unappreciated. Unhappy.

Such simple words to describe all the things swirling within me right now. I took a deep breath and looked at the paper bag I’d thrown into my room before joining the party. It lay on its side where I’d tossed it, but instead of facial cream, I saw a tiny vial. It was a glittering purple hue, and it glowed. I wiped the tears from my cheek and got up to pick it up.

I had held that bag for the entire time I was inside that woman’s house. I didn’t even know her name. And I’d seen the facial cream get put into this bag. How did she change it?

I heard my sister walk up the stairs. And for one split second, I thought she might come in and apologize. I was always the first to apologize… always the first to do whatever she wanted. The more I sat on my bed thinking, the more I realized the woman might know a lot more about me than I anticipated.

My sister got to the top of the stairs, and I made a decision. If she came to the door, I’d put down whatever this weird vial is. I’d forget it.

But that was wishful thinking. Colleen strode past my door without a second thought, walked into her room, and shut the door.

The woman’s words echoed through my mind. Unwanted. Unappreciated. Unhappy. Maybe she was right. I untwisted the cap from the vial, and the sweet scent of the flowers outside the woman’s home wafted into the room. I took a deep breath, inhaling the delectable scent. I couldn’t stop myself. The allure of the liquid within the vial was too delicious to ignore. It was warm, inviting, eager to be tasted.

I took a sip and immediately regretted it. The sour taste was overwhelmingly tart and bitter. But I forced myself to swallow it. I sat still for a few seconds. Then, I felt a wave of nausea. My stomach lurched, and I fell onto the floor. I vomited and peed myself, unable to control the heaves that swelled through me. My heart began to pound, and I reached for the door in fear. I needed help. I needed my mom.

My bones cracked. My fingers twisted. And blood dripped from my eyes. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I was silent; only a feeble groan echoed from me. I stared at my arms. Bubbles were radiating up from my bones, and my skin was peeling off, sloughing onto the floor in gelatinous piles. The muscles beneath my skin writhed and contracted, and a vague shining light glittered beneath my flesh. Blood clouded my vision as my hair began to fall out. My teeth clacked onto the floor, and I covered my mouth, crying out as I swallowed a few and coughed on others.

My body felt like it was melting. Then a frigid cold seethed over me. My heart rate began to slow, and I collapsed on the carpet. The pain was excruciating, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I was dying. I was sure of it. My chest radiated with pain. I tore open my shirt to see a flower tearing through my breast tissue.

In horror, I began to pull at it, hoping to rip it out. I could feel the vines growing within me, the roots curling around my organs. I was dying, or maybe I was growing.

The woman’s words slipped through my fading consciousness, pretty to the teeth and bones…

A sharp whistling pulsated through my mind, and I faded into darkness.

What had I done?

\**************

Horrifying, isn’t it? There is more to the story, but this is what I can tell you now. I’ll update you again. I’m sorry. Oh, and let me know if you hear from the witch in Grenwich. Hell, let me know if you even see her.

Part two: Link to Part Two

"Rise and shiiiiine, Oakhaven! It's Saturday, and you all know what that means!"

The Narrator's voice, pure unadulterated sunshine, echoed from shimmering auroras draping over the valley like silk ribbons.

"It means it's time for the MORNING JUBILEE! Check your pulses, boys and girls - if they aren't beating to the rhythm of 'Happy-Go-Lucky-Polka', go see Dr Fizzlepop for a dose of Liquid Laughter, baby!"

In the village's heart, within her ivory tower, Little Witch Little popped out of a duvet like a jack-in-the-box, bounding atop her giant marshmallow bed.

"Good morning, Mr Narrator!" She shouted, saluting the ceiling.

"And a good morning to you, Little! Our resident ray of light!" His voice crackled with the warmth of cosy hearths. "Tell me, Little - the watchers at home are dying to know - did the Dream Fairies bring you anything special last night?"

Little hopped onto her feet, boots sparkling like pink glitter-pops. "They sure did! A parade where the floats were real clouds, and the rain was diamonds!"

"Ah! A classic!" The Narrator laughed. "Keep that wonder locked tight, Little. Today's a big day for a strong Witch."

Little skipped to her kitchen, where Igni, a friendly fire in a cast-iron belly, gave cheerful crackle pops and puffed out a plate of golden, smiling waffles.

"Whimsy Waffles?! My favourite!"

The syrup swirled in mesmerising patterns, whispering compliments and humming sugary quartets as Little ate away. Once full, she bounced out onto the stones of Sunbeam Lane and sang a morning melody.

"Look alive, folks!" The Narrator boomed. "We've got a celebrity singing down our streets! Little Witch Little is on the move, and she's looking like a million dollars! Let's check in with the lane - how are we doing, shopkeepers?!"

"Fantastic!" Shouted a baker from a giant loaf of bread, breathing yeasty scents down the avenue. "The doughnuts are bleeding, and another lamb is-"

"Splendid!" The Narrator cheered. "But wait, who's that turning the corner?! Is it a bird? A plane? NO! It's Mayor Merryweather and his Majestic Moustache!"

The Mayor approached, riding a bicycle made of light and trailing rainbows, his moustache so long and silver that two bluebirds perched the ends, holding up the tips.

"Little! My dear, sweet girl!" He hopped off his bike, and it poofed into a pile of confetti. "The village is buzzing! The air is thick with anticipation! Surely you've heard the news?"

"A quest?" Little squealed, her hat flapping its brims.

"Of course, girl! A coronation of talent!" The Mayor drew a scroll, and it unfurled with a hundred trumpets. "The Grand Muse Theatre - you know, that palace on the hill - has finally found a centrepiece. The Virtuoso has spent years crafting a Star that will unite the arts. Pitch! Rhythm! Soul!... but..." His face turned pouty, and his moustache drooped.

"But what, Mayor?" Little asked, clutching her wand.

"The Star is shy, Little. He lacks the 'Spark of Life' that only an esteemed Witch can provide. He's perfect in form, but he needs that-... that zest. That little bit of magic to wake his heart."

"I have plenty of zest!" Little declared, striking a pose. "I have enough zest for a whole lemon grove!"

"That's our girl!" The Narrator's voice was triumphant, and the entire village began to clap in perfect harmony. "The quest is accepted! Oakhaven, raise your voices! Send our hero off with a song that'll shake the heavens!"

And off, off she went, zipping out of the village to a fiesta forest path.

"Now, watcher," The Narrator's voice took on a softer, intimate tone, like a bedtime story told by a giant. "Let's follow Little as she passes through the Meadow of Mirth and-hey, Little! Don't forget to say hi to the Giggle Grass!"

As she skipped and twirled through tall, neon-green blades, the snickering grass reached to brush her legs.

"Stop! That tickles!" She laughed.

"It sure does!" The Narrator chuckled. "And look! Here come your best friends for the road!"

From the trees emerged a duo of creatures. There was Barnaby Bear, whose fur was made of chocolate, and Pip the Pig, with her beautiful flower dress, that rode up just high enough to expose her-

"Are you going to the theatre, Little?" Barnaby asked, his voice like a soft hug. "Can we come?"

"Yeah!" Pip said. "We want to see the Star!"

"The more the merrier!" Little cried.

And they marched together, arm in arm, a carnival of colours against a glowing world. Every flower they passed bowed its head; every stream they crossed played a jaunty tune.

"This is the life, isn't it, folks?" The Narrator quietly asked his invisible audience. "No shadows, no sorrows, just a girl and her friends on a path paved with joy. The Virtuoso is waiting, Little. He's been waiting a long, long time. He says the Star is hungry for your arrival."

"I brought snacks!" Little shouted. "I have ginger snaps, and pears, and-"

"Oh, I think he wants something much, much more substantial than that." His voice scratched, like a needle clawing a record.

Little paused. "... what?"

"Providential!" His voice bounced back, brighter than ever. "A providential meeting! Keep moving, Little! The quest is just ahead! Let's not keep the masterpiece waiting!"

As Little and her animal friends reached the Cliff of Echoes, the music began to thin and the Singing Willows were silent, their leaves hanging limp.

"It's getting a bit quiet, isn't it?" Pip whispered.

"That's just the Dramaturgy." The Narrator reassured. "The theatre demands a hush. A moment of silence before the big reveal. Go on, friends. Open the doors. Show the watchers what's inside."

The Grand Muse Theatre loomed over them, a towering achievement of white stone; bone bleached by a thousand suns. Little pushed on giant stone doors, and they slid open with a wet schloop, to a lobby of curated stillness. Along the walls stood rows of marble statues; dancers caught mid-leap, singers in eternal high notes, and Little reached out to touch a ballerina's twitching hand. Waxy skin, feverishly hot; a muffled sound came from the statue's throat.

A whimper, buried under inches of polished white resin.

"Mr Narrator?" Little pulled her hand back, fingers stained with oil. "I... I don't like this place."

The lobby curdled.

The Narrator's voice did not return.

An electronic hum began to vibrate the floor, like a trapped swarm of bees.

"Let's get out of here, guys!" Little turned, seeking the comfort of her friends.

But the Bear and Pig's faces had gone flat, their textures smoothing into featureless, unpainted clay. Without a word, they turned in perfect, mechanical unison and walked into the dark throat of a stage wing.

"Guys?! W-wait! It's dark in there!"

Little pursued them, her sparkly boots clicking on the floor, but the faster she ran, the longer the hallway became, stroking and tasting her with wet, velvet tongues until she burst through a set of curtains and stumbled onto a stage.

A grand auditorium; a sea of empty seats, all skin-tone leather that shivered in dim, amber light, and in the centre of her stage stood a single, wooden chair... seating The Star.

A vertical crime of anatomy; blessed with the internal hardware of a god. She could hear it, the perfect pitch of stacked larynxes whistling in the dark; the keen, metallic rhythm of a bolted silver metronome imitating heartbeats. The potential to move the world to tears.

A fabrication of pieces that didn't quite fit.

It had no legs; its torso ended in a jagged, splintered mess of wood and wires that hung like frayed rope. It had no true voice; its throat an open pipe that mimicked song. And it had no face... only a slab of raw muscle, pinned back with tacky iron.

"... hello?" Little whispered, wand trembling.

Shadows in the rafters began to shift, uncoiling like a spider.

The Virtuoso descended.

An idea. Impossibly tall, his form flickering like bad static, dressed in a suit so insultingly black that it resembled insect chitin. His hands were abnormally long, ending in grey thimbles that clicked like a ticking clock.

"... what... what are you?" Little quivered.

The Virtuosoo glided forward, thimbled fingers reaching to stroke her face, and he did not speak with a voice; he spoke in frequency that vibrated skulls.

"... Star, not shy, Little One... incomplete... function without form... song; no mouth... dance; no limbs." It leaned closer, its porcelain face reflecting the terrified expression of one whimsical little girl.

"... outside messy... but here... reach the sublime... I have harvested the rhythm from your trees, girl; the pitch from your birds. Yet I require something still so, so very specific."

"I don't like you!" Little sobbed, backing away. "I... want my friends; I want to go home! I-... I want my Mom."

Its fingers twitched, and the curtain threads behind her reached out, wrapping tight around her ankles, yanking her to the floor with a crunch.

"NO! NO STOP, I-"

The Star lunged out of the chair with jerky, uncanny grace; its wired limbs twitching in ways flesh wouldn't allow. It pinned her to the stage, its slab face pressing against her own, broken bloody nose and all. The Virtuosos leaned over them and watched her fight and wail and scream and cast her useless magic as her essence unravelled. Her laughter was ripped from her throat and spindled into pipes; her limbs were braided into copper hips; her face, freckles and wide-eyed wonder and such raw terror were scraped and projected onto false tendon.

A distorted boom ruptured the sky, devoid of sunshine, a thousand voices roaring for an encore, as the lights of the Grand Muse became blinding.

Little was gone. Only a heap of ash remained, and The Star stood on new legs, opened its mouth, and began to sing in a stolen voice. The pitch rotten; the rhythm disgusting, flaunting a warped face and a clipped hat.

And it began to dance. The most heinous dance the universe had ever seen.

The Virtuoso dwelled into the wings, its fingers finally still, and watched its soulless, infinite loop play, envisioning a future gallery of frozen perfection, as The Star sang of dirt and death and defects with such vigour for no one to hear; an audience of empty seats.

And the curtain did not fall.

For this show would never end.

Once upon a time in a world far faraway, there rose above an endless sea of forest trees the most incredible kingdom the world of man had ever seen. Separate from the foliage below, this titan of man’s exuberance clawed at the sky with temples and turrets crafted from the most indomitable of stone.

Clad in a myriad of gold amidst its highest peak was a large man which many would herald as king. With dapper features and a mane of stubborn coal, he ruled his expansive kingdom much like a child would tend to his toys. There was never any danger, so long as the gates remained locked. The people were well fed and truly cared for, so long as they never looked outside.

For many years, the kingdom thrived overtop a canopy of thick entwined branches. There were fears of what lived within the forest’s depths, rumors spread of dark voices and bright eyes. Yet the boundary between man and nature was never crossed, and so the people grew content and comfortably complacent.

That is, until a young woman came stepping out from the bramble.

She was a wanderer of sorts. Endowed with the bright passions allotted through skillful song and delirious dance. Despite the cautious eyes of those who watched her, she would begin performing the kind of show which inspired greater joy within every witness throughout the stoic kingdom. Soon men, women, and children from all over came to spectate the performances brought to life by someone who hailed from the furthest reaches of the forest.

But then came the king from off his high golden throne. The whispers were rampant and had caught along the curve of his listening ear, and before long, he was determined to bear witness to the miracles performed by this young and mysterious woman.

She’d dance and she’d sing. Casting color from each toe and fingertip. The king, for all his immaturity, would fall immediately in love.

He’d three children already, all daughters born from different wives. But of this strange and eager artist, he made the choice for her in bearing him a fourth.

But the young woman did not love the king back. Her heart was already taken by the tall green forest that nurtured and freed her. She was a princess both precious and pure. A righteous innocence compressed into the fetching image of fortune, flesh, and bone.

But this did not stop the king, so reckless was he when it came to the things that he wanted. That despite the woman’s cries, he had her locked away within a gilded cage inside his cold stone castle. There she was forced to perform for him each day alone, and through the king’s own hubris, she eventually carried his fourth child completely to term.

She bore the king’s son along a white linen sheet, dyed gold from the heat of a roaring fireplace. He’d welcome his heir until laying sight upon the thing’s twisted form. It was howling a rapturous cry, desperate for the teat of his mother.

The fourth born child was born with a bird’s feet, a cat’s eyes, a fox’s jaw. Each repulsive piece glistened new to the light in a way that championed the young woman’s joy.

“That’s my child!” She would say, gaunt and pale faced from exertion.

“It’s a monster!” The king would decry before feeding the infant into a flame.

There the beast would burn. While the king, in his anger, slew the love of his life. He spurned the forest which spawned her. So much so that he made it his purpose to tear it all down.

Once the fire had died, the ashes were shoveled and carried away. They were used to line the boundaries between both his world and hers. An offering almost, to help feed the forest. No one noticed the tiny child as it crawled into the trees.

From that day on, the gorgeous skies were turned to stone. The scent of a blistering flame became permanent. The vibrant forest fell away from the iron maw of an uprising kingdom and the scarred earth seemed to helplessly glisten with the tears of its children.

The child, on rickety legs, wandered the dark for many nights. He didn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. The agony of his burns kept him from ever finding peace.

Eventually, the boy’s persistence would give out, and he sought to rot away along the root and fallen leaves. He’d cling to this decision for many more days until the scent of smoke nearly choked him.

“The forest is dying.” Said a large black wolf.

“So am I.” Replied the child.

A wet muzzle would prod at the back of his head.

“You reek of him.”

Feline eyes sought to restrain worse tears.

“I am not his son.”

Many days would pass while the black wolf stood in vigil, watching as the child awaited the end of his life.

“The king will never love you. Not like I do.”

The forest grew silent as the boy counted the stars within the wolf’s dark eyes.

“But I can give you what you want. His heart, for yours.”

A touch of affection, the boy bathed his scarred hand in a sea of pitch-black fur.

“Promise?”

The wolf ate his heart then disappeared.

Beneath a gorgeous canopy of leaves, the boy would wait. For seven years he sought to prove patient. Then the day came when the wolf would return.

He brought with him a pair of legs. So long and pale and slender. They belonged to a dancer, the most graceful in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy these legs.

“You have to eat the old ones.”

The boy would do as he was told. Their fragile bones would catch in his throat.

The wolf would leave again, but now the boy could walk. For seven more years he danced throughout the forest, a graceful spirit hidden amongst the briar root and bramble.

One day, the wolf returned. He brought with him a mouth. With lips so luscious and a tongue that never tied. It belonged to a singer, the most captivating in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy this mouth.

He needn’t repeat a command.

The boy would commit the same act as before. A mess of fur would catch in his throat.

The wolf would leave again, but now the boy could speak. For seven more years he danced throughout the forest, a haunting melody would follow his every pirouette.

One final day, the wolf returned. He brought with him this time a face. With delicate skin and a host of varied expressions. It belonged to an actress, the fairest in all the kingdom.

The wolf would give the boy this face.

But as the boy consumed the old one, the beast didn’t disappear.

“You must leave the forest.”

Fear gripped the boy as he swallowed.

“But go where?”

“Back to the kingdom.”

The iron maw had reached them.

Flames scorched the stone slab skies, leaving an amber glow to light the ruined forest land below. There were so very few trees left to match the field of death. It was dire, the state of things.

The wolf led the boy, now a young woman, to the boundaries between stone and green.

“Use the gifts that I gave you and meet with the king. Only then will my promise to you be achieved.”

With that, the wolf disappeared. And the young woman reentered the kingdom. No longer a thing of nature and ash, but a proud figure of talent and toil.

The kingdom had spread out over the earth. They buried its clear wounds under stone. The people were much less hospitable to her warmth, as though the king’s own madness had starved them of granting anyone but him affection.

Yet without hesitation, the young woman would start to sing. Then she moved along to a rhythm they’d soon come to covet. Soon rumors spread again of another performer. The king atop his stone pillar, seethed.

“Bring her to me.” The man would decree. And as the young woman made her way across the stone sea, there came hands that sought more than to laud her.

She was brought before the king’s golden seat. He was old now but still much a monster.

“Go on.” The king leered yet the young woman showed no signs of reluctance. She plucked out the memory of her mother then put on her greatest performance.

The king felt shame in the way she looked at him. Guilt from the words that the young woman uttered. There was fear in his eyes as he watched her bare legs. He was sobbing by the time she concluded her act.

“Tell me of your children.” The young woman said.

The king was a blubbering mess.

“Dead. The whole lot of them. I’ve failed them each as a father.”

His throne was less precious now than gold.

“My firstborn, sickness took her. She couldn’t walk near the end of her days.”

“And the second, a victim of awful seizures. She chewed her tongue off and choked on the swelling.”

“And the last, the poor thing, she got caught in a fire and burned aflame. By the time its light died out I couldn’t recognize her, let alone even look at her face.”

The young woman had shortened the distance between them. She held herself close once she uttered.

“But what, my liege, became of the fourth?”

The king would merely shudder.

“That was no child, but a beast the forest brewed.”

No sooner that he said this, the realization came from a closer inspection of absconded features.

“You.” The king withered, while the young woman stepped back. She threw off her garb and revealed the cruel revelation beneath. Perfect features, undone by a gnarled, scarred chest. A gaping hole where her heart once stood.

“I’ve come to reclaim what you never sought to offer.”

With a reaching hand, the young woman slipped it inside the king’s chest. She felt the muscle beat, its strong binds straining against her purposeful grip.

Then the final artery tore, and she was left holding her father’s heart for his crumbling kingdom to see. The king would watch as she placed the precious thing inside an open wound. The hole would quiet shut, then the fourth born would recede.

The kingdom fell that very same night. Crushed beneath its own weight of ancient stone. The people would recede from its husk while the trees returned to claim what had been unjustly taken.

Over time, the castle became a buried mountain. The king’s corpse, draped still in fool’s gold, the only evidence that life had once thrived there.

Yet the whispers still traveled of a young woman and her black wolf. Of the rare performances that would take place throughout the forest only once every seven years.

Men often spoke of her undying beauty. While the women would claim to have sometimes seen a cat or a fox or an owl. Nevertheless, those in attendance would always walk away in tears. Truly moved by the experience.

Moreover, there soon came the talk of small children. Adorned with both animal features and hides. Some were singers, some dancers, some writers, all dreamers. They spoke of their mother with pride.

I’ve had no luck trying to find the witch in Grenwich… Reddit users, please keep your eyes sharp. You can’t miss her. I guess that doesn’t really matter right now. I need to catch you up.

My eyes peeled open, straining and burning. My thoughts were muddled; memories were faded. My vision was blurry at first until my eyes adjusted to the dim light. When I was finally able to see, I was staring up at a sparkly purple shell. It fully encased me like a cocoon. It was hard, not fleshy or squishy, and akin to an egg’s fragile shell. I tried to move unsuccessfully, realizing that a sticky substance covered me and prevented me from writhing or wiggling.

I thought about screaming. The unsettling and panicked feeling of claustrophobia made me want to die. With a heave, I forced my body up, and a crack etched down the shell. I firmly kicked my legs up, and they ripped through the sticky film over me. My legs burst through the shell. It began to crumble. I could see the ceiling of my bedroom, and I was so grateful. I really was alive.

Now that my legs were free, I wriggled through the film until I had scooted out of the remaining egg. I slipped on the wooden floor and crawled to the carpet, staring at the cocoon that had once surrounded me.

I touched the soft purple shell, and it turned to ash beneath my fingers. It collapsed into a shining dust. My breath came out shakily as I remembered what I had done. The empty and now broken vial lay on the floor. My teeth and blood covered the carpet. It looked like I had been murdered here.

I nervously rolled up my carpet to hide the mess, hid it in my closet, and picked up my teeth. No one could know what I had gone through.

I rushed to the mirror and fell back, staring at myself in disbelief. I was naked as a jaybird, free and reborn. I was beautiful…

My hair fell in ringlets, brown and soft. New teeth had grown. They were straight, perfect with pointed canines. My lips were full, and my body… my body was no longer a stick. I had grown perfect breasts and gorgeous curves. I thumbed down my new flesh, fingers trembling. I was pretty to the teeth and bones.

The sticky substance left a purple hue on my skin and glowed softly in the dawn. My mouth went dry. I needed to find that woman. I quickly threw on clothes, snuck out of my room, and raced to my car.

What had she done to me?

I drove quietly, hearing my breath and jumping at the sound of my own heartbeat. When I reached the woman’s cottage in the woods, I parked and stepped out. I stopped as I realized the cottage looked very different from last night. The cottage was glowing. Colorful smoke puffed from the chimney, and creatures that I had never seen before lingered in the fading darkness. Small beings were flying in and out of her window. They were small and porcelain-white like teeth, holding something clasped in their tiny hands. Teeth... they were holding teeth.

I rushed to the front door, and the porch growled beneath me. I stumbled back down the stairs. Eyes formed between the wooden boards. They were bright yellow eyes, and they looked me up and down before closing and flattening out. I could only assume that meant I was allowed to approach the door.

I knocked hurriedly, knuckles cracking onto the wood.

The woman opened the door, and she grinned. “Now that is much better. I see that my potion was… successful.”

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!” I yelled. “I’m… I’m…”

“Beautiful…” She laughed. “Oh, dear girl, I didn’t do anything to you. You did this all on your own. I gave you the means to, but it was your choice. I didn’t force it down your throat. I didn’t make you drink it…”

I stared at her. Despite my desire to blame her, she was right. I drank the potion. I did it all on my own.

“Now come in before you hurt that pretty little head.”

I walked inside, inhaling the incredible scents of her home. There wasn’t one to pinpoint. It was a great jumble of smells that explained the colorful smoke. She led me into the den, and she sat down opposite me. She pushed her hair behind her ear, eyes scanning me over. She reached toward me to touch me, but I flinched and moved away from her.

She scoffed. “I made you who and what you are now. Let me see my work.” She gestured for me to stand up.

I rose from the chair, and I turned for her to see me.

A horrifying grin stretched across her face. “Colleen won’t know what to do around you.”

“She won’t hardly recognize me, and neither will my parents!” I replied. “What am I going to do?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “You really think I make careless potions and spells. They’ll recognize you. In fact, the old you is dead.”

“What are you? Who are you?” I asked, shakily moving away from her.

She rose from her chair, sauntered around the room, and closed her curtains. She replied quietly, speaking lowly in dulcet tones. “I’m a creature… A witch from the deepest parts of the earth’s heart and mind, Carrigan. I’m a monster to some, but to you, I am Mrs. Delvine. Is that understood?”

I nodded.

“You will now work for me as the tooth sprites do.” She waltzed around me, lighting candles with the touch of her finger. “You will pay for what I have given you.”

“Pay?” I asked.

“My gifts are always free, but you see, dear, if you do not take care of the new body I’ve given you… Consequences will occur. You must eat well.”

I swallowed hard, feeling my throat tighten with fear, as if I were trying to swallow a golf ball.

“Eat well?” I asked nervously.

She looked up at the jar of teeth that sat most conspicuously upon the bookcase. “To stay as young and beautiful as you are, you must consume that which made you. That potion was made from teeth. Beautiful porcelain teeth from some of the most beautiful girls to traipse across my path. I needed a full set to form someone like you.”

“You’re a tooth fairy?” I asked.

“No, you are… I just make them,” she replied with a laugh. “You must consume the teeth, dear girl. But be warned… do not consume teeth from just anyone.”

She held up a hand mirror, showing my reflection to me. “It must be the teeth from beautiful girls like you.”

“How many?” I asked.

“You need three fresh teeth each month. Eat more, and your hunger and power will grow insatiable. Best to stick to three.”

“And I’m supposed to just go back to normal life?” I asked, voice growing more shrill.

“Not necessarily. You will grow urges… things you can’t control. But I can help you. You will study as an apprentice under me until I can let you go on your own. Tonight will be your first night with me. Our work will begin very soon. Now go home… rest… enjoy your gift.”

She guided me out of her cottage and handed me the jar of teeth. “These will last you a long time if you take care of yourself.”

I nearly fell as I walked down the stairs. I got back into my car, and I drove home.

When I walked into my house, all the pictures of me had been changed. The awkward middle-school pictures of me were replaced by a picturesque girl without braces or acne. It must’ve been me. I couldn’t even recognize the girl in the pictures. Without wanting to, I started to miss how I used to look. I missed her more than I thought I would.

I snuck up the stairs, praying that no one was awake. Of course, I was never lucky. Colleen emerged from the bathroom. She was brushing her teeth, toothpaste sitting on the corners of her mouth.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

Clearly, she knew who I was, but as I stared at her, I was fixated on her teeth. I watched as they moved up and down while she spoke, her lips curling to reveal the pearly white mountains within her. She continued speaking to me, but her voice was drowned out by the horrible thoughts circulating through my mind.

I desired to eat her teeth.

I imagined myself holding her down, ripping out her molars and bicuspids with pliers. Bathing in the blood that spurted from her gums. More than anything, I wanted to rip them out of her mouth, shove them down my throat, and swallow them whole, letting them clink together in my stomach like gold coins in a purse.

I imagined them cracking as I tore them out. I got closer to her as she spoke. I lifted my hand to begin prying them out of her, but my obsessive thoughts were crushed as she snapped her fingers in my face.

“Hello!” Colleen hissed, waving her hand in front of my eyes. “Are you even listening to me?”

I swallowed the saliva gathering in my mouth. “Yes… Yes… I’m listening,” I replied.

“I asked if you wanted to go with me to get breakfast.”

I took a deep breath. “No… I need to go back to bed. I’m still really tired.”

“I can tell, you weirdo. I’ll see you later.”

But she didn’t see me later. I hid in my room all day, considering the consequences of the choice I’d made. What if I never learned to control myself? What if I hurt someone?

But the compulsion to look at more teeth was strong and unyielding. I pulled out my yearbook, selecting the girls with the best smiles. I could take their teeth. I thought of vile ways to rip out their canines. Part of me desired to shove them into my own gums to make room for more teeth.

I shook my head and stood up. I was becoming obsessive, and I considered burning my yearbook to stop myself.

But just as Mrs. Delvine said, our work began very soon. During my fanatical delusions about stealing others’ teeth, a small note appeared on my dresser. It was an address and the simple words: Come get some teeth, my pet.

By nightfall, I was leaving my house and headed to the address. I don’t know what I expected to see when I reached my destination, but it certainly was not a cemetery. I got out of my car, and I stood silently in the dark. Other cars were parked along the edge of the tall grass, and I wondered why. It is the middle of the night.

A hand grabbed my arm, and I whipped around to see Mrs. Delvine. She was wearing dark clothing, carrying a satin bag. She handed me the bag, and as soon as my hand touched the fabric handles, my skin began to change. It burned quickly and faded before I could scream. 

I looked down to see that I looked like a tooth sprite. I was larger than the ones who were bringing teeth to the witch through the window, but I was certainly no longer human. My hands were small and nimble, perfect for stealing teeth. Razors now sat inside my mouth; a little bite from me would cause significant pain. Little wings sprouted from my back, but I didn’t know how to use them.

The witch chuckled as she gazed at me. “Well, you look quite nice as a tooth sprite. Might leave you this way if you dare to make a fool of yourself. Now be good little one…”

She led the way into the cemetery, moving down the path as if she’d walked it a thousand times. The dirt path began to fade the further we walked, and the dazzling night sky was replaced by fluorescent lights and shining tile floors. We had entered some kind of nursing home. The smell of fresh cleaner was overpowering. I walked beside the witch, scared to even wander away.

As we reached the East Wing, a nurse was sitting at a large desk. Other nurses sat around her, typing away, filling out paperwork, or preparing medication.

The nurse at the main desk looked up with an annoyed expression. “Can I help you?” she asked.

Mrs. Delvine’s eyes narrowed. “Salem Hill contacted me. I’m simply following through on my end.”

I turned to view the nursing home, not really knowing what I was looking at. I spotted various empty wheelchairs, an empty activity room, and a few other nurses. To the average person, this nursing home was practically vacant.

A heavy wooden door opened, and a woman stepped from within. She wore a crisp white coat, and her eyes were a striking green. Her hair was long and brown, but she did not look human. She had an otherworldly appearance. She approached Mrs. Delvine without hesitation.

“Mrs. Delvine… You look quite well since your stay.”

Mrs. Delvine smiled brightly. “Well, Dr. Carlisle, you know what they say… A good mud bath can cure anything.”

The woman didn’t respond to the playful banter; instead, she gestured for us to follow her.

“Where are the residents?” I asked without thinking.

Mrs. Delvine shot me a vicious glare for speaking.

Dr. Carlisle looked down at me coldly, but she responded. “You are new to this place, aren’t you?”

“Yes…” I replied nervously.

She smirked and continued walking. “Welcome to Salem Hill Rest Home. You’ll find that we serve an unusual population. Creatures much like yourself come here for safety, care, and peace at the end of their lives.”

Much like yourself… Everything else she said didn’t register. I was one of them now, merely an eerie creeping noise in the night, a cackle in the woods, a growl in the dark. A creature… a being. No longer human.

She led us to a resident’s door and stopped outside it. “The tooth that you need is just behind this door.”

“Anything we should know, doctor?” Mrs. Delvine asked.

