Tag Archives: mystery

Blackpool Bay, Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Pillars in the Deep

The whole Blackpool Bay dock area smelt like fish. Old, barnacled fishing boats lined its sides as weathered men dourly stomped awkwardly around with seemingly uncertain land-legs. Fish and other slimy things were hidden away in crates and being loaded into small, unmarked vans. Even the old man behind the front desk at the seedy B&B looked a bit like a fish, bulbous eyes and scaly skin around a small, piscine mouth.

He could not wait to be under the waves. He could not wait to be away from all this offputting small-townness.

That night, in his cramped little room, he read and re-read the passages from the old, tattered diary his mother had left him. He had never known his father but he felt a bit closer to him coming here. He could not wait to get under the waves. He fell asleep like that and dreamt about large, looming dark shapes that whispered to him from the ocean’s depths.

***

The world changes the moment one slips beneath the waves. The sound, light and speed of the above world disappear. They are replaced by silence, darkness and a smooth, elegance in one’s movement that he liked to imagine astronauts experienced in outer space. He had always felt very comfortable under water.

All he could hear was his own breath as he descended below the water beside the rock. The locals did not seem to have much to say about it but the old diary spoke about “the lone rock halfway out of Blackpool’s bay”.

This was it. This was that rock.

The top of the rock was weathered and covered in barnacles and seaweed. Even a few feet down, this muck all obfuscated what he was looking for.

And then there it was!

A few feet below the water level, the rock’s form began to smooth. Its surface began to appear square. The flowing, bunched seaweed growing from it ended. And, the rock started to look more like it was a carved pillar.

He sank slowly deeper and deeper, besides the old pillar. He was now sure of this. Like the diary said, as he went deeper, the manmade nature of the pillar became more obvious. At certain points, he thought he even saw indentations like designs–swirling and fluid–that might have been designs carved into this ancient structure. They had likely been weathered away by thousands of years of the ocean pushing passed it.

Eventually, he came back up to the boat. The light and sound hit him first. He instantly missed the underwater but it was time to go back to shore. He had not gotten to the bottom of the pillar. He had not even seen the bottom yet. He could not believe that it went that deep. It was only a mile or two from shore on the edge of the bay. He made a mental note to bring extra oxygen, lighting and some flares tomorrow.

***

That night, while he hungrily ate some strange, seafood stew, the piscine innkeeper politely enquired as to what he had seen out there.

He smiled and recounted the strange pillar that lay nearly outside of the bay. He asked, rhetorically, who could have built it and why?

The innkeeper smiled–with his face, the smile looked like an octopus squeezing through a small hole–and replied that perhaps whoever had built it underwater had meant it to stay there. It almost sounded like a warning or a threat.

He had smiled and laughed at this absurd statement. Obviously, this pillar had been built ages ago on dry land and the ocean had crept inland and covered it up. This much was logical. He snorted at this absurd small-townness and continued with his meal.

Later that night, tossing and turning in his room, he could not stop thinking about how bizarre the innkeepers logic was. When he eventually fell asleep, his dreams were again filled with large, dark things whispering strange things to him from below the waves. One of them, in particular, rose from these dark waters and slithered up onto land towards him.

He awoke in the morning covered in sweat but he could remember no more details of what had bothered his dreams so.

***

Far below the waves, besides the smooth pillar, he cracked an underwater flare. Its red light flared out, casting a hellish, red colour in the darkness around him and the stone beside him.

He let go of the flare and watched it sink slowly further and further down. It was a long time and the red light was a small speck before he thought he saw it come to rest.

He almost felt relieved, but he mentally snorted at himself. Of course there was a bottom to this strange bay’s ocean floor. Nothing went on forever. There was always a bottom.

He had an extra oxygen tank with him, and he began to descend further. His eyes kept glancing at the red light on the ocean floor, but he was more focused on the pillar that slid by him. The deeper he got, the more detailed the designs on it became. He was starting to make out figures amidst the swirls and curves carved into the stone. The figures seemed almost-human but had fish-like faces, gills in their necks and webbed hands and feet. Some stood in strange poses while other carried forked weapons or bunches of other, smaller fish.

What an incredible civilization had produced such vivid art, he pondered as he floated deeper and deeper down. What other wonders could such a lost civilization be hiding? What could have motivated such a civilization to build such a pillar and for what purpose?

