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)
That same night, I went to Bellard's to get my alcoholic dosage of oblivion to numb away my nightmares but as I was leaving the tavern, three men closed in on me and dragged me roughly to the back alley outside.
I'd seen them before, old-time drinkers at Bellard's, they were there most nights of the week. Usually, they kept to themselves and didn't cause any trouble, but tonight they had been sulking in the corner of the bar, glaring at me for the entire evening.
I knew my presence in the village had been making people uncomfortable, ever since the incident with the bandits in Redwood. A few of the villagers felt grateful, thinking I had something to do with the return of their stolen merchandise, but most of them were suspicious and even frightened of me.
I wasn't counting on the ones who could be wanting revenge, though. At least, that's what I thought they wanted when the three men decided to corner me outside the tavern. If they were related somehow to anyone in Dirty Jeffrey's gang, they would surely want retribution, and since I was the only one who got out of those woods alive, I was the only one to blame for what happened as well.
But it wasn't revenge they were after, I discovered. They wanted me to tell them what had happened in those woods. They were after the truth.
I didn't know what to say to them, though. Why was I the only survivor? Why had I been spared that night? I had no answer to that. All I could do was laugh, which only made them more angry.
I was pretty drunk, to be honest, and I didn't know what else to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all. They wouldn't believe half the things I had to say anyway. Telling them what had happened would only make them think I was lying, or that I was completely insane.
So I didn't tell them anything, I just laughed at their clueless faces.
"Bloke is not right in the head, brother. Just leave it be. We ain't gonna get any answers in the state he's in." One of them said, trying to dissuade the others. "He can't even understand what's happening, for fuck's sake. Look at him, laughing like a lunatic there."
"He's not crazy, he's just drunk out of his arse!" Another man retorted. "Tis the best time to make a man spill out his secrets."
"He ain't spilling anything like this, man!" his friend argued.
"Maybe if we squeeze him a little bit harder, we can make him spill it out faster, eh?" The first man suggested. "He needs to give us some answers, I ain't living here without it. We need to know why he's the only one that keeps leaving that forest alive!"
"I'll tell ya why he's the only one that ain't dead!" The other belched out. "It's the same reason why he's allowed free passage on that cursed trail. He's made a deal with a demon, that's why! He's getting a lot of gold out of this deal. Y'all have seen the luxury he's living in now! He sold his goddamn soul for money, that's what he's done."