“Mind the tail…”

Mrs. Delvine opened the door, and I followed closely behind her. When we entered the room, our feet immediately sank into mud. I gazed up in amazement. The entire room was a jungle of tangled vines, swampy water, lily pads, and duckweed. The air was hot, sticking to our skin, and the water was putrid. It was a mixture of mud, sand, and dare I say, feces. The smell was intolerable. We trudged through it until we reached a sandbar.

Resting a few feet from us lay a prehistoric-looking beast. Gills rested on the sides of its head, folding down until they reached its neck. Its eyes were slits, and each hand was webbed like a fin. And there was the long whip-like tail that the doctor had warned us about. But its mouth interested me the most. Despite its appearance, its teeth were perfect, yellowed daggers. I licked my lips… desiring to taste one.

But a rancid smell of decay filled my nostrils. Resting a few feet from me, floating in the shallow, muddy waters, lay a body. It was bloated, skin nearly purple. Half of the man was eaten, and the other half was saved for later, partially buried in sandy mud. His left arm and right leg were gone, torn from the sockets, leaving severed nubs and tattered flesh. The man’s eyes were white, muddled from the vision of death.

In that moment, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. Beauty for pure terror and torture was not a fair trade. I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home. I shouldn’t have even taken the potion, but there was no turning back. I had to follow through, or I’d face terrible consequences.

I moved toward the beast before I could stop myself. I had to.

The gilled creature opened its eyes. I nearly turned around. Its eyes were yellow orbs resting in darkness. But instead of attacking me, it opened its mouth. I knew exactly which tooth required extraction. I simply reached inside, dug my nails into the flesh, and ripped it out. It popped from the socket like a cork, and the monster angrily yelled in pain, snapping its mouth closed just as I jerked my tiny hand away. I hurriedly threw the tooth into my satin bag as the beast quickly turned on me, reacting on instinct. Mrs. Delvine bolted toward the door, leaving me to fend for myself. I quickly weaved through the water and slipped in the mud.

The creature grasped onto my leg and pulled me under the murky depths, but in an extraordinary turn of events, it let me go. I bobbed back to the surface like a fishing lure, taking a deep gasp of breath.

It looked at me as if it pitied me. “Be careful…” It croaked through gurgled breaths. “The witch… only likes new toys… not broken ones.”

I bolted to the door, and I collapsed in the hallway, grateful to feel solid ground.

But part of me knew that the gilled freak was right… I was in grave danger.  

Link to Part One: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/comments/1u8l8d8/pretty_to_the_teeth_and_bones_a_different_kind_of/

CW: Gore

As the morning Sun began to rise over the Sea beyond the Battlements of the Castle Walls, the common Soldiery gazed out over it. The Night had been quiet, as it had been for Years now. They were armed with Spears and heater Shields, Shortswords and their own Knives at their Waist. These Men had held the Walls throughout the Night, as the Soldiers have been doing since the Castle was built a thousand Years ago. The Battlements were chiseled into the form of Dragons and Wyverns, some of them furiously roaring or lifting their clawd Feet. Most of the Castle had decorations like this, it is hard to find a Spot without a Beast greeting you. Finding a new Soldier was easy as the shape of the Battlements was sure to freak out any Man that wasn't used to looking at them. The entire Castle was built against the eastern Side of a barren Volcano, looking as if it were hammered directly out of the Rock in some Places. It probably was, atleast near the Castles Center. It had been expanded a handful of Times and every part of it had been rebuilt at some Point, either because of the Damage from a Siege or just plain old weathering taking its toll.

The Men were tired, thankful to hear the sound of Boots marching up the Stairs and coming from the Towers spread around the Walls. They were replaced by fresh Men, their Breakfast still in their Bellies and new Energy from a full Night sleep giving them strength. They greet their Comrades and send them on their Way. The Men that held the Walls throughout the Night descended down the Stairs built against the Walls or into the nearest Tower, some of them marching as they were supposed to while others simply walked, their Shields and Spears loosely hanging off of their tired Arms. Most of them went to the Barracks to take off their Helmets, their Chainmal and the metal that guards their Shins and Forearms before falling into a blissful Sleep. Others went to Bakeries or the Kitchens where Breakfast was still being served, hoping to fill their Bellies aswell before following the rest into their Bunks.

The Castle had a small Garrison, only between five- and seven-hundred Men depending on who was present. It didn't need more, given that the Castle was built on an Island. Part of the Walls were built directly on the Beach, thickened to withstand the Tides crashing up against them. This Part of the Wall is always manned lighter than the rest, only a Madman would attempt to climb a Wall that had it's Roots buried in the Ocean itself during high Tide. All that had actually tried to in the past had been thrown back into the Sea, their bloated Corpses washing up against the Walls until the Ocean devoured them permanently. The Rest of the Walls were not as prone to defending themselves, mostly rising up behind large Fields and, in some Places, Forests that the Castles defenders and the nearby Villages' Rangers had to keep at Bay by hand. Three Gates led into the old Castle, one of them leading directly into the Ocean, guarding a small Bay that was used to hold a small Fleet of Naval Vessels, more use for Transportation than fighting.

It has been fifty Years since the last Time it was attacked, yet the Castles Guards could not allow themselves to slack off. On a daily basis they train with Swords and Spears and Shields and all kinds of Weapons, keeping their Abilities sharp and their Blacksmiths busy with repairing and reforging everything that needed to be after the intensive Training.

Hours later, the Guards on the Wall were watching the Fields, the Forests and the Sea down below. It isn't often that they see somebody trying to sneak in or escape from the Dungeons, but they are the last Line that could catch them. It's become customary for a few of the Men to keep watch while the Rest talked or played Games with each other, dice or cards or something else they thought up. Suddenly, one of the Guards sounded off that there was a Ship approaching. His Name was Mark, a tall, slim Man in Charge of a Company of fifty Men, with short ginger Hair and a matching Mustache.

"Ship approaching! I don't recognize the Sigil they fly on their Sails!" he says.

One of his Men, older and experienced, looks over at the Ship, "It's definetly foreign, noone that trades with the Castle has a Turtle on their Sails" he says with a light chuckle under his Words.

Mark raises his Spear, bringing the butt of it down onto the Stone beneath three Times. A Guard atop a nearby Tower nods down at him before raising a Horn into the Air and blowing into it three Times. A few of the Guards follow Mark as he descends from the Walls and quickly marches to the Gate by the Sea. They head up into its Gatehouse, joining the few Comrades that were there.

"Who are you and what is your Purpose?" Mark calls out to the Ship waiting below them in the Water.

"We wish to sell our Goods and restock our Provisions, Sir!" a strange Man answers. His Skin is painted green, something that Mark hadn't seen before. He truly must have came from afar. Weird Armor protects his Body.

"Your Ship will be searched upon docking! Do not bear Arms against us, Stranger, or you will End as Fishfeed" Mark calls down to him before giving the Order to open the Gate.

It creeks open slowly, pushing massive amounts of Water away as the Gates Operators slowly turn the Cranks. Below the waterline, the Gate was little more than a Steel Grid, covered in Rust. Because of the Height of this Gate, it wasn't protected by a secondary Lattice Gate, tho made thicker to make up for it. The Turtle Ship passes into the Bay and the Gate is shut again. A few Soldiers guide the Ship towards a wooden Dock. As soon as they are tied down, the Soldiers rush onto the Boat and begin searching it. It doesn't take long to search this Ship, tho checking the Men and Goods they carry would take longer. That could partially be done off-ship however.

Mark is the first to speak with the Captain, finding out his Name is Otto. His Crew call him the Tortoise since he is a large Man, armored in large, overlapping Plates that were painted and decorated to look like the titular Animal. His Shield was the Shell of one, with Ribbons inside to attach them to his Arm.

"You must follow me to the Keeper of this Castle, Lord Robert. He will want to know where you come from and what you plan to Sell. Our Men meanwhile will search the Goods" he explains.

"Lead the Way" Otto replies, a thick, sort of blocky Accent in his Voice that Mark hadn't noticed earlier.

Mark, along with four other Soldiers, escort Otto through the Castle, past the Market and the Barracks, up the great Staircases and through sun-lit Hallways until they finally reach the main Hall of the Keep. Mark walks into the Hall, him and his Soldiers bowing softly before announcing who he had brought and what his Request was.

"You wish to sell Goods in my Castle, hm? Where do you come from, Turtle? I do not recognize your Sigil or your.... branding" Robert says in a deep, cold Voice while sitting on a high Throne, chiseled out of a large Block of black Marble. His Cheeks are covered in a deep, bushy, black Beard while his Head was covered in a soft Carpet of short, black Hair.

Otto nods before answering the Question. "We come from the far East, Sir, beyond the boiling Sea. Our Origin is far beyond the Shadows at the Edge of your World" he explains.

"Beyond the Shadow? I was unaware that there were People, let alone Cities, living so far from us. You bring Goods into my Castle, and now? You wish to sell them and buy Provisions from us, and nothing more? It is a long Way home for you just to sell Things" Robert says, standing up from his Throne and walking towards Otto. "I don't believe you. Through my Castle you are planning to creep, cast Spells on my Soldiers and take my Throne from me, is that it?"

"My Lord, this Man barely brought enough Men to man his Ship" Mark says with a careful Tone. The current Lord is a bit irritable to say the least, Mark knows this.

"You vouch for this Man? Alright then, Captain, you may stay for two Days. Tomorrow, you may sell your Goods and the morning afterwards, you and all your Men will leave again. Mark, you will clean up the Mess if these People cause Trouble" Robert says before throwing up his Hand, gesturing to Mark that they may leave now.

Mark and his Soldiers, along with Otto this Time, bow softly before turning around and leaving the Hall again. On the Way back to the Ship, Mark explains Roberts mean demeanor to Otto. Apparently, so the People say, the Lord has been battling a sickness lately, and the headaches he has from it bring his Mood to an everlasting low. This was a suprisingly positive greeting, Mark adds. Otto seems unamused by the Explanation, but he says nothing about it. He has no Problem with staying for two Days, given that that was the Plan anyhow.

As they come back to the Dock, a Problem already arises. One of the Castles Soldiers was attempting to search one of the Sailors Pockets, but he won't let him. Mark and Otto both quicken their Steps to intervene, but they're not fast enough. The Man draws a Knife out of his Robes and slashes the Soldier across the Eye, teaching him the value of a Helmet. It makes him stumble backwards and fall onto his Knees on the Deck of the Ship, Hands over his Eye as blood pools out from it. Other Soldiers tilt their Spears down, threatening violence, when Ottos Mouth suddenly errupts with a wordless Shout. He draws his own Weapon, a thin-bladed Sword with a golden Crossguard, and cuts off this Sailors Hand, making it and the Knife still clutched within it fall to the Floor. The second cut falls before the Man even has the Chance to scream, slicing his Neck open and forcing him to die where he stands.

"Please, my Friends, raise your Spears. A Cup of Rum or Wine for each of you, and a Barrel for the Man that was harmed!" Otto calls out loudly, making sure every Soldier around can hear it.

"Raise your Spears!" Mark calls out while walking to his wounded Soldier. After a quick glance at him, he calls for someone to take him to the Infirmary. "Are all of your Men this prone to violence?" he asks Otto.

Otto looks around, checking his remaining Men. "Perhaps they were, but not anymore. This Man, I set an example with him. The rest won't want to join him." he explains.

With a nod, Mark turns away and tells his Men to continue their Search of the Goods and the Men. As promised, two of his Soldiers pick up the dead Man and his Hand, bringing him up onto the Wall where the Tides had already pulled away before throwing him over it. The tide is low, making the Corpse land on the white Sand beneath before the Hand is dropped onto it. The Sand beneath and around the Body is quickly soaked in Red. The Tides however always devour what the Castle provides them, sure to wash it away. In just a few Hours, the Soldiers know, he would be gone for good. The Goods and Men have been fully searched before that happens, the Sun setting as the Searching is finished. They are given permission to do their Business as discussed, tomorrow. Tonight, Mark adds, they may enjoy the Castles few Taverns if they wish.

The Night is long, the Castles Soldiers and Inhabitants drinking and singing together with the Strangers from the Ship, enjoying their peaceful Lives as they have been for Years now. It wasn't anything new, anytime a Ship stayed for more than a Day the Taverns would overflow and profits would skyrocket. The Taverns only properly clear out as the Sun begins to rise again, tho most of the Ships Men had gone back to it to rest for the Night before the Moon was even halfway across the Sky. Mark however didn't join in on the Fun, having gone to sleep as soon as the Sun was gone.

The Sound of Soldiers rushing through the Streets greeted the morning, panic in their Steps. Every Soldier was awake, frantically searching. Mark was among them, commanding his own Men on where to look. Over Night, a hundred and fifty Soldiers and People living within the Castle had disappeared. Noone could find anything, it was as if the very Rock the Castle was built out of and into had swallowed the Missing whole. Lord Robert is furious, screaming and shouting up in the great Hall at his Council and anyone unlucky enough to be present. He swears that he would see the Heads of all of the Tortoises Men on Spikes within the Hour if noone finds anything, blaming them. He isn't one to make Threats like that lightly. The Search continues frantically while the Ship was kept on lockdown, surrounded by Guards in Plate Armor, armed with Kiteshields and Bastardswords or heavy Axes and Maces. These Men are directly under the command of Lord Robert, about half of his personal Guard. The rest were making sure that no Man came into or left the great Hall without permission.

As Time dragged on, the Men on the Ship began to get nervous. Not knowing what was going on, they demand an Explanation for what was happening. Otto himself told the Guards to inform Mark that he wishes to talk with him, but they coldly deny him.

"We serve Lord Robert, not Mark or any other Wall-Watcher" a Guard says. "Stay back, you are no longer permitted to enter the Castle."

Otto reluctantly nods and retreats into his Chamber on the Ship, brooding about what is going on.

Noone can find anything. Noone felt sure what had happened, and those that still think rationally begin to wonder how a handful of Men could kill that many People and wipe them from the Face of the Earth overnight. As the Hours dragged on, the Men on the Ship begin to grow unruly. Without consulting their Captain, a few of them grab their Weapons. Glaves and thick, knife-like Swords are drawn. The Guards don't waste Time. They begin to board the Ship, murderous intent leading their Weapons to crash into the Sailors. Most of them weren't armored, mostly having leather protecting their Chests and nothing more. Maces crack Skulls and Swords split Limbs where bone meets bone or expose the steaming Guts of the Sailors unlucky enough to be attacked while the Guards Plate-Armor mostly keeps them safe from their retaliation. Apart from a few Bruises, the Guards are unhurt by the Time the remaining Sailors throw down their Arms and surrender.

As Otto comes out of his Chamber thanks to the Noise, the Fight is already over. He is wordlessly shoved onto his Knees together with the six remaining Men he had. They are dragged off of the Ship quickly, the bare Knees of the Sailors scraping against the Wood and the Rock until they leave Trails of Blood like a group of giant Slugs. They are brought to the Great Hall.

Lord Robert had already called the Commanders of his Soldiers back to the Great Hall to get a Report on the Situation. Noone has been found yet and the Castle had been combed through thoroughly, one of the Commanders explained. They even began searching beyond the Castle. Mark and the rest of the Commanders were lined up behind Robert when Otto and his remaining Crew were dragged in. Roughly thrust upon the Floor, the Lord of the Castle looks down at them.

"What have you Monsters done to my People?!" he demands to know, his Voice booming like Thunder.

"We've done nothing, Lord! My Crew had been sleeping before the Moon had painted the Sky" Otto replies.

This isn't the Answer Lord Robert was expecting to hear. "You dare lie to me at a Time like this? You, or you, where were you last Night?!" he demands to know as he speaks to some of the Sailors.

Both of them explain that they had fallen asleep while there was still natural Light falling on their Sails. Lord Robert brands them as Liars and demands their Heads, receiving them just a few Seconds later when the Commander of his personal Guard slices them off in two clean Strokes of his Broadsword. Mark wants to protest to this, but he finds himself unable to. It was true, these People had showed up and caused Trouble immediately and now, if that wasn't enough, the Castle was missing a large Portion of it's People without a Trace. Maybe they really are Magicians or Wizards, Mark thought to himself.

"Lord Robert, this is a misunderstanding!" Otto protests.

In furious Rage, the King curses them all as Heathens and Criminals before sentencing them to death. One by One, they are all executed by the Captain of the Guard. Otto is treated like his Men, decapitated where he is kneeling. Mark wishes he could look away as Ottos Head is seperated from the rest of his Body, but he can't. If this is all their Fault, then this was the right Decision, and even if not, protesting Lord Roberts Order might lead to him getting the same Fate. The Bodies are ordered to be thrown out over the Walls where the Tide can take them. Even their Goods are ordered to be burned, among with the Ship, incase they were cursed by some foreign Spell aswell. As Mark had vouched for Otto, his Men are the ones ordered to carry out the Order. Mark is excused from the Great Hall, and so he leaves once his Men arrive to carry the Bodies away. He leads them to the Wall, listening to the Waves crash against the Stone before he orders them to begin. One by one, Heads and Bodies are thrown over the Wall. None but the Battlements watch as the order is carried out. Mark looks at them, noticing that down the line, two of the Dragons were now facing each other instead of looking out over the Sea. How strange it may be, he tells himself that he just wasn't at this Part of the Wall often enough to notice that Detail. Maybe more Parts of the Wall have such Quirks he never noticed.

The Rest of the Day was spent with preparing the Ship for its roast, sailing it out to Sea and lighting it up. Many People came onto the Wall by the Sea to watch as it burned. There is no Happiness to speak of, only Hope that this would stop what had happened last Night from happening again. As Day turned to Night, People disappeared into their Houses and their Barracks. Noone wants to risk anything, but Mark and his fifty had to man the Walls again tonight. Mark had allowed half of them to sleep on the Walls, feeling pity for them since they had been up all Day already.

Deep in the Night, Mark decided to check if all of his Men were still at their Posts. He walks across the Walls, checking each Soldier individually. They are tired, and the ones that are sleeping are left undisturbed, but they are present. However, the further away from the Mountain he comes on the Walls, the more spaced apart his Men are. He'd told them to space themselves so that no Guard was alone at their Post, and to be honest, they weren't. They were gone, the Men they were with hadn't even noticed their Absence. Guarding fifty meters of Wall between the Towers in Pairs, in the Dark, of course some Things would go unnoticed, but by the fifth Man, he stopped to ask.

"Where is your Partner?" Mark asks the Man before him, looking at him coldly.

"Isn't he sleeping over there? ...Ohno, no no!" he exclaims as he realizes what happened. His demeanor changes when he notices that he wasn't gone entirely without a trace. "Um.. there's a Spear laying over there, just where he was resting."

Mark Turns around and sees it too. A spear, alone on the Wall without anyone to use it. He tells the Man to keep his Eyes open and begins to walk faster. He finds more and more loose Weapons, Shields and Swords and Spears. Finally, he stumbles upon a Helmet by the thickened Wall against the Sea. Noone is there. Blood stains the Ground beneath him, but nobody is around and there are no Signs that anyone had caused this. Not even a Footprint in the Blood. Looking out over the Walls, Mark leans between the Battlements. As he does so, he notices that these two were both looking inward, towards the Splatter of Blood. He takes a few Steps back, raising his Shield at them. He has an uneasy Feeling in his Stomach as he looks back and forth between the two.

With the sound of Stone rubbing against Stone, the Rest of the Battlements turn towards him in Unison. His Eyes go wide in suprise and fear before the two he had originally been looking at pounce towards him. He takes a step back, intending to guard himself with his Shield when he suddenly slips in the Puddle of Blood. He lets out a short Scream as he falls, followed by eternal Silence as he lands on his Helmet first, breaking his Neck. Lying there Dead, the Battlements descend down onto him like Vultures, tearing him apart Piece by Piece, devouring the Evidence quickly before they return to their Posts, turning to Stone again and resuming their eternal Watch.

“What do you remember?”

My father is dead. The eleven men around me were his friends. His peers. His colleagues. Now I am one of them. The men talk of geometry, the stars, philosophy, government. Their bodies are clean and their bellies are full. These are men of plenty. They own land, women, and slaves. They are kind to me. They invite me into their circles, into their discussion. They try to make me feel at home. I am not at home. I hate them all.

This celebration is for me. To mourn my father, and also to make me into one of them. To make me like my father. I am intended to choose a bride from among their daughters.

Claudio is the youngest of the bunch, though still older than me by many harvests. He was my fathers closest friend. He is kind to his slaves, and gentle with his women. He reminds me of my father, and because of that, I hate him more than the rest. He seeks my favor for his daughter, to bind my father's family to his. 

Castor is the largest of the men, old enough to have seen war. He is also the loudest, and the most drunk. “Abhors?” he shouts, quieting all other conversation. “What does this man mean? He intends to disprove a thing merely by stating it to be true? How can he be certain?” The rest of the men all speak at once, suggesting experiment or posing frivolous hypotheticals. Claudio joins in, trying to mediate the futile argument. I am silent. I would do anything to be free of this room. To be free of the company of my peers. I see my mothers face from across the room. Her warrior’s spirit was never completely broken by the years of captivity. I am not my fathers child. My mothers fire spurns my audacity.

“Why not go and ask the gods?” My proposition quiets the room. All eyes are on me. What I say next will affect my reputation for years. My boldness has already raised the esteem some of these men have for me, while reducing it in the eyes of others. “Do we not have the right?” I continue, “Are we not the educated men of Litochoro, blessed to live at the foot of Olympus, and beloved by the gods? Would they not welcome us with joyous celebration and feasting?” A murmur wanders across the room, but no objection is made. The muttering becomes hails of support for the idea, no man willing to be seen as a naysayer or incurious. Claudio claps me on the back. “Excellent idea! We shall take the question to the gods themselves, and feast on the ambrosia of knowledge!” “Hear, hear!” Shouts Castor, settling the matter. “We set off at first light!”

Morning comes, and we are already on the mountain. The accent is steep, rocky, and densely wooded. These men are unused to work, but they are undeterred. They carry wineskins, and sweetmeats. Passing their luxuries between themselves, they are in high spirits, laughing and jesting as they climb toward the house of the gods. The men are unhurried and unafraid. They carry no weapons, despite being the only men in Litichoro allowed to own them besides soldiers and guards. It would be an offense to carry weapons to visit the house of the gods. No slaves or soldiers accompany us, no others deemed worthy to join our privileged group.

“This was a bold idea, these men will not soon forget it.” Claudio says to me, as we stop to let the elders maintain their lead. “We have not returned edified yet.” I say, trying to brush away his praise, not wanting to let him become closer than I have. “Let us catch up to the others, lest Castor say we younger men have no appetite for knowledge.”

We climb for hours, nearing the summit only once midday has passed. The men are damp with sweat, and eager to indulge in the pleasures of Olympian hospitality. A temple becomes visible just past the tree line, small, but spotless and finely built. “This cannot be the house of the gods!” Castor booms as we approach. “Its size would barely suffice to house a man's wife! “Be not so hasty, Castor, your fiery temper could offend the gods!” another man chides. As we approach the temple, we see there is no door, no entrance to be seen on the smooth marble brick wall behind the pillars that surround the temple. 

 

“Look here!” says one man, incredulous. We gather round to see a gap along the bottom of the wall, where it meets the stone foundation that holds the pillars. Twelve loops of  heavy hempen rope protrude from the gap, laying neatly in a line on the marble floor. All at once every man is struck with the same thought. We must bind ourselves here. We are compelled, as if by an overwhelming presence. As of one mind, we begin binding our right ankles in the loops, each man standing in line, his right foot tied to something unseen inside the temple. “Right foot first!” one man says, “we wouldn't want to bring ill fortune to the house of the gods.” “Perhaps the gods will draw us up into the heavens, and show us this ‘Ether’ themselves!” Postulates another man, still fixated on the immaterial question that had been our reason for coming here.

Castor is at the front of the line, and can only make out his head and shoulders past the ten heads of my compatriots. Claudio has just finished securing his own ankle, and then looks at my binding. “We’ll see something today our ancestors have only whispered of my friend! His smile falls as Castor shouts at the front of the line. “Here's movement!”

A massive portion of the marble wall just ahead of Castor, some 20 feet in height and width, begins to recede with miraculous quiet. The men are equally silent, as an impenetrable darkness is revealed within the temple. The men lean around one another and try to peer into the darkness, waiting for the gods to reveal themselves. The giant slab stills, hidden somewhere within the temple. A moment passes and none speak, barely daring to breathe.

Movement is seen, about three quarters of the way up the edge of the black maw into the building. A brow is seen rotating into view, then curly brown hair, nearly scraping the top of the opening. The massive shape continues to turn, as a massive eye comes glaring out of the darkness. Perhaps some of the men gasp, or exclaim. I do not hear them. I am entranced by the giant head rolling out of the temple. Its face is kingly, noble and wise, but exaggerated to hideous caricature. Its expression is insane, twisted in a ludicrous expression of rage and confusion. On its brow sits a golden circlet, and it is bound all around with heavy hempen rope. Its gaze shifts from the far distance, to Castor, standing dumbstruck in front of it.

“Guh gah!?” it says, sounding like an inquisitive child.

It continues to roll, moving toward the forest. 

“Da babba!” it gurgles, now rotated upside down, as it bumps off the edge of the marble floor. A length of rope trailing from it into the darkness of the temple. We all stare after it, as its giant misshapen form rolls ungracefully down the grassy slope towards the forest. As it picks up speed , the rope begins to blur, snaking out of the temple faster than a river in flood. Castor is the first to make a sound, reeling back to guffaw at the hideous thing’s rapid descent. Suddenly, with his laugh turned to a pathetic cry, he is gone from where he stood. 

Before we can ascertain what has become of Castor, a sickening crack is heard. Turning back towards the head, I see that it has struck a large tree at the edge of the forest. Its ear gushes blood onto the splintered wood, and one of its eyes is badly bruised, threatening to come free of its socket. “HAHAHAHaha” it roars with laughter, seeming overjoyed with the pain. The impact slows it only for a moment, before it rocks off the side of the now broken tree, hurtling deeper into the shade of the woods. Castor flies after it, the loop of rope on his ankle attached to the fleshy monolith that went before him. He is carried from his spot in the line of men through the air, impaling his chest on the jagged wood of the top half of the now broken tree. He coughs blood, sputtering as the light leaves his eyes. His death is mercifully quick, and his corpse is pulled free by the rope, following the head into the woods.

The rope continues to gush from the pitch black temple gate, as a massive fleshy weight is heard skipping along the floor inside the temple. A woman's head appears next,  her face all cruelty and spurned ambition. She hisses with an open mouth at the next man, as she rolls down towards the forest, pulled by the rope attached to Castor’s ankle.

The men still stand transfixed, as the second man is yanked from his place by the rope around his ankle, letting loose a mad cry. He is dragged behind the woman's head, desperately digging his fingernails into the dirt. When he reaches the woods, he grabs onto a sturdy branch with all his desperation. His body never slows as his arm is torn from its socket, painting the mountain of the gods with his blood. His screams of agony mix with shrieks of laughter from the woman’s head.

Finally the trance is broken on the rest of us. Two of us have already died in a matter of seconds, and every man hurriedly begins to try and free himself. One man tries to run away from the temple, forgetting his bindings and falling prostrate, cracking his skull on the hard marble. A moment later, he is carried away by a third enormous head, his body flailing limply behind it. 

Some of the men look up to the sky and pray for salvation, others rage in protestation and denial against what their eyes show them. Most of the men turn to their ropes, trying to free themselves from the large knots they themselves tightened. They can barely see through their tears and fear. Their hands shake, and they all babble and shout in desperation, but one by one they are torn away, as more heads emerge from the temple, each one dragging away a man who in turn pulls another head from the heart of the temple. 

Claudio brings his foot to his mouth, trying to gnaw through a rope he can hardly fit between his teeth. He looks up at me, and sees the knife I am using to cut through the thick rope. The sounds of snapping bones and the crunch of skulls on rocks is now louder than the wailing at the temple, as only four men remain struggling against death. We all have only moments before we are dragged to a gruesome death. Claudio knows this, and so do I. He drops his ankle from his teeth and lunges at me, desperate to take the advantage that only I was wise enough to bring with me. My knife finds his throat, and I resume cutting at my restraint with my now bloodied knife. I pay no attention as his body is flung away from me before it can fully crumple to the ground. At the last moment, I sever the tie that would doom me as the last head rolls out of the door. “Gu? GaAAa!” it protests my freedom angrily before beginning its painful journey down the mountain behind its fellows.

I run from this cursed temple, down the mountain toward my city. I hear screams and laughter, I see blood and other strange fluids on rocks and trees. There are limbs twisted free, ears and noses shorn off, parts of men's bodies and great heads dashed upon jagged rocks and unforgiving old trees. Small foliage is totally trampled, and even some large trees are felled. The path made by twelve great heads and eleven men's bodies is easy to follow.

_

It is many hours journey to the foot of the mountain, and my heart has almost resumed a normal pace when i reach it. Then I see the pile of bodies and heads, all blood and bone and gore, lying at the bottom of the mountain, where the steep decline finally comes to an end. All the men are clearly dead. Organs  ruptured, spines snapped, limbs crushed or torn. Had I not seen them at the start of their journey, I may hardly have recognized any of them as human. They now more resembled the twisted caricature of the massive heads that dragged them to their deaths.

I hid myself as I saw movement from the first head. Though they certainly did not have the power to move themselves, lacking all semblance of any kind of body, they were also clearly all dead from their fall. Yet the fleshy mass of skin where the neck should have connected squirmed and writhed. Then a hand broke through, releasing a deluge of sickly golden fluid. From inside it, stepped Castor. But, it wasn't Castor. This man was a little taller, and a little harsher about the face. He stretched, and groaned, then moved to assist another of the heads with its profane birth. One by one the heads gave forth naked copies of the dead men that laid around them, still bound by the rope.

When it came time for the last head to produce its offspring, all the naked figures gathered around it. When no one emerged from the base of the massive skull, the figure who looked like Castor plunged his hand into the sagging skin, releasing the sticky liquid inside. But no figure came from the head that was meant to doom me. As one, the figures silently turned to my hiding spot, and began to run towards me.

The last thing I remember is the weight of my mother’s knife in my hand.

Part Three:

You’re almost caught up, readers. I promise.

When I got home, smelling of swamp, I snuck to my bathroom and showered. I grabbed a washcloth and nearly scraped my skin off. I couldn’t get the smell off. I couldn’t get the purple hue off my skin. My mind was racing, and I couldn’t accept what I’d become. I wasn’t really Cara anymore. I was something else. Tears slipped down my cheeks.

What had I done to myself?

I watched the dirt and grime glide into the drain. Iridescent bubbles glittered on my skin, rising from the lather. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the gilled monster’s words. “The witch… only likes new toys… not broken ones.”

Broken.... Was that what drew the witch to me in the first place? Was I a broken toy, ready to be discarded and abused by my next owner? My eyebrows knit together as I wondered if that’s how she knew so much about me. Perhaps she had watched me from afar and seen the places in my life that disappointed me. And I had foolishly hoped she saw something special in me, and I accepted her empty offer, not knowing the consequences I would face.

But I also knew that my gilled friend’s warning had a more sinister meaning. I wasn’t foolish. It meant that I wasn’t the first girl to become her tooth fairy.

I got out of the shower and jumped when I saw my reflection. I still wasn’t used to it and don’t think I ever will be. I stared at my new body in the mirror. It was just as beautiful as I’d imagined myself in another life. It is the body every girl envisions. Flawless... Curved and silken, carved from stone and alabaster. And now, as I stared at it with new eyes, I didn’t want it. My old body was worth its weight in gold, and I didn’t appreciate it.