He was nearly at the flare now. He could see it resting amidst scattered stones on the ocean floor. Its hellish red light cracking against the darkness down there. It cast eerie shadows that wicked darted through the ocean floor’s crevices. He swore he saw one of these shadows actually slither away. It looked like a silvery humanoid shape for a split second before slipping out of the light and back into the darkness down there. He quickly dismissed the thought. If anything it was probably a fish or octopus or something else that had caught his eye.

The fishmen–as he now mentally called them–carved into the pillar were now clearly visible. Some of the carvings were in nearly pristine cut down here, which surprised him. They should all be equally as worn away. Surely.

Unless someone or something was preserving them down here?

He instantly dismissed this absurd thought and focussed on what was before him.

He had reached the ocean floor. Finally down there, he realized that the scattered stones were not random. They looked like the remains of an old road. This was not in his old diary. Perhaps this was one of those old Roman roads but curiosity clutched him and set off swimming down this old, lost road.

The road led straight out from the pillar at the edge of the bay into the open ocean. He had only a little bit left in his oxygen tank, so he decided that he would go until it finished before switching over to his remaining tank and heading back to the surface.

The old road led to the edge of an underwater cliff. Swimming up to it, he saw the coastal plate fall away suddenly and dramatically to reveal the true open ocean.

But, vastly more surprising, far down there at the bottom, he saw the road continue. It must be a bit less than hundred or so feet further down. It must have been miles away, but, for some reason, there was some latent light down there. It had an eerie blue-silver colour to it. And, amidst this light far down there, he saw another pillar. In fact, the old road went straight out away from the coast and the quiet little bay, and it was dotted on both sides for as far as he could see with these vast, huge pillars.

And then he saw movement.

Far down there, just above the old road and between the great pillars, there was something. It was small and silvery but it floated upright like a man would. He was sure he saw something forked in its hand, or its fin. And it was looking directly at him; directly at where he floated atop the underwater cliff.

For what felt like an eternity, he floated there looking at this thing looking at him.

Suddenly, his oxygen tank flashed a warning at him. He looked down, checking its level on his arm. It was almost finished, and so he flipped it over to his spare tank.

When he looked up, there was just the old road dotted with these huge, ancient pillars leading straight out into the ocean. Whatever thing had just been there looking him was now gone. He was alone atop that underwater cliff but it still felt like something old, dark and slimy was watching him.

***

The next morning, he was still thinking about what he might have seen below the water. He wondered if his father had ever seen something like it. There was no mention of this in his diary. The strange creature that had floated down there felt further and further away from real-life. He was starting to think that he could not have seen it correctly. It was probably his memory embellishing it.

He was sitting outside a small cafe on the docks. It was not fancy but it was in walking distance from his fishy little B&B and it served nice strong coffee. He was still not sleeping well. His dreams kept on being haunted by something that slithered out of the sea to confront him.

He sighed and slouched back in his chair. Soon he would have to leave and go back to the real world. Soon all this would be a distant memory too. He tried to forget the strange dreams and the weird sights below the waves. Rather, he looked around, trying to burn the images into his brain of the quaint Blackpool Bay docks and all its shapes and forms of life. It was strange to think that he, however distant and unknown, had a tie back to this place. He wanted to try and remember every detail.

The old, barnacled fishing boat lined the harbour. Crates filled with fish and other things from the deep were being offloaded most of the boats. Small vans zoomed around the docks, being loaded up with these crates.

And then there were the people:

Weather, old barnacled men stomped around the docks. Many of them looked decidedly uncomfortable walking on land. He chuckled to himself as he imagined them as the relatives of the strange fishmen he had seen carved onto the pillars in the deep. But then the more he thought about it, the more he looked, and the more fish-like the people around him looked. Wrinkled, dried out fish that kept returning to their home waters each morning on their boats. He started looking around for gills in their necks, and many indeed had tattoos there. Maybe that is how they hide them, he pondered, his heart starting to beat faster in his chest. One, two, no, a handful–no every single one of these people had these strangely, round heads with large eyes just a little too far apart, much like a fish’s eyes. Perhaps, he began to think to his horror, perhaps the innkeeper is right and that pillars were built below the waves in the first place. Perhaps they were built a civilization of fishmen who later crawled out from beneath the waves and now hide in plain sight…?

“Hey, you want another coffee or anything, sir?” a voice interrupted his strange musings. He almost jumped out of his chair but regained his composure quickly.

