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)
I was nursing a hangover in my house when someone knocked on my door.
When I opened it, I found the healer on my doorstep waiting anxiously for me with a desperate look on her face and hair in disarray.
"Take it," she said and shoved something wrapped in a thick cloth into my hands, grimacing as if the thing was burning her.
"What's this?" I asked, startled by such strange behavior.
"I took this from you." She blurted out. "When they found you unconscious near Redwood, they left you in my cabin with this on you. I took it off your wrist when I was cleaning you and caring for your wounds. I should have given it back when you were healed, but I never did." She gazed at the cloth in my hand and quickly averted her eyes as if the mere sight of it somehow hurt her.
I opened the cloth to find my bracelet inside, which made me smile in pleased surprise. A rush of relief washed over me as I gently stroked at it, feeling its familiar entwined dark vines under my fingertips again.
"Oh, I thought I'd lost this," I murmured as I gazed at Erebus' gift back in my hands. I remember waking up at the healer's cabin with the bracelet gone... I thought I had lost it forever.
I could hear a gentle hum in my ears and a warm sensation as I touched it. It was almost like the bracelet was vibrating beneath my fingers, pleased to be back in my hands once again.
"I thought I was doing you some good, keeping it away from you..." She confessed, looking torn about her decision. "But I can't keep it with me any longer. Its presence is... haunting."
"Haunting?" I asked, frowning.
"It resents me for separating you two." She accused, shooting a dark look at the bracelet. "It is a wild, unruly, vicious thing. And it wants to be back with you. So, there you have it." She patted some invisible dust off her clothes, her lips curling down in clear disapproval.
"Well, you shouldn't have kept what's not yours in the first place." I berated, pressing the bracelet against my chest protectively.
"It's been given back now." She stated, lips pursing and eyes narrowed at me. "But you shouldn't meddle with things such as this, boy." She warned me. "It's made of dark magic. Old magic. It wants to be used, you see, because every time you use it, it takes a bit of you for itself. It will use ya until there's nothing left more to take."
"Thanks for your concern, but there's no need to worry." I snipped at her. "And it's not 'taking' from me. It's giving. Giving me comfort and company, something that is much more valuable to me."
"It's not company it's giving, son. It's haunting." She corrected me. "There is a big difference."
"It's not taking from me. And it's not haunting me either. You don't know what you're talking about." I fired back, getting as snippy as she. "You're just upset because you can't understand it."
"And you're the expert on things like that now, are ya, boy?" She quipped, giving a humorless sharp laugh.
"I'm just saying I understand what this bracelet is and what it does more than you do. I've worn it before. It means no harm to me, you don't need to worry."
She eyed me in silence for a moment, a mix of pity and irritation showing in her hard stare, before she shook her head and huffed quietly to herself. "Well, it is back in your hands now. You do with it what you will. I would wish you luck, but you're going to say you don't really need it, so..." She ended the conversation with a shrug and marched away without sparing a single glance back at me.
I gazed at the bracelet nesting safely on my hand, looking like an innocent, frivolous trinket. In a moment of doubt, I wondered if putting it on would be the wisest thing to do right now.
I didn't want my nightmares to get any worse, but maybe wearing it could ease the pain and agony I felt every hour of every day... Perhaps it could even bring me some solace, some relief. I was about to put on the bracelet but stopped, hesitant...
The thought of having Erebus slipping into my bed again made me both scared and hopeful at the same time... but this time, I wasn't so sure if I wanted to see him. The last memories I had of him were... daunting, to say the least. Thinking about confronting him about that night unsettled me in ways I didn't even know how to describe it.
I often tried not to think about what had happened in that forest. The few memories I had were embedded in dark and muddled by too many shadows. They all came out distorted and unrecognizable... Flashes of ripped flesh and bloodshed flickered in front of my eyes and I almost let the bracelet fall on the ground, but I grabbed and held onto it at the last second.
I decided to guard the bracelet in my pocket for the time being and walked back into my house feeling a familiar weight pressing down on my chest, something I was getting very used to carrying with me all of the time now.