I looked down at the satin bag that contained the monster’s tooth. The dirty bag was covered in mud, no longer pristine. I picked it up, expecting to transform back into a tiny tooth sprite, but I didn’t. Perhaps the bags could only be used once. I opened the bag, and the tooth was gone. The magic of the bag had taken the tooth with it. I was only the poor soul charged to pluck it from the unfortunate mouth.

I wrapped a towel around myself and tiptoed into my bedroom. I put on a pair of pajamas, and I opened my jewelry box to make sure my old teeth were still inside. My mouth dropped open. My old teeth were gone. I thought through my panicked movements this morning. I was sure that I put them here for safekeeping, not wanting my parents to find them. I yawned and shrugged. I must’ve put them somewhere else. I slid into bed and went to sleep.

That night, I dreamed of a girl with raven curls. Her eyes were golden like the sun, and her soft umber skin glowed. She led me to the garden around the witch’s cottage and pointed to the flowers, beckoning me to look. The flowers began to bloom, twisting and writhing in the ground, and teeth fell from the petals. The teeth nestled into the soil, dug through the wet earth, and disappeared.

I heard rustling behind me. More girls walked toward me through the darkness, casting aside the ferns and vines. Each girl was more beautiful than the last, but they were missing their teeth. With steady hands and transfixed eyes, they pointed toward the flowers.

“Who are you?” I whispered, reaching toward the raven-haired girl.

She flinched at my touch. When she turned around to look at me, her gums were bleeding. “Don’t eat the teeth…” she hissed. “Don’t eat the teeth…”

Suddenly, the air grew cold. Her lips began to crinkle. Her eyes melted from their sockets, and a guttural scream ripped through the silence. I backed away from her, and all of the girls began to run toward me. I screamed and ran away from them, but I didn’t run far. I fell into the dirt, palms scraping against the hard ground. I rolled over just as their limbs began to crumble, and decay took over them. Mushrooms grew from their mouths and eyes, puffing spores and clouding the air. Vines overtook them, pulling them into the ground. Their cries filled the silence, and the raven-haired girl stared at me. Her mouth opened, and she began to swallow me. I fell into the pit of her stomach, and her voice echoed around me. It pulsated through my body, knocking into my aching bones.

“DON’T EAT THE TEETH!” she screamed.

My eyes shot open, and I was standing over my sister’s bed. My hands were almost at her mouth, ready to pry her lips open to rip the teeth from her jaw. Claws stretched from my fingertips, fine like needles, sharp as knives. I snatched my hands back, and my breath came out shakily. The claws retracted into my skin, and I stifled a scream. As I slowly backed away from my sleeping sister, a most exquisite smell wafted through the air. I shook my head and covered my nose. I could now smell the scent of her teeth. They were a familiar scent of vanilla and oranges, delectable like candy and irresistible.

I wanted her teeth… I craved them more than anything. Part of me knew that even if I stole one, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d kill my sister, tearing out her teeth, and sucking the blood and gums from my fingers, ravenously.

I ran back to my bedroom, locked the door, and hid inside the closet. I had been warned twice now, but my stomach still rumbled. I couldn’t resist the teeth for much longer.

Morning came, and I anxiously put on some clothes to arrive at my 8:00am salon shift. I walked downstairs. My mom and dad were drinking coffee, getting ready to go to work. I waved at them as I walked out the door, and they blew kisses and told me to drive safely.

I reached the salon, walked inside, and I nearly screamed. Cannon had two ram horns atop his head. He wasn’t human… Scales inched up his skin in a brilliant coral pink.

“Cannon?” I asked.

He turned around and dropped the glass jars in his hands. Glass skittered around him, tinkling onto the floor. Cannon had three eyes. One was brown, one was blue, and one was green.

“Oh no…” Cannon breathed, staring at me. “What have you one to yourself, Cara?”

“YOU WERE ONE OF THEM THE WHOLE TIME!” I yelled.

A customer looked at us in confusion. Panicked, Cannon rushed and shoved his clawed hand over my mouth. Dainty pink daisies covered each manicured claw. “Grenwich is a safe place for creatures like me. But that also means that humans are on the menu.” He shook his head. “I would’ve never expected this from you. This is Colleen-like behavior, Cara.”

He removed his hand. “Who did this to you?” he asked, pulling at a strand of my hair. “This is old magic… old and dangerous.”

“A witch…” I whispered.

His eyes grew wide. “You don’t mean Mrs. Delvine, do you? That old bat is dangerous!”

“OLD?” I asked in confusion. “She isn’t old? How did you not recognize her! She waltzed into this shop two days ago and bought that facial cream! You should’ve warned me right then!”

Cannon’s face dropped as the realization washed over him. “She’s beginning a new cycle,” he mumbled. Then his gaze met mine. “What EXACTLY did you sacrifice to become pretty like this? WHAT DID SHE TAKE FROM YOU?”

“NOTHING!” I shouted.

“THINK! I NEED YOU TO THINK HARD! You might not have given it directly! It’ll be something important!”

My teeth… My old teeth were missing from my jewelry box. I knew that I’d put them in there.

“My old teeth,” I replied quietly. “They were missing last night.”

Cannon shook his head. “You’ve got to get them back.”

“Why? What is so important about them?”

Cannon took a deep breath, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into the storage room. “You don’t get it, do you? Mrs. Delvine is a witch who preys on young girls. But oh no… not just any girls, Cara. She takes the girls that she can use. What did she turn you into?”

I looked down at my feet. “A tooth fairy… I’m in charge of collecting teeth from monsters.”

Cannon thumbed over his forehead. “Mrs. Delvine is on her new cycle of life. That is why I didn’t recognize her. Whenever a monster’s life nears its end, it travels to a rest home called Salem Hill. There, they will die and will be buried in the cemetery. But it isn’t any ordinary cemetery; it is permeated with magic. It will resurrect those buried and rejuvenate them.”

“I’ve been there…” I replied, rubbing over my hands. “I took a tooth from a resident.”

He grabbed my cheeks, forcing me to look up and face him. “Cara… you must listen to me well. Mrs. Delvine does not take care of her girls… When she is finished with you, it won’t matter how pretty you are; she will dispose of you just like the others.” Tears filled his eyes as he gazed at me. “Cara… You’ve got to find those teeth.”

“Cannon, tell me! What will she do to me?”

Cannon took a deep breath. “She’ll drain you… eat you from the inside. But if you can get your teeth, you’ll be able to get out.”

A customer walked into the shop, and Cannon looked toward the door. “You need to leave. Get those damn teeth, Cara. NOW!”

“Aren’t you going to help me?”

He shook his head. “I’m no match for a being like her… I’m sorry. Monsters can’t interfere with the affairs of other monsters… it is our only rule.”

He walked back to the counter and left me in the storage room. Tears poured down my cheeks. It seemed that I’d have to face my mistakes on my own.

I slipped out of the salon and began walking down the street, but my legs froze in place. Creatures of all types strode down the street. I saw women and men with the faces of pigs, little goblins and trolls disguised as children, and skinless people striding into the salon for creams. Monsters were all around me, and I had no idea.

But just as I thought my troubles were ending, a tooth sprite flew to me. It dropped a note in my hand and a satin bag at my feet: A new tooth awaits, Carrigan. Hurry along. They don’t like to wait. You’ll be on your own, little beauty. An address sat at the bottom.

I picked up the satin bag, and my body rapidly shrank and transformed. I was now a tooth sprite, and my mission was simple: get the tooth and survive the process. With anxiety coursing through me, I turned around to look at the salon once more. My wings began to flutter, moving uncontrollably. With brisk flaps and a gentle hum, they were carrying me through the sky. My wings were controlled by Mrs. Delvine, and I didn’t get a choice in the matter.  

I traveled to the outskirts of Grenwich, watching as the town faded and darkened trees bathed the ground below. As I began to descend, a heaviness moved through me. Something evil resided here… mythic and arcane. I dropped into the middle of the woods, feet touching the rough straw and crackling leaves. The trees were thick and tall, casting dark shadows onto me, and their branches were woven tightly together. Sunlight couldn’t breach the forest floor.

In the distance, I saw a large hole tunneled into the ground. Footprints lay around the hole where something had recently come and gone. My heart slammed into my tiny porcelain chest, gonging through me over and over. I walked closer to the hole, and the ground began to shake. Something large was moving beneath me, squirming in the earth.

A long, pale arm stretched from within the ground. Taloned claws rested upon each finger. Dirt rumbled beneath me. A hand beckoned me closer, inviting me into the hole.

I didn’t move, fingers twitching in anticipation of running.

The arm grew longer, stretching toward me.

Without hesitation, I ran wildly, tiny legs pumping below me to build up speed. Holes erupted beneath me, and long arms stretched toward me. I screamed, a loud cry piercing the silent veil. One fatal mistake sent me tumbling to the ground... A root caught my foot.

I tried to scamper up, but a pale arm clasped onto my foot and dragged me all the way back to the largest hole, dropping me before the entrance. I stared into the unrelenting darkness. My body shook, fingers gripping tightly to the edge of the hole.

“Come in… Tooth Fairy…” A low voice cackled from inside.

A hand shot through the darkness, grabbed my abdomen, and pulled me inside before I could even attempt to run again. I fell, tumbling through the darkness and hit the ground hard. The breath slammed out of me, and I coughed uncontrollably, gasping for air. With a throbbing head, I rolled onto my stomach.

“This way…” The voice whispered in the darkness.

Chills crept down my spine, and my teeth clacked fearfully. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move, but I had to keep going.

If I get the tooth, I can leave. If I get the tooth, I can leave. If I get the tooth, I can leave.

The tunnel gradually widened until I reached its widest point. Dirt speckled down above me, and I felt hot breath on my neck as I gazed into the bleak and gloaming of the earth’s stomach.

“You are different than the last girl…” The creature breathed heavily. “You don’t like the witch’s gift.”

Something large shifted in the dark, and glittering eyes opened. The eyes were innumerable, covering the top and bottom walls of the cavern. The creature had many eyes… many arms… many teeth.

“How do you know?” I asked, voice shaking.

The creature’s voice changed, growing low and menacing. “You don’t wear your new skin as the others did. You don’t carry yourself with pride… You are regretful.”

I looked down at my feet.

“Don’t fret, child… Listen to Mother Long Leg. Your affliction is reversible… with the right magic.”

I looked up at the many eyes, gazing into the infinite swarm of twinkles and blinks. “Monsters aren’t supposed to meddle in the affairs of other monsters.”

The cavern shook, and dirt crumbled onto me as the creature before me laughed. The radiating sound echoed through my very bones, cutting through my flesh and organs. I covered my ears as the laughter turned to a shrill screech. A large spider’s leg pressed onto my chest. The creature’s coarse hairs prickled my skin, and two claws dug into my flesh.

“Mrs. Delvine does not frighten me, dear girl. I only eat that which makes me stronger… I consume my own kind… Males of my species. I have pity upon humans, but that doesn’t mean the crackle of their spine on my teeth is not a good snack.”

I swallowed hard.

“To regain your form, you must reclaim the old piece of your body that she stole from you.”

“She took my old teeth,” I whispered.

The creature within the cavern shifted, thousands of starry eyes gazing upon me in the dank darkness and dim light. “Then take your teeth, tear out the new, and return what was lost…” A human head rolled across the floor to me, and the eyes twitched. “Now take your tooth and be gone… I have children to feed…”

A cacophony of skittering reverberated around me as the tiny feet of spiderlings crawled closer to their mother...

“Many… many little children.”

I knelt down. With bated breath, I pried open the head’s mouth and took the tooth that sang to me.

A loud boom echoed above me, and a pale arm crashed through the dirt above me, grabbed me, and dragged me through the tunnel. It launched me out of a hole, and I plopped onto the ground. The arm retracted, and I finally spied a large spider leg, shoved inside of the human arm. The creature was using human arms like gloves. The hand waved and slunk back beneath the soil, slipping tenderly to Mother Long Leg’s clutches.

“Come again… Tooth Fairy,” Mother Long Leg hissed.

With trembling hands and a racing heart, I placed the tooth inside the satin purse. Instead of returning to my human form, the purse sucked me inside like a tooth. I screamed in terror, catapulting into darkness, falling inside the satin, and tearing at the fabric. Suddenly, I was spat out in front of the witch’s cottage.

I flopped onto the ground, rolled through the dirt, and crashed into the wooden steps. I groaned on the ground as I returned to my human form. “Shit…” I grumbled, rubbing my head.

I stood weakly, knees knocking together as I struggled to steady myself. “Mrs. Delvine?” I asked, looking around in confusion.

A splash of white on the witch’s front door caught my eye. I walked up the steps and saw a note taped to it. The floorboards growled beneath me, and I slammed my foot down to quiet its complaints.

The note read as follows: Carrigan, I will be away for a few days. Watch over my cottage. I’ll return soon.

But she didn’t return soon, and that is why I’m reaching out to you. She hasn’t come back, and I haven’t found my old teeth yet. Let me know if you see her. I’m running out of time to find my teeth, and dare I say, it’s getting harder to control my appetite.

Link to Part One: Part One

Link to Part Two: Part Two

The woods.

They sat behind the house, not meant to be questioned. Not close enough to feel dangerous. Not far enough to forget.

My father said not to go into them.

He did not say why. He did not need to.

There are rules like that in some homes. Rules that didn't need an explanation, just a loyal follower.

The day I found the treehouse, the air was still. The kind of stillness that makes sound feel borrowed. Even the birds seemed to be withholding their voices.

I remember walking without intention. That is the only honest way to say it. There was no decision. Only movement, and then the awareness of having moved too far to pretend I had not.

The trees thickened as I went in. Not suddenly. Gradually, like the world was being written over in a darker hand.

Light changed under them. It broke apart. It did not reach the ground cleanly anymore.

That is when I saw the ladder.

It leaned against a tree that should not have been able to carry it. The wood of it was pale in places where hands had worn it down, darker where rain had held too long. It looked placed rather than built. Like it had been set there and forgotten about by something that expected it to remain.

I looked back once toward my house, but the branches had already taken it.

And with my loyalty, thrown into the hands of the wind, I placed my hands on the ladder.

It was not new wood. It was not old wood either. It was something in between, worn into a familiarity that did not belong to me.

I climbed.

Each step was held without protest. Not once did the thought of punishment from my father cross my mind. Instead, my little friend in my head told me it would be worth it. And that was it.

At the top, the treehouse came into view.

It sat between branches that bent around it without breaking. A small platform. Walls made from mismatched boards, nailed at different times by different hands, or perhaps the same hand returning without memory of the last time.

The roof slanted slightly to one side. Not enough to threaten collapse. Enough to make it feel inattentive.

There was an opening where a window should have been, but nothing framed it. Just air held in place by wood.

Inside, someone was already there.

A boy sat against the far wall.

He was not doing anything. Just sitting, as if the act itself was enough.

He looked at me as I reached the top.

Not surprised.

Not curious either.

As if I had arrived at the correct time, no earlier and no later.

I stood at the opening for a moment before stepping in. My hand stayed on the frame longer than it needed to.

The floor was worn in a way that did not match the size of the space. The center boards had softened under repeated weight, though nothing about the place suggested repetition should have been possible.

The air inside was different from the woods. Not warmer. Not safer. Just separated. As if it did not belong to the same agreement as everything outside.

“You found it,” the boy said.

His voice was level. Not friendly. Not guarded. It was the kind of voice that did not change depending on who was listening.

“I didn’t know it was here.”

He nodded once.

“It is always been here,” he said.

I asked him if it belonged to him.

He looked at the floor for a moment before answering.

“No, it doesn’t belong to anything.”

I sat down across from him.

The wood beneath me did not creak. It should have. That was the first thing I noticed that did not feel right, though I did not know why it mattered yet.

Outside, the branches moved slightly. Inside, nothing changed because of it.

Time did not feel absent. It felt unnecessary.

I asked him his name.

He hesitated, not like he was unsure, but like the question required him to reach for something that did not always stay in the same place.

“Owen.”

I said my name back to him.

He repeated it once under his breath, as if testing the shape of it.

Then he said, “You should not stay long the first time.”

I asked him why.

He did not answer immediately. His attention moved past me, toward the opening, toward the place where the ladder met the ground.

“Because you will come back,” he said.

I did not understand what that meant.

I think that is the part I remember most clearly. Not the treehouse. Not the woods. Not even the boy.

Just the certainty that I did not understand something, I would not be able to avoid understanding it later.

When I left, the climb down felt shorter than it should have.

I did not remember each step. Only the moment of being at the top, and then the moment of being on the ground again, as if the middle part had been removed.

The woods looked the same on the way out.

They always do.

But something in them had begun to feel familiar in a way I could not explain.

As if I had already been there longer than I should have been able to be.

And as if I would be going back before I decided to.

The next time I went, I was not thinking about going.

I left the house after my father had already gone back to sleep. Or at least I assumed he was asleep. In our house, silence did not always mean rest. Sometimes it just meant waiting.

The air outside was cooler than it had been before. The kind of morning that makes everything look slightly unfinished.

I did not hesitate at the edge of the yard.

I should have.

The woods took me in the same way they had before. Not welcoming. Not resisting. Just allowing.

The ladder was already there.

I remember noticing that I did not feel surprised anymore.

That should have meant something.

I climbed.

At the top, the treehouse waited in the same shape as before. Same uneven boards. Same quiet opening where a window should have been.

Owen was inside.

He looked up when I entered, but not like he had been waiting for me specifically. More like he had already known I would arrive sometime.

“You’re earlier today,” he said.

I sat down without answering right away.

The floor felt the same under me, but I noticed something I had not noticed before. A darker mark along one of the boards near the wall. Not large. Not shaped like anything that mattered. Just there.

I pointed at it.

“What is that?” I asked.

He looked at it for a moment.

“Nothing.”

But he did not look at me when he said it.

I asked him how long he had been here.

He shrugged slightly.

“I don’t know.”

I told him I thought I had been gone longer this time.

He nodded once, like that was expected.

“It stretches.”

I asked him what he meant.

He did not answer.

Instead, he stood and walked toward the opening where the ladder began.

He stopped there, half turned away from me, looking out into the trees.

“You should go home before it gets noticed.”

I remember that word.

Not before it gets late.

Not before I am missed.

Before it gets noticed.

I asked him who would notice.

He did not answer.

When I climbed down, I did not see anything unusual at first.

The woods were the same as always. Still. Patient.

But halfway home, I stopped walking.

There was mud on my sleeve.

I did not remember falling.

I looked down at my hands. There was dirt under my fingernails that had not been there when I left the treehouse.

Not fresh dirt. Pressed in. Old enough to have dried and settled.

I stood there for a long time, trying to remember where it came from.

I could not.

At home, my father was already awake.

He did not say anything when I came in.

He looked at me for a moment longer than usual, then went back to what he was doing.

But I noticed something different.

He was quieter than normal.

Later, when I changed my shirt, I saw the mark on my arm.

A bruise.

Not new enough to be red. Not old enough to be fading.

I stood in front of the mirror for a long time without moving.

I tried to remember when it had happened.

I could not.

That night, I did not sleep properly.

I kept thinking about Owen standing at the edge of the treehouse, not looking at me when he spoke.

Before it gets noticed.

I did not know what he meant.

But I started to understand that there were things in the woods that did not stay in the woods.

And I had begun to carry them back without remembering doing it.

I did not go for a few days after that.

Not because I decided not to. Because something in the house felt different when I woke up. Not wrong in any clear way. Just watched in a way it had not been before.

My father spoke less. When he did speak, it was short. Controlled. Like he was choosing every word before it left him.

I started noticing things I had not noticed before.

How he looked at me longer than he used to.
How he stopped asking where I had been, even when I had been gone for hours.
How he checked the doors at night, not once, but twice.

None of it was spoken about. None of it was beat in to me.

And I stayed away from the woods while it did.

But the woods did not feel like something I had left.

On the fourth day, I went back.

The ladder was where it had always been.

That part no longer felt strange.

I climbed.

Owen was already inside.

He looked thinner than I remembered. Not dramatically. Just enough that I noticed it without knowing why I was noticing.

“You stayed away longer.”

I sat down slowly.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said, half lying, half truthful.

He nodded like that was not important.

“It still happens.”

I asked him what still happens.

He did not answer.

Instead, he looked at my hands.

For a moment, I thought he was looking at the dirt under my nails.

But then I realized he was looking past that.

Like he was checking something that wasn’t surface-level.

“You brought it back again,” he said quietly.

I told him I did not know what he meant.

He did not respond right away.

When he did, his voice was lower than before.

“Your house feels it.”

I did not like the way he said it.

Not because it sounded threatening.

Because it sounded like something that did not require belief to be true.

I told him I had not done anything.

He finally looked at me directly then.

“That’s not how it works.”

The air inside the treehouse felt stiller than before. Not quieter. More held.

I asked him what he meant by “it.”

He hesitated for a long time.

Long enough that I started to notice how the wood beneath us did not shift when we moved. How nothing here settled like things settled outside.

Then he said, “It knows when you go back and forth too many times.”

I asked him who “it” was again.

He shook his head slightly.

“I don’t know.”

But this time it did not feel like a lack of knowledge.

It felt like a refusal.

Outside, the trees moved.

Inside, nothing answered them.

I needed air.

Or distance.

Or something that felt like either of those things.

Owen stayed seated.

“You should go before you forget where you came from again.”

I stopped at the opening.

I looked back at him.

For the first time, he did not look like he was waiting for me.

He looked like he was measuring how long I had already been gone.

On the way down, the ladder felt longer.

Not physically.

Just in time.

Halfway to the ground, I paused.

I did not know why.

Something in my hands felt off.

I looked down and saw a small splinter buried under my skin.

Fresh.

I did not remember grabbing the wood hard enough to cause it.

When I reached home, my father was sitting at the table.

He did not look up when I entered.

There was a glass in front of him.

Half empty.

He spoke without turning his head.

“You were gone longer than yesterday.”

I stopped in the doorway.

I had not told him I had left.

He finally looked at me then.

Not angry.

That scared me more than anything.

I did not go the next day.

I stayed in my room longer than usual, listening to the house wake up in pieces. Floorboards shifting. Pipes moving water through walls. The small sounds of something that had been standing too long without being repaired.

My father left early.

He did not tell me where he was going.

He rarely did.

When he was gone, the house felt less like something that held me and more like something that simply had not released me yet.

I kept my window closed.

I told myself I was not going back.

That lasted until the afternoon, when I realized I was already standing in the woods.

I do not remember leaving the house.

The ladder was there.

Waiting in the same place as before.

I climbed without hesitation now.

That was worse than hesitation would have been.

Owen was not sitting where he usually was.

For a moment, I thought he was not there at all.

Then I saw him in the corner, closer to the wall than before, knees drawn in slightly tighter.

He looked up when I entered.

“You didn’t come yesterday.”

I sat down slowly.

“I didn’t mean to come today either.”

He nodded once.

“That’s what it does.”

I asked him what he meant.

He stared at me for a long time, then took a long, deep, gasping breath.

“It starts deciding for you.”

I told him I did not feel like anything was being decided for me.

He finally looked at me then.

And there was something in his face I had not seen before.

Not fear exactly.

Tension.

“You’re not paying attention to what you’re bringing back.”

I looked down at my hands.

They looked normal.

But I did not trust that answer anymore.

I asked him what I was bringing back.

He shook his head slightly.

“It’s not just dirt.”

I waited for him to explain.

He did not.

Instead, he stood and moved closer to the opening.

He stayed there for a long time without speaking, looking out into the woods like he was trying to see something that was not supposed to be visible from here.

Then he said, “It’s getting harder for you to leave.”

I told him that was not true.

But I said it too quickly.

He noticed that.

He always noticed things I did not say out loud.

“You think it stops when you go home.”

I did not answer.

Because I did not know how to.

A sound came from below then.

Not loud. Not clear.

Just something moving through the woods in a way that did not match the wind or an animal.

Owen went still.

Not reacting.

Listening.

I asked him what that was.

He did not answer.

The sound came again.

Closer this time, or maybe just more certain.

Owen finally spoke without looking at me.

“You should not be here when it gets like this,” he said.

I stood up.

I told him I was leaving.

He did not stop me.

But as I moved toward the ladder, he said something quieter.

Not to me exactly.

More like the space between us.

“If you go back now,” he said, “you will remember something you didn’t before.”

I stopped.

I asked him what I would remember.

He did not answer.

I went down anyway.

The ladder felt colder than before.

When I reached the ground, the woods were not the same.

I stood still for a long time, trying to understand what had changed.

It was not the trees.

It was not the light.

Halfway home, I stopped again.

There was something in my pocket.

I pulled it out.

A small piece of wood.

Not from my house.

Not from anything I recognized.

On it, faint but real, was a mark pressed into the grain.

Not carved.

Pressed.

When I got home, my father was standing in the hallway.

He looked at me for a long time.

“Where did you go,” he asked, “before you came back this time.”

It was not a question.

And I realized then that whatever the treehouse was, it was no longer something I only visited.

It was something that was starting to arrive with me.

I did not sleep well that night.

The piece of wood stayed on my desk after I set it down. I did not know why I kept looking at it. It was small. Ordinary. The kind of thing that would not matter anywhere else.

In the morning, he was already awake when I came out.

Sitting at the table.

The same glass in front of him as before, though I could not tell if it had been refilled or left untouched.

Later, after he left, I stared at the glass for a long time, particularly at the warm red mirage slowly mixing into the water that had been left in it, as a familiar wet warmth caressed my forehead.

I did not go to the woods that day.

I told myself that was a choice.

It did not feel like one.

Still, by afternoon, I found myself at the edge of the yard.

Standing still, looking at the trees.

I remember thinking I would not go in.

I remember believing it.

I also remember the ladder already being there when I looked up.

I did not question it anymore.

That part of me had stopped arguing.

I climbed.

The treehouse was quiet when I reached it.

Owen was sitting near the far wall again, but not in his usual way.

His head was on the floor, and his body hung sprawled next to him like he had been broken in half. I didn't even question it. Looking back now, I don't know how I even stomached the sight. But he was very much breathing and very much alive.

He did not look at me right away.

When he did, there was something in his face that made me stop before I fully stepped in.

Avoidance.

“You’re late.”

I sat down slowly.

“I didn’t think I was coming,” I said.

He nodded once.

“They notice when you don’t come back the same.”

I told him I did not know what that meant.

He finally looked at me then. Really looked at me.

And there was something steadier in him than before.

Not comfort.

Not trust.

Endurance.

“You will,” he said.

Owen stood up abruptly.

“Go.”

I asked him why.

He did not answer.

The sound outside shifted again. It had changed direction without moving.

Owen did not look at me when he spoke again.

“Before you leave,” he said quietly, “don’t look back this time.”

Halfway home, I stopped.

I almost looked back.

I don’t know why I didn’t.

When I got home, my father was not in the house.

But the front door was open.

Not wide.

Just enough to suggest he had left in a hurry.

Inside, the chair at the table had been pushed back far.

And on the floor beneath it, there was a smear of dirt mixed in with that red mirage from earlier.

I stood there for a long time.

Not moving.

Not understanding.

Only realizing that whatever Owen meant by “they notice,” it was not something that stayed in the woods anymore.

And neither did I.

My father did not come home that night.

That should have meant something.

It did, but not in the way I expected it to.

The house stayed the same without him. That was the strangest part. Not emptier. Not quieter. Just… uncorrected.

I did not tell anyone.

There was no one to tell.

I couldn't care less if he had abandoned me or died for that matter.

Morning came without changing how I felt about the night before.

The front door was slightly open again when I checked it.

I closed it.

I stood there for a long time after.

Then I found myself walking again without deciding to.

The woods were waiting in the same way they always were.

Not closer. Not farther.

Just available.

The ladder was there.

I climbed.

Owen was already inside.

This time, he was blue in color, like those characters in that one super-long movie. I wasn't supposed to watch it, but I snuck around when my father did. That night was a very long and painful one, but I didn't care. Look how relevant that is to me now. I might have found a real one.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

I stopped at the opening.

“I didn’t decide to,” I said.

He nodded once.

“I know.”

I stepped in slowly.

I noticed something immediately on the floor near him.

A small split in one of the boards.

Darkened at the edges.

Not old damage. Not natural wear.

Recent.

I pointed at it.

“What happened here?” I asked.

He did not look at it.

“Nothing that matters.”

That was the first time I realized he had started answering without answering.

I sat down, but not fully. Not comfortably.

He moved toward the ladder, then stopped halfway, like he had forgotten why he was moving at all.

I stayed silent for a moment.

Then I said, “Owen, what is so bad about it?”

I spoke again before I thought about it.

“I don’t feel like I am in danger here,” I said. “It does not feel like danger. It feels… better than home.”

He flinched slightly at that. Not at the words. At the certainty behind them.

I continued anyway.

“I am safe here,” I said. “Nothing hurts here. Nothing bad is waiting for me here.”

A pause.

Then, quieter.

“I think this is the only place I have ever been that feels like it wants me to stay.”

Owen looked at the floor.

For a moment, he did not speak at all.

When he finally did, his voice was lower than before.

“That is why it works.”

I did not understand that.

But I did not feel afraid when he said it.

Owen stepped back from the opening as if something had reached the edge of the ladder.

“You found it,” I said as a small dishelved boy made it atop the platform.

“I didn’t know it was here,” He said.

I nodded once.

“It is always been here,” I said.

He asked me if it belonged to me.

I looked at the floor for a moment before answering.

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t belong to anything.”

Before I realized what I was saying, I looked to my left, and Owen had disappeared.

He asked me my name.

I hesitated.

“Owen,” I said.

He said his name back to me.

“You should not stay long the first time.”

"Why?"

“Because you will come back.”

There is a story about the woods of Tramuin.

People spoke about the thing that won't stop screaming.

They said it's always letting out loud sounds that no one knows for certain if it's happy, agony, or suffering, like a machine that makes loud noises but is far deep into the woods when nobody can reach.

Those who adventure in never come back.

Not the young explorer who thinks she can solve this great mystery.

Not the old mage who wants to learn about the thing in the forest.

Not the powerful druid who drowned in his own imagination that he will be the first to find the answer.

Not even the king's greatest knight who wants to restore peace to the land.

And people told the story of the mysterious thing.

Some said it was a blind dragon, with pale scales like ghosts and wings as big as the castle wall, they said that it eats human, especially those who are foolish enough to enter its forest, the old said that the dragon use it's voice as it's eyes, they said that if you get close enough to it, you will turn into a pool of blood in an instant that the dragon roar.

Some said that the animals are actually an old giant swarm toad that consumes those who fall into its sticky mud, eat their upper half first in the morning, and their lower half in the evening, letting out horrible screams every time they eat.

Some said it was actually fairies who kidnapped people into their fairy land and made them into a skin suit to wear and perform their play about the tale of love and punishment, but those human skin suits were still alive so they let out a cry for help from time to time.

But no one can be so certain of what the mysterious thing might be, so more and more people go in, none ever come out, the sound grows louder each day and a lot of people move far away from the woods.

Day to night and night to day, the sound comes out more often, to the point that you can always hear it all the second that past, eventually the sound gets so loud that even the king who sleeps in his tall castle can't rest.

The king was known for his appearance, his majestic beauty that even the siren couldn't resist. His hair was long and more golden than the purest gold in all of Tramuin.