He looked to his side and saw the waitress. She was a small, squid-like girl with long, curly hair much like tentacles wrapped around her bulbous head. He found himself checking her neck for gills but she was wearing an old, red scarf there.

“Uh, no thanks,” he replied, “Just the bill thanks. I have to go home,” and then, to his surprise, he volunteered something unnecessary, “It’s inland. I’m going inland.”

The waitress nodded and smiled at him before turning and slithering back to get the bill for him. He distinctly felt like he a small, defenseless fish floating around dark rocks where tentacles could whip out any moment. A cold shiver ran down his spine and he made a mental note to never come back here, diary or no diary.

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction

Miggi Island

The people of the island had simple lives. It was quiet and far away from civilisation. They were too remote even for the most adventurous trader, particularly since they had nothing to trade. War was foreign and the only politics were around the Raincoming Day when the men would bargain with the fathers of the potential brides for their sons.

Fish, though, were important. So were the fruit trees with their sweet harvest. And, finally, so was the Miggi Min. They all sustained the people of the island.

After the Raincoming Day, the storms would roll in. The Miggi Min always reminded them, her voice silvery as it travelled across the darkness. The waves would roar as they smashed on the white beach and the rain would pound down on the rickety huts. The Miggi Min would always hold the island together. And then the storms would pass, the waves calm down and the people would come out into the warm sun.

There had to be a sacrifice to thank the Miggi Min. She only accepted blood, but they were safe and they would gladly give it to her. Sometimes the Miggi Min visited them while they slept. No one died, but those that were visited were always weaker the next day. But, she kept them safe, and they fed her hunger.

Everything on the island worked together. The people were happy, as the people that had come before them and the people that had come before those had been too. This was how the island worked. It was the Miggi Min’s island.

One day, a few days after the Raincoming Day and its storms, a pale stranger washed up on their shores. The men were out fishing, but the women found him near death on the beach. His clothing was strange and tattered, like his hair. When the men came back and he woke up a little in the shade of the witchdoctor’s hut, his words were just a collection of strange sounds.

The men shrugged their shoulders and cut him some smoked fish and poured him some fiery fruit water. The women bathed him and he slept and slept.

Days passed, the men went fishing, the woman gathered fruit and the children played. The waves on that crystal blue ocean calmly lapped the white beach and life on the island went on.

The men came back from fishing late one afternoon. The sun was beginning to set and cast its red eye over the island. The strange man was awake. He was sitting out by the fire that the women had lit and he was talking his strange, round echoey words. The women were politely talking back, and the children were laughing and touching his pale skin and playing with his long, fine hair.

The men chuckled to themselves, gave the women the fish they had caught and poured fiery fruit water all around. They sat late that night trying to talk to the strange man while he tried to talk to them. The same thing happened each night thereafter. Each time, a little more communication happened. Slowly the strange man learnt some of the island’s language and, with a funny accent, began to communicate in broken sentences.

His name was “Barret” and he came from a place called “Europe”, but sometimes he called his island “France”. Maybe it had two names. His boat had shipwrecked somewhere in the storm and he had no idea how he had washed up on their island’s shore.

The men liked him and, when Barret asked if he could help them fish, they liked him even more. He quickly learnt how to fish. He told them that he would sometimes fish back home. He worked hard. The men all nodded in agreement.

When they got back to the village that afternoon, the youngest man carried all the fish to the women to cook while the oldest man went and poured some fiery fruit water for himself and Barret. That night they ate and drank their full. They laughed at the strange stories Barret told about his home. He spoke about things called ‘kings’ that everyone had to scrape and bow to. The ‘kings’ would rule the land and look after their people, much like the Miggi Min for this island. A man mentioned this, but Barret looked confused. The men chuckled. Barret would know the Miggi Min soon enough.

And so days, weeks and months passed, but, true to the cycle, the Raincoming Day eventually arrived upon the island. The blue sky and crystal ocean both turned steely grey, and dark clouds began to roll in. The waves grew larger and louder as they began to smash against the beach. The men did not go out to fish and the women did not go out to pick fruit because their sons needed wives for fruit and their daughters needed husbands for fish.

Barret watched all of this fascinated. He occasionally asked questions, and the men or women would politely explain what was going on. He would nod and smile. He seemed to understand until on of the men told him about the Miggi Min. Barret’s eyes narrowed and he tilted his head. The man that told him chuckled, slapped his back and told him that he would find out soon enough, but Barret seemed very disturbed.

