@write-it-motherfuckers Original prompt
Part One // Part Two // Part Four
The thoughts were swirling through your mind in time with the thudding of your quick footsteps along the dirt path. Even as you found it hard to breathe, you forced yourself to keep going. Fire coursed beneath your skin. Your breathing was laboured. The trees blurred past as you forced yourself forward. A metallic taste became apparent in your mouth. Your heartbeat was loud in your ears. The emotions you pushed down were threatening to spill over.
You didn’t stop running until the town started to disappear beyond the horizon. After that, you kept your pace quick as you could to escape the town and leave behind the confusion. You had too many questions. Why didn’t you remember getting to the inn? Why did you feel like you had left behind something important? Wh-
Your foot caught on a stray rock and you crashed to the ground. Your thoughts, like the breath in your lungs, were forcefully ejected from you. The trauma you couldn’t consciously remember from the night before finally caught up to you. That and the shock of falling made you burst into tears.
Angrily, you swiped at the tears and gently lifted up your skirts to survey the damage.
“Not even a graze.” You whispered aloud to yourself, breaking into hysterical laughter. The tears resumed as you hugged your knees to your chest and started rocking gently. Back and forth, back and forth. Since you had met that stranger on the path your life had been turned upside down. You didn’t know who to trust. You didn’t know what to believe.
I’m okay. I’m fine. This is all just a nightmare. I’m fine.
A raven landed silently just out of arm’s reach and observed, its head cocked to the side. The handsome black bird made a soft noise to catch your attention. When it didn’t work, the regal creature hopped closer and made the noise again.
“Oh. Hi there, little one.” Your smile was as watery and thin as your voice.
The raven obviously took that as an invitation. He fluttered over to stand next to you. Still making soft noises, he nudged you gently with his head. He allowed you to pet him but moved back as you went to pick him up.
He glided close to the treeline and looked back at you. Then came back and repeated the process thrice more.
“What’s in there? Do you want me to follow you?” You asked as you forced yourself to stand.
The raven responded with an urgent noise. He hopped closer to the edge of the path.
“I’m not meant to stray from the path.” You gently scolded him.You looked around for your satchel and noticed the contents had spilled. A sigh escaped your lips as you bent over to pack it.
The raven squawked a warning and you felt a wind woosh passed your head.You whirled around to see a large vulture-like creature attacking him. The raven valiantly tried to fight back but the larger bird was too strong.
“Leave him alone!” You shouted frantically. You looked for a stick or something to shoo off the bird but couldn’t see any. That’s when you saw the rock you had tripped over earlier. You pried it from the ground and lobbed it at the large bird, catching its leg.
The horrible vulture-like creature squawked and turned to eyeball you. With no regard for your own safety, you grabbed a handful dirt and dust from the trail and threw it in the bird’s eyes. You taunted and chased the bird until it flew over the tree tops and disappeared.
You dusted yourself off and made your way back to where your satchel and the raven should be. When you got there, the injured raven had disappeared. The only proof that he was there at all were the stray black feathers littered on the trail. You looked around but could see no other traces of the raven.
The bizarre thing was that when you went to finish packing your satchel, it was already done. You swung the pack onto your back and continued down the trail at a much slower pace. Everything was trying to work itself out in your mind.
Nothing made sense anymore.
You were still reeling from the lost memories last night and the mysterious marks on your wrists. Now with this latest incident with the birds, you were struggling to find the significance behind it. Why had the raven come up to you? Why had both of the birds seemed familiar?
The trail was much more quiet the closer you got to home. It was about mid-morning when you noticed a figure bustling down the path. As the figure drew closer, you recognised it as your grandmother. She stopped when she saw you and gestured for you to come to her.
“Where have you been?” Grandmother demanded shrilly.
“I - to town.” You frowned. Did she not remember?
She nodded, turned slowly and started back down the trail towards the house.
“I think so.” You had no memory of going to the little shop. You checked your satchel and saw the herbs so you must have gone in. “Yes, here they are.”
Your grandmother snatched them from you to put them in one of her cloak’s pockets. That drew your attention to her slight limp. Before you could ask about it, she questioned you about the library.
“Yes, I-” A crystal clear picture surfaced in your mind of you going into the library, meeting the new librarian who was kind enough to show you the books on sewing and leaving with a promise to come back soon. “I like the new librarian.”
It sounded more like a question than a statement. Your grandmother grinned knowingly.
“Of course you do, pumpkin. He’s quite the charmer.”