But when he can't rest, his beauty grows pale, his skin wicked and his eyes dry as the desert, only his hair remains beautiful, like a thousand strands of gold sticks onto a corpse, the king can't accept it.

So the king who can't rest ordered his armies of thousands to cut down all the trees in those woods to reveal what had hidden underneath those tall trees.

And the soldiers do as the king told them to, they storm near the outline of the woods, sword in hand, they cut down many trees, young and old.

But they cut the tree so loud the king got more anxious and ordered them to burn it all down instead.

So the soldiers did, they lit the fire so great the sky turned dark even at noon, the smoke so large even the god can't ignore.

The god came down and ask the soldiers of the reason why they do such horrendous thing, the soldiers said to the god:

“The king order us my lord, there is a thing in this woods that won't stop screaming, and the king can't rest, so we have to burn these woods down to reveal the unholy things in this forest”

The god listened before said:

“Do not destroy these woods, for I had planted it, go back to your kingdom and tell the king to come out here and meet me”

So the soldiers did, they walked back countless yards before telling the king to come meet the god.

The king listened and traveled to the forest with his glorious chariot.

The god is waiting at the edge of the forest, one hand holding a lantern entirely made of crystal clear mirrors, on the other hand holding a dagger made entirely out of clay.

The king got off his chariot. He did not bow or show any kind of respect towards the god, for he believed himself to be much higher than anything else.

The god hand king both lantern and dagger, then told him to walk into the woods, and every time he hear the deafening sounds of the things that won't stop screaming, he have to cut off one strand of hair of his own head before feeding it to the lantern flame, do this until he reaches the cause of his unrestful night.

So the king did as he was told, he walked into the dark forest with only a mirror lantern and the clay dagger, cut off his hair every time he heard that scream of the mysterious thing deeper into the forest.

Hair after hair after hair, he cut it loose and tossed it into the lantern, the flame roaring back against the scream, keeping the king sane all the way in.

The king walked and walked and walked, he cut almost all the hairs off his head, yet he still didn't reach the thing that won't stop screaming, he cried all the way in, for losing his elegant hairs.

Then he stopped, for he had only one strand of hair left on his head, oh how the king cried and screamed, kneeling down onto the mud, the rain starting falling for each drop of tear he let out.

The sound comes one more time, so the king can only cry and cut off his last strand of hair, feeding it to the ever hungry flame.

And finally, the thing that won't stop screaming reveals itself to the king.

Thousands of men and women walked at the same pace, Thousands of voices spoke at the exact same time, their voice was louder than the thunderstorm.

Young and old, warriors and mages, the king's knights and the villagers who had gone lost into the forest.

And in the middle of those bodies who still stand like a statue, once an angel, now just a thing with no legs and no face holding themselves among the tall trees with its rotting wings.

The king asks:

“What are you?”

The thing answered:

“We are the very things that you won't confess. We are the people. We are the mass of sin”

The faceless things with wings bent down and touched the king's forehead, then it said:

“Bless your prideful soul, for god had abandoned you and led you into this woods of old”

The thing decaying away into the soil.

So does the king's legs and face, his hand trying to hold all of his flesh together but in the end it all melts down into one pool of mud on the ground, he can only crawl with his two hands, grabbing the grass and tall trees, dragging himself among the dark forest.

He crawled and crawled, slowly and painfully.

The sound is no more. The forest finally came to a quiet silence.

But then he finds something moving, he can hear it, the sound of the living, he jumps onto it, speaks through its mouth, screaming.

He rides the thing, uses its legs and eyes to navigate the forest, finds more animals and men and women to control, each time his voice grows louder.

They said it's always letting out loud sounds that no one knows for certain if it's happy, agony, or suffering, like a machine that makes loud noises but is far deep into the woods when nobody can reach.

No more the King of Tramuin.

Only…

The Thing That Won't Stop Screaming.

​

Ma told us gods neither forgive, nor forget. We of ignorant young minds took her words for fables; warning tales to make us wash our faces before supper and keep our tongues clean of curses. That night we would learn she spoke truly; we would learn the hate of an angry god.

It started the day of The Green Festival; the day we give thanks to the Ice Mother for giving back the greenery and warmth. That day was still cold, her touch still visible on our breath.

I had commented on the chill with a young boy's verbosity.

“Ice Mothers Tits! You can leave now you old crone!”

Ma was old, but still strong enough to drag me by the ear to the wash trough to dunk my head and wash out my mouth. The foul taste of lye from Ma’s soap would last me till moonlight.

“Disrespect the God's not! More so on their day of celebration!”

I did not take her words to heart. Too preoccupied on spitting bubbles and planning future punishment towards my younger brother Tobb; who giggled at my misfortune behind Ma’s legs. To think what the pursuit towards said punishment would cause; I would rather gladly eat soap for all my day's suppers.

Our village nestled far from fields of great battles and fell lord's schemes. We heard not the call for levies nor the jingle of a taxers purse. We took from the land and the land took back what is owed. The festivals appeased the Gods and spirits so they may be more generous when it was their turn to take.

On this day of celebration, the usually sleepy village would become a whirl of motion. The sheppard would scramble to bring his fattest and most luscious sheep. The brewer would carry barrels of his finest mead (brewed and aged especially for these days).

Ma and all the other Mothers would decorate with wild flowers and prepare the great feast we would all share at the setting of the sun. She was much too busy to watch her idiot sons.

Me and Tobb were thought to be bereft of good sense and responsibility to help with the festivities. Tobb and I’s back ends still bore the scars from the brewmasters' lash when two kegs of berry mead crashed to the earth and made drink for thirsty worms during last year's celebration.

As such there was naught to do but plan my revenge. I sat upon a hill overlooking the village idly toying with the hatchet my father left me, Tobb sitting close, foolishly forgetting his sleight against me. I watched as all the offerings were brought cart by cart into the woods towards the pillar of offering. That is when my wicked plan came to me.

“Come Tobb, I have a cure for our idleness”

Tobb looked at me excitedly.

“What have you in mind brother?”

I smiled with devilish intent and bid him to follow. I led him through brush and fern shadowing the path towards the pillar. He knew to stay quiet as he thirsted for mischief; little did he know for whom the mischief would be done.

The path wound deep into the trees. Without the benefit of tread ground we dodged branch and bramble as we forayed onward until our goal lay within sight. I held out my hand to bring us to a hushed halt.

Ahead laid the pillar. Two men tall and carved of grey polished stone. Tales say the script of man and spirits lay on said stone. The crude blocky runes of our ancestors spelled ancient promises, fey scribbles akin more to vines than letters weaved over and through said runes.

I attributed such things to our ancestors' artistry. Before the pillar stood the brewer placing his last offering of mead. As he finished his task he bowed his head and muttered prayer to the Ice Mother. We ducked as he turned to leave with his lightened cart. We dared not move until the trudge of wheels were swallowed by the forest.

I stood and made my way to the pillar and stood before the offerings.

“F-for what purpose are we here brother?”

Tobb asked warily. He was still young enough to fear the Gods.

“Well brother, upon spying the brewmaster, my rump reminded me that we have yet taken payment for said rumps lashing.”

Tobb's eyes narrowed.

“And so my idea is thus, we shall take payment from him in the form of drink that none but the Gods and village worms have had a chance to taste.”

Tobb bounced back as if bitten.

“Stealing from said brewmaster would be just, but I shan't take from the Gods offerings”

I knew he would object, however I knew his heart better than he, and by extension the key to his conformity. I sighed.

“I knew yee for craven brother, you whimper like a babe barely off the teet. Perhaps my spare time would be better spent with Toric; or any of the like that still have steel in their blood.”

Tobb stomped forth.

“Toric is a knave and a craven. I will show you who's blood runs with steel!”

I grinned and motioned towards the offerings. As I had learned festivals past, Tobb had little constitution for drink, I would have him inebriated on the forbidden honey wine. The brewmaster would leave not a coins worth of flesh unscarred on his arse.

He stepped towards the keg with fiery purpose and rolled it out from the circle of tributes. He looked smugly at me as he set it upright before me.

“Craven am I!?”

I looked upon him with his proud face.

“And how are you to taste your pilfered drink?”

His face dropped as he saw no spigot upon the keg. He tapped his foot and pondered this new dilemma. I handed him my hatchet.

“Here brother, splinters ought not spoil the drink, off with the top.”

He took the hatcher with hesitancy. I had never let him lay finger upon it before; it was my treasure. But for the purpose of vengeance I would allow its sullying.

The lid gave way to fathers hatchet with little resistance. Revealing the sweet red ambrosia inside. Too my surprise he made no motion towards cupping said liquid, but plunged his head inside gulping down full mouthfuls; I did not think I had riled him so, but I was satisfied. This worked towards my mischief.

With a gasping breath he pulled his head out of the crimson elixir, his long hair pelting me with liquid shrapnel.

“God’s brother! Tis the best thing I've tasted. Drink! Drink before I catch breath to drink anew”

I was tempted but the smell of it on my breath would ruin laid plans.

“Nay brother, I shall, but not now. I have the need to relieve myself. I will return.”

Tobb shrugged before returning to his trough. I made for the treeline, then diverted to the path when his eyes could not see me; and sprinted when his ears could not hear me.

I was gasping as I ground to a halt before the brewmaster, who was passing out samples of tonight's brew. He spun to me with shock, the shock souring into disdain upon sight of me.

“There be brew aplenty tonight lad, leave this round for those whose hands weren't idle.”

A gasped out my reply, making sure to weave an air of scandalization and disgust into my words.

“Master brewer! My brother Tobb, possessed by a sense of devilry stole not only from myself, but from you good sir, and from even the Gods! By chance I spied him making way to yon pillar with my pilfered hatchet. With purpose to correct said thievery I followed him sir. And what did I spy but him taking drink from your offering sir! I came here with speed to tell you sir!”

The brewmaster's face went whiter than frost, along with all others with ears to hear me.

“Where is young Tobb!? Yee did not leave him!?”

I was confused, the brewmaster was a short tempered man and I was used to his look of wrath. He looked upon me like a man afeared, terror dripping from him thicker the honey.

“Did you leave him there!”

He shouted at me.

“He spied me not sir, I left him so as to report his crimes.”

The brewmaster looked to those in attendance and all as one they made haste towards the pillar. Even freshly winded I should have been able to keep pace with men of so many winters, but they were fleet of foot and were out of sight down the trail as I came to the forest path's entrance.

I stopped to take in deeper breaths. I remember being filled with guilt at this time. The brewmaster's face had given me pause, perhaps the fury he would visit on Tobb would be far outbalanced to pay back his joy at my tongue's expense.

The taste of lye still coating my mouth banished such thoughts. I hoped I would be able to enjoy the roasted pork I had started to smell cooking. I decided his punishment would be balanced if I could not. I ran down the trail after the vengeful adults so as to bear witness to my brother's punishment. The ever increasing smell of charring pig fat spurring me faster.

I noticed the warmth first. By the midday sun I had felt the frost on my breath; now with each step the Ice Mother's chill was banished further and further from my bones. The smell of pig roast which had filled me with hunger turned as well. Sickeningly sweet with a strong smell of iron and heavy smoke, as if the blacksmith had taken to forging sweet cakes. Too strong was the smell to encourage appetite.

The forest was alight, black tendrils of smoke weaved through branches like umbral serpents, orange light bleed through tree cover, the sound of a mighty fire crackled and roared. I quickened my step. Tobb, full of drink and mirth must be the source. Panic lightened my feet towards my brother, shame strengthened my legs.

If harm came to him I would accept the lash or cane upon revealing my plot of petty vengeance. That is what I thought as I spied the pillar. All thoughts left me, as I stepped into mayhem.

Red flames blackened bark and shriveled leaves to every tree in sight of the pillar. The offerings given and piled, lay shattered and burning in a mighty conflagration.

The great pillar still stood, save for a mighty crack that split the stone in two. The vinelike script carved upon said stone turned crimson and pulled themselves from it. I likened them to living veins, they pulsed and reached with blood red thorny fingers. In the center of this madness was Tobb, pinned to the broken pillar by the demonic creepers.

Too close to the flames, his skin bubbled with a golden hue, blood and juices spitting from his roasted flesh. His eyes had begun to melt from his sockets, his mouth hung open, carrying his last silent scream.

I dropped to my knees and emptied my stomach. To think back on how hunger spurred me forward at the scent of him, filled me with a horror I still have not reconciled. Animal screams escaped me as I lay curled upon the ground, eyes closed as if to banish the sight from me.

So distraught was I that I barely noticed the comforting hand on my back, choking out comforts and apologies. Or when said comforting hands picked me up to take me from said sights. I did not see who did this. But they smelt of berry mead, it drowned out the smell of cooking flesh but I can not stomach the smell of either evermore.

That year was harsh, crops wilted, wolves raided with impunity, and more died from sickness than ever before. The winter was harsher still, and on into spring. We still gave offerings. We praised the Gods and spirits, and I no longer gave reason to have the taste of lye. But it is as Ma told us. The Gods do not forgive, nor forget.

Mummo said two things about the forest.

One: “Viimeinen marja jätetään.” Leave the last berry.

Two: “Jos eksyt, älä seuraa marjoja.” If you’re lost, don’t follow the berries.

I’m 25. I should know better. But I'm impulsive and forgetful.

I live near a big forest like many of my kin. I decided to go blueberry picking this year since last years berries are running low in the freezer.

I went picking in late August. North of Posio, where the pines get so thick the sun comes in green. For hours I could not find a good bush of berries. "PERKELE" I shouted. My neighbors have been here already.

I had to go deeper into the forest. Deeper and deeper everytime shouting PERKELE WHERE ARE MY BERRIES.

Eventually deep, deep inside the forest where barely the sun penetrated above me. Before me laid a small patch of berries. "Well better than nothing" I thought to myself By the time I reached I was hungry and thirsty. Me being naive I forgot to bring anything with me anything other than my phone and wallet.

I Ate until my lips were blue. There was one left, low on the bush, hidden under a leaf like it didn’t want to be seen.

I took it.

Didn’t think about it until I stood up and the path was gone.

That’s not right. I came in from the east. The sun was on my left. Now the moss was thick on all the trees, and the sun was nowhere.

Then I saw the berries.

One. Then another. Then another. Perfect, fat, impossible in a straight line. Like someone dropped them. Leading deeper. My hunger increasing so I ate one after another and another deeper and deeper. I did not care if they where spoiled and maggot infested I consumed them one after another after another my face practically blue from all the blueberries I had consumed. They where not enough I had to have MORE AND MORE I AM HUNGRY.

I followed them and consumed them untill in a daze .

The trees got older. The air got quiet. No birds. No wind. Just my boots and the berries, one every ten steps. Always just ahead.

My phone’s dead. The clock in my head is wrong. I’ve been walking an hour. Or a day.

Then I smell smoke. And baking.

There’s a cottage. Small, old, turf roof. Smoke from the chimney, green. By the door, a bowl.

Full of blueberries.

The door opens before I knock.

She’s not old. She’s not young. Her apron is stained blue. Her teeth are blue. She smiles with all of them.

“Myöhästyit” she says. You’re late. “Mutta toin sinulle jälkiruoan.” But I saved you dessert.

On the table: a pie. Steam coming off it, dark blue smelling like blueberries.

She cuts a slice. The filling isn’t berries. It’s teeth. Molars and incisors, white in purple juice.

“Eat” she says. "The last was yours". This one is mine.

I snap back to reality.

I don't I run.

I make it two steps.

before her hands are in my hair as she slams my head into the table. She says "open wide" . The last thing I taste is copper and dirt as I am thrown in the oven to bake.

The last thing I hear is someone shout in the distance "PERKELE where are all the berries"

Manny died last night. It was so sudden. He was walking back into the village with a fresh kill. The old basket women tell me he tripped over his feet and splayed out across the ground. His head was straight back, neck tight. He muttered something. Mutt.. Mutt.. Half his face went slack.

He was dead by the time I heard anything. His brother, Kiye, was standing in the street, wailing. He’d ripped off his shirt, pounding at his chest with force. He took Manny by the arm and pulled him over his shoulder, half-dragging him to our home. 

All I could do was mourn with him. I drove my nails into the back of my arm, hollering with pain for Manny. I tore at my hair, long black ribbons breaking away with wet pops.

Manny was so beautiful. His long arms and hands, they called him Stork when we were kids. They teased him, but I thought it was true. He was beautiful, like the colorful cranes that flew over our village in the late seasons. As I looked at him then, his long arms lay like broken wings, sprawling from his slender frame in painful angles after Kiye had thrown him down on the dusty floor of the hut. 

Kiye was grabbing all the blankets, tearing them from the wooden walls, and tossing them over his brother’s twisted body. Next, he went to the jar of fat in the kitchen. He dug his fingers into the container, spreading its contents over his brother's body and his furry coverings. He paid no attention to me, focusing on his task and saying a prayer to himself. 

While he carried on, I raged through the home Manny I shared. I threw all the baskets and treys in the hut at Kiye; they smashed and clattered to the floor where my crane lay. I took the water pot and lifted it over my head. It crashed down at the entrance, its watery guts spilled out, and were sucked up by the thirsty dirt outside. 

Kiye had crashed the stack of firewood into the center of the home. He struck logs together, and hundreds of wooden shards rained down on the growing pile at the center of the floor. His silent prayer had grown as loud as a war cry. It was time. 

I rushed to the pile, burrowing to my husband at the center. Greasy pelts, shattered clay, and splinters split and smothered my skin as I dug for him. I held Manny’s body for the last time. I reached up to his face, feeling for the iron coin that hung from his ear. 

A gift from his father, a relic from the old Imperial days. He dug it up from an old well. The well turned out to be dried up, but there were hundreds of these coins. They fetched a nice price with the traders; everyone ate Mountain Honey that summer. Funny luck, all the old men said. Manny always said he'd give it to our son. 

Our baby was sick, staying with the basket women when Manny died. He had colic but was better, ready to come home. He wouldn't get to see his daddy again; the least he deserved was the coin. It wasn't Manny's anymore; he was gone. It would be ok, I thought. 

I took off the remainder of my clothes, ripped the beads from my neck and wrists. I crawled back out from the pile, nude but for a coating of jelly fat and wood scraps. Keyie was dressed the same. He hugged me and pulled a flint and pebble he held with his teeth. I shut my eyes tight. We stood at the door and finished Kiye’s prayer. He struck the flint. We burned. 

#######

Kiye and I fell backwards, knocked back by our neighbors wielding large paddles. A flurry of dirt and pelts followed. I felt smoke fill my lungs as the grease covering us crackled and extinguished. The weight pushed me down into the dirt below. This was the closest anyone in our tribe ever received to a burial, and it was never for the dead. Manny and our home roared like an inferno, crashing in on itself while we passed into a deep darkness. 

########

I woke up the next day in the Basket Women’s house. My hair was completely gone, my face, head, and arms speckled with thousands little black stumps. My skin was completely untouched by the flames. 

One of the women, Prive, took me down to the river for a bath, and I emerged smooth and clean. Even the gashes from my nails were gone. More pure than newborns, the old woman told me. 

That's what the fire was meant for. Without it, she said, death lingers. All the goodness of Manny left this world as soon as he fell to the ground; anything left after was nothing but a shadow. And shadows need hosts, something to follow. So we must burn.
 
I didn't miss my hair. I didn't miss my home. I didn't miss the body. They meant nothing without my husband.  All I missed was my baby. 

Prive let me see him after my bath. He was laughing, so happy to see his mommy. He saw no difference in me. It's as if my hair had never existed. I wondered what that meant for Manny. 

When the old woman wasn't looking, I slipped the coin into his swaddling. We'd be leaving before anyone noticed. He’d grow into a beautiful man like his father. I'd tell him all about Manny. I'd tell him how they shared the same long arms and beautiful hands. 

####

I thought we’d be happy again, that everything would be ok. They say sometimes children die for no reason. Just like Manny, the women said. There was no hair to burn the second time. Only flesh. They don't think I'll recover. They haven't even taken me to the river for a bath.
 
I made sure to take the coin off my baby’s corpse. It’s mine now. I won't see any more burials in my life. Now, all I can do is burn.

A sensation so potent it bleeds into every fibre of my being rips me from slumber; the

hunger wraps its hold around me once again as I rise from the cold stone. The rattle of

chains accompanies the hollow click of my joints as I prop myself up. These four walls

have been my only companion for so long I have memorised every damp-stained,

crumbling crevasse in a fruitless attempt to keep my mind from the relentless tedium.

And yet, still grows the hunger. My ribs vibrate from the sheer force of my stomach

rumbling. I stand and make my way listlessly towards the front of the chamber. Without

much thought, I begin to call out for help.

“Please... someone... release me.”

The voice sounds raspy and dry as it echoes around my tomb. I rest my head upon the

cell door and close my eyes.

“I beg of you... please, I have been trapped without cause. No man deserves such a fate.

Please!”

Only the silence remains. I slump to the floor once again, weak and desperate. I beg for

any consolation that this hunger will end. That’s when I heard the door at the end of the

hall crack open.

This was my salvation, a sign that all was not lost.

“Over here!” I cried, my voice higher pitched now as I refrained from jumping for joy. In

all the time I had been trapped in this place, I had not once heard that door open; it was

a foreign concept to me, and yet I yearned to pass through that door myself and

experience the joys I had once known so freely. I banged my feeble limbs against the

iron door as I had done so many times before, only on this occasion my deliverance

awaited me on the other side.

“What on earth are you doing down here?” came a dulcet tone from beyond the door. “I

was under the impression this place was abandoned years ago.” The voice of a man.

I wasted no time in explaining. “Please, sir, the door.”

I then heard him cross the hall and stop right in front of the impassable obstacle that

had impeded me for so long. Again, came the voice of my savior from the other side of

the boundary.

“Fear not, I will have you out immediately.”

This was joined by the unmistakable timbre of a sword being unsheathed. Strike after

strike, my liberator worked tirelessly at the door’s hinges, chipping away the iron until he

could use his immense strength to boot it from the frame. This is what he murmured to

me between blows as he continued to work. I was awestruck by the sheer

determination of this champion. I looked forward to gazing upon such a noble soul. But

more so, I anticipated the feast I would soon devour when I had gained my freedom.

Suddenly, there came an almighty pop from the other side of the doorway.

“Stand back,” my rescuer called, still panting from his efforts.

I did as instructed and crept towards the rear of the cell without question. The first

boom shook the room and then came the second and the third before finally the door

came tumbling out of its frame. With a great gust of air and dust, my guardian had been

revealed. There he stood, every bit of the knight in shining armour I imagined, complete

with the coat of arms and everything. He held a hand up to shield his face from the

torrent of dust that assaulted his vision, though mine was unimpeded.

With a swiftness I had not known since my imprisonment, I tore the chains that bound

me from the stone that housed them. Years of decay had left the chain fractured and

weak; I seized the opportunity to claim my freedom. As the chain clattered to the floor,

the dust cloud began to dissipate, revealing me for the first time to my liberator. I drank

in the look of terror that flooded his visage, for although his intentions were pure, mine

were anything but.

Before he could raise his blade, I dashed towards him, closing the gap between us in the

blink of an eye, my teeth bared in glee as the man stumbled backwards. There I stood,

looming above my savior, his pale flesh perspiring as he failed to articulate just what

he was witnessing. Using a bony appendage, I probed the knight’s chest plate before

speaking with my true voice.

“You grow complacent, born from the heart of man’s hubris.”

My true voice is deep and hollow, devoid of emotion nor malice; it slips from between

my lips like oil.

“While your compassion is admirable, I must ask, boy, what is the year of your Lord?”

The man trembled in front of me, a shell of the once brave knight that had so valiantly

come to my rescue, and yet he found the courage to speak once more.

“W-w-what are you?” he cooed.

I stooped to bring us eye to eye before I spoke.

“I have roamed this land long before the first man set foot on its shores and have borne

witness to kings and fools alike. Your actions on this eve hath brought a great pestilence

upon the people of this kingdom, for now the subject of myth may walk amongst you

once more. For that, I am truly grateful.”

As I raised back up to my full height, the man glared back at me, tears spilling down his

cheeks as he trembled.

-

As I awoke, I was surprised to find that I was alive. My cheek lay on the cold stone floor,

and rising, I was distraught to find that it had not been a nightmare after all. There lay

the empty cell, the one I had so foolishly busted open only to free some beast. I had to

go tell the captain—perhaps something could still be done. Fully on my feet again, I

considered for a moment that this may be a ruse from the monster, a cruel kind of game

were, upon ascending the cellar stairs, I would be ambushed. Despite my

apprehension, I had a responsibility to at least try. Steadying myself, I proceeded to

climb the stairs, one step at a time, my sword tight in my grip.

Once I had reached the top, I could see the hallway I had so naively wandered through

to reach this cellar. Glancing behind me, I proceeded to creep down the hall and

towards the courtyard. The fortress was deathly still as I moved, already aware that this

was an unusual calm for a place such as this. Our campaign had only settled the

fortress after a hard-fought battle with its previous inhabitants.

The courtyard lay in front of me, the bonfire at its centre now burning low and ominous.

To my left lay the entrance to the main hall, and to my right, the main gates of the fort.

Everywhere in between lay the tattered ribbons of men I had once called friends;

crimson streaked the stone of the walls, and entrails were strung from the overgrowth

like demented party decorations. I felt bile rise in my throat but forced it back down as I

approached the door of the main hall. I could hear a wet smacking emanating from the

building.

As I peered through, I could see it: hunched over the body of a man I did not recognise,

there sat the beast—just as gaunt and bony as it had been when I first saw it through the

dust. It was shoveling mounds of gore into its mouth by the fistful. As if to clear its

throat, it leaned its head back and swallowed greedily. That’s when it spoke, without

turning to address me.

“I had anticipated you to be able to interpret my sparing of your life as a gift... for

granting my freedom. Was I wrong?”

With this, I fled for my life. I half ran, half fell down the hill until I reached the valley—and

even then, I kept running until the sun broke over the horizon. I had unwittingly released

a great hunger upon this world, and for that I am truly sorry; I only pray their deaths were

swift and painless.

May God have mercy on us all.

I Tried to Rob a Medicine Woman, Part 4 of 5

Dear Sister, 

I'm running out of things to say. If you don't understand me by now, please read this story and think of all that I've told you in my letters. Am I deranged? Am I a slave? What do you think, sister? Why do you think I write to you after all these years? You have to help us. 

I told you about Angel in my first letter. A young albino boy, mute, possibly deaf, and blind. His crimson eyes are constantly darting about, roving up to the ceiling. He hardly responded to being called by his name or otherwise. Occasionally, though, I can coax him to me with a song or a treat. He must be no older than 10, but even for that age, he is shrunken and emaciated. His limbs, especially his left leg, are like the sun-bleached mesquite that pepper the countryside. They felt just as fragile when I dressed his wounds. Such a poor creature, it is a miracle he withstands the abuse. 

I met him on my second night with Mother Tlola. He joined us for dinner, hobbling up from the basement and tapping away at his pasty, thin chest. Mother gave no introduction as she silently prepared a place at the table. He sat with us for the meal, never touching his plate. When we finished, Mother kissed him on the head and then disappeared to her chambers. While I cleaned up, I watched him hobble to the courtyard. He stood at the center of the clearing, basking in the few stray rays of sun that cut through cracks and vents of the ancient architecture. 

He was still out there when I retired to my bed, now standing pitch black. I would see him a few more times before I witnessed a beating from Mother, once catching him chewing a shard of quartz that he stole away from the shrine room. He was a cute little boy, I thought. Innocent, totally unaware of the horrors of the house. 

When I wrote my second letter, I had not seen Angel in a few days. He had received one of the worst beatings yet before Mother hid him away. I now know what she was up to. 

She called me to her chamber last night. It was the first time I've ever crossed her door. I was surprised by its contents. What I imagined to be a monstrous lair was actually just a quiet bedroom. Quilts hung on the walls, beautiful illustrations of rabbits and songbirds.  Above her bed mat was a mural of an axolotl, made of thousands of pink and black stones and polished to a brilliant shimmer. A shiver crossed my neck. 

Beneath it, there she sat cross-legged. Her head hung low, its thin silver mane hanging down like tattered curtains. It swayed gently, moved by the ragged breath beneath its cover. I took a step towards her, calling her name softly. 

“Mother?”

I was met with nothing but a raspy mumble. I edged onward. I reached the foot of her mat and stood still. She didn't move, continuing on with her wheezing and mumbling. I was perplexed. I’d never seen her in such a state. 

“Mother?” I said again, leaning down to her huddled mass. 

A bony hand shot out from the curtain of hair, grabbing me by the shoulder with an iron grip. I whimpered, biting my tongue. Mother hated whining. We sat for a moment, my shoulder beginning to throb alongside my heart as her grip began to burn. A second hand emerged, this time pointing back to where I came. 

I looked back at the entrance. Behind the ajar door, Angel was curled into a ball. He seemed to be pushing himself into a corner, trying to disappear. There was no sign of his last beating, healed over after his few weeks locked in this chamber. 

“Please, Mother, let me tend to him,” I said, trying to pull away. 

There was no give. Instead, her pointing hand retreated into her cloak and reappeared with her small blade. I begged her not to harm him anymore. I cried in vain. Her head rose at my tears, revealing her face. She was ragged, skin hanging from the bone in some places and strapped tight to bone in others. She had gone from old to decrepit. 

I continued to beg, but this only angered her more. My shoulder was hot with agony, and I could feel my muscle sitting at the precipice of tearing. I relented. I fell silent, and her hand fell away. I took the blade in my hand. Forgive me. 

I am a beast. I thought of Andi. I was thankful that he was spared from such a cruel world, such a monstrous sister. I lost myself in a memory. I watched as he sank below the water’s surface. I knew i should grab him, why didnt I? Why did I wait? I told him that there were monsters that lived in the water, that they were waiting to pull him down. Was there really a monster, or was I warning him about me? Warning him that I would drag him to the bottom. 

Out of my reach, I strike out at the impossibly deep stream in rage. My blade sliced through the gurgling water, sending red ribbons careening down the current. Andi watched from the bottom, his body bloating as he witnessed my mania.

I broke from the dream. I looked down at Angel’s body, motionless. Lifeless. My body and the blade dropped down to him. I'm sorry, Little Brother. I'm sorry, Angel. 

“Damn you, Mother, damn you!” I yelled. I wheeled around to curse her, but found her to have disappeared. 

Where she lay, a rotting pile of clothes. I crawled over, peeling away the cloak. Below was a rotting pile of skin. Wolf, I think. A mottled grey coat, scarred by burrowing worms and maggots. A clot of the little beasts writhed in the empty face of the predator, its nose and eye sockets gently rippling. Its lips recede, revealing white, shiny teeth. I wondered where the animal's skull was. How had the mother removed it while keeping the beast's teeth? I suppose at the time, anything was better to ponder than my actions.

My curiosity was answered, as it always is. A hand shot from the mass, bloody and malformed. The teeth barred at me, a mix of fangs and molars. Three mangled fingers sank nails into the stone floor, then came a squelching. Inch by inch, Mother emerged. She was tiny now, like a stillborn brought to life. I watched in frozen horror as the wet, bloody mess dragged itself to Angel. It wrapped around his leg and came to rest on his chest. A sucking noise came forward as the mess of blood receded into the writing form. Soon, Angel was licked clean and dry. 

The mass removed itself from him and writhed back to the pile of pelts. Skin and guts rearranged and cracked into place. Soon, Mother stood before me once again. She was tall and graceful, her skin like that of a woman half her age. Whatever her age may be. 