The heavens began to open up with soft, large raindrops falling. The fiery fruit water poured thick and strong, flowing fast as the drumbeats, distant thunder and flashes of lighting all mixed up together. Barret was jumping around to the beat, the women and children laughing. The men kept on pouring him more and more fiery fruit water. He was laughing hysterically and trying to dance like the other men and the women who moved with a primal grace around the flickering fire in the stormy night. The old ones took shelter in the doorways in huts and the newly coupled husbands and wives were sneaking embarrassed, lustful glances at each other. And the drums beat, the men and Barret howled at the night, the women swirled seductively, the fiery fruit water flowed and the primal energy of the celebration rolled on and on…

This went late into the night. Long after the pale face of the moon had peaked, the island was still full of sound, light and laughter. The men kept topping up Barret’s drink and eventually he could barely stand and they could barely understand the slurring words coming out of his mouth.

And then he collapsed, fast asleep.

The drums stopped playing and the whole Raincoming Day celebration fell silent. As with every Raincoming Day, to keep the fish plentiful, the fruit sweet, the babies strong and the island safe, the Miggi Min must be kept happy too.

In silence, the men stripped Barret naked. They then strapped his snoring, passed out form onto a stretcher slashed together of palm leaves, branches and vines. The women were softly beating their drums and humming a haunting, wordless melody. Then the whole procession began slowly walking towards the island’s Western shore where a dark, deep cave was hidden. And, right at the back of that dark, deep cave there was a pair of cold eyes and a pair of pure white fangs with an immortal appetite that needed to be fed.

The Miggi Min only accepted blood, but she kept the island and the people safe and they would gladly give it to her.

Horror & Dark Fiction

The Ladies of Llewelyn Library

My research has taken me to some strange places, but none more so than the old colonial Llewelyn Library in Rhodesia. I boarded a ship from London that rounded the Cape and dropped me off in a tropical Durban. From there I caught a lift up to a dusty Johannesburg and across the border to the outskirts of hot Harare in north-east Rhodesia.

The Llewelyn Library claimed it held original scrolls from the Library of Alexandria. I was studying ancient fertility rites and–if authentic–some of these scrolls were of great interest to me. Such ancient papyrus scrolls would be too fragile to travel and so I set out to travel to them.

I arrived at the doorstep of the Llewelyn Library as night fell. It was a dark, imposing building with the dramatic air of a wartime monument rather than that of a library. The Head Librarian was waiting for me outside and, after a few pleasantries, ushered me inside. She was an old, wispy South African woman and seemed to always talk in loud whispers. My research quarters were set up, I unpacked my gear and was left to my own devices that first night.

I was too exhausted to do much else other than climb into bed, yet I struggled to fall asleep. I awoke in the pale light of morning with fleeting memories of a soon-forgotten dream. I shook off the sleep, had a cup of tea, and began what I had travelled so far to do: my work.

The Chief Librarian showed me to the entrance to Llewelyn Library’s vaults. She also assigned to me a young, native girl; in heavily accented English, the helper introduced herself as ‘Tanaka‘. I could not help noticing that she was quite beautiful with dark eyes and generous proportions.

The vaults were cavernous and packed with countless weird and wonderful African artefacts. Numerous painted rocks, masks, spears and other bizarre items littering the bowels of Llewelyn Library with many barely-discovered mysteries tucked into every nook and cranny down there. The collection seemed to have been gathered from all corners of the Dark Continent. Dust covered most things down there and the soft, flickering central light cast deep shadows everywhere.

While Tanaka went off to locate the fertility scrolls, my gaze was drawn to a collection of knee-high fertility statues carved out of an intense black rock of some sort. As far as I could see, there a number of female ones with large bosoms, round buttocks and accentuated feminine curves, and only one male one with a large, erect phallus. I reached out and touched the male statue. Its stone was cool to the touch. When I pulled my hand back, I was surprised to see that it was clean. Everything else in that vault was covered with thick layer of dust.

Tanaka arrived with the fragile fertility scrolls and I put the strange statues out of my mind. The rest of the day I spent delicately deciphering the ancient scrolls while Tanaka patiently sat at my side, answering the odd question and occasionally fetching me more tea and biscuits.

