A dark fairy tale about traps, lures and falling for shadows.
When you see an eldritch dark horror made of shadows by the side of an old cursed trail that no one dares to go, you expect it to be less charming as it tries to trick you with deceitful...
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Art by James Fenner (@JMFenner91 on Twitter)
The boy was swinging his knife dangerously close to my neck. I winced and shut my eyes tight, waiting for the hit, but instead of pain, I felt the release of pressure on my wrists and my hands were suddenly free while the rope binding me fell at my feet.
"With that fixed, you can all start chopping!" The boss barked out the order, but no one made any attempt to move, they all just shifted uncomfortably on their spot and diverted their eyes, looking everywhere but at the man in charge.
"What. Is. It?" The boss growled, barely containing his anger this time.
"Hum, is just that... well, you see... the thing is... we don't have any axes, boss." The old man confessed. "We thought them tools was getting in the way there at the back, with all the boxes and crates crowding over us and, well, we tossed it all out of the wagon when we're leaving the village."
The boss groaned quietly under his breath and rubbed his forehead for a whole minute, before turning to me again. "Well, it seems we don't have any axes. What else you've got to suggest to get us the fuck outta here?"
I looked at them and then shrugged. "I dunno. You all grab as much stuff you can carry in your hands and run out of here as fast as you can?" I said and everyone made an assortment of displeased grunts all at the same time.
"Ooor..." I risked one last option. "Or you leave it all behind and walk away without the risk of being caught red-handed with stolen goods," I told them and that earned me many shouts of indignation and heated cursing.
"We ain't leaving all our stuff behind!" Second-in-command protested. "All our hard work going to waste like that? Fuck no! We ain't doing that! No way in hell!"
Muscles had turned red on the face as he yelled. "What a load of bull crap! Leave it all here?! Leave it all to you, is what you mean, you shitty-ass road expert!" He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook me while he raged on. "You ain't getting a damn thing, you hear? It's ours! I'll kill ya first before I let you get your greedy hands on our stuff!"
"This ain't right, boss!" Second-in-command said, "That damned tree was put here to force us to stop. This whole thing's staged! They want us to leave our stuff here, free for grabs."
"Yeah!!" Muscles angrily agreed. "It's a damn trap!"
"It ain't people that are doing this, you idiots!" The old man argued. "It's the forest's demons who's setting us this trap. There's nothing natural about that tree falling on this road, can't you see?"
"The wind's been blowing pretty hard on us, it's bound to take down a tree or two, old man. There's nothing unnatural about it." The boss countered, trying to be the voice of reason in the group. "It's just a storm that's coming for us, that's all. No need to put demons and silly superstitions in this."