“Indeed.” You agreed absentmindedly. Your gut churned at thinking of the librarian; it made you sick. Something about the memory was wrong.
Grandmother kept muttering under her breath on the way to the house. You were able to make out a couple of words, but they sounded like they were from a different language.
A light breeze rushed through the trail. It disturbed a bloodied raven’s feather from your Grandmother’s hair.
“What is it?” Grandmother demanded roughly, not slowing her pace.
“N-nothing.” You shook your head and caught up to her. It must have been a coincidence.
The walk to the house took longer than usual with your grandmother’s slow, limping gait. The sky was painted with dark pinks and navy when the house came into view.
Your grandmother bustled off into her room. The sound of the door closing seemed to echo around the house.
After what happened over the course of the day you didn’t have much of an appetite. Though you knew if you didn’t have something you would wake up hungry later. So you wandered into the kitchen and took a measly hunk of bread from the counter. You trudged up to your room feeling exhausted from the day’s events.The bread was soft to nibble on as you unpacked your satchel. As you pulled out the books to stack on the stand beside your bed, you couldn’t help but feel as though something were missing. You shrugged off the feeling and sunk down onto the end of the bed.
With the bread now gone, you twirled the no-longer-white rose between your fingertips. Hues of orange and yellow blended with the crimson that leached through the petals. Now just the tips were the brilliant white it was originally. Though it had been many weeks since the stranger had first given you the rose, the stem was still a vibrant, healthy green. One of the thorns was stained brown by the residue of the prick it gave you this morning.
It was still beautiful despite its sharp thorns though.
You raised the colourful flower to your nose, savouring the scent it still retained. It was not the smell of a normal rose, but of the whole forest. It was very soothing. It slowed down your thoughts until you felt a tugging at the back of your mind. The tugging grew stronger until you could feel it on your wrist as well.
I didn’t like that the new librarian had been so bold as to take me by the wrist to lead me down the stairs. He obviously thought I couldn’t do so myself. I tried pulling back but he was insistent.
“I could have waited upstairs whilst you brought them up.”
“But there’s just too many books on history, April.” I didn’t recall telling him my name… but it is a small town.
There was a door at the bottom of the stairs. He unlocked it and only let go of my wrist once we were both inside a dim room. He closed the door with a click that sounded like a lock shutting. I shrugged it off and walked a few paces back. I landed gracelessly on the hard stone floor after tripping on something.
The librarian switched on a blinding light. His footsteps echoed closer and I scooted backwards.
“Tutt, tutt, helpless one. I know she made you forget, so why are you scared of me?” He laughed. My back hit the wall. He grasped both my wrists and yanked me up to eye level. Whatever he whispered, I couldn’t hear as my world went dark.
My arms were cramping and incredibly sore. I felt chilled to the bone except for the flaming red heat coming from my wrists. I turned my hazy gaze upwards to see my arms wrapped in rope. The death-like chill was oozing in from where I was seated against the stone ground. As my sight cleared, so did my hearing.
“- tion or elixir?” I swept my gaze around to see the young librarian hunched over a small mirror holding the vial I was given.
“Bring that to me.” That voice sounded familiar.
“Of course.” He bowed mockingly and tucked the vial out of sight. I noticed that my satchel was on the counter with my lock picking tools beside it.
“I believe your suspicions were true. After I fed her the serum and she kept questioning what’s behind the door.”
“Make her forget. I’ve had enough trouble trying to keep on top of the doses here. She keeps refusing my food and drink.” My heart nearly stopped. I didn’t realise I could become colder still. That was grandmother’s voice.
“Yes.She is awake now. I suggest coming to collect her tomorrow.” The brunet slowly walked over then crouched. “You’ve always been my little trouble maker, haven’t you? Here. Drink up before your prince undoubtedly comes to save you.”
I tried to resist swallowing the murky green liquid, but he anticipated my resistance. He held my nose until I opened my mouth then quickly covered it and gently stroked my throat.
“Until, next time, helpless one.” A cluttering noise came from the stairs as consciousness tried to elude me.
Before you collapsed with exhaustion, you noticed that black had started to seep through the rose’s petals.
You woke with a burning need to find out what’s behind that door.
After many failed attempts to fall back into slumber, you decided to go to your window. Perhaps gazing into the night sky would calm you as it did when you were a child. The sounds of the night animals in the forest were familiar. They brought a sense of serenity over you. As you stared at the peaceful heavens, you reflected on what those dreams, the visions that kept coming, could truly mean.
Were they just tricks played on you by your mind, trying to figure out what happened in the blank spaces? Or were they real? You shivered at the thought and clutched your arms together to bring yourself comfort.