The scrolls did indeed appear genuine and, in my excitement, I lost track of time. Tanaka eventually told me how late it was and I conceded that it was time to retire. On the way back, we passed the collection of fertility statues and I was surprised to see that there was, in fact, no male statue in their midst. I definitely remembered seeing a male statue with an erect phallus, and I asked Tanaka about it. She dismissed it in broken English. She said it was too late to be working this hard, and she picked up her pace to walk me to my chambers.

That night I recalled broken snippets of lustful dreams that made me blush. It was a dream involving a dark room full of naked, lustful native girls that tore at me, kissing and laughing, their soft skin touching mine in loving, primal embraces… The next morning I awoke tired, almost as if I had not slept a wink.

Later that morning, after we had descended into the vault, Tanaka popped off to fetch the scrolls for our day’s work. During this pause, I glanced at the black rock fertility statues. Something made me get up and take a closer look. There were twelve individual female statues carved in some pure black stone. I now noticed that one of them appeared pregnant.

When Tanaka returned with the scrolls, I again asked her about the statues. And, again, she mumbled something indistinct and avoided my gaze. She placed the scrolls in front of me and my attention was diverted. I decided that it was not important and I sank deep into my reverent study of the rare scrolls for the rest of the day and into the early evening.

That evening, heading back to my quarters in the Library, I ran into the Head Librarian. I asked her about the statues in the vault, but she said she did not know about them. She said that it was a large vault and an old collection that pre-dated her, but that she would dig into the records and get back to me.

The lustful dream came again that night, but it was far more vivid. I remember walking from my quarters through an absolutely silent library. It was dark and very late, but I knew where I was going. I was being called by a longing deep inside me. I went down the spiral staircases into the shadowy gloom of the vault. As I walked entered the place, thirteen naked, native ladies of generous proportions gently tore off my clothes and embraced me again and again…

The next morning, I awoke in bed naked. It was strange because I did not recall going to sleep naked. I did so occasionally when it was hot–and Africa is almost always so!–and, thus, it was also not the strangest thing to awake like this. What bothered me was that I could not remember stripping.

I skipped breakfast–except for the tea–and headed straight to the Head Librarian’s office to enquire about the statues. The Head Librarian was not there, but I ran into Tanaka on the way. I had never noticed it before, but Tanaka had the soft roundness of an early pregnancy and I commented on it. She flashed a smile at me, but said nothing and carried on walking to the vault.

I inspected the black rock fertility statues again while Tanaka went off to retrieve the scrolls. It might have been the shadows and half-light that made me miss it the first time, but it seemed that one of the statues was not pregnant. Rather, all of the statues appeared that way, with soft roundness in the lower-central belly indicating a child. Off to the side was a male statue; its erect phallus almost comical in size and girth. I reached out and touch its head. The stone was surprisingly warm to the touch and I suddenly thought of the embarrassingly primal dream that I had had the night before; all flesh and sensual desires made earthly.

It was at this point that the Head Librarian poked her head into the vault and asked if I would come with her. I could not locate Tanaka, so I wrote her a note–assuming she could read English–and followed the wispy form of the Head Librarian back to her office.

She was silent the whole walk back, but the moment the door closed and she sat down in her old, red leather chair, she began to talk. She told how late one night Tanaka had turned up on the Library’s doorsteps and, given human decency and her grasp of the ancient local dialects, the Head Librarian–a man at the time–had taken her in. She had also brought with her the ancient fertility statues from her hometown that she had donated to the Library, or so the previous Head Librarian had noted in the ledgers.

The previous Head Librarian, though, had subsequently disappeared, thus leading to the eventual hiring of the present Head Librarian. She had then simply kept the same staff contingent–including Tanaka–in the employ of the Library.

“Now,” I recall the Head Librarian explaining in her characteristically loud whisper, “I have found a more detailed listing of the statues you asked about and there are discrepancies. Not only have none gone missing, but it was logged by my predecessor as only being twelve female fertility statues. There is no mention of a male one, and twelve, not thirteen is listed. Despite being a bit of a nasty drunk and pervert to the native girls, my predecessor was thorough and quite pedantic as to detail in these records. Besides, the risk around here is always for relics to be smuggled out and into our vaults.”

