Whispering Winds [AkaKuro]

Prologue

A ruthless gale got close to sweeping the young boy off his feet. In response, he cried out and clutched onto a thick oak branch, looking around helplessly, his voice dying before it reached the clammy air. Over him, the sky was a deep sulking grey and thunder rumbled in the far distance. It was late autumn and the first snowfall was sure to arrive soon. Although rain was to come first, many days had already passed and deemed that the wetter season was coming to a cold close - soon to be replaced by the icy winter’s blanket.

The boy was lost. Lost in the deep and obscure woods - stuck in a maze among the shadow of the great mountain. Beyond that mountain lay his home, but he was far from it. Somewhere along his journey, he’d fallen off the carriage he’d been traveling in with his parents. He was alone - not even animals resided in those woods. They were morbid, the trees were dense and the air thick. A truly horrifying place for a young and unknowing boy to be. The half-dead labyrinth.

But something about those precise winds, blowing in and out of the trees made the hair on the back of the boy’s neck stand on end and he looked around with wide cerulean eyes, filled with worry. His lips were quivering as he clutched at the single coat he wore. He hoped it to be a bad dream - he hoped for it to end. He understood not why he was to have been left on his own in a desolate place like those woods. He yearned for the presence of others – to no longer feel as if the very air was choking him, gripping him by the neck and forcing reality in his face.

So cold and so alone he felt - abandoned and forgotten. Aimlessly wandering in the hope of finding some comfort in the next clearing on. But then! Suddenly. All noises halted as if the air was holding its breath.

Silently, something stirred. A dim figure emerged from within the depth of the network of trees, sweeping down from the distance and gliding silently and gracefully. It drifted across the forest floor and over to the boy. The poor forsaken boy who was so lonely. He could do nothing but watch as it looked down upon him with bright, crimson eyes, hidden in among the threads of shadows, clinging so desperately to it. Down to his soul did he shake with fear as he watched the demon as it enveloped him in his darkness, terror sewing him to the spot. In all his short life, the boy had never seen something so benevolently eerie – the combination of his anxiety and curiosity driving his mind insane as the earth underneath him seemed to bubble. Vexed he felt not, for there was no room for it. While those tranquilly fiery judgements stared so vigilantly, all sensation the boy experienced was dread.

“My poor child… What does a youth pure as yourself seek in these woods?” Those silky words glided from the figure’s tongue in a mellow tenor, filling the air with an almost strange warmth - so very different from the forest it placed itself in. Those hollow crimson eyes grew larger as the figure knelt, shadows embracing it while he stared into the young boy’s deep pools. No distraction could break their intense gaze at one another. As if the world no longer mattered or even existed. No. It was just him. The demon and the boy. The boy and the demon – the demon of the woods.

“Lies your home beyond these frightful territories?” Questioned the being while he examined the boy, so very little and insignificant before him. So very fragile and so very pale. Meek and beautifully fresh…

The boy did not speak before the superior being in fear of angering it by doing so – it wasn’t his common sense to instruct him so but his instincts. Yes, common sense was the last of the poor boy’s worries. Instinct was what was driving him – instinct was what kept him rooted to the spot. Instinct screamed inside of him, telling him that a wrong move meant assured death.

“Fear not my child, for I bear neither ill judgements nor cruel exploits. In simple terms, I wish to direct you to safety – for as your instincts rightly provoke, my being is not of a friendly nature and any mortal unfortunate of meeting me, is assured to have no ordinary life onwards… But what is this?” The contact between eyes red and eyes cerulean shattered as both instead, looked up at the grimacing sky, as the first worldly tears dropped – shimmering in the light of the hammering lightning which naturally foretold the oncoming roar of thunder.