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)
We all turned in the direction of the scream, just as the luminescent figure of a young woman emerged from the forest.
She staggered forward, past the line of trees in our direction. Her thin night dress was torn and tattered at the edges, the once pristine white fabric now muddy and smudged with dirt at the hem and the knees. With a tear-streaked face, the girl stumbled out of the woods, looking disoriented and in disarray. Her dress, like her long dark hair, bellowed dramatically in the wind.
She saw us staring at her in confusion and limped towards us. I couldn't help but notice how she stopped right before the limit where the shadows cast by the canopies of the trees marked a line on the grass.
She seemed hurt and exhausted because she collapsed on the grass, as if too weak or in too much pain to continue any further.
"Please, help!" She pleaded between frail sobs while reaching out with a trembling hand.
"What is the matter, love?" Muscles inquired, his eyes darting to her back, trying to see if there was imminent danger following her from the forest.
"You have to help me, I'm so scared! Papa is after me and he's very, very, mad. He beats me so badly when he's like this, you can't let him catch me, please!"
While Muscles moved slowly towards the girl, eyes fixed only on her now, she continued begging for help. "We live alone in these woods, Papa and me. He locks me inside our cabin, day and night, and never lets me leave his side. Says I'm his treasure and no one else can have me, even though it's just us living in this whole forest. But when I don't do what he wants, he beats me until I'm half dead." She sobbed violently before she carried on with her story. "I don't like the things he tells me to do and today I said no more! I finally escaped! I left him and I ran as fast as I could, but he's after me now. Please, you have to help me!"
"Don't worry, little girl, we'll help ya." Muscles said, watching the beautiful, innocent, helpless girl with starved eyes as he inched closer to her. "You come with us now, little bird," Muscles cooed at her while leering closer and closer. "We'll get you inside our wagon and tuck you in, nice and cozy. We'll take good care of ya, all of us, you have my word."
She swallowed down one last sob, eyes going big and wide in fear. "Oh, no, no, no, you won't help me." She retreated her hand, a sudden realization dawning on her pale face. "I know this look. It's the same Papa has on him when he's in one of his moods. I know this look. I know what happens next." She said and began scrambling back into the forest.
"Hey now, hold on a minute! Ya don't need to look so scared there, flower. I am only trying to help ya here, I promise." Brutt said, trying to use an earnest tone, but a malicious glint still showed in his eyes. "Cross my heart and hope to die." He promised while advancing towards her with a wolfish grin.
The girl stood on wobbly legs and limped back to the forest, with Brutt following close on her heels, taunting her as he went after her. "Don't run away, little rabbit! I'm going to take care of you now. You'll have a good time with me, you'll see! The best you ever had!"
"For fuck's sake, man, we don't have time for this!" The boss berated, but Muscles had already disappeared behind some trees.
All men turned to him, to see what he'll do next, but he didn't show any signs of following the girl and his goon. He just stood there, shoulders sagged in tired disbelief.
The girl didn't manage to go very far. Even though we couldn't see them, since there were too many trees blocking the view, they were still close enough for us to still hear them. Muscles appeared to have caught up to the girl and was now holding her against her will.
"Let me see if I got this right," Second-in-command vented to the rest of the group as he paced back and forth nervously. "We're stuck in the middle of nowhere, in need to get out of here as fast as we can so we don't get caught with a truckload of stolen shit in our hands, with an epic storm ready to fall on our heads, and that stupid arse is over there, doing what I think he's doing?!"
We could all hear the girl's screams now and Muscles' loud moaning coming from somewhere near the edges of the forest.
"Sounds like it." The kid responded with an uncaring shrug.
"It sure sounds like Brutt's having an awful good time in there..." The old man said with his gaze fixed on the shades of the trees where the girl had disappeared through. "Since we ain't going nowhere for a while, you boys can start moving the wagon around that tree and I'll just hop over there real quick to take a peek at all the fun those two are having." He proposed with a sleazy smirk, while the moans coming from the woods got boastfully louder.
"Come on now, old man. Not you too!" The boss admonished, but the old man's only reply was a "Don't you worry, boss man, I'll just be watching, is all. I'll be back in a jiff, quick as a wink!", he said before skipping off into the woods. Despite his old age, the man moved quite fast and disappeared into the forest before anyone could think about stopping him.
"For fuck's sake! I'm doomed with the lot of ya." The boss complained, sounding irritated, but again, did nothing to stop anything from happening.
From the five men of the initial gang, two had gone into the woods, while the kid, the Boss, and the Second-in-command were left behind. Now, the sound of the old man's wicked laughs could also be heard echoing through the trees, alongside Muscles' gruesome moans. The noises they were making were truly disgusting, I didn't know how the rest of them could stand it, the sound alone was making me nauseous.
I hunched down on the grass, shut my eyes as tight as I could, and covered my ears with both hands, trying to somehow block this nightmare from existence. Maybe if I wasn't seeing and hearing anything, I could pretend this horror wasn't happening. It didn't help in anything. The nightmare continued and the maniacal laughter grew so loud that even with my ears covered I could still hear it, along with the gruesome moans and the girl's shrilling shouts for help.
And then everybody was screaming and shouting at the same time, blood-curdling screeches of terror piercing through the ears, so terrifying and unbearably loud, it all felt as if it was coming from inside my head. The screams took over every thought in my head until it was all I could think about. It increased in volume at an agonizing pace, this unbearable horror kept pressing inside my skull with maddening force until it began to burst out carrying bits of my sanity with it.
I didn't know how much longer I could bear listening to this before I'd go insane, but when I thought I was a whisper away from losing my mind, it stopped.
The screams, the laughter, the moans, all the disturbing noises coming from the forest, it all just... stopped.
Dead silence rang eerily in the air, daunting and ominous and even more terrifying than the noise had been.