At this point, a scream rang out in the Library and we rushed off to find its source. We ended up in the vault, where Tanaka was softly weeping over the shattered remains of the male statue. Somehow, it had fallen and shattered to splintered pieces. I knelt down and picked up one of the pieces and was surprised to find the inside of the stone a dark red colour.

The Head Librarian tried comforting Tanaka, but to little avail. She was terribly shaken by the destruction of this statue. I took my leave then and retired for the day back to my quarters. There, after a quiet day of reading my books and sipping on the sherry they had provided for the room, I slipped into a troubled sleep.

Later that night, I jolted awake and sat upright in my bed. Somehow I knew I had to be somewhere else. I put on my dressing gown and wandered out of my quarters. I did not wander to the vault. Rather, I felt myself being drawn to the front door of the Llewelyn Library.

Approaching the front door, despite the time of the night, I saw that it was slightly ajar. I slipped out into the cool night with the quiet town flickering around me and the looming presence of the Library behind me.

At the foot of the stairs there stood Tanaka, surrounded by a number of other native girls. Many of them babies in their hands. They were all standing there looking up at me, so I began to walk down to them. As I descended, I counted twelve girls in total and Tanaka.

It was eerily silent as I stepped off the last Library step. My foot crunched softly on the gravel of the road, and I stood before this strange huddle of beautiful native girls.

“Mubatani, oneka,” said Tanaka, leaning forward and kissing me gently on my cheek. I caught plenty of very friendly looks from the other native girls around us, and then they all turned around and walked off into the night leaving me standing there flabbergasted.

The next morning, the Head Librarian would alert me to the fact that Tanaka had left during the night. Her fertility statues were also gone, save the single shattered male one. Despite a pang missing her, I would struggle on and finish my research in a matter of weeks. But I would also never again be visited by the strange dreams of earlier nights.

Only when I was packed to go and saying my farewells to the Head Librarian, did I ask her about the other girls that I had seen with Tanaka and what she had said to me.

“Other girls?” the Head Librarian had replied, “No, it was just Tanaka that had been employed here and just Tanaka that left. The English translation for what she said was simply ‘goodbye, sir‘, though the more direct translation is where ‘mubatani‘ is ‘man‘ or–forgive me here–it can also literally mean ‘mate’.”

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction

The Mysterious Death of Hope

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woman-dragging-cross

The old man who lived in the woods outside of the village had said that she was born with a curious fate. Her mother had said that is must be something good, and so she had called her “Hope”. The village folk had celebrated her birth briefly before returning to the fields because the harvest waited for neither king nor peasant.

As a young girl growing up, she had been fascinated with the simple folk surrounding her. Something about her had felt different. Something in her had felt apart–more unique–that the simple villagers around her going methodically about their daily lives. They would wake up early and work hard before coming home, eat and drink and then fall fast asleep.

Then they would do it all again.

In the winter, they would huddle together in the small Town Hall, drinking around the great fireplace there and telling tales both tall and true. After the winter food had run out in the spring with empty bellies, they would plow the land till it was raw and cast seed into the wind with prayers of food. In the summer, they would wade back into these now lush fields with sickles and scythes to harvest what they had sown. And, in the autumn, they would eat and drink, pretend the cold winter was not coming and forget about the great labour that would shortly be coming.

And then they would do it all again.

One cold winter’s night, a stranger walked into these mundane seasons of village life.

He appeared on the step of the Town Hall late one icy night. The cold air blasted in from the door and the fire flickered wildly before someone invited him in out of the cold. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Knocking snow off his black, leather boots he cast his gaze around the dimly lit interior with no tangible expression upon his face.

Hope felt his gaze linger on her, but before she could smile or react the villagers had flocked around the man. Here was something more interesting that tales of earth and grumblings of taxes and age. Here was something more interesting than their neighbors and what happens in the nearby woods.

When the strange man began to speak, Hope crept nearer to listen. She was ashamed to admit that she as was intrigued as her fellow villager. She hated to admit any similarity between her and the simple folk.

Now that she was nearer, she saw how pale and thin–almost gaunt–the stranger looked. He had black, straight hair that cut his near snow-white features as his dark, brooding eyes flickered up to hers for a second.

She was now a young woman, so she could stay in the Town Hall as long as she wanted, but the elders got to speak. And speak the elders did, throwing questions after questions at the stranger. They asked about news of the other villages and how the king was doing. Would he raise their taxes next harvest? They asked how the neighboring lands were doing. How was their harvest? They asked about the rest of the world. They asked and the stranger told them.