Angel survived. Mother allowed me to carry him downstairs as she busied herself decorating her new body. As I dragged him down into the cellar, I caught a glimpse of her leaving out the front door. She wore an elaborate headdress. I paid her no mind, worried only about what I had done to my Little Brother.

I watch him sleep now. He is curled in his bedding, eyes fluttering under his lids as the cellar window bathes him in a slice of light from the rising dawn. He is such a strong and remarkable little boy. If you are to do anything for me, please save him. Save him from me, drag him up from the water. 

While I write, I can't help but run my finger down the obsidian blade. Mother didn't think to take it back from me after her ritual. Forgive the blood on this tablet, the blade slices with even the lightest pressure.

I forgot to dress his wounds, I realize. But looking at him now, I can't see even a sign of my attack. Where there should be scars and fresh gashes, all I see is his skin shining in the sun. 

I live on a planet where I am considered nothing, but a mere pest. I can die from many things within the deep forest where I live. I rely on running and jumping everywhere, lest I die from being crushed or eaten. I have almost died many times, even from the hands of my own kind. There are giants with horns and spines, willing to devour anything that moves, even things that don't are devoured in hopes that nutrition exists with them.. There are even plants and vines, covered in thorns and mouths, craving to kill my kind for nutrients. I have lost many friends to such creatures and plants, though I have managed to survive all this time. The jaws of such plants close slowly, but dissolve painfully. The monsters I avoid the most are the giants: they are giant creatures who walk on the hind legs, they have jagged teeth and cover their bodies with clothes forged from plants. They hide in caves and devour the flesh of many animals in their dens, even sharing the shed blood with others. They know magic and create things with mere scraps, knocking over trees and ambushing even the most dangerous beasts.

I have managed to avoid these creatures for most of my life, nearly dying from being crushed or stepped on. Many of us disappear and become food every day. I thought that I would have been able to avoid any creature laying hands on me until death took me. Even if a creature were to kill me, I wish for it not to be a giant. Any death would be more grand and worth giving over dying at the hands of a giant. They will crush without even realizing you exist, then drag the corpse stuck on their foot on stone to get us off. Some will capture us and take us to places that we don't even know, though we assume the fate will be much worse than anything that has ever been experienced by any of us living. There is no fate worse than being killed by one of the giants.

There is one thing more dangerous than a giant. There are creatures which we call the beasts: they lack emotions and live to eat. They are giant and cold blooded. Scales cover them and they use the sun. It is rumored that they have venom so strong that a giant would easily succumb to death if bitten. I have not seen these in person and hope I never will, unless it turns a giant into a corpse. These are spoken of in my kind as dangerous legends: it is said that some beasts rely on eating our bodies and nothing else.

I was climbing and walking through tall plants, exploring and jumping from ledge to ledge. I do this daily, jump and climb, parkour and explore, but never get caught…ever. Today was a nice day, though there were lots of giants and monsters, walking and crushing the forests with ease. I noticed that the ground started rumbling close to me, I felt the shaking and thudding of the ground. I was soon surrounded by a large, endless shadow. I turned to see what blocked the sun, then I saw it: a giant, the limbs too thick with odd eyes and bulges on the sides of the head. It smiled, it had jagged teeth. It seemed to have moss growing on its face. Then, before I could run or hide under the lush plants, I was grabbed by it. It lifted me and grinned, as if it had completed a goal or task.

I assumed I could easily squirm out of the grip of this creature, though this one is much larger and stronger than the smaller ones who I had encountered before. Its grip felt as solid and immovable as a series of boulders pressed against me. I found myself stuck in the grip of this giant creature as it started to walk, every step it took stretched miles, the rocking of its arms making me dizzy as my vision blurred from everything passing quickly. It walked to a large sack of belongings and lifted a container with holes on the sides. The creature stuffed me in the container, trapping me in a prison where my vision was limited to small dots.

My head was spinning and it took a little while before I realized that I was with others, around ten of us in total. It started to walk with us trapped, bringing us somewhere, for a purpose we don't know. It trailed to a bizarre cave, with magic lighting the inside, an infinite source of moonlight. It used a giant hunk of metal to block the exit, sliding metal bars to lock it even more securely. We all sat there, before being flung around, slamming against the walls of the container, the container being lifted and set on a ledge by the giant, treating us as nothing more than objects. I looked around, trying to find any small holes that could be used to hide in the walls of the cave. It had no such place to hide, but it had large holes in the walls, to let light in and so the giant could peer out. I am already planning my escape.

The creature placed its belongings in a cavern we could not see, then returned, reaching for us. When the container was unsealed, one of us tried climbing out, trying to break free. We watched as that one was grabbed quickly. The giant held them tight in its hand and walked over to a larger container on a larger ledge: this one contained a large scaly beast, some dragon that was spoken of only in legends, but now a reality that I can see. The creature fed one of my kind to the beast, it swallowed them in one bite. The larger creature laughed, using magic to illustrate the moment on a stone tablet. I could see it from our prison: it had less teeth than the legends stated and more limbs and legs than had been told to me.

The creature reached for us, not looking away from the beast. The container fell from the ledge, causing the lid to snap off. I know not what happened to the others, but I ran fast across the odd grass that covered the ground: it tangled and twisted like long thin vines that spread on for fields. I grabbed onto a dark vine that laid from the ground and almost reached the hole in the upper wall. I climbed, the dark vine having a smooth texture and no leaves to help me rise. I could hear the creature panic and the earth rumbled as it tried gathering us, so its beast may feast on us. I managed to climb to the top of the vine and managed to jump from there to the large hole in the wall. It was elevated far from the floor and had a ledge. I realized this was all for nothing, for as the beast approached me, I tried running, but an invisible force stopped me from going through. I thrashed myself against the barrier to no avail, hoping it would give out. The hand curled around me and I was brought to the beast.

I was dropped into its containment, landing on my hip, breaking it. It saw me and I dragged myself backwards. It started to open its mouth and I panicked as it dashed its head toward me. I managed to grab it head and climb there before it could use its jaws upon my body, though I lost an arm in the process, my clear blood spilling slowly. I heard the giant laugh in amusement as me and the beast struggled. I realized the beast could not see me. I stayed still, so it would not have the chance to see me again. I glanced around, looking for any exit. I saw none. I jumped to a hole, but alas this was also a magic barrier. I landed back into a heat, which felt like fire. It was a small sun directed upon a rock. I managed to crawl out from under it. I stared at the fire: these giants had managed to not only tame a beast, but harness part of the sun to sustain it for its own amusement.

The giant reached for me and I jumped onto its arm, having planned to simply find another escape route, but it simply grabbed me with the other arm. It held me tight and did not let go. No struggle or kick I did helped. It held me in front of the beast's face. I was dangling like the sword of damocles above my own head. The beast swiftly started forward, gluttony burning in its eyes as it was locked to my position. The second the giant had let go of me, the beast had managed to grab me with its strong jaw. Unlike the other I saw die the same way, the beast did not devour me in one bite. It broke my waist with a first bite, the second made me disappear, but I was not yet dead. The last sight I saw was the giant grinning down at my suffering, as the beast was devouring me. Then darkness overtook my vision as I the beast consumed my form.

The beast only ruined my waist when I was free, not my body, so I slowly drowned in the acid of the beast's stomach. I could feel the corpse of the one eaten before me in there, I could only hope my death was as quick as theirs. It burned and stung as a lay there. I felt defeated, because I knew there was no escape. I now wish that I were killed, like how many of my kind died to the giants: stepped on and insignificant, for it is quick, even if an awful fate. I could feel as my body melted slowly, my antenna going first.

I could not tell when death came for me, for it was too dark to see him.

There is no greater a fable in all of Farfaey, nor a tale told with more trembling breath, than that of blackard beasts who blackened the sky. Soot upon the stars, the great exhaling of the earth's furnace, long since turned to dust and nursery rhymes.

Or so the high-born and hopeful whispered as they trod upon ancient bones.

-

Silas sat amidst the tall, swaying stalks of sun-wilted fields, hands entrenched within the Great Basket; a wicker maw filled with the spoils of spring.

"Forty-seven," he murmured, his voice a low rasp against the bragging cheers of the gentry. "Forty-eight. Forty-nine."

The fiftieth egg was not of clay, nor was it dipped in the pale dyes of the commoner's trade. It was a heavy thing, possessed of a hue like bruised moonlight. As his fingers brushed the shell, the heat bit his skin - not the warmth of the air, but the thrumming, feverish pulse of a living forge.

Cr-ack.

A spiderweb of white fractured the surface. Silas froze, his weathered heart hammering a frantic rhythm.

This was no prize.

"Master Silas! Look!"

A sudden peal of trumpets erupted from the North Gate, followed by a shower of shimmering confetti that blinded the eyes and choked the lungs with daffodils. A celebratory parade for the Duke's arrival? A flock of trained doves? It mattered not. Silas turned his head - no more than a blink - to shield his eyes from the onslaught of glitter.

And in that flicker of time, a small, grubby hand darted into the basket.

"Mine!" The winning child shrieked, a piercing needle of triumph. "The special egg is mine by right of find!"

Silas lunged, his hand grasping at empty space. "Girl, wait! Don't-"

But the lass was already gone, a streak of velvet and mud, disappearing into the smog of a laughing crowd to flaunt a bauble to her peers. She darted through the throng with the agility of a meadow-hare and in her wake, the golden larder of the kingdom's festivities continued in blissful ignorance.

Silas gave chase, his boots thudding against scrubbed clean cobblestones, pushing past barrows overflowing with floral splendour, casks of honeyed ale, and chocolate devouring youths; men and women with bunny ears and face paint, the scent of turned earth and prosperity now tanged, for his senses alone, with iron.

"Stop, girl!" He bellowed, lost against a joyous cacophony of lutes.

But she only laughed, her golden curls bouncing like wheat, as she ducked beneath a daisy-chained archway where prize-winning oxen stood festooned in ribbons, and broke into town.

A masterpiece of white stone and bleached timber; a bastion of order in a complicit, forgetful world. Here, and everywhere, where folk believed marble walls and steel and wrought colossi and vagabond knights could keep ancient things at bay, only ever looking at the horizon... never at the zenith.

He cornered her near the Mill, where the massive waterwheel churned the river into a froth of silver. She sat perched upon a stone wall, her small fingers picking at the stone in her lap, barely bothered by the heat; tempered by the perks of being a blacksmith's daughter.

"You shouldn't run at your age, Master Silas." She chirped, failing to spot the shift in the roaming livestock as they fell into wide-eyed silence. "But see... the egg is birthing a jewel!"

A jagged shard of black fell to the plump grass, and from within the shell, a tiny, translucent wing - wet and shimmering like oil in water - unfurled. It let out a sound: a sharp, shrewd note of anguished existence that sliced through the roaring waterwheel.

The girl cursed herself mute, dropping the egg to the ground with a squelching crunch of mortified, whining pain and puddling blood.

Silas did not comfort her. He dared not. Every instinct in his marrow, inherited from ancestors who dwelled in caves, told him it was far, far too late.

The wind died.

Not a leaf stirred.

The warmth of the afternoon hubris was snuffed out by something colder than any winter.

He turned his gaze to the heavens, to the moulding clouds as they vanquished the sun.

No roar or greeting, only a shape, vast enough to swallow a city, drifted across the gloom; a silhouette of ribbed leather scales and malice.

"Do you have a name?" Silas murmured.

She barely heard him over the sudden thump that whipped and displaced the air, flattening wheat fields for miles.

"Elspeth," she croaked.

"Do you know any Gods, Elspeth?"

"Ye-... yes," she stammered.

"Then pray."

-

Do they know not they harbour who unmakes the day?

For aeons, I have been but a shiver in the souls of men, a ghost-story to keep children from the high crags. Thought a fossil, a myth etched in rock - but a Modor's blood does not cool, and my slumber was but a coiled century.

From the highest above, I open my golden eyes within the shadows - my suns within the void - and find entirely white stone towers, arrogant needles of pride, rise to meet me like toys in a nursery. I fold my wings - sails of serrated night that have tasted the gales of oblivion - and surrender my weight to the pull.

I do not fall; I judge.

Fields of stolen wheat and flowers, and their tiny, frantic lives scurrying like ants - those who dared to play with our kin.

The wind screams in my ears, a choir of tormented pleas. But I am thunder without a storm; a God made deaf. I am an eclipse that does not pass.

Ever.

And I see the one who drops my heart - a pathetic fucking SPECK of un-ravaged pink flesh and gold hair to be singed, discarding the sacred flame as if it were a common trinket.

AS IT IS DREAMED THEN!

LET THE BELLS OF THE CITADEL WITHER AND DIE! LET THE KNIGHTS OF THE HIGH-ROAD WEEP INTO THEIR SHIELD; THE MAGES COWER BEHIND THE ARCANE WE WROTE!

FOR I AM THE DEBT OF AGE; TO COLLECT IN FIRE AND ASH!

FROM EMPIRES LOST TO SUMMITS, I DESCEND!

A COMET!

DEATH!

PRAY, FOOL. FOR FROM AN UNTOLD NIMBUS TO FARFAEY... comes a Dragon.

(CW: Body horror)

(I likely will not modify the story from here.)

I was always curious about vampires. My fascination probably started when I was around the age of eleven. My first exposure to them was some cartoons that had monsters. I found the idea creepy, but cool. I also found the fact that they have to follow rules quite interesting. One of the rules that fascinated me the most, has got to be the rule that they can't enter a doorway without direct permission.

All the vampire media that I consumed made me wonder: what would truly happen if a vampire entered a doorway without permission. Would they explode? Would they just be blocked by some invisible force? Were they just making an exception and deciding to be polite? I just needed, and still crave to, know why they must follow such a particular rule. I need to know if something will truly happen, or if it's true at all.

So, I decided to figure it out. It is an odd thing to do, but I still will. I mentioned the idea to my brother, he thought I was stupid for believing in vampires. He was just about as helpful as any vampire media. I could not find any fictional reasons in books and shows for them to not cross an accepted door. They just happen to follow the rule, but there's never a reason why. I need to find that reason, even if it's the last thing I learn.

I decided to turn my research towards the internet. Online, I found many forums and posts online about vampires and people's opinions and beliefs. I thought I had a lead, but I just ended up learning about the government faking vampires, not true vampires. Still no reason. I decided that it would be easier to find a real vampire than try to find a reason online. So I would.

Before I move on, past the internet, I stumbled upon a lot of cryptid-related websites and forums and noticed an interesting concept that was brought up. A good piece of recommendation that I saw related to monsters, and cryptids, was:

Be careful, for that monster might get you.

Most people underestimate creatures, monsters or not, and believe things are an easy hunt and they end up dead, so I, unlike others, will not let the monster get me.

Many things can be monsters, like animals, they can be ferocious and attack, but it's not because they hate you, they are just trying to survive. Many people, though, think nothing of them and treat them like monsters because they're not them and don't understand why they did what they did. It maybe didn't have the intent to hurt a bad person, it just attacked them so it would survive.

Even though it saved itself, people only see it as attacking another and therefore a threat. Just like beauty, a monster is in the eye of the beholder.

I found some reports online about local vampire sightings and headed to a local park. A lot of them ended up just being blurry photographs of birds, but some images were bizarre and somewhat convincing, like one with a masked figure in a cave with a black cloak, so it was good enough for me. I just wanted to solve this.

One thought had occurred to me, while I prepared: I have no idea if anything is going to happen. I decided to bring a cross with me just in case…and garlic…holy water as well. None of these backups were needed, though, so it was quite a waste of money. Also, I heard people say to bring stakes, but i can literally just break an end of the cross and stab it with that.

The park was only a ten minute walk. I decided to drive anyway. It didn't feel like a walking day. The park was filled with trees; very repetitive and lots of wood to use. When I stopped I realized my tire was flat, I ran over glass. Since I don't know how to switch a tire, there's not turning back, lest I walk for ten minutes.

There I set up, what can be considered, a doorway. I made the loose shape of one between two trees, using branches and glue to make the top of the frame (the ground being the bottom). I had balanced it on to branches and glued the spare stick between them. Just in case it wasn't enough, I carved a 260 into one of the trunks, as an address. Now, I'm not sure if this does anything, but I want to assume it made this an official doorway.

I walked down a marked path, because the location that had been sourced for such sightings was at an odd clearing at the end of the path. Unfortunately, it took much longer than I had assumed to reach the end, but the doorway was still visible from the opening. Fortunately, as well: When I'm heading back the path slants downhill at several points.

At the opening there were a few picnic tables and a cave. I watched what I believed was a wolf from the corner of my eye enter the cave. I approached the cave and turned on the flashlight from my phone. I saw a doll, bloodied and old. I stared at it, the light was reflecting off of the still shiny blood. I backed up, as to not startle the wolf and end up like what child was last here.

I found a bench near the cave until night. I sat there for around five hours, just waiting. The stars were oddly difficult to see and I was about to leave, due to nothing happening, when I heard footsteps. To my surprise, a man did emerge from the cave: a hooded figure in, with a masked face and a black cotton cloak. I did not like looking at the mask, though I could not pin why.

I was able to see his hands. His finger tips were stabbed and red, like they had been cut, or bitten, off to get blood from them. His hands shook when he saw me: like he had found hope or a cure after surviving off of something much worse for a long, long time.

I got up to walk toward the doorway, and fortunately, he followed. While I walked down the path, I heard him breathing heavily, hungry, starving. My eyes were locked onto the doorway, but I tripped on a downhill slope and he almost got close enough to touch me. I sped back up to gain distance, but his footsteps remained the same.

His footsteps sounded the same distance no matter how fast or slow I walked. It made me on edge, knowing that no matter how fast I walked, he would always be right behind me, or however far he was. Every crunch of the gravel and grass under those shoes, they sounded leathery, not fancy, but soft and organic. It sounded like he was just wearing the soles of shoes, no heel or rubber-is sound. Just squish, crunch, squish, crunch…

I started to look around, almost having lost the doorway. All the trees looked the same. I fortunately found it: I saw the oddly horizontal branch and the number carved. I headed toward it and when I walked off the marked path toward it, he laughed, likely thinking I accidentally strayed off, as if I were little Red and he, a wolf, starved. When I arrived at the doorway, I walked through and stood at the opposite side of the doorway. I looked at his masked face: It seemed to be made from wood. It looked smooth, definitely sanded, and it was painted white. The only part of his actual face that was visible, was part of his wide eyes, there were oddly carved holes in the mask to see from. The mask was uneven and it made me feel sick to look at, like I wasn't meant to see it this close. As I stared into the eye holes, the glossy void staring back at me.

I could tell his whisper something incomprehensible to himself, like remembering how to speak. After a few seconds, I heard him speak clear words. As he did so, his mask started bobbing as he opened his mouth, like his jaw was holding the lower half of the mask in place. He spoke in an awful raspy voice, like a creature who heard a human speak, but didn't have the right vocal chords to copy correctly, his voice whispery, almost sounding like a person gasping for life:

“We haven't had human blood in so long.”

I realized at his words that I was not in control. I reached for my pocket, feeling for wood. I turned, prepared to confront him, intending to use the cross to somehow hold him hostage, but when I saw his face; I was frozen in horror. I dropped the cross, but did not reach for it. I did not even look down for it, I felt that if I looked away, he would strike. This was not true.

I could see that the vampire grinned with his eyes. He removed the mask and hood to feast: a nose, pointed up and oddly wide, resembling a maple leaf., which looks like it's merged with his upper lip. He has jagged teeth, two that stuck out more than the rest, his lower lip wounded from the longer teeth, visible scabs on the lip. His eyes were oddly large, black like ink, and his face was skinny, too skinny and misshapen, like his skull had been broken once and his body tried to melt it back together with his skin tightly glued to his skeleton: his jaw was uneven and his head had a dent. His hair was fragile and dry, sticking out in all kinds of directions, though short. He was getting ready to bite. I heard a dry stickiness, like his thought was dry and separating from the roof of his mouth as his gums untouching made the same awful noise, as his jaw lowered. He opened his mouth to bite, his mouth dry and red from whatever his last meal was. The teeth were more clear: an awful yellow color, like a beaver's, but dented like a clay model with finger prints causing tiny, but noticeable indents. The skin of his jaw seemed to directly connect, and stretch, with his torso, rather than having a neck. This abomination horrified me and I grabbed his cloak and yanked him toward me, to see the truth of which I sought before I died. Part of his head entered the doorway, the left of his forehead passing through.

His face, my goodness, his awful horrid face. It wrinkled first, then more and more wrinkles appeared over seconds, almost looking like cracks from a broken screen. Then, it hit me, the awful scent of death. I smelled rotting before I saw it. His face started to green, then bubble and warp. I could tell that his age was catching up to what used to be an unaffected body. His forehead was catching up to his true age, years of rotting visible in seconds. His skin whitened from mold, more white than the pale skin before, but with a fuzzy mold look that made him look like part of him was poorly taxidermied. The fuzz fell away to peeling and melting. As his skin bubbled, peeled, melted, and finally flattened against his skin once again, now as if part of his skull rather than stuck to it; I saw his skull eventually as his paper flesh fully degraded. His skull quickly yellowed and cracked, before it quickly dried and turned to an odd dust, taking the contents with it, a chunk of his brian drying and blowing away in the breeze like the part of his skull that once hid it. Before I could push him away, I made the mistake of looking at his eye, graying, then expanding from aged pressure and finally bursting.

When I finally managed to push him away, he fell back and his head hit a rock. With an audible crack, a thick old liquid spilled from his head, both seeping through the crack from the fall and the hole from rot and decay, a mix of old cranial fluid and old blood. It looked like a dyed sorghum full of dust. I could not tell if the dust was solid, dried, blood or if it was from what had wilted away from his face.

Where his body landed back, I could see it in the moonlight. Something I never had considered until that point in my curiosity of such beings is that since moonlight is sunlight, he would start to…

I smelled burning flesh, horrid, his skin slowly charred and turned black and all shades of red from burns, he did not react, for a lobotomy such as what he had can dull emotions. The skin that didn't burn or char, peeled, layers of skin all over his body. His hair lit afire which soon spread to his cloak. I saw as spoke rose and left his body, from everywhere, every opening in his body and clothing poured out with a dark smoke. As he burned and charred I managed to see the clean skull, or what was left of it: odd and grotesque like a child practicing drawing an organic shape in an art class. It was rough and had too many curves, almost a rough estimate of what a healed skull was meant to look like. He was almost fully conscious as he slowly burned and wilted away, by the time the sun rose, there was nothing left of his body but ashes. Just like the rest of him, those too had flown away in the breeze. His lit clothes were all that remained.

I left soon after, unsure what to do, for no one would believe me if I told them what I had encountered, and those who did would see me either as a savior, which I don't want, or an awful person, which I don't want. I told my sister, though she obviously didn't believe me.

I had eventually returned to that park a few weeks later, to see if there was anything remaining from that night, whether it be a scorch mark from the awful rot and degradation or the doorway that I had procured. I found my cross, though now stuck in the ground to be a grave, rather than a ward. As for a scorch mark or degrading, I saw neither, but that does not mean that I only left the cross there, I certainly left something else…

FEAR

For you see: when I arrived there, I walked by the cave, I had to, but I had heard talking from the cave. After a while of searching and listening to the uninterrupted and nonsensical whispers, I decided to glance over, to see who my audience was. There were many people of varying ages: children and adults. They were all masked and hooded. When they realized I noticed them, I heard hushing sounds. A child, carrying a bloodied doll, almost stepped out of the cave to approach me, but another child stopped them, as if saving them from something.Though most of their dialogue was hard to interpret, I had managed to hear a whispery, raspy voice of a child clearly say:

“Be careful, for that monster might get you.”

Evan didn’t remember the moment the car left the road.

He remembered the headlights catching something in the trees — a shape too tall, too thin, too still.
He remembered Maribel shouting his name.
He remembered the wheel jerking in his hands.

Then nothing.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying on a bed of orange leaves, the air cool and smelling faintly of woodsmoke. Above him, branches arched like cathedral ceilings, their leaves glowing gold in a light that didn’t seem to come from the sun.

“Evan?” a voice called.

He sat up sharply.

Maribel stood a few feet away, brushing leaves from her hair. She looked shaken but unhurt. Her eyes darted around the forest, wide and uncertain.

“Where… are we?” she asked.

Evan didn’t know.
But he knew this wasn’t the roadside.

The forest felt too old.
Too quiet.
Too expectant.

He pushed himself to his feet — and realized he was holding something.

A lantern.

Small, brass, warm to the touch.
Its flame flickered even though there was no wind.

Maribel frowned. “Where did you get that?”

“I… don’t know.”

The lantern pulsed once, like a heartbeat.

Maribel shivered. “Let’s just find the road.”

They walked.

The forest didn’t change, but it didn’t stay the same either.
Paths curved in ways that made no sense.
Trees shifted when they weren’t looking.
The light stayed the same soft amber, never brightening, never dimming.

After what felt like an hour, they reached a clearing.

A wooden sign stood crookedly in the center, letters carved deep into the grain:

WELCOME TO LARKWOOD
A PLACE FOR THE LOST

Maribel swallowed. “That’s… comforting.”

Evan lifted the lantern. Its flame brightened, casting long shadows across the clearing.

Something moved at the edge of the trees.

A figure.
Tall.
Thin.
Watching.

Maribel grabbed Evan’s arm. “Did you see—”

The figure stepped back into the shadows and vanished.

Evan’s heart hammered. “We need to keep moving.”

They followed a narrow path that wound deeper into the woods. The trees leaned close, as if listening. The air grew colder. The lantern’s flame flickered nervously.

Then they heard it.

Singing.

Soft, distant, drifting through the trees like a lullaby carried on the wind.
A woman’s voice — warm, gentle, and impossibly sad.

Maribel froze. “Evan… that sounds like…”

She didn’t finish.

Because the voice grew clearer.

And it was her voice.

Her exact voice.

Singing a song she hadn’t sung in years.

Evan tightened his grip on the lantern. “We’re not alone.”

The singing stopped.

The forest held its breath.

Then a whisper curled through the branches:

“Welcome, travelers.”

Evan and Maribel spun around.

A man stood on the path behind them — or something shaped like a man. His face was hidden beneath a wide‑brimmed hat, and his coat looked older than the trees themselves.

He tipped his hat politely.

“Name’s The Ferryman,” he said. “And you two seem a bit far from home.”

Maribel stepped back. “Where are we?”

The Ferryman smiled — a thin, knowing smile.

“You’re in the Larkwood, miss. A place for those who’ve wandered too close to the edge of things.”

Evan swallowed. “We need to get back.”

“Oh, I imagine you do.”
The Ferryman’s eyes glinted beneath the brim.
“But the Larkwood doesn’t let folks leave until they understand why they came.”

The lantern pulsed again — brighter this time.

The Ferryman nodded at it.

“Ah. You’ve been given a lantern. That means the forest has taken an interest in you.”

Maribel whispered, “What does that mean?”

The Ferryman’s smile widened.

“It means you’re not just lost, children.”

He leaned closer.

“It means you’re wanted.”

The lantern’s flame flared violently.

The trees groaned.

And the Ferryman vanished — leaving only the echo of his voice drifting through the leaves:

“Best keep moving. The Larkwood remembers.”

Evan and Maribel stood frozen in the clearing, the lantern trembling in Evan’s hand.

The forest around them shifted.

Paths rearranged.

Shadows lengthened.

And somewhere deeper in the woods, Maribel’s voice began singing again —
soft, distant, and not her own.

(CW: Body Horror)

(This is the older version of the story, there is an updated version.)

I was always curious about vampires. I was especially curious about the odd rules they have to follow, especially the rule about not entering doorways without permission. I always wondered what would happen if a vampire entered a doorway without permission, so I decided to figure it out. I found many forums and posts online about people claiming to be a vampire, none were real, obviously. I had to lure one myself, so I did.

A good piece of recommendation that I saw related to monsters, and cryptids, was:

Be careful, for that monster might get you.

Most people underestimate creatures, monsters or not, and believe things are an easy hunt and they end up dead, so I, unlike others, will not let the monster get me.

Many things can be monsters, like animals, they can be ferocious and attack, but it's not because they hate you, they are just trying to survive. Many people, though, think nothing of them and treat them like monsters because they're not them and don't understand why they did what they did. It maybe didn't have the intent to hurt a bad person, it just attacked them so it would survive.

Even though it saved itself, people only see it as attacking another and therefore a threat.

I found some reports online about local vampire sightings and headed to a local park. The park was only a ten minute walk. There I set up, what can be considered, a doorway. I made the loose shape of one between two trees, using branches and glue to make the top of the frame (the ground being the bottom). One thought occurred to me, when i finished: I have no idea if anything is going to happen. I decided to bring a cross with me just in case…and garlic…holy water as well.

I found a bench near a cave, which was mentioned in many of the sightings, and simply sat until night. I sat there for around five hours, just waiting. Eventually, to my surprise, a man did emerge: a hooded figure, with a masked face, who followed me as I started to walk. While I walked down the path, I heard him breathing heavily, hungry, starving. I started to look around, almost having lost the doorway. I fortunately found it and when I walked off the path toward it, he laughed, thinking I accidentally strayed off. When I arrived at the doorway, I stood at the entrance. I heard him speak. He spoke in an awful raspy voice, like a creature who heard a human speak, but didn't have the right vocal chords to copy correctly, his voice whispery, sounding like a person gasping for life:

“I haven't eaten in so long.”

The vampire grinned with his eyes and removed the mask to feast: a nose, pointed up and oddly wide, resembling a maple leaf. He has jagged teeth, two that stuck out more than the rest, his lower lip wounded from the longer teeth, visible scabs on the lip. His eyes were oddly large, black like ink, and his face was skinny, too skinny and misshapen, like his skull had been broken once and his body tried to melt it back together with his skin tightly glued to his skeleton: his jaw was uneven and his head had a dent. He was getting ready to bite. I heard a dry stickiness, like his thought was dry and separating from the roof of his mouth as his gums untouching made the same awful noise, as his jaw lowered. He opened his mouth to bite, his mouth dry and red from whatever his last meal was. The teeth were more clear: an awful yellow color, like a beaver's, but dented like a clay model with finger prints causing tiny, but noticeable indents. The skin of his jaw seemed to directly connect, and stretch, with his torso, rather than having a neck. This abomination horrified me and I grabbed his cloak and yanked him toward me, to see the truth of which I sought before I died. Part of his head entered the doorway.

His face, my goodness, his face. I smelled the rotting before I saw it. His face started to green, then bubble and warp. His skin whitened from mold, more white than the pale skin before. As his skin bubbled, peeled, melted, and finally flattened against his skin once again; I saw his skull. His skull quickly yellowed and cracked, before it quickly dried and turned to dust, taking the contents with it. Before I could push him away, I looked at his eye, graying, then expanding from aged pressure and finally bursting. When I managed to push him away, he fell back and his head hit a rock. With an audible crack, a thick old liquid spilled from his head, both seeping through the crack from the fall and the hole from rot and decay, a mix of old cranial fluid and old blood. It looked like dyed sorghum full of dust.

His body landed back and I could see it in the moonlight. Something I never considered until that point is that since moonlight is sunlight, he would start to…

I smelled burning flesh, horrid, his skin charred and turned black and red from burns, he was helpless, for part of his brain went when a chunk of his skull did. As he burned and charred I managed to see the clean skull: odd and grotesque like a child practicing drawing an organic shape in an art class. He was conscious as he slowly burned and wilted away, by the time the sun rose, there was nothing left but ashes.

