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)
A couple of travelers found me a week later near the borders of Redwood, a little further away from the beginning of the old trail. I was lying unconscious and was found nearly half dead next to the bandit's abandoned wagon. A few things inside the wagon had gone rotten, but most of the stolen goods were still intact since they were non-perishable and made to last for months.
I hadn't been so lucky, showing up with a deep, nasty, stab wound on my chest and a strange dark bruise around it. I was rescued extremely debilitated and weak.
It was by the mouth of my rescuers that I learned the name of the Boss of the gang that had kidnapped me. Geoffrey Dirt was the one strangled by Erebus' very own hands. The dirty Jeffrey's gang had been plaguing the neighboring towns and villages for a while, but their days of thieving and murdering were now over.
The news about the empty wagon found close to the Redwood ran fast throughout the area. Old Buckle's tale was still vivid in everyone's memories and they were wise not to inquire me about the bandit's well-deserved fate at the old cursed trail.
The travelers had taken the wagon and its contents back to their rightful owners and I was taken back to my village, straight to the healer's cabin, so she could see if there was something that could be still salvaged.
I didn't remember much of the first days in the healer's cabin, but I do remember feeling this burning ache in my whole body, an emptiness swirling in my head, and a hollow feeling inside my chest.
Eventually, things began to come back to me... slowly and hazy, a few fragments of blurry memories that drifted in and out of my mind, changeful and disarranged images that faded away as soon as I tried to shape them into focus, like when you tried to remember a dream born out of fever.
But things started to return to me after a couple of days, flashes of moments lost in the dark that resurfaced, emerging from the shadows of my mind.
I remembered his touch first... how soft and gentle it felt. I think I was carried somewhere, someplace warm and safe, and I rested there, wherever it was, for a long while it seemed... It was cozy and dark, like the insides of a deep cave, and there was an intoxicating scent of wood and wild Red Drops with a faint hint of autumn in the air.
I think he laid there with me, one arm wrapped around my waist and his soft, sweet breath fanning next to my face... Sometimes I could feel the warmth of his solid body next to mine, his fingers trailing over my chest, the comforting touch of his hands... Other times it was an immaterial presence, like a thin blanket made of darkness, wrapped all around me, encasing me in a careful embrace. There was no talk, nor sight of light, there was only him with me there. Him and the dark.
Or maybe he was the dark itself, and I had just been alone all along?
Sometimes I had visions while I was resting there... they appeared right out of the dark, like nightmares coming to life. I remember the foul smell of decay and death invading my senses then... Erebus was there, sinking his teeth into me, ripping my flesh out like a wild animal, teeth-baring and sharp fangs dripping with blood... I remember his starlit demonic eyes on dark fluttering wings, and deadly inked talons shredding through my skin, digging into me while I just laid there in that numb, paralyzed torpor.