Hope began to realize how big the world was and how small their village was. She began to realize that she had seen enough of simple folk. She wanted to see all the fancy folk that this stranger spoke of. She wanted to see the lands that reach out further than the eye can see. She wanted to see the ocean that stretches out further than the mind can fathom. She wanted to see the great river in the East and the rugged, snow-capped mountains in the West. She wanted to dance with the royals, sip from the crystal glasses of the court and whisper intrigue to the king. She wanted to see the foreign kingdoms, dance in the starlit lakes of yonder and walk the bustling streets of the great cities…

Suddenly she realized that everything was quiet. The stranger was standing before her. The elders and the simple folk in the hall were all just sitting and blankly staring at where the stranger used to be sitting. But he was standing in front of her now, holding her head in his cold hands.

“Do you really want to see the world?” he asked looking down at her with an expressionless face, “Do you really want to see everything there is to see?”

Why was everyone just sitting there staring? Why was the hall so quiet? Why did she feel terrified? Why were his hands so cold?

Hope’s mind was screaming. Her fear was rising like a pit in her stomach, but all that came out was a soft whimper and her head nodded slightly.

The stranger smiled. It was not a happy smile nor a cruel one. It was more mechanically with all the right muscular movements, but no real emotion behind it. And it revealed the fangs in his mouth. Hope wondered if they had always been there or just suddenly appeared?

“This pain will release you from your mortal coil, but deliver the world to you,” the stranger whispered as he leaned down to gently bite Hope’s now exposed neck. The sharp pain made her cry out, but another part of her registered that he smelt of roses and ash.

And then Hope grew tired. The cold began to spread across her now-heavy limbs. Her eyes closed and her head slumped forward into the stranger’s arms.

He would carry her from that village. She would awaken six days later in a great, hidden castle many leagues from her old village. She would begin to live a great tale of her own, sometimes wonderful and sometimes dark. Sometimes with kings and courts in it, but sometimes with midnights and winters too. She would swim in the midnight lakes of twilight and dine on the snow-capped mountains while wolves howled in the distance.

She would do all of these things and more, but far away in her old village, two small droplets of blood in the town hall were the only signs that she had ever been there. Her mother would cry herself to sleep, but soon enough the tears ran out. And then the years passed and so did her mother. Her father had already passed with many harvests ago. The elders that were there that night would also soon be buried in the woods with the rest. All of them would be replaced by some of the younger generation, now old with their children’s children around them. Children were being born and the harvest sowed and reaped, as summer would turn to autumn and the cold winter would give way to crisp spring.

And then they would all do it again.

And, after many lifetimes of harvests had passed, no one would remember the girl or the stranger. The village would grow while new generations filled the old cobbled streets that all led back to the old Town Hall. The only fragment of the mysterious death of Hope echoing through the folk songs would be the two dark stains in the old Town Hall where her blood dripped on that cold, winters night.

Dark in the winter when the drinks had flowed and the fire was low, the elders of that generation would point at those two blood stains and talk of the mysterious death of hope. They would talk of how the harvest had died and the cold winter had come early and left late. They would whisper of the devil and the demons that knock at doors late at night. And so the tale would grow, from generation to generation.

Until late one winter’s night a strange, beautiful lady appeared at door of the Town Hall. The cold air blasted in from the door and the fire flickered wildly before someone invited her in out of the cold. She stepped in and closed the door behind her. Knocking snow off her black, leather boots she cast her gaze around the dimly lit interior with no tangible expression upon her strikingly beautiful face.

One of the villagers piped up, asking about the king and the other villages. How had the harvest been in the southern part of the kingdom? The mysterious lady walked to a chair, pausing briefly as she passed the two, faded blood stains on the floor. Was there snow on the mountains yet? She sat down. And then she spoke, her voice strangely familiar to all who listened.

“Why don’t you all tell me about the harvest? Tell me about waking up early and toiling in the earth under the warm Sun? Tell me about a long, honest day’s work and a quiet night’s sleep surrounded by your loved ones? Tell me about your beautiful lives?” The strange lady smiled. It was not a happy smile nor a cruel one. It was more mechanically with all the right muscular movements, but no real emotion behind it. The smile revealed the two, small fangs in her mouth, but no one noticed as all the folks began talking at once about their simple lives in the small village nearby the dark woods.