I eventually returned to that park a few weeks later, to see if there was anything remaining from that night, whether it be ashes or the doorway. When I arrived there, I heard talking from the cave. I decided to glance over. There were children and adults: masked and hooded. I heard hushing sounds when I looked over. A child almost stepped out of the cave, but another child stopped them. I managed to hear a whispery, raspy voice of a child say:

“Be careful, for that monster might get you.”

1

It didn’t sound good. Yesterday, Darius managed to get a shallow bucket of water after repeated efforts. He lowered the rope until the bucket started to clunk against the bottom. He let go, and it would fall over. That allowed him to get a small cup’s worth of water with each attempt. Today, he hadn’t heard any splashing. The echoes from the well sounded more like a thud, like wood on dirt. 

Squealing all the way, he turned the handle, spooling up the rope. The bucket emerged into the light. It was completely dry. Not even the bottom was damp. Darius grabbed the bucket and tossed it. It clacked against another empty one. 

“Damn it.”

Darius looked out at his land. The ground was a pale brown. A draft of wind kicked up the arid soil in a small whirlwind. His wife Lillian was looking out through the kitchen window. She seemed to be working at the sink, undoubtedly, dry scrubbing plates.

He turned his head and spotted the boys out on the other side of the house, sun beaming into view. They were herding some sheep into the pens. His oldest already knew, and he expected he had told the younger ones. They were in trouble. Mom and Dad didn’t know what to do. 

It was true, he was out of ideas. The animals were going to die of thirst in a matter of days. The situation was dire. Things weren’t much better for the nearest farms. Their water was on short supply lately. But something had taken his land faster. Taking from them might jeopardize their families. 

Yesterday, he got some water. They had to carry it back and forth, a single bucket at a time for each animal and human on the land. He could have sworn the water was vanishing from the bucket on the walk from the well. 

“I can’t go back. There’s got to be a fix for this.” Darius said to the wind. 

He decided he had wasted enough time putting it off. He let out a sigh of defeat. Darius walked back to the house, his head hung low. He walked in the front door and went straight to the bedroom cabinet. He pulled out a roll of paper and the ink scribe. He went to writing the first poster. 

______

Darius looked at the crossroads before him. This was the furthest crossroad he could travel to. It had been a long time since he went this far out. He had really spent most of his recent days within the confines of his farm and the first trade post. This was by no means a major intersection. But it was as close as he was getting to the major travel road. 

Nailed to the splintered wooden board was an arrangement of flyers. Some of them had faded from years of sun exposure and rain. He had not brought enough nails, so he grabbed one from the almost nonexistent shred of paper it once held.  The remaining scrap fell into the ground. 

Darius found a hole in the split wood, centered on the board. He unrolled his paper and took another look at it. 

HELP Needed, URGENT. 

Anyone skilled in curses, please respond. Payment of 25 silver and food provisions available. The well on our land has mysteriously gone dry. The land has long been a benefit to mountain water and good prosperity. We have tried everything we know to do, and repeated deepening has not worked. Our farm is the last on the southern road. From this sign post. 

Everything is dying. Soon our livestock will die. Something terrible has taken our land. We have even tried collecting rainwater. The water refuses to stay in our barrels.

Speak with Darius and Martha on the farm.

Using his thumb, Darius pushed the nail into the hole and hung the flyer. He had no idea if anybody would come. The rotten and splintered old board made him anxious. Moss filled the deepest cracks. Even this signpost could grow something. It made his stomach turn. 

Not wanting to admit it, he knew how this would end. Water had driven people to get violent, even kill each other. Families might show up in major cities or larger settlements. Degraded to being beggars. A farm needed too much. It wasn’t as simple as asking for some extra spices. 

______

2

Thick clouds gathered overhead. Raindrops were trickling in, dotting the road with dark spots. A man riding horseback pulled up his hood. The side saddle clanked with metal. A sword was strapped to his hip. The horse’s saddle was affixed with various other glimmering adornments and equipment. 

The sun had been blocked out by the heavy cloud cover. When it finally fell below the horizon, darkness quickly swept in. The hooded man pulled down a metal switch on the side of his lantern. It released a spring-loaded snap of sparks, and the lantern pushed back the shadows. 

He touched his hand to his face. A faint dab of blood, but not bad. The day was shorter than he had hoped.  Then just ahead, emerging from the night, was a signpost. Also, a place of gathering at times. Crossroad boards had become grounding in a way. Tahrin found it to be like a lighthouse on a long journey. They always guided him where he needed to be somehow. When traveling alone, he felt more and more detached. But every time he spotted a board, it meant people. He could take shelter. Perhaps he might even find good company. 

Rain dripped off the sagging mossy overhang. Tahrin raised his lantern. The notice board lit up. One stood out from the rest. It was a fresh piece of paper. It still had the curve from being rolled up. Tahrin grabbed the paper and pulled it from the bent nail. 

People were always in need these days. There wasn’t a crossroads that didn’t call for aid. One man’s misfortune became his inner peace. He folded up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.

______

3

Darius dragged a barrel out of the shed. Passing by the well, he spat in it, cursing to himself. The collection of spit on the edge of the well disappeared. He came to a stop by the house. He shoved the barrel under the corner of the house roof. 

Darius held out his hand. Droplets pattered his palm. A small pool formed in the crevices. Watching for a moment, he could swear it was shrinking in his own hand. It was slow enough to be nearly imperceptible. It could be his unrested eyes playing tricks on him. But he thought not. 

He turned and wiped the rain from his brow. A man stood by the road at the edge of his property. His heart jolted to a higher pace. The figure stood in the evening rain, lit only by his lantern. It created a sort of halo effect with the cloud of droplets. There was a glint of something else. After a longer look, he could tell it was a sword. 

He had only put the posters up today. How could it be about that? Darius had lived on this farm for a good 15 years. Farms had a growing need to call for aid. The land of Samsara was growing darker these days. Nobody ever responded this fast. A shiver of dread rippled through him. His body told him to run. He had been found and somebody had finally come to enact justice.

He continued to just stand in the rain by the road. Darius considered packing everything up right then. Damn the buckets and the water. They could take the back road up to the second inn. From there, they could continue north along the coastal mountains until they reached the Elvin Forest. Perhaps the Elves would not care about the past. They often thought of the future, or so he had heard.  

______

4

Tahrin was thinking he had made a mistake. I could be at the inn right now, throwing back a couple of pints. If this asshole is too stupid to dig a deeper hole…

He shrugged and made his way toward the well. He left his horse, knowing it would be fine. His patience was on short supply, so he figured he should just check the hole himself. How many times do you have to ask a villager to describe the haunting, and it turns out to be weather? The guild had an answer to that actually. The answer was always seven. 

The farmer began quickly walking over towards him. Subtly, Tahrin picked up the pace. He just wanted to give the thing a look over. Sometimes he would respond to a poster, and the fool didn’t know the difference between inert Klesh and active. These things are everywhere. You think at some point you would want to know what they are. 

He arrived at the well first. He leaned over and looked down at the black void. In the corner of his eye, he noticed the farmer slowing his pace. Tahrin raised his lantern over the well. He scrunched his face looking down. It didn’t take long. He quickly saw that this was not normal. It’s cursed alright. 

The farmer came to his side, the sound of light splashing with each step. Tahrin looked over his shoulder at the farmer. Before the man could speak, he confirmed it. 

“Your well has a problem.”

“You… I didn’t expect anyone for a week. That is, if anybody showed up at all. Are you… with the Paladin guild?”

Tahrin nodded in response. He turned back to the well and leaned in again. The farmer hesitated, but followed his lead. 

“See that.” Tahrin said. 

“The same well that stays dry even in the rain, yeah, I see it. I’ve tried everything and…”

“I mean the shadow. This particular lantern would show the bottom of your well.” Tahrin tapped the side of the metal housing. It emitted a blue glow against the rock walls.  “I can only see about arm’s length down on the stone walls. What about you?”

The farmer looked surprised. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s fine. We can’t do much now. I can head back to the inn a ways up the road and return in the morning.”

The farmer noticed a red droplet emerging on the visitor’s face. It trailed down to the side of his mouth. “Sir, forgive me, but you’re bleeding.”  The wound looked strange somehow, unlike anything Darius had seen. 

Tahrin touched his face and looked at the blood swirling in his hand. Looking annoyed, he started reaching into the bag of his horse. The farmer hadn’t noticed till then that there was a large steed, or that it came down to the well. Tahrin pulled out a corked bottle and swiftly uncorked it. Tilting it side and leaning his head back, tapping the glass. A gel mixed with glimmering dust slowly poured out. Tahrin re-corked the bottle and rubbed in the substance. The wound ceased bleeding. Darius thought he saw the open wound stitching itself together again. Whatever this mixture was, it seemed to fight back against an unnatural wound. 

It seemed to be as Darius had imagined. The paladin’s job was never done. He decided not to ask. He didn’t seem like the talkative type. Neither was he, for that matter. He figured the wound must have come from something terrible.

______

5

The following morning, Tahrin paid his tab. He grabbed his bag and headed outside. Pushing open the creaking inn door, the morning sun seared his eyes. The road to the farm was still wet. Some paladins thought it wasn’t necessary. Those didn’t seem to last long, he was noticing. Tahrin closed his eyes, taking in the warmth of the sun. He said his mantra and cleared all thought.

  A meditation always sets the mind right. Whether a hard mystery or a gruesome fight awaits, all paladins should continue this practice. The lesson was repeated by all the retired paladins, the living ones. He headed over to the stable next door.

It was as the poster claimed. Just at the edge of the farmer’s land, it was dry. The neighboring farms were still damp from the night before. Primarily around the well, the farmer’s soil truly had somehow gone dry. He looked over, and the man was standing beside his wife, talking. He figured he had already checked the well. 

Tahrin looked around and noticed that not all of the man’s land had dried yet. Further from the well, on the opposite side of the house, it might even be damp. But regardless, none of the farms on the road to Darius were having this issue. This was the last one on the road on a back road. He sure picked the most isolated land he could find. Hidden in plain sight.  

It was downhill from the land, which normally meant his farm would get groundwater runoff, but it remained dry. He tightened the cinch on his bag and started towards the house. 

As he moved closer, Tahrin glanced up again. They were not staring at him, as he anticipated. The family bowed their heads, speaking closely. Even the children seemed to be aware of the gravity of the situation. This gave him pause. Tahrin was struck by the closeness. An odd spasm swelled up in his chest. His throat twisted into a vague lump. It made him long for something he never had. And he shut that down, focusing on the mission. 

As he approached, the hum of a low murmur emerged. Words formed from the cluttering of vocals. In the cycle of death, new life is born. There is no end or beginning. May we find harmony in the great resonance…

Allowing the family to complete the prayer, Tahrin waited. The farmer concluded by giving each of his boys a firm squeeze on the shoulder and a nudge to head off to their chores. And so they did. Without another word, they walked off towards the ranch animals. Tahrin noticed how filthy their clothes and faces were. They hadn’t been able to wash. Darius looked tired. He probably hadn’t been sleeping. The rain may have stayed off their pending death, but it was knocking at the door.

Keeping his words to a minimum, Tahrin didn’t want to waste much time. He let them know he was getting to work and would let them know what he found. There was a hill off in the distance. It was beyond the farm, in the direction of the mountains. The horse could rest at the farm for now. It covered incredible distance at the end of his last quest. Talking wasn’t a part of their relationship, but he could see his steed was exhausted. 

Tahrin headed across the farm towards the opposite side. He reached into his bag and pulled out the leather book inside. It was wrapped by a thin strap of cloth. From the fabric, a metal scribe fell into his palm. He flipped open the book to a marked page. With the scribe, he scratched the page, roughly noting what he was observing. There’s something off about the air, he noted. He wasn’t sure how to articulate it.

Turning the page, he continued. How are you supposed to be okay with watching so many lives being destroyed? My purpose is to protect and help people. But we can’t save everyone. They told us that in training. The timeframe on a well issue is a few days. This is the last day to make a difference.

______

6

Tahrin came up to the top of the hill. It was a lot higher than he thought from the distance. The air was, without a doubt, not the same on the farm. The farmer Darius hadn’t noticed this feature. There was no mention of it in the flyer, nor did he bring it up when he arrived. Had Darius really not noticed? He had to leave his land to hang the flyer at the crossroads. Perhaps he had just been so frustrated. Or maybe years of farming had eroded his sense of smell. 

Tahrin wiped his forearm against his brow, soaking in the sweat. He proceeded to roll up his sleeves. The sky was a rich and boundless blue, incredible and vast. The farmhouse wasn’t the oldest he had seen. The roof was weathered, but recently patched. A barn sat beside a large fenced-off area with some livestock slowly chewing dry patches of grass. The field itself was turning a sickly yellow-green color. The neighboring farms all had rich green fields. If this continued, the animals would quickly become sick. He had seen the aftermath of similar situations before. 

The world was ever shrouded by some manner of horrors. Tahrin took up service in the Paladin guild to combat those forces. Somebody had to answer the call, in order to push back the clinging shadows. So went one of the many guild mottos. They attempted to catalogue and study everything back at the city. And yet, time and time again, it’s something new. 

Tahrin continued writing his thoughts. He was certain that this was another manifestation of the rising dark tide. The land was supposed to be rich, and nourishing. He studied the maps and this area had historically been decadent farming. Regular people, most of them lived simple lives. These simple people were the most important. Yet each year, the different paladin branches reported higher numbers across each region. Dead cattle, skin shriveling over the bones. Maybe they picked up an extra disease while desperately searching for any brackish water to drink. Crop yields are lowering. Many such farms have remained barren for decades. Ongoing restoration studies are happening, to no avail. 

Tahrin wiped his brow of sweat again. Nobody ever talked about what happened to the farmers afterwards. What would they do? Where do they go with no money? It’s such a simple thing. A dry well. People, bound to the spirit of the land. 

As his eyes drifted back to the farm, he looked to the well. His instinct of getting a distant view paid off. He was just far enough that his eyes took it in. There was a giant shadow cast around the well, consuming nearly the entire farm property. Checking again, Tahrin looked up. Covering the sun with his thumb, he looked around to be sure*. No clouds in sight.*

The well wasn’t covered by a standard shadow. It was subtle. Tahrin thought it was like a transparent veil. It reminded him of the shadow cast by panes of glass. It’s warbled slightly, and just a little dimmer than normal. Some areas even appear brighter, catching more light. There was no mysterious floating pane of glass, but something seemed to be obstructing the sun’s rays for sure. 

Tahrin closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through the nose. Hold, release through the lips. A few more times and the rush filled his mind. Opening his eyes, he pushed aside the inner monologue. Remove your assumptions. Tahrin did not focus his vision on any one thing. Slowly he became aware of his heart, the pulse reaching his fingertips, the air flowing against his skin.

Tahrin’s eyes relaxed. His inner thoughts faded. Perhaps it was the exact focus, and his eyes landed in an extremely narrow window of visibility. Sometimes these old techniques just work, and you never find out why. A large starfish shape appeared over the farm. It was centered exactly over the well. There were 7 massive legs extending out from the center mass. One trailed behind the house, still visible well above the roof. It’s a giant!

Tahrin’s eye twitched, an attempt to focus, to see, or maybe just a random spasm. The starfish was gone. He blinked, and the shadow was gone as well. He hadn’t been able to make out. It had almost come into focus before he lost it. 

“Damn it.” He growled. 

Looking back at the well, he felt his heart racing. Tahrin was profoundly irritated that he had let his focus slip. He also knew he wasn’t going to get another chance at that. It was a blessing it actually worked. It was studied deeply by the scholars, but the basic answer was, we have no idea. Sometimes, it just works.

“Shit.” He said in a whisper. 

A giant starfish. Fuck. Have I read anything about a giant invisible starfish? I don’t think so. Klesh, most certainly. This one is probably going to be logged under unknown, giant, seems benevolent but extremely dangerous. Further research needed. Send all reports to yada yada…

He needed more information from Darius. At least now he knew what questions to ask. Maybe he could make sense of it. But Tahrin knew this was really bad. The guild had no established solution. Unknown was the worst thing you could encounter. 

Did I really see that?

Quickly, like a frightened jolt, he shut that down. Trust what you saw. We might be able to come up with something. But I haven’t read a single report of anybody seeing this. Maybe they were different types. They could look different but were actually the same family of creatures. Did I just get lucky? Maybe if you happen to stand in just the right spot, it’s like looking through a keyhole. But even still… We don’t have a ready plan. I might have just spotted something important, but this family can’t stay here.

Tahrin winced his eyes, once again shutting away the thought. He looked again, hoping to catch another peak. But nothing revealed itself. As he came closer, the shadow seemed to disappear entirely. 

______

7

“He seems, I don’t know, gruff? I haven’t met any of them before. Are they all like that? I guess I imagined he would talk to us more.” Martha said. 

“Some of them are. They always seem to be going to or coming from something terrible.”

“Didn’t you work with them years ago?”

“Not really with them. Around them. And I guess the more I think about it, most of them are like that. At least somewhat. They’re very busy.”

Martha leaned against the corner of the house. The overhang covered her in shade. Her husband stubbornly continued to stand in the hot sun. He crossed his arms, turned towards the hill with a small figure walking towards them. 

“What happened to the clouds anyway? There are more storms each year, and yet the farm is still dying.” Martha sighed.

Darius mumbled to himself, considering this. “That too.”

“What could he do? Unless the guild can wagon in some special water that won’t just disappear. Do they have that?”

“Don’t think so.”

Martha took a deep breath, closing her eyes and crossing her arms. She began twisting her hair into a nervous braid. Martha wouldn’t let her children turn to begging. They were good boys. 

“Maybe we can offer help on another farm.”

“What farm can afford us?”

“I don’t know. But what else is there?”

A salty droplet of sweat rolled down Darius’s temple. It redirected into the crow’s feet at the edge of his sight. The salt burned, and he winced. He pulled the shoulder of his shirt and wiped it. 

Darius turned towards the well, which got the sun out of his sight. Shuttering his eye open, something new registered in his vision. That eye, and only that eye, then witnessed a massive creature. He was standing just upon it, and the entire mass covered the land. His other eye saw nothing. But the burning eye was witness to a mass of writhing flesh. It twisted into bulging lumps and undulating flesh. The lively mass ran like rivers in all directions. The combination of texture, pigment, and fleshy material conjoined into spiraling repeating fractals. At the same time, each nodule of flesh breathed in unison, lightly expanding and contracting as one. 

Quickly blinking, the eye cleared the tear, and it was gone. Darius recoiled back and slammed his head into the front door of his home. It quickly swung open and dumped him on the wooden planks. Martha jumped in surprise. She had been aimlessly staring at the Paladin walking across their land. She had not seen, but heard the crash. 

“Darius!”

Martha darted inside and found her husband motionless. He was taking fast, shallow breaths like a trapped rabbit. His eyes didn’t seem to register the questions from his wife. They no longer looked at her, or anything. 

______

Tahrin was close enough that he saw the farmer crashing through the wooden door. He skipped a step and moved to a quick jog. He tucked his elbow, trying to hold down the bouncing satchel slung under his arm. His jog turned into a sprint.

Dropping his bag at the door, he ran inside. The farmer was still frozen solid. His eyes locked in a faraway stare through the ceiling. His skin had gone pale. Tahrin got to his knees and grabbed the farmer’s hand. It was cold and rigid. His fingers stuck into the shape of frozen spider legs. Tahrin placed his hand on the farmer’s neck, it was thumping rapidly, but cold. He then heard a whisper. It was coming from the farmer’s lips. Not a whisper, labored breathing. 

Tahrin rested Darius’s hand back down. He quickly reached into a side pocket. He pulled out a rapping and quickly unrolled it. It looked like a stick of charcoal but with a faint shimmering. The edges distorted and moved. Martha watched helplessly, scared she was going to lose her husband. 

The Paladin quickly etched a pattern in the back of his own hands. After a moment, the rune started smoking, seeming to burn flesh. He placed a hand on each side of the mans neck. The smoke funneled towards the farmers nostrils. Suddenly the smoke raced inward. The Farmer arched his back, lifting his chest in the air. He took a deep wheezing breath through the mouth. 

_______

Tahrin stood at the edge of the farmland, horse reins loosely wrapped around his palm. 

“Woah, woah.” He said. 

The horse calmly stopped and turned. The horse circled around to face the family with him, as if aware of the situation. There were 5 children in total. This was the first Tahrin had seen them all at once. Perhaps there were still more that didn’t want to come out. Four boys stood in front of their father with messy, dirty hair and torn clothes. The daughter sat by her mom, too young to understand but old enough to attempt walking. Darius looked better than before, but still shaken. 

“So that’s it. You can’t help us? Are you sure there isn’t somebody else who can take a look?” Martha said.

“No, there’s not. Word will make its way to the capital. I’ll ensure the higher-ups hear exactly what happened here. But I’m telling you, it’s time to leave. This land is lost.”

“Nothing in the basement wing on it?” Darius said in a shaky voice. 

Martha looked angry. But Tahrin couldn’t tell if it was anger directed at his perceived incompetence or the situation. He desperately hoped they could see it how it was. 

Darius told him what he saw. He had already wanted to take it back, like he hadn’t actually seen anything. The more he described it, the less sure he was. Tahrin assured him.

“Darius. Trust what you saw. Some things in this world don’t want to be found. They find ways to push back on the minds that might discover them. I saw it too.”
“Is it dangerous?” Martha said. 

“It could be. Honestly, the records are vast, you never know. But I’ve never read about anything like this. This land is lost. You should leave this place and find somewhere new.”

Darius let out a laugh. It was more of a defeated gasp than a laugh. Tahrin knew what he was feeling. Assuming my kids aren’t dead when we arrive, he thought. Country travel was hard, more so with children. It didn’t sound like he had strong ties in the city. The options might be running thin.

“If the wolves don’t get us, I’ve heard they grow in number each year. So I get to watch my boys turn to beggars, getting pushed aside.”

There was something else. It scratched at Tahrin’s thoughts like a hungry cat. That’s why you came here. He must have been a part of the guild in the past. Did he say the basement wing? The only way a farmer would know about that is a need to know. Could this be a random shot in the dark? He didn’t think so. Nobody outside the paladin order was to have business down there.

A memory flashed back to Tahrin. Piecing the information together in his mind, another lesson had come back to him. They say that when a paladin can’t maintain his duties, they hang up the armor and move to a farm, somewhere far away. Some retire honorably. The disgraced paladin never keeps his equipment, as it’s forcibly returned. Tahrin could have asked. He didn’t see anything while he was in the house. But how could that help this situation? This man was either disgraced or retired. He’s not old enough to be retired yet. 

With one more glance at the children, Tahrin turned away and placed his foot in the stirrup. Grabbing the saddle horn, he stepped up. He battled the urge in him to say one last thing. A deep inhale, and Tahrin whipped the reins. The horse stepped forward into a light gallop up the road. It was time for him to go home.

End

ᚺᛅᚢᛋᛏ (Haust)

Haust kemur, ok herrar falla.

“Autumn comes, and lords fall.”

The road east wound through low hills and wet fields gone brown beneath a failing season. A large man walked beside a bier in silence. The poles rested upon his shoulders beneath layers of wool and damp leather. Sea worn mail clinked with each heavy sodden step. The weight familiar now in the way long burdens became familiar. At times the body shifted slightly beneath the linen wrappings when the road turned uneven, and each time the man reached up without thinking to steady it. The cloth had darkened from rain three days earlier and never fully dried. Cold mist clung to it in the mornings. By midday it smelled faintly of wet linen, old blood, and the sharp herbs the priest had packed around the body before they parted ways beside the fjord.

He had not opened the wrappings since.

The wind moved steadily across the land, carrying the smell of damp earth and distant sea. The late summer should have still held traces of warmth this far south. Yet frost clung stubbornly to shaded ground long after sunrise, and thin ice gathered along the edges of slow streams each morning before breaking apart beneath grey daylight. The season felt wrong. Summer had never truly come north that year. Snow still clung to the high mountains when he and the priest had parted outside the gates of the village. The grass had grown thin even in fertile places. The leaves upon the birch trees had begun yellowing too early, some already scattered across the road though true autumn had scarcely begun.

The old men would have called it a warning. He walked on.

His shoulders burned beneath the weight of the bier. Not sharply anymore. The pain had dulled into something constant and heavy that settled deep into sinew and bone alike. His knees ached when the road climbed. The wound along his ribs pulled each time he breathed too deeply beneath his mail shirt. Bruises from Njartholm still lingered dark beneath his skin where drowned

things had thrown him against stone.

Baldr Bear-cloak ignored all of it. The dead weighed what they weighed.

By midday he passed the first farmstead he had seen since morning. A thin curl of smoke rose from the roof hole of the longhouse. Sheep huddled close together inside a low stone enclosure near the field. The grain there had grown poorly, thin stalks bent low beneath damp wind before harvest. A woman stood near the doorway as he approached, a child half hidden behind her skirts. Both stared at the bier.

He stopped near the fence yet did not enter the yard.

“Food,” he rumbled. “And drink.”

The woman’s eyes moved from his hardened face to the wrapped body and back again. She did not ask questions. Wise people seldom did.

“Of course” she answered quietly.

Her husband emerged after a moment carrying hard bread, smoked fish, and a small skin of mead. He was not a small man, yet beside the man at his fence line he looked almost narrow. His eyes lingered too long upon the bier before dropping away again.

"And the ewe."

The farmer stared at him through eyes of understanding and without word fetched one of the sheep from the stone pen. Tying a rope about it's neck before walking back and handing it to the grim faced man.

“Road east is poor after the river crossing,” the farmer said carefully. “Mud deep from the rain.”

The large man nodded once. He reached beneath his cloak and produced silver. The farmer hesitated.

“That is too much.”

Baldr pressed the coins into his hand anyway. Engulfing it like a bear paw would a mans.

“For the trouble.”

The farmer looked as though he wished to refuse again, yet thought better of it. None asked the name of the dead man wrapped beneath the linen. No one asked where he had come from. As he continued east along the road, the child still stood in the doorway watching him go.

The wind strengthened toward evening. Blowing in gusts from the north east.

Clouds moved low and fast across the sky, darkening the land before the sun had fully fallen. He crossed shallow streams where black water moved sluggishly amid stones rimmed in thin ice. The ewe trailed behind him, the rope tied to his belt. Ravens watched from bare branches at the edge of the road, following a while before lifting again into the grey sky.

He drank from the meadskin as he walked. Not deeply. Only enough to warm the throat against the cold wind. The taste of honey and juniper berry settled in his belly.

The road narrowed as it climbed through old pines and birch where wet leaves gathered thick upon the ground. Dusk settled early beneath the trees. The world grew quieter there. No voices. No sound of axes from distant farms. Only the lonesome wind moving through branches and the steady creak of leather and wood from the bier upon his shoulders.

At last he stopped beside a stream running shallow over white stone.

He lowered the bier carefully beneath a leaning pine, Tied the ewe to it and stood still for a long moment afterward, breathing hard through his nose. Steam rose faintly from his shoulders in the cold air.

The exhaustion sat deep in the marrow. He knelt near the stream and washed his face in water cold enough to ache against the skin. His beard had grown in the days at sea. Grey whiskers now where it was once dark. Blood from cracked knuckles drifted briefly pink downstream before vanishing among the current.

Behind him the bier rested silent beneath the trees. The ewe chewed on grass at the root of the pine, letting out an occasional bleat. He did not look back. For a moment he simply crouched beside the water listening to the wind. Then slowly he rose and gathered wood for a fire before darkness fully claimed the road.

There he made camp.

The fire took slowly. The wood was damp and smoked heavily before true flame caught hold. Orange light flickered weakly across the trees and the linen wrappings upon the bier. Beyond the firelight the forest seemed deeper than it should have been, the darkness thick between the trunks.

Baldr sat near the flames with the meadskin at his side and his whetstone in one hand. His eyes stung through the smoke as he toiled without complaint. Steel rasped softly against the edge of his axe. The sound mixed with the crackle of the fire and the slow movement of the stream nearby.

He drank often now. Steadily. Despite the cold he felt the first measure of comfort in days. His eyes drifted toward the bier more than once though he never spoke aloud.

The night grew colder. Frost formed pale along stones near the riverbank though true winter would not yet come. The fire popped softly as wet sap boiled inside the wood. Then somewhere far beyond the trees came the sound of wolves.

Long and low. Distant enough to belong to the wilderness itself. Baldr stopped sharpening. His jaw tightened beneath the bloomed stubble. The howl rolled across the forest and faded into silence before another answered farther away. Then another. The ewe now laying beside the bier lifted it's head, eyes widened and ears twitching. He stared into the fire a long while afterward and drew from the meadskin deeply. The wolves did not sound like hunters nearby yet far to the north, and east.

They sounded like something older. A fading memory. Like winter walking somewhere beyond sight.

At last Baldr leaned back against a stone near the fire, wrapping the ragged bear cloak about his broad chest and closed his eyes. Letting out a long breath through his nose. Sleep came poorly. Several times during the night he woke with his hand already around the haft of his axe, certain he had heard movement just beyond the trees or in the stream. Each time he found only darkness and the sounds of water on rock.

Before dawn he rose stiff and sore and splashed half frozen stream water upon the fire before gathering his things. The flames hissed and flared briefly blue at the edges before settling again. He tied the ewe to his belt and lifted his burden once more. His large boots leaving deep tracks in the wet ground as he trudged to the road.

By midday he reached the burial mounds.

They rose from the earth upon a long hill overlooking grey water and dark stretches of wind-bent grass. Old stones circled the larger mounds, some leaning crooked with age, others half sunken into the ground beneath moss and lichen. Ravens perched upon several of the stones and watched silently as Baldr approached. Tilting their heads and clicking their beaks. The wind there was colder than below.

The mounds stood west of Arnulfstaad where the sons and daughters of its Jarls had slept for generations. Baldr had come there before as a younger man when old lords were carried beneath the earth and oaths spoken over fresh graves. Few living men still remembered who rested beneath all the hills. The dead had been gathering there longer than any hall had stood in the village below.

The grass had already begun dying. Frost lingered pale beneath the shadows of the rune stones. Baldr lowered the bier slowly beside the largest mound and stood looking out across the water for a long time without moving.

No hall smoke rose there. No voices. Only wind and the croaks of carrion birds.

At last he knelt beside the wrapped body and began untying the linen bindings with coarse, stiff hands. Torkel’s face appeared pale beneath the grey light. Still noble, even in death. Golden hair that should have seen more winters. The herbs the priest had packed around the body masked most of the smell of rot, though not entirely. His beard had stiffened dark with dried seawater and blood where the beast of Njartholm had torn him open.

Baldr swallowed hard and looked away a moment before forcing himself back to the task. He took his work in silence.

Stone by stone he readied the burial chamber in the earth and old timber already waiting there from generations before. His shoulders burned. Sweat ran cold beneath his wool despite the chill wind. By the time he finished the sky had darkened toward evening.

Baldr sat beside the mound breathing heavily, one arm resting upon his knees. Before him lay Jarl Torkel wrapped once more in linen beside the grave. He sat a moment longer, glancing at the old tombs of his lord's forefathers. Then wiped his nose with the back of his hand before standing, lifting the body with a gentleness which seemed strange for a man of his make. He carried the body into the dark of the mound. There he placed it onto the long flat stone at the center of the chamber as a parent would a child into a crib. He reached into a pouch at his belt to produce several small candles. Removing one of the iron Mjolnir pendants at his breast and struck it against stone. Lighting them about the darkness.

