In a castle lived the beloved prince, Philip. He was an only child and well loved by his parents for it.
Philip had a playful nature and often snuck out of the castle. There, he became friends with many of the locals.
The town had tons of superstition about it. Like, people say if you drink out a certain fountain at a certain time you will gain immortality. And in the neighboring woods live a group of three witches. You get the idea.
When Philip turned fourteen, his friends decided to go see if those three witches actually exist. They had gone through every single one of the superstitions proving or disproving them, except that one. His friend group consisted of a ragtag group of boys named Fabian, Jake, and Matthew.
"You guys are idiots," Fabian deadpanned.
"Hey! You are coming too! You're just as much an idiot as us!" Matthew deflected.
"No. I'm the sensible one making sure that you guys don't die," countered Fabian.
Philip burst out laughing, “yeah cause jumping of the cliff into the ocean on a dare is sensible.”
The others started laughing as Fabian’s face flushed. “Th-That was because of the superstition, that if you do that and live you would become the wisest in the kingdom.”
Matthew sighed. “Yeah too bad it didn’t work.”
“Hey! I at least have learned to never take a dare from you again!” Fabian yelled, voice rising.
Matthew gasped, “how dare you! I’m a sweet angel.”
“Matthew, we all know that’s false.” Jake laughed.
Matthew put his hand on his forehead dramatically. “My friends! How could you betray me like this?”
The boys all laughed at this. “Are we going then?” Jake reminded them. Silence stilled over the group as they all looked into the forest.
Philip sighed, “I guess it’s now or never.” He stepped into the forest, the others followed.
The forest grew thicker the farther they walked. Every once and a while they would stroll by a rose bush or two. This was disorienting and gave a dream-like quality to the adventure.
After a while Matthew sat on the ground. “I give up! We're just going in circles. The witches, if they exist, probably cast a spell to make it impossible to get there.”
“You're probably right.” Fabian agreed, closing his eyes.
“Too bad,” Jake moved toward a tree stump to sit on, “It would be cool to meet the witches that are so famous in to-w-woah!” When walking to the tree stump, he was suddenly lifted up by his left ankle into the air.
“Jake!” the other boys called out to him. Matthew jumped to his feet. Phillip and Fabian took a slight step forward, uncertain if they should rush to their friend.
In the air Jake looked like he was a mixture of shocked and scared, “Guys help me down!”
“We don’t know how!” Philip Exclaimed, “any of you think to bring a knife?”