The night sounds ceased as a voice whispered your name.
“April. Come out… April… speak to you… please. My love...”
The only rule of your grandmother’s you had not broken was the one you thought was the most reasonable. Rule #5 was to never answer the door, or any calls from outside at night. Guilt churned inside you as you walked silently through the house and to the front door but you just had to find out more.
“Where are you?” You whispered into the night, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come to the treeline.” The voice whispered back, “She mustn’t see you.”
You made your way over as the voice commanded. The earth was cold and slightly damp beneath your feet. Just before you reached the treeline an invisible force stopped you.
“Don’t try to force it, my darling. She is too strong. Even I can not come much closer to you.” His voice came from a tree to your left. You peered at it and he slowly came into view. He was still as striking as the day you tended to his wound on the trail. You wanted to ask how well it healed but you couldn’t form the words.
His bright eyes drank you in and stopped your thoughts in their tracks. His smile was soft and loving as he gazed at you. You couldn’t help but stare in return. A dark cloak adorned his shoulders which concealed most of his body. Black feathers were woven into his hair along with the golden circlet you saw the first time.
“Do you remember yet?” The stranger from the path asked gently, hopefully. Though he didn’t seem surprised when you shook your head in response.
“I’m sorry.” You blurted, folding in on yourself. Your subconscious recognised him, you felt safe in his presence, but you had no memories of him besides your meeting at the path. And those visions his rose had shown you.
“No, it’s not -” He tried to move forward to reassure you, but the invisible wall forced him back. He took a deep breath and shifted his weight to his back leg. “It’s not your fault.”
“Mm.” You hummed, looking at the ground.
“April. Look at me.” He commanded softly. You did. “You are not to blame. The witch has you under a powerful spell that is difficult to break. It took us many years to find you. Too many and-”
He shifted again and minutely winced.
“You’re hurt.” You accused, changing the conversation. //Witch?//
He looked briefly surprised then laughed softly, “I could never hide anything from you, my darling.”
You felt warm when he called you that. However you didn’t let that distract you. “Where?” At his quirked eyebrow, you elaborated. “Where are you injured? And who did it?”
His eyes burned, you could have sworn they were literally glowing, with an emotion you couldn’t quite place.
“I am wounded in many places, for the talons of beasts are sharp. It was the witch who did the worst of it. You chased her away from me this very afternoon.” He moved his hair back and tilted his neck so you could see the gruesome marks. You gasped at the sight and what he had said.
“She…” You remembered your grandmother’s limp and the bloodied feather you dismissed earlier. “The vulture. That was her?” He nodded gravely.
“But witches don’t exist.” You tried to reason. “Just like Gods, dragons or elves. They’re made up. Just stories. Grandmother said -”
“Am I just made up then? Can you not see my tapered ears? My eyes that glow?” He interrupted softly.
“I-” thought I was seeing things, you finished in your head. “Who-?”
“Again, love, I can not tell you for I doubt you will believe me. Though I now see she has brainwashed you more than we thought. You are part of the elves too. She stole you.”
You searched his eyes, hoping to find a lie in what he was saying. He didn’t need to say anything else for you to find the answer you were looking for. Dread filled your bones.
“Take me away from here. Please.” You tried to break the force that was keeping you separated.
“I want to. Believe me, I do.” He looked stricken. “But I can’t. She enforced the wards after last time - I was emotional and came too close.”
“Why can’t you break through?”
“As I said, her hold is too strong. I can not get any closer just like you can not come home to me.” His voice was full of longing and his body language screamed despair. Your heart ached in response.
“Use these to get into the door.” He tossed a small pouch. It arked gently through the air and you caught it effortlessly. The pouch was woven from long grass but it seemed deceptively sturdy. Inside were tools.
You hesitated. “These are the ones I bought?”
The handsome not-stranger laughed softly, “No, dear one. These were made by our people, imbued with magic that will unlock any door. I assure you they are much better than the ones that blacksmith made.”
You decided firmly that you would find out what was behind that door. Whatever was being kept secret from you, you would discover tomorrow night with the help of these new magical tools.
His ear twitched and his face hardened. “You must go now. She is stirring.”
Something inside you wanted to reassure him that it would be alright. All you could do was raise a hand to the invisible wall.
“I miss you. Come back to me soon, April.”
As you ran inside and stashed the tools beneath your mattress, you had a feeling he was talking about your memories too.
Tags: @scuzmunkie @wordsaremylife @inuhuffclaw