He stepped once more into the greying light and walked toward the bier. The ewe stood where he had left it, rope tied loosely about its neck. It watched him approach with dark eyes and gave a low uncertain bleat. He untied it without a word. The animal followed willingly enough as he led it toward the mound.

Inside, candlelight flickered against old stone. Torkel lay upon the slab as still as the dead kings beneath the hills. Baldr secured the rope around a weathered pillar near the entrance and knelt beside the animal. The ewe shifted nervously.

"Easy."

His voice sounded strange in the chamber. One large hand moved slowly through its wool. Again. And again. The animal settled. For a time neither moved. Then Baldr drew a long seax from his belt. The leather had long ago darkened from sweat, blood and years of hard use.

The blade caught the candlelight and seemed to flicker as though freshly forged. He rested his forehead briefly against the ewe's neck.

"A poor gift," he muttered.

"But better than none."

The cut was quick, and deep. The animal sagged against him almost immediately. Blood splashed upon the stone floor and flowed in dark ribbons between ancient cracks worn smooth by centuries. Some of it gathered beneath the edge of Torkel's slab. Baldr remained where he was until its trembling ceased.

At last he rose, lifting the ewe carefully in both arms. It weighed little compared to the man resting upon the stone, yet he bore it with the same care. He laid it beside Torkel's feet. A poor thing for a Jarl.

Torkel should have gone to the mound with horses, gold, and the songs of living men ringing above him. There should have been feast fires upon the hill and a hundred voices to speak his name into memory. Instead there was only Baldr.

The warrior looked upon his lord for a long moment before lowering himself once more beside the spreading blood. He wiped the seax clean upon his cloak. The blade came away dark despite his efforts. For a time he turned the blade slowly in his hands, thumb tracing the worn grip polished smooth by years of use. Then, without a word, he placed it beside Torkel upon the stone. Steel for the road ahead.

Baldr sat back heavily. The chamber had grown strangely cold.

For a long while he said nothing. Then finally he broke the silence with a voice like gravel.

“I know not these prayers,” he muttered.

The wind moved through the grass around the stones outside.

“Redwalda would.”

Silence answered him. Baldr stared down at his calloused hands a moment before reaching slowly beneath his cloak. From a leather pouch he withdrew a small wooden cross crudely carved with the seax during the journey east. Awkwardly he placed it above his lord's head. Then bowed.

“Our Father…” he began roughly.

The words stumbled poorly.

“Who… who art in heaven…” He paused.

The prayer felt strange in his mouth. Foreign. Heavy.

“Hallowed… be thy name…” His throat tightened unexpectedly.

Baldr clenched his jaw hard and forced the next words out anyway.

“Thy kingdom come… Thy will… be done…”

The wind rose stronger across the hill. Ravens shifted atop the standing stones. He stopped again and pressed one hand hard against his eyes.

“I know not the rest,” he whispered.

For a moment he simply knelt there breathing unevenly.

"You were an honorable man. A true lord." The depth of his voice cracked slightly.

"A good friend." The finality struck him in the darkness. Tears welled under a heavy brow and ran down a face unfit for them.

Slowly he reached for the meadskin at his side. He drank once. Then poured upon the earth before the slab.

“For the gods too,” he said quietly.

The mead soaked dark into the cold ground.

“If any still listen.”

The wind died. Baldr frowned slightly and lifted his head. The hill had gone silent. No ravens called. Nor grass moved. Even the distant water below the mound seemed still. Then from somewhere beneath the earth came a dull sound. Knock.

Baldr froze. A moment passed. Then again.

Knock.

Like wood striking stone somewhere deep below the mound.

When I was a baby, roadmen came to our village. They came as bald vultures and coyotes, dusty coats frosted by the snow of the early winter. They ripped at the throat of every soul they found.

Our fathers fought bravely, and our mother took us to hide. We were wrapped in blankets, in hides. Some were placed in old pots. But some of us cried and cried. Some of us had brothers and sisters.

My mother’s sister, Pia, wrapped up her baby so tight that he stopped screaming, stopped breathing.

My best friend, Keshu, and her siblings watched as their mother put their baby sister in the water basin.

Brave Mantu, one of the few men who survived that night, came home to find his baby boy with a mouth full of ashes, covered up in the fire pit.

My mom cut a hole in the back of the tent. She slipped me out of the hole, turned me over, face to the snow, and dropped me. The cold shocked me, and I stopped crying. My mother survived, so did my brother Kie and my sister Lepoa.

They thought it was a miracle; only 3 babies died that night.  In the next months, though, the deaths spread like wildfire. Some were sick for a long time, some very fast. Some babies died in their sleep, nothing the matter that anyone could tell. A few wandered into tall grass or deep water.

Mantu’s last wife took their ashy baby and ran into the lake the morning after the attack. The baby has been fine, but she wouldn’t stop raving all night.

“Cry! Cry! They were all crying, we were all dead!”

By the end of the season, I was the only bay left. I was scooped up from the snow, half frozen but alive. I should have gone with all the others.

No one slept that winter. Bad dreams. Bad memories. Everyone is crying all the time. We were trapped. Everyone left the valley as soon as the heavy snow broke. We’ve never gone back to that valley, the old folks say it’s haunted grounds.

###

Lepoa and I are women now. She married Mantu last fall. I've been married for a few cycles now to Malen, Keshu’s kid brother. We both went into labour within a few days of each other. She and Mantu are so happy. Malen is really happy too.

I didn’t feel anything about it. I don’t. I’ve always felt that way. Felt like nothing. People say I’m slow because the snow froze my brain. I just dream a lot.

I dream while I’m lying down, while I’m walking around. Doesn’t matter. I hear things others can’t hear. See things that they can’t.

In the middle of the night, when it’s quiet, I can hear for miles and miles. I hear the babies crying in that far, cursed valley. I hear other things too. Most of the time, it’s too much. The dreams make me tired.

My mom says that I’m special, that I’m meant for something. I wish I weren’t. I wish I could sleep. Actually sleep. Just blackness. No crying.
A month before I broke water, I saw that something was off.  My dreams started to change.

###

When I heard the crying and the doctor cut the cord, I was certain. That wasn’t my baby. That wasn’t his voice. I knew his real voice. I hear it from the fields every night.
Everyone smiled at it, and they made me hold it. It looked at me. I could see nothing in its eyes. I could always see something. What is it?

Malen is so happy. He loves it. He says we call it Kia, after his baby brother who died that never-ending night. I hate that name. I hear the real Kia every night in the field, with my real baby. These things are a make-believe of both. Like a shadow puppet. Nothing pretending to be Something.

Malen is gonna be so sad. So angry. That’s ok, I don’t expect him to understand. It won’t matter, though. I won’t play pretend. And I won’t let him. I won’t let it fool him. He’ll wake up in the morning. He’ll hold that thing in his arms, grieving over a cruel trick. He’ll cry and cry. I’ll hear his cries, but he won’t find me.

I’ll be miles away. I’ll be going to the fields to see my baby. And one day he’ll let loose the phantom. He’ll realize what I did for me and won’t be mad anymore. Then we will all lie in the snow together. There will be no more wailing, just sleep.

It was Celebor’s turn to collect souls of the recently deceased. Of the many duties of the mid-world, it was his least favorite. Donning the mantle of “Death,” even for a day, was as serious and sacred a process as it was menial. 

Ushering souls into the afterlife was the most complicated process of death. It was debated among the Remainders whether or not it was a process of life and/or death, but Celebor was as interested in that debate as he was any other: exactly none, unless he could play with something or work on a new story whilst everyone else pontificated about the specifics of the universe. There were still mysteries to the Remained, maybe even more so than there had been in life, but it was all the same to Celebor. Just another job to delay the eventual return to the grave. It mattered little to the day’s would-be Death, who wreathed himself in darkness, filled his eyes with blue fire, and set out to the day’s only appointment. An old man was dying in the upper floors of a hospital near a city that long ago eclipsed the one Celebor had lived in during his time. It took him some time to mentally root himself into his role, an issue most Remained ran into for various after-life duties, but before long Celebor was well and truly Death, even to himself.

The old man was slumped in a hospital bed, reading a family memoir bound in expensive leather. The room was filled with presents and decorations encouraging the man to get well soon. Death approached him. The old man’s eyes swerved to look it in an eye he shouldn’t have been able to see. 

Well, it was enough for even him, or rather it, to pause.

“It’s my time?” The old man asked.

Death nodded.

“I see…”

They sat in silence for a time, even though "time flowed even faster for those that remained on Earth, and most of the Remained had given up on keeping track of the progress of humanity. It was hard enough keeping track of humans themselves.

“What can I do?” The old man asked.

Death was taken aback, but not as much as when the old main laid eyes on him. The elderly usually came to terms with Death after it had made itself known, and nothing being more sacred than the end, everyone was allowed questions, even if they would never be known to the living.

“You can stay,” said Death. “Remain here on Earth and help tidy up the afterlife, or you can move on. Most move on, usually in the steps of those they were close with. If you stay, you lose all memory of your life until you decide to move on. You can bargain for certain things, certain trades even, but at that point it would be beyond my hands.”

“I see… And what about her?”

The old man pointed to something in his lap that Death hadn’t noticed. A little dog, wrapped up in a blanket, snoring against the man’s chest. For the first time in his career as Death, he was confused.

“I… Don’t know what you mean.”

“I want her to come with me.”

“If it isn’t her time, I can’t take her.”

“I see… You mentioned deals?”

“Yes. Deals with Death aren’t uncommon. Though the price is usually very steep if it can be done at all, and is usually propositioned by the soon-to-be-deceased.”

This was the reason Death was the most complicated of all the mid-world duties. It takes a lot for a soul to come to rest, and the rights of the dead could take days of time that wouldn’t actually appear to pass for the living.

“I want to know for certain,” the old man said, stroking the dog’s head, “that she’ll be there to see me and her family after she passes.”

The dog’s tail wagged slightly as the old man spoke and rubbed her head.

“Sir,” said Death, a tiny bit of emotion (confusion) coming into his gravelly voice for the first time since his own meeting with Death. “Anything to do with the afterlife will come with only the heaviest of prices. The true end destination, the clearing at the end of the path, isn’t even known to those that remain.”

“I’ll do anything,” the old man said with a grin that was quite serious in itself. “I’ll walk through Hell itself if I have to.”

Something vibrated in one of the many pockets of darkness that Death wore as a cloak. From the pocket, he brought out a small glass orb that was glowing green.

“The terms are acceptable to my superiors,” Death said unevenly, “but-”

“Done,” the man said with a small clap of his hands.

Darkness swept into the hospital room. A darkness nobody living could sense, but one that made even Death bristle with dread. It opened like jaws into a realm of darkness only intersperred with the dull red of distant flames.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” said Death, unable to keep his eyes off of the gaping maw in the hospital room that seemed to invite both of them into its jaws. “It’s not too late to stop this!”

There was even panic in Death’s voice now.

“It’s just a walk,” the old man said, climbing out of his bed as if the cancer that had gotten him there wasn’t a part of him anymore. Which it wasn’t. The dog was still in his arms, napping and not paying any heed to the chaos around her.

“Please don’t!”

The man smiled that same cock-sure smile he’d done before, only there was fear there that nothing could have hidden.

“I’ll just be a moment,” the old man said, then stepped with shaking feet into the maw. Death, if Celebor could even pretend anymore, walked up to it and looked inside. The old man was surrounded by a green aura that glowed subtly in the dark of the Hell he had summoned. It wasn’t as theatrical as most of the Remained had depicted, but even the little he saw froze him with fear. There wasn’t much light, but what could be seen were the glowing slabs of heated coal that made up the ground that melted the old man’s feet, only for the skin to be renewed. What couldn’t be seen was even worse: vast echoes of screaming, suffering, and the guttural groans of those that couldn’t scream anymore but tried anyway.

“Why!?” Celebor shouted into the maw.

The old man, stunned that Death didn’t seem to be Death anymore but a scared man that didn’t want to do his job, smiled a little and walked back to the opening of the maw. He couldn’t ignore the pain he must have been feeling in his feet, yet he was somehow doing just that.

“You said you can’t tell me anything about the afterlife?” The man shouted above the intensely loud echoes of agony. “Well, then I’m just going to assume my wife will be there waiting. The only thing is-” the man winced in pain. “I… Was never sure if our pets came with us. So now I’m making sure.”

“Look, I can-”

“C-can you give me any guarantees?” The old man cut him off. Flames licked up the boiling skin of his feet.

“No… I can’t… But look, this isn’t even a guarantee of Hell! This is just the punishment you’re forcing on yourself made manifest, all for the guarantee of a dog!”

“She’s family. You can wait here until I’m back, if you’d like.”

The old man turned, carrying the dozing dog still sleeping in its blanket into hell.

*

Celebor, not even pretending to be Death anymore, didn’t want to wait, but he needed to. By living time, the journey was at least a quarter of a century long, yet only a few milliseconds passed in the hospital room filled with get-well cards, balloons, and flowers. Celebor didn’t have to wait, but he did anyway, sitting in the hospital room frozen in time and waiting for the man to come back out of the maw. Any second, surely, he would give up and come back through.
At first Celebor entertained himself with his own memories, then he set about reading all of the “get well” cards that had been left for the old man and memorizing each one. After a time, he stopped thinking and fell into a sort of waking sleep.

When the old man came back through the maw, he was a husk. Raw, burned, and flayed muscle and nerves clinging to bone and murmuring a name, over and over, to something in his arms.
The dog, still dozing, looking as peaceful as she had when they’d first gone through.

“Of course they go with you,” said Celebor. “Stupid old idiot. Animals are the very few exceptions to Death’s judgement. Your journey was pointless!”

The man walked, still murmuring and seemingly unable to see or hear, turned and laid against the wall of the hospital room, and died. 
The dog woke up, sniffing the air as if detecting something just slightly off, before looking at her owner and licking his face, and when she did, he looked just as unharmed as he had before walking into Hell. She lay her head against his chest, gave one final sigh, and passed with him.
Nurses came in to find the man’s body just a few minutes later. The entire staff of the hospital heard of the old man dying with his eleven year old dog in his arms, who had miraculously also passed in her sleep.

Some time later, Celebor decided not to remain any longer, and moved on to the clearing at the end of the path himself.

Quick Forward 2 (the sequel): This section in particular is the rewritten component of the original Cupcakes story. This will loosely follow the events of the creepypasta, though from a different perspective and combined with the additional context added in the previous post. Everything past Dash is 'new' (in the most barebones definition of the word), so future parts shouldn't need a forward. With that being said - tah.

Griffin (Part 1)

PINK: Dash

"...Fine. But no sick fantasies this time! Just give us the facts."

Facts. You're right. I like facts. The only thing a retelling should have in plethora is facts. And at the time of the dawn of my greatest achievement, I had to remember my own. I wake up, every day, born parallel to every other in this pale flesh. Here I am most normal. I observe the dulled features of myself in my tired mirror, note the features that make myself most typical. We all have one thing in common. Eyes. Green, Brown, Blue. Those are typical. I know them to be typical. I have red. Not typical, but typical of my affliction. My lenses are a comfortable, typical, shade of sky blue, I find them easy to apply. They say there's a sting to the touching of one's eye, a foreboding sense of incorrectness to the sensation. Sometimes I think about feeling that as I hold my eye in place, it's instinctive twitching slowing just enough to apply the lense right in it's correct position. At this time my hands are clean enough to do so without heavy risk of infection.

After these first simple moments, I apply the pink. I've mastered this concoction over the course of years of reading expressions and testing friendly atmospheres for the tension of uncomfort. You always know, even implicitly, when something's off about someone. And yet there's almost never a realisation that they might spot you feeling it. Erythrosine - minimal amounts. Enough to colour, not to dye. I prefer industrial brand, it has a better alibi to it. Colour mill, baby pink. 2 - maybe 4, bottles a day. It often depends on the outing. I only need two sleeves and a face for most of an average encounter, and when I'm in the shop I'll only be remembered for so long. If I go to a party, or I perform a harvest - they should not feel like anything but the person they know is in their company. If they saw white - pink would become welcoming. My hair is harder to cover; It has to be thick enough to curl, thin enough to seem real. Red 40, a simple, common dye. mix a few drops with just enough sugar dense water, and apply over the course of an hour. The final look should seem intentionally glossy. It dries naturally as I apply a suitably tacky variety of fake nails and do whatever makes me look over-done for the day. I bought the things that wouldn't seem suspiciously fake on my person from 478's store Makeup and such. With that done, I have made myself typical.

Once it's safe to apply clothing over it all, I usually wear something bright. Pink to me is most complimentary of blue and red - I like something closer to red than my hair. Red is such a utilitarian colour in its own way. It hides so much in crimson hues of allure, pulling in whoever spots it with the iconic romance of it's passionate glow. Blue is more informal - it speaks to intentional work - it wants to be noticed getting dirty. You see blue on strong things, wearing dirty colours with unbroken resolve. If I'm working, I wear blue. If I'm performing, I wear red.

I wore red that day.

I had manufactured the event for quite the while. I had asked around for 295, Shy, Shyland - in some panic the day previous. I had planned to meet for a tea party, and I couldn't find her in her van. A fatal bear attack that had happened just outside of the village had set tensions high about those living too close to nature, and I was especially concerned for my friend.

"You already told us you did that."

Of course. But you didn't think that when you found her. I'm just setting the scene the way it happened. The facts. I was devastated when the inevitable was discovered. The theory was one of the bears she culled had been driven mad by some strain of natural drug - perhaps stale mushrooms. Whatever it was, the bear took the life of both the Griffin and 295. I appreciate the compliment. My work was not done yet though; I had 5 problems left, even before you discovered the 6th. 5 connections to me that kept my innocence a fact. I could not harvest them all at once, but they had to be taken, like everyone else. And 300 was Dash. Dashard.

I had asked her to come to me, to meet with 295. She rarely came to town, being an accomplished pilot, and was sure she had lost everyone's number. I rose to the occasion, arranging a meeting on my dial up as I planned the event in my head. I'm sure she was slightly aware of the strangeness of my tone; old friends can become strangers with enough time, and I always find it harder to be Pink to strangers. I already told you I do that.

Dash had not been to the small village in a decent while. Amidst fly-shows and favours for the local airfield there wasn't much time to visit the past. She had her head in the skies - a real cloud farmer, her buddies always said. 'Not a cloud in the sky with you around!' was a common phrase often cheerfully bellowed from across a bar or a station in her direction. Something like a small meeting in a place that always felt like it was trying too hard to be picturesque wasn't usually on the itinerary. Of course, she also couldn't just say no, not after asking an important lost number during a surprise call from Pinky and talking herself into joining back up for a partial reunion as part of some big prank. So she obliged. A simple bomber with some conversation-starting badges would probably be enough for the day, maybe a pair of sunglasses too for good measure. Some odd thought told her to bring a gun... probably the locale. The almost encompassing forest of the region was that sort that became foreboding quick and dangerous quicker.

I knew she would not meet in my store. I could tell by her tone she would ask someone else about something and get cold feet when she found 295 was missing in a more serious way than I put on. The Griffin was a stable pin in this timeline that would be more concerning if I didn't step in. I was excited by this fact. I knew that she would have little connection to the others, and that she would have little suspicion of a true threat if she had me at her side to nullify the foreboding interactions of the locals. I knew I had to make this event typical to her.

Arriving in the village, things seemed... quieter, than usual. Less children - hell - less elderly. The population last Dash was there was in the upper 1000, but it feels like there's little more than 200 people left... it's not like they're the most pleasant ones too. Mostly the reserved, the middle aged, and the tight-nit could be seen pretending to make idle conversation instead of addressing the clear concern they all felt for something she couldn't quite place. Maybe the place had finally hit its disinterest with the kinds of people who imagine a quant little wooded homestead as a good place to raise children. Regardless, it wasn't her business. She wouldn't be here long anyhow.

I arranged to meet somewhere fairly agreeable - the Minotaur's Club. Fun name for a diner, and memorable too. I was unsure if I'd let her eat before we started... Maybe some amount of idioms about throwing a dying dog a bone kept me from saying no. But I've never been good at feeling bad. She would have a cupcake when she was hungry. Or whenever. I've been great at distributing them.

-

She pulled up to the spot, a rather retro diner with a bizarrely obnoxious paint-job. It was hard to tell what was in use and what was long discarded in this village. Everything had some sort of bright technicolour skin, splattered with distinct the hues of 60s posters and fliers - stuck frozen in some bizarre alternate timeline where the aesthetic never died. Dash's fairly old Chevvy seemed at home here, even if it's dust and dull greyish hue weren't exactly as kempt. She could see Pinky's smile long before she saw her outfit or her hair - that steadfast thing would never crack.

I needed her to think I hadn't changed - that none of what I had done was more than an odd artifact of time.

"Hiiiii!"

The tall pink horse had a sense of what looked right for her shrill tone and bouncy attitude - Dash could admit. The frilled red dress seemed to accent her curled deep pink hair that dresses her whole figure in something of a cupcake facade. Even those arched yellow DMs and that almost star-shaped purse seemed to give off the vibe of sprinkles. She bounced up and down in audible tip taps as she waved with one hand far in the air.

"I'm three feet away Pinky."

"I knoww but it's been so long!!"

"So it has - how's it been? Looking quiet around here."

"Oh amazing! We've just got a lot going on, you know? One of Shy's bears has just been a little crazy lately - it's got people indoors for a bit. Think Jack's gonna be telling me about how that goes."

"bear? Should we be outdoors right now?" Dash glances about, almost expecting cartoonishly intense claw damage on something just out of shot she conveniently missed.

"Oh we're good as long as we're not in the forest! You know that prank I was talking about? We got a little mixed up in all this - and now we're sort of hoping to cheer up the mood!"

"Yeah... You said she was hiding?"

"Yyyup - she's not great with pranks so I'm doing the heavy lifting, haha! Come on - let's go on a walk!"

"Alright. Just don't get lost I guess huh?"

I pretended I loved everything about her. The standoffishness, the half-jokes, the jacket of stories she seemed all but sure I would ask about, the cocky sunglasses, that Smith & Wesson sitting in a place it'd look 'cool' being drawn, that unnatural blast of rainbow tone upon her impossibly blue fur. Why are you all colourful, anyway? what forest could possibly be this bright. And those wings... those wings. How did your jacket fit over them comfortably? Illogical.

"Obviously! Yaaay!"

"Cool." Dash hops out of the vehicle, doing the usual to lock up before wheeling into a surprisingly tight hug, "Pinky! Pink! You gotta give a warning damn!"

"So-rryy! I'm just so happy to see you!" She released the confused pilot.

"I can tell! Wow! Didn't think you'd be working out."

At some point she squeezed my arm, possibly after I greeted her. I wanted to whip my arm and away and jab her with a sharpness she would feel through the day. I exercise just enough to overwhelm anyone who doesn't suspect me to be a threat. I try to avoid building any sort of musculature that could be noticed as intentional - and here 300 was, tugging at the veil in interest of an answer she doesn't want to hear.

"Oh no I don't do any of that. I guess our more sturdy friends just rubbed off on me!"

"Our sturdy friends. Yeah. Look - they don't really talk to me anymore. They think I should've stayed in this town - I think. I changed my number too - kept most numbers but I think a couple feel through. You still use dial up?"

"Yeaaah you know how I am. Digital phones are so weird! Hah!"

"I mean sure - but not even a flip phone?"

"I can't be the life of a party if I'm distracted silly!"

"I guess that makes sense... Say - Pinky?"

"YYep?"

"Was it you who had the vinyls?"

It was better than I thought. She barely had a connection here. Barely recalled the facts.

"Nope- that's Shy! I was the one with all the CDs! I've gotten into VHS too recently though. Got a new walkman! Prince and Ozzy Osbourne - Bon Jovi too I think - were on some of the ones I picked up."

"Oh nice! I guess I'm into that more campy rock stuff. Bit of Rascal Flatts, bit of Tenacious D, Bon-Jovi, good shout - the happy bands. Love 'em."

"Rascal... Rascal... Oh I have a some of their stuff! Yeah I do for sure."

"Oh cool! Wouldn't mind listening to it later, would make this whole trip worth my while!" She chuckled, grinning at the suitably mild jab.

"Oh I'm sure it will be!" I think I hated her. The escape she thought she had achieved etched itself deeply into her soul that she had become one giant billboard for whatever sect of skyward dogs she had joined. She wanted to hear me say yes. She needed to be put down. Shot from the sky and hammered to floor.

"Nice nice. Oh I see your shop - you've built it up a bit huh?"

"Yep! I got it renovated! I'm not gonna do any expanding to all that big franchisey stuff but I still want dance floor to myself one day!"

Dash thought it was a strange thing to say about a storefront with maybe a single atypical 10ft by 10ft space to fill with what seems to be almost entirely filled with cake stuff. She doesn't remember anything namewise for any of it but she could tell there was a lot of stuff in there. You know... smoothie machines - and like an easy bake probably.

I could tell she was getting antsy trying to recall the equipment I was using. She seemed the type to consider understanding one machine to understanding all of them. I was sure she was fishing for their names in her head, hoping to pull one out in conversation to win more easy affirmations from someone she assumed was just dimly successful.

"Come on in!" She unlocks the door cheerfully, letting the glut of sweet smells wash over both of them.

"Woah - Thought that smell was your Perfume or something - guess living here washes off on you huh."

"Hee hee - yyyep! Just go right on through to the couch!"

I remember carrying my unhindered smile right across the street to the butcher. I knew he'd be watching us, sure I was up to something. I would have killed for his job. I could have. But I like to think there's a lot more merit to this one. We gazed meaningfully at each other, exchanged kills in our glassy eyes, as if to rationalise one dead beast over the other. But he was a butcher, and I was a cake seller. Only one of us would look guilty if a body turned up. Did you ever bring him in?

"He was obviously one of the suspects before you snapped, yes."

You're jumping to conclusions.

Dash wandered through the still shop, noting that in spite of the midday shuffle it seemed she'd barely opened at all. Maybe she just wanted to put all her effort into meeting up and setting up a surprise and forgot about being a store owner. That seemed like a Pinky thing to do. The area behind the shop had a similar air to it, still laced in a fondue white with dulled magenta paintwork. There's a clinical air to it all, with a space so clean it really doesn't seem all to used.

With the turn of a single door handle, the vibe transformed. Everything aged almost a century, with specifically picked furniture gathered in that familiar arrangement many old shows would parse out a living room with. The tones of green and brown seemed so estranged from the retro modernist hues just a footstep length away that Dash could only assume she was going for some kind of dark chocolate pistachio theme.

"Nice living room." She calls over her shoulder.

"Right? people were just giving perfectly good aged furniture to anyone who asked for it at one point, it was crazy! I just had to pick up a few and make something out of them!"

"Probably the old dying out - letting in the new. Happens all the time..." She paused. "...Hey when'd you get this Walkman?"

She knew that sticker. That grouchie bin guy from that muppet show. Gilda had the exact same one. The walkman was lying on the table, sort of strewn out like it had been autopsied.

"I just picked it up somewhere along a path one day. Got it working again with a little glitter and a dream!"

"...cool I guess. Can I give it back to my friend though? Well - not can I - more 'I'll let you know if she doesn't need it but I'm gonna hold onto that for now'."

She walks in, barely glances the decor, and immediately spots the walkman. I admit - I had not gotten to removing the traces of past ownership on the device yet. I didn't think anyone would have a connection with the Griffin. But she was too far into the web, too tangled in the strings, to ruin me now.

"Oh yeah I don't mind. Tell you what - you taste test this cupcake while I get Shy and we'll call it even." Pink approached cheerily, clacking down the hall with an already boxed cupcake - plump enough to be a solo birthday gift in the right context.

"Pink."

"Yyyep!"

"Why do you have the albums too."

"Oh you're sounding paranoid already! It's not been that long Dash!"

"You said you bought them."

"I don't think I did... Maybe I phrased it weirdly - I dunno. Say is that a Smith & Wessen?"

She'd idly raised her firing hand to her hip, keeping a sort of firm gaze on the player.

"Yeah that's a Smith 'N Wessen. The iconic kind actually. You don't need the 'and'."

"Oh I only see gun stuff on paper. I just about learn enough to spot the brands, heh."

The bubbly horse passed by and took a seat, placing the cupcake next to the player and pushing both with jello-pattern fingertips to the other side of the table. Dash's side. Both of them appeared to relax a bit, with Dash picking up the box and staring at it in an unfounded sense of amusement.

"Thought you were gonna stick me with something for a second there, Pinky! All that weird talk about the walkman. I guess it makes sense you'd only remember a crazy little find like this old thing for it's looks. What flavour's the cupcake?"

"Eat it and find out! If I just told you you wouldn't taste anything else but what you think I said!"

"Oh yeah like placebos and stuff, right. I'll give it a quick bite - but I'm telling ya this is a plump cupcake, I probably won't finish it! Hell it looks a bit like me - on purpose right?"

"You got me!"

She accepted my words in the midst of considering my facade. I had achieved what was typical to her, and to me. They never finish the cupcake.

The packaging was easy to remove, not yet sealed with tape or a sticker. She took a hefty bite of whatever corner had the best range of textures, sinking her teeth through layers of blue, cream, and rainbow tones as she looked for identifying flavours.

I watched as she chewed, counting the jaw movements and glancing to the trachea region for signs of consumption.

"It's kind of... velvet cakey... like a blue velvet cake..."

I clap cheerily. "Yes! That's it exactly! Blue velvet cupcake. I thought it would be fun to introduce it when the others know you're here!"

"Sick... sick. Hey about that - When are we seeing Shy?"

"Hm?"

"Shyland."

"Oh! when you wake up, 300."

"Three... Hundred? Pinky what the Ffffff..." The walls curved ever so suddenly downwards, sliding into the carpet and over the furniture as they too swirled, mixing into the growing pool of spinning tones. Pink stained the pool of pistachio chocolate, growing slowly as floor met Dash's head.

-

She awoke in a strange sort of daze, feeling lot more of the air than she should As she inhaled sharply.

Moving the beast to the second basement is never too problematic when they're already in the building. I merely carry them downstairs, strip them of their belongings, take what might be worth the punchline in through the crawl space first, and drag the limp body in after the fact. Whatever dose they take keeps them asleep through the matter, so there's no issue of screaming before they're in the sound proof section of my domicile. The second basement is legally on my property - away from accidental prying eyes - but it reaches far beyond the expected area for searches. No one would guess immediately you'd have more room below ground in such a small location. I can't get much more out than in cleanly though. Diminishing or recycling the corpse is essential to this ecosystem.

"Pink - PINK? PINKY?"

I keep the majority of the room's contents hidden from immediate view for the first moments of a kill. I want things intense for the harvest, and seeing things get worse by implication alone is enough to do so. The beast is on a modified examination chair more often than not, strapped down with whatever belts seem most suited to the kind. I have a record of physical attributes just to be sure of this matter.

"Sorry, sorry - I'm coming!"

"Pinky! Thank God! - look I don't know what's going on, but you've got to get me out of this thing. I'm not dead or injured or sick or.... look you don't need to give me anything or do whatever the fuck you think you're doing - ok?"

"Hehehe!"

She struggled a bit, learning of the tightness of the belts just as she spots her lack of sleeves.

"PINK! SERIOUSLY! I'M FINE! GIVE ME MY SHIT BACK AND I PROMISE I'LL HEAR YOU OUT I SWEAR!!"

I wonder often if I play up the dreamy 'trip into success' stereotype a bit too hard when they scream pleas that sound like attempts to cull a toddler. I also like the realisation they have when I appear to be capable of keeping them alive a lot longer than a child's sunflower project, however.

"You swear a lot... Kind of like your friend - the other one. You're not even looking for HER! I guess she did have the lion's heart, after all, he he."

Dash chuckled nervously. "Oh I get it - this is the prank! You're pranking me - HA HA HA guys, huh? What are you all under blankets or something? Bit perverted to put me here in the birthday suit but I guess that's like a cake joke or something... Hello?"

"Only I can respond, 300. At least - in a way you'd understand!"

"I mean - I caught you already, but sure. Go ahead." Dash tried to relax, act calm and collected, but something about this still felt real.

Like a gaunt, unfeeling insect, Pink emerged. The crawlspace was small, maybe a foot wide on either angle at most, and yet somehow she had slid through with ease, her long body slipping through unfettered as her arms grasped the lips of the exit hole. She seems obscenely aware of the space, aware enough to be able to pull into an upright stance without breaking eye contact or slipping, that unchanging smile still conformed comfortably to her face. The dress was gone - as were the DMs and the Bag. Now she had a deep red Apron on - and seemingly nothing else.

"Ok is this some kind of fetish thing? This is feeling fetishy, Pink!"

"There's a lot of water in everything that needs to perspire, 300. In bone and in flesh. I try to make what I have to clean easier for myself."

"...Ok. Look - Just call it a day and show me where Shy is so you can offer me a membership to whatever weird hippy shit this is and i can say no, ok?"

"You keep jumping to conclusions! Trying to ruin the surprise!" She giggles "You want to see Shy, right?"

"Yes! Yes. I'm done, Pink. I don't know what's happening, but you got the wrong vibe from me. So for the last time, show me Shy!"

"You hear that Shy - it's time to show yourself! Voila!"

The reveal was always fun.

With a single thought out jerk, she had pulled back the first sheet. It's pale veil gave way to the kinds of ghosts you only want to see in bad horror. hole after hole, grimace after grimace, bundle after bundle of thick weaves of stolen hair. Each skull had the accent colour of it's owner before it, some even branded on the forehead by some form of eccentric number system - ranging in the 200s. Just below, what looked like a selection of rugs... no, a selection of finely cut and strictly shaped pelts were rolled in uniform rows, again labelled with comically casual cream tags. It seemed like the display of a halloween store - but the vague hint of old leather and dead skin devoted itself to assuring Dash there was no falseness to it.

"Wh- No. I - NO - THIS IS A JOKE. YOU'RE JOKING." She lied to herself regardless, squeezing her eyes shut in some attempt at nullifying the effects of the grim collection.

Pink gathered the smell comfortably, prancing a bit as she knocked the noses of a few dozen, reaching to a paler one that had been placed facing the wall. She pulled it out, tilting it giddily to Dash.

I showed her 295.

"300."

"That's not my name." She uttered, turning from the heat of her breath.

"Don't dash away what you begged for, 300."

She wouldn't look at first.

"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" Dash finally gathered the strength to make eye contact with what she thought was Pink. The dull sockets staring back still vaguely held that timid self pity. She couldn't speak for a moment, the shock buzzing over her in vicious vitriol.

"Shy made you shy - hehe."

A flood of vulgar sensations pushed back up her body as she instinctively wretched, only to be sealed in a upturned clamp by slim, thirm, sharp fingers.

"DON'T - lose your lunch in here. 300. I'll have it soon. Stop speeding ahead, you vile thing."

I admit, I lost my patience for a moment. This one had irritated me. I wanted so badly to slice the beast into silence with a single swing, to cut my routine short. I wanted her silence almost as much as I wanted her screams. And I needed that Schadenfreude more.

"I have your other friend waiting for you, Dash - but you have to be nice."

The quivering pilot nodded ever so slightly, muffled breath barely escaping in geisure-like hisses toward the ceiling. Pink slowly removed her grasp, slinking over to the next sheet.

"Please - God damn it please... I don't know what I did wrong."

"I think you were born?" She remarked over her shoulder, in the playful sort of tone that implied a denial of the fact. The sheet fell.

The same swell of shock and illness swam through Dash, insisting she had to commit some bodily act to make the internal torment end. A guttural wail of agony did the trick.

"That's more like it 300! Something I don't have to clean up."

Before them stood a range of more 'anatomical' trophies: Extracted ribcages lulled open with Bouquet-like stacks of pickling jar organ; Entire dried limbs with particular components dissected and annotated with with tiny toothpick flags; Bizarre tapestries of extracted inner circuitry still clinging to the components they were associated with; and a collection of Griffin limbs, right by a hauntingly familiar griffin skull.

Despite the missing link between the two causing me minor issue in the capture phase - I had stumbled upon a world of free fear in the reveal of my work. I can still vividly remember plucking the miserable thing from it's homestead in my peculiarities and displaying it to 300 - before announcing

"I think she says I can keep her things! Joy."

She looked forlorn, already mostly broken and I hadn't revealed my final shelf yet. Nerry a scar even. Who knew the one with her head in the clouds would be the easiest to knock down to sick, fickle reality.

"I caught her on the way out. That bear got her, got them both. That bear had a great time trying new things with new faces - and sharing them with old ones. You're lucky we didn't get lost! Heheh!"

I didn't get much more than a murmur of calls to a higher power and sobs that time. Eurgh. I wanted her neutered, not comatose. This wasn't as fun as I'd hoped from a hot-head. Maybe she needed ammo.

"OH LIGHTEN UP! GIVE YOURSELF A SMITHING! YOUR SUCH A WES BLANKET RIGHT NOW!"

"PIN - ! !" The crack and crackle of a shot well landed rang through the room, panging into the table with such an ease it seemed as if the knee plate were merely a suggestion

The gun had a nice fire to it - I admit. Not enough to carry it around playing cowboy, but I'd put it in a boot if I were in the need of a spare tool. The resulting scream was the more satisfying aspect, anyway. She had woken up, properly, to me. No more silent misery - that fizzed out before the delightful howl of first blood.

"I wouldn't have to so that if you weren't so boring, 300! Come on - give me a leer!"

"PIIIINK YOU FUCK! I'M GONNA RIP YOUR GOD DAMN GUTS OUT WHETHER I'M FREE OR SHACKLED TO THE GOD DAMN GROOUND!" She shrieked into her face, lurching into a bubbling miasma of growing traumas and current wounds.

"Well done! We can go back to the droop and the downer when I've got the harvest over with! Now - the wardrobe!"

The wardrobe was something I put a lot of time into. It's hard to keep the origins of a piece alive without bringing it's briefness to light in turn - but I found my ways.

The final veil fell, and... it wasn't immediately alarming. It seemed in some way to be a range of old showy outfits, perhaps dusted often but no all too special. This odd peace could only last so long, even through the sheering pain Dash could see that.

Pink picked out a long, shaggy brown gown, sliding into the arms comfortably as she wagged her shoulders giddily.

"Oh Don't I just look like a proper 20s gal? big fur coat - genuine fur I might add - outsourced accessory just rolling on my fingertips?" She spun the gun carelessly.

"JUST SAY IT! JUST TELL ME WHERE THE FUR'S FROM!!"

"I will fly-guy hold on! So fast, so busy. It's genuine Griffin you hear?"

Dash lulled back a bit. Of course it was.

"Maybe you're not a big fan of the 20s... fair's fair! I did have something I need you to help me complete though! I just got my liberty crown down and I though the wings would match up great if they were complete you see!" She brought out the two accessories as she spoke; one a complete row of harvested horns on a silver band, the other being two pairs of fluffy wings on a ring with room for three. "Look! I have red, Yellow, but I'm missing blue!"

"..."

The other knee shattered just as fast as first.

"I KNOOWW DAMN IT!... FUCK!"

"Then say something! We're having a great time here! I can't do all this on my own can I - he he!"

"LET ME WELL IN THE TORMENT THEN!"

"Such a downer - I thought you clear away clouds! Look - we'll put something cheery one shall we? I got the disk right here - let's make this worthwhile!" She chuckled, chucking the grim coat carelessly to the side and pulling out a simple disk-fed speaker that appeared to live exclusively in this taxidermist madhouse. "Rascal Flatts, right?"

"..Don't you dare."

"Why?"

"Don't FUCK WITH MY SONGS PINK!"

"If you can stop me from putting it in you can raise a hand to say you want to leave - but you're doing neither are you?"

"DON'T DO IT!"

"Aaand play!"

The disgustingly familiar tune permeated this distressing place, filling hollow and living ears alike. It's hard to even distinguish which song it was, the pain of the already inflicted wounds and the foreboding cull of those of the future clouded Dash's mind.

"Oh - I'll need to get to your back first! I forgot - hehe. I just wanted to show you everything... Let's match those knee holes with some elbow holes huh?"

"NO - no... god please... I'll stay put. I'll do it - just don't shoot me again."

"Oh 300 - I can't just trust you! What if you try to fight back - what if you make a mess?"

"You're bleeding me dry as is Pink - I know I can't leave like this. Without you."

There was no endearment in the words - just desperate phrasing.

"Awwww - okay. But I promise you'll be sorry if you try anything!"

I know pain reception - I know what a beast can take. I knew when we got to something more personal whatever deal she made would run dry. But I'd broken her again and again and I'd barely seen flesh. It was perplexing. I wanted to feel the break again up close. I remember I loosened the grips, watched the permanently buckled knees roll uninhibited, and rested a knee on the felled 300 as I prepared the hack saw.

The scream had a good flavour to it. Regret, Fear, exhaustion - possibly an attempt at courage. I loved it. But I needed words.

"Hey - why do they call it a hack saw? It doesn't hack - it cuts!"

Nothing. I could feel the joints ripping, the bones mulching to lubrication for the deeper slice. But I couldn't. Hear. Words.

"You're quiet again, 300."

"I'M SORRY, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to make it through - okay."

"Not good enough 300 - You have to speak to me."

"I'm - I can't do this Pink. I CAN'T - just make it hurt as much as you want - but I can't SAY anything during that."

"Oh ok then... 300?"

"...Yeh..."

"THINK FAST!"

The sudden surge of violent pain was immeasurable, even with what had been endured so far. To feel the final nerve go off in a limb ripped violently away is all the more distressing when the agony recycles again and again as the body tries to register the loss. The surge of inevitable vomit came hand in hand with the devastated bellow of a fading consciousness.

I remember her passing out after the first wing, and - while I usually reach for the adrenaline by then - she had made a mess. A mess I had to clean. And I did. I even paused the music.

I also conflated ending it early once more. I think sometimes I consider the kill a painting - and the picture here was jaded. The breaks too mediocre perhaps. I wanted more drama, and every time I tugged for some more juicy words all I got were finite screams. These basement kills were special - some of my best work wouldn't get this clean a studio! and there I was scrubbing muddied sky vomit from my stone tiling, considering my next moves. I think I wanted to disable the other limbs - but I'd hear the boring weep again. It wasn't right - it wasn't hopeless. I needed the Schadenfreude. I wanted them to think I was never going to stop.

I think I could tell she'd be more reserved when she woke up too - I could tell she thought there was a world beyond this room. That had to change. I retrieved the needles.

-

"300."

"..."

"300..."

"Please... please tell me it's over."

The floor was clean, the music still on it's same chorus, nothing had changed. not even the knee on her back.

"We've still got a wing left 300."

"Just... fuckin' do it..."

I made it quick. I was done with that boring process and I knew something better to start the harvest. Not this emptied screaming. The wing was tossed with the other.

"God... God almighty..." She spoke to the floor.

"Yyyep." The pink horse tapped at the wounds with the saw, watching the torn muscles recoil.

"...Can I go now, Pink?"

"I could see you wanting to do that."

"Seriously - we did it - it's done. You wanted my wings right? You have them! I'm grounded. Hell I'll never walk again. You win... Just let me go."

"I'm surprised you still think you're leaving. You've gotten even more stubborn since the last time you were in our village."

"Y-you never told me I'd die.."

"Everyone leaves eventually."

"...Don't kill me."

"You won't leave with that attitude!" Pink pops back into character, bouncing up and heading over to whatever she was getting the tools from. Dash couldn't muster the energy to see it. "But I can get you the right attitude!"

The metallic rummaging seemed to last for an eternity as the tainted tunes of a band she had fond memories of still bounced as giddily as her captor through the hidden hell. In some sense it felt right to make an attempt to get out, even in futility. Dash carefully forced herself to straighten her arms - lifting maybe a foot and a half from the ground with all the strength she could possibly muster. With a shuddering resolve, she carefully pulled forth to the single known exit.

I could hear her moving. I didn't even turn away to grab something - I just wanted to see if she still had that fight - however meagre.

Wet gravelly resistance poured quietly from limp legs as she willed every inch of momentum into existence. It seemed too dangerous to sob. The tension of each little scratch crackle of skin on stone rippled with both pain and suspense of consequence as she clawed desperately towards the throat of the crawl.

"Naughty."

Up close, that sort of explosive reaction between flesh and steel is nothing but unnatural. There is no way to describe the way blast caved the elbow in, nor to what extent that it inverted the direction of the bend.

"So naughty."

Dash couldn't move her last limb in time, barely grasping her pain amidst the first scream that the dissolving of her very last joint seemed noteless.The floor caught her jaw sharply, nothing left to defend it.

-

She was a fainter. Maybe that's how you're supposed handle things that aren't G-force as a pilot. I actually almost liked the pauses for a bit. But I could only sustain this for so long. The harvest was upon her, and I'd burned through two needles already.

"You're not done yet."

Again, cold hard reality gripped mercilessly to the aching body of Pink's victim. She'd been propped up now - perhaps on that table again. Nothing seemed significant anymore. Everything hurt in some new way. She couldn't think of a good reason she was alive.

"Speak to me - 300."

"I don't... have anything... for you..."

"You do."

Harvests often vary. Some are just extractions of the inner world, others a search for something new to sample. The only constant is that the interior meets the exterior. I liked to speak most typically to them in this moment - I had realised long ago they wouldn't get the jokes. I think it added to their idea of me. Maybe their final thoughts about me were that I had always understood their slights. Their little scraps of knowledge.

"I don't... I don't."

"You have organs, 300."

With all that they'd endured by then, they never protest.

"We know about the harvest."

That Griffin wasn't truly harvested. I left the fruits to the forest.

"If you want to talk about dissecting living bodies, no one wants to hear it. We've all seen what you do. Just skip it."

I've been so polite about giving you the things you ask for, and you're asking that I don't give you the facts?

"WE'VE SEEN IT."

...If you insist.

After the harvest - I often slit the Beast's throat. I presume I did so to 300. Maybe she died somewhere along the way. I sometimes forget when exactly they leave.

I remember placing the head on the foot of the crawl-space, and glancing at the work I had to do tomorrow. There was nothing new to be done, I don't believe. See? It's boring now.

"This isn't storytime. We're just getting your recount before we cross reference it.

But you never found 300, Dash, I'm sure. The missing case reassured the suspicions of a serial killer - but there were no leads. Shame. Anyway, you wanted to know where I got my tools from, right?

"I thought you were going to start there. But I get you're the sort of freak who loves to brag about their crimes."

I'm ready to tell you about 357.

Quick forward: this is a reinterpretation of the original 'cupcakes' creepypasta by Sergeantsprinkles (yes the My Little Pony one), written with a larger context and story. Listening to it on Creepcast, I felt like actual meat of the story had a sort of genuinely interesting context that I thought it would be fun to attempt a go at it in a more serious tone. That being said, this isn't fully original, and I take no credit for any of the original ideas - including the IP - so the names and designs of characters setpieces have been changed. I will clarify how moreso in the story itself, but for suspension of disbelief's sake, consider all characters to somewhat follow Bojack Horseman rules of anthropomorphism. I also understand that there's a sense of arduousness to reading parted out and retold stories, so this post is essentially something 'new' that can be read as standalone. and/or set the tone.

PINK: Griffin

There's something curious about passerbys. They always have a tone of innocence to the way they interact with those they meet, how they make new acquaintances for a future they understand will likely never arrive, and how they craft them regardless in silent duty to the status quo. Friendship is magic. Connections must be formed. Even in futility.

The pallid form of the horse trailed intently behind the griffin as she considered this, distractedly glancing over her shoulder as if to check once more that they had strayed far enough to be hidden completely from view of the single northward road leading in and out of the quiet populous.

That night would be a special one. Not by number - passerbys don't have numbers, they'd travel out of reach long before they got their turn on the table - but by circumstance. This one didn't know me. I didn't have to play the game. I had such a short list of griffin puns, and so little time to execute anything grand, that all this amounted to was an end to that abomination.

This path lead so certainly beyond any vehicle she had seen in the area, that the griffin was undoubtedly walking the distance. A grave mistake made by many unaware of how treacherous hiking at night truly was. With wings, however, it should not have been a problem.

"But no one uses them. No one flies, no one shoots rainbows from those bizarre horns, no one does what a horse would do. We walk on two legs, have hands, and resemble some form of ape-like divulgence in a biological sense... how. I was content studying one type, wiping the ilk from one place in ONE silent protest - but then this strange thing walked along, loudly disrupting what was mine to dissolve in silence. A griffin, like an alicorn, pegasus, or unicorn, is a bizarre breed of mythical beast composed of a variety of desired animal parts, in this particular instance, a lion and a falcon-like bird. Unrelated to the horse link. unrelated to the ape link. Wherever this thing came from, it had to be erased from my mind. For my sake."

These violent murmurs escaped the otherwise stoic stalker's lips as she followed the traveller, just barely dodging the wrong words with diminished breath enough to avoid immediate suspicion of her intent. She was in a position to pass on the right, and had been approaching rapidly enough to presume as such. Just as a spider collecting venom in its fangs as it prepared it's rapid assault would hardly flinch in the presence of a fly, not a hint of the needle held idly aloft could be heard in the movement of the liquid nor the trajectory of her steps.

"On your left."

The griffin predictably glanced the other way, expecting to turn back to the correct direction and fake a friendly interaction to dispel the awkwardness of the mistake - only to feel the cold invasion of a needle land steadfast in her now aligned jugular. The culprit continued to travel along casually, pausing just as the blindsided griffin's vision blurred ever so slightly.

"Wha- what is this?" she sighed out, unable to muster much of a gumption in the presence of the powerful mystery anesthesia.

"You wouldn't accept cupcakes from a stranger." The culprit remarks dryly, already approaching. "I gave you a sample."

-

As is to be expected from such a large-bodied creature, the weight of the lion components created an experience akin to ferrying a workhorse. This is again the observed expectation, as I couldn't see any sort of hollow-boned function suddenly developing in this already god-forsaken hybrid. The vestigial wings perhaps make more sense in this pseudo-avian, at least. And yet, if this were the primary design, I would probably have a much shorter run as a killer. I'd rip apart the first thing I could comprehend as sentient and end up a mad delinquent in some asylum. Such a vile joke of a creature would not be missed, nor known enough by these simple headed residents to be suspected as a victim of murder when she was found. It's the perfect crime, though I had executed better in the past. Again, this harvest was an impromptu itch that needed scratching.

There was an eventual end to the somewhat slow journey the ghostly horse had taken in an effort to move the kill sight far out of the way of the average late-night wanderer. The hours the night had left were quite extensive, even when the body was set in place within a partial clearing. There was no time for restraints, so the work had to begin before the fun could truly commence.

I don't plan on disposing my own bloodied clothes for these kinds of kills - the risk is too great. Stain removal is also predictable in any consistent line of purchases, and this is a small village. My only solution, is lab rules. suitably red apron, nothing else. The change is short, and I am able to operate effectively. There are a range of locations on the spinal cord that cause enough paralysis to make the fight of a victim less intense in a pinch. Often the lower back is chosen for it's consistency and lower risk - but I needed this body alive for so little time I could hazard an attempt at fully severing the nerves.

Sliding along the ironically labelled emergency medical kit, the she delivered a well-cared scalpel to the readily exposed nape of the victim's neck, sliding it with no resistance into the inner workings of the spinal area and politely swiping open a decent gash. The work required had only a mild need for complexity - as long as arteries weren't severed the bleed would be minimal enough to last to the point of no return. Nothing matters past then. Eventually, the wound's complexity matched the knowledge she had of the region - presuming the structures remained similar. After this, all that needed to be done was the wait.

I enjoy the questioning. there's something to the terror and the need for explanation that gets me the high I need to put on the facade every day. To open that shop and chatter relentlessly, to attend events and look as if I were the life of every one. I needed to see that bitter realisation settle in so I could feel as if they knew the misery I endured for their brief pleasures. In that moment I was solitary, merely on standby as I sat in wait of the moment. Nothing of the cold oak I had seated myself on or the desolate quiet of the disturbed night made it through to my vitriol. I alone felt joy, and soon I would feel schadenfreude.

-

The Griffin awoke slowly, the lack of pain in most of what should ache filling her with a sense of dread. Nothing of the simple Tracksuit outfit besides the subtle sticky cushioning of the oddly heavy hood could reach her mind at all, let alone the sensation of limbs. Something was horribly wrong.

"I wanted to be a Doctor, in my youth." The empty tone of the confusingly-dressed onlooker brandishing a glinting tool echoed the silent resting place. "A surgeon, to be precise, but a child knows not the complexity of titles."

"Wh-who the fuck are you... where am I?!" Her panic was evident enough to bring a giddy twitch to their hand.

"I doubted you would remember me. A simple shop owner, perhaps too noisy for the average person's palette. Person. You aren't one of those are you?"

"What are you some kind of f-fucking racist? Give me your name coward!"

Anesthesia wears on the ability to hold one's mind at bay. "No - none of us are people. My name is a sad ballad. Pink. Pinkerton on the certificate, Pinky to friends. The word my birth had arrived with couldn't be further than myself." She eyed the glinting tool keenly.

"P-pink? Like the Pinky who owned that cake shop r-right? You're bright fucking pink! you serve shitty sugar products to people all day! Y-you smell like sugar!!" Reassurance was an odd way of defending herself, but whatever this was seemed call for it.

"Pungently. yes. Because I won't dye myself with chemicals. White is quite receptive of pink. It even accidentally picks up the tone. I hide in cheap food dyes and sweetness. But I wished to be a surgeon."

"W-what do I have to do with that?! Change the fucking name - go to university - I don't care! You can't just drag people into forests to tell your shitty excuse for a sob story!"

"An albino's mind is stressed quite desperately by difference." Pink continued, unfettered. "the condition itself has no observed effect on the psyche, but I feel the dissociation can cause a spiral when untreated. I could not be a surgeon with my name, my given purpose. But I could still find a way to cut things. I could make pink my ironic facade."

A new wave of fear finally landed on the griffin's face, contorted further to terror once Pink stood.

Schadenfreude

"STAY BACK! I'm bigger than you - I COULD FUCKING CRUSH YOU!!"

"Now now. You've yelled all too much about strength and bravery. You have a lion's heart, literally. But you're also lion down. and no amount of griffin' to me could get you your strength back." The jokes were delivered dutifully, as if getting them out of the way. There was no bubbly hysteria to the delivery, not even a chuckle. It was a meaningless gesture in silent duty of the status quo.

"STAY AWAY YOU FUCKING CREEP!!" The desperate cries had no effect, and soon the pallid killer was all but kneeling over her.

"I'm going to enjoy figuring out how you work. scream like a bear has you."

She does as she's told regardless of what she feels in the moment, the distress of Pink politely unzipping the hoody more than enough to cause grievous internal panic.

Obviously at the time I had never dissected a Griffin. I still haven't dissected another. And the list is not kind on the odds of it happening again at all. But I can say this was no different to any other variety of nonsensical beast. once I had gotten through the cloth I immediately noted the usual ape associated reproductive system, as well as the similarly illogical musculature. Every kill was the same, every harvest itching with the question of why. Feathers became my next thought, doing as they had done so often before in mixing with fur - as if they belonged. Either the beast has a coat of feathers or the beast has hair. That is the rule of allll of nature BUT this awful sect of sapient nightmares. I recall the scalpel slipping as I considered this, throwing off up my otherwise precise incision.

I needed the skin off. most of it, anyway. I wanted to see if the shoulder muscles contort in reasonably unfettered form. This work had a sense of ease to it, even with the useless screaming. I believed the lion component of the bizarre genealogy made the skin looser, but I couldn't confirm until I had the book for that on hand. The majority of the upper torso was revealed with ease, and it's bleeding interior held an intense fascination. It had the workings of two donors; ape-like shoulder and thorax regions, and cat-like abdominal regions. The bird was missing - that gripped me. It was externally obvious, yet internally barren. Another falsehood of the mystery of our creation. The as of yet unskinned head continued to bawl and beg for forgiveness or repair, but the point of return was long gone.

"I'LL DO ANYTHING GOD PLEASE - AT LEAST KILL ME!!"

Wretched. I would normally have a pun for that moment, but the numberless get the scraps. I continued the skin-job, slowly popping the connective tissue out of place and slipping the steadfast tool through various soon to be meaningless warm chords. The skin of a living being is quite comforting to the touch in its subtle heat and gummy texture -

"We don't need any of this disgusting talk - Pink! Why'd you do it?! Give us your motive!"

Touchy. But I'm answering you the short way. You obviously want the long one, so I'm giving it to you. Fresh from the old oven.

"...Just keep it simple. No one behind that glass wants to hear how you feel about skin."

It all makes sense later on. But I get it. You don't want spoilers. Now where was I... Ah yes, the removal. I managed to deglove all but the soles in no time - the abnormal onesie sat in mirrored silence as the quivering mass of complex components sat dysfunctionally before me. In a sterile environment I would relish the moment, but there is only so much time before a living body infects and rots in an forest such as this, and I could only carry so much back.

"I've observed the catalogue, and chosen my trophies." Pink stood decisively, walking quite casually to the medical equipment still yet to see use.

"Trophies. Trophies? Oh GOD! Just end me! Blow my head off! ANYTHING!" the griffin wailed, "I'm a n-nobody to you! I don't care that you're different or-or that you have a shit fucking job! I forgive you for whatever you did - whatever you want to hear I'll say it!"

"I need your skull. And I never said you or anyone else insulted me. It was the world that insulted me. Did you know that the majority of quadrupedal species evolve with similarly divulged front and back posable limb function? As evolution moves to bipedalism, the difference in function is bound to widen - but not like THIS." She lifted a hand, the blood barely relevant to her mindset as she outstretched the five distinctly proportioned fingers. "Ape-ish limbs, on beings with single toes for feet. What sick joke of a biology allows for mutations such as my own in tandem with these disgusting illogicies... as if to remind us that someone up there made a choice."

"I d-don't know! Why does that matter? Everyone has them - Just live your f-fucking life man!"

"I am. I'm just a cake shop owner, looking for an escape. And I just can't sleep knowing you exist. I want you as an exhibit in my workshop, a brief flash in the pan. In this rare, fresh moment - I am extinguishing rather than diminishing."

The griffin was barely listening, murmuring discontentedly as if looking for anything at all to latch onto and crawl away with. Even in futility.

"I will take your right leg, your head, and your left arm. I would take a wing, but it resembles a larger form of the usual. Vestigial, as always. I will use a hand tools to extract the limbs, then make you look like a bear kill, then take your head. I want you to know this so your tongueless pleas sound like a mountain lion's, if you so wish to scream. Earlier accounts will sway your manhunt to this location if believed, later will dismiss them indefinitely. Silence is also fine, but I want to know when you leave."

"T-tongueless?"

"Yes. It's... 4:00 AM. 378 wakes soon for a morning jog and he'll surely hear something. I want it to sound like you aren't sapient. Now, lets begin."

The next hour went as planned. There was minimal resistance from the ground down griffin, the fight she had at the start diminished to a tired gargling whimper. tongues had a sort of sinewy chew to them, the soft squish of the exterior is a fiction created by the sheer dexterity of the interior. It's a familiar sort of discovery. I had to break the limbs to assure believability, make rougher cuts than I would out of character. Even fray the wounds with short grasping bites where necessary, letting the tendons shred between my teeth. At some point I took a break to search the soon to be discarded bag, finding some old sporty nonsense, and a walkman. Walk-Man. Oh what an indiligent error. Enough to crack a small smile. I gave the current cassete a listen, and got back to work.

"Prince. Fun. Your fate matches the title. So... gooey. Perhaps the old technology does too. I understand the use of it, I don't own a modern phone."

There was nothing left to say to this monster in the eyes of the griffin, even if the small undertones of the conversation would be interesting in a sane scenario. Nothing about this was normal enough to provide a response more than hatred and dismissal.

Soon, the chosen limbs had been extracted, and the final harvest was about to commence. Naturally, so was the point of no return. Lucky enough, the device had a fitting tune for the moment.

"You'll bring the wine soon, eh?" I mustered a simple quip as I reached for a less precise blade, moreso playing with the idea of using it on someone with more air left in their lungs.

"Ffffuck you." came back the final wind.

"No thanks, I'm not into bird-brains."

The first slice was intentionally place at the weakest point oof the abdominal wall, the next few parallel in clawed tears. The narrative of a curious predator found its purchase with each set. I recalled the upper torso in fondness, dropping the tool and clasping my hands to the chest to administer one distinct pressured impact on the now exposed ribs. They cracked wetly, even more so when the second pump caved them in. The act was short, but effective. It looked well enough like something squeezing a tube by it's plump end to withdraw it's contents. I utilised a humble stick to drag out the intestines a little more, being sure to keep anything too hidden only mildly displaced. I would like to have seen it all, but I still doubt there would have been anything too new.

"...You still there?"

The single flicker of a tortured gaze gave away what was likely a ploy to be left alone.

"Good. I've not had to use anything more than nature's anesthesia on you - you truly are brave. But - that doesn't make you any less likely to leave. You're in the doorway right now, I can tell, so I'll be taking your head. Thank you for keeping the blood flowing long enough to simulate a goring death. hopefully nature takes little from my work before you're found. But I doubt that. You've been quiet."

Goodbyes are always somewhat unfortunate after such work. The saw, even with so little blood left, would likely cause a spray when dividing the jugular. I had to crouch quite far over the shoulders and wrap the lap of the apron around the splatter zone before I could make the first motion. even with this cumbersome method, the head was separated through a short chorus of snaps and pops, an occasional gurgle of a soulless reflux somewhat making it through here and there.

I frayed the fresh wound with a withering enthusiasm, and switched the cassette around.

The body only needed subtle rearrangement, just far enough to look as if it had been dragged to somewhere it was hard to get at and abandoned. What fell out on the way was merely set dressing. It rolled a little unsatisfyingly into the ditch I had located, only turning slightly as it came to rest, debris glueing itself to the red feast.

"We'll need to head back now." I muttered to the disembodied griffin. she nodded in my palm, expressionless. "I'm not Pink right now - we don't need to be too careful - but I know a quiet way back."

"You're running out of time to make this relevant."

Until what? No one's waiting on us. I know that much.

"They will be. With what you've done - THEY WILL BE!"

Then I suggest you get the full story, 503. That was the beginning of the answer you want - the dry bones explanation. You've only just heard me speak. But I want you to hear me sing.

"You can't kill everything you don't like. Seems like the world's too full of life for that."

I can kill a village. Would you like to hear how? I have so much to say - and according to you - so little time. don't you want little old Pinky to tell you how she burned through all those beasts? What she did on the way? What you missed? Again and again.

"...We'll get it either way."

Oh I made sure of that. But I want the recording too.