Time Skip (Around Fifteen Days) [3rd person]-------------------------------------------------------------

The moon sat high in the sky shining a bloody crimson upon a dark forest, and amidst the twisting trees sat a humble shack. And within that shack, an old man sat on a fine leather chair and smoking an odd pipe.

1st person---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stretched and popped my neck before lighting up my last bit of herbal mix in celebration for a job well done. It may have taken a bit more time than it should of, but I had completely claimed the space within my territory. I took a puff and looked around my new shack, it was pretty simple with only a fireplace, a painting, a chair made of the hide I gained from the stiff-legged bear, a rug made from the same thing, and a small table with four chairs. It was very plain, but I liked it, it didn’t need to be anything fancy. After my brief celebration, I got up and walked to the front porch to observe if any of my enchantments were acting strange.

It was a beautiful night with the moon high above and the soothing sound of nocturnal animals. To my surprise it wasn’t only animals out tonight, small dots of light were zipping through trees and frolicking in the air. There weren’t many, maybe only around twenty, but their playful presence made up for the lack of numbers. Sprites were quite a rare sight where I usually reside, and it was always a pleasant surprise when they came around for their migration once a century. They must have been attracted to the turbulent fabric of space, created by my meddling, and flew through one of the weaker areas.

Sprite was an overarching term, like calling a fish a fish, and there were many different kinds. Telling from the soft green, blue, and the rare white glows respectively, the ones playing around are forest, water, and wind sprites. I reached out a hand and transferred over some pure mana causing the little guys to suddenly turn course and swirl around me. I played around for a little bit by creating my own balls of light but after a bit, I stopped and let them do their thing. Ever since I had walked out, I noticed something was watching me.

I walked over to the side of the shack and when the entity’s sight was blocked, I reverted and slinked into the shadows. I made a b-line to the creature’s location and appeared behind a tree near its location. To my shock, I saw a long spindly creature hiding perfectly behind a small tree. It was pitch black, skeletal with no visible features except two human-like eyes and long skinny hands. A hidebehind, a creature once thought to be on the brink of extinction by many after the demonic offensive plowed through their home realm, but I had never agreed with that theory.

These creatures were so adapted to hiding that even I would have some trouble tracking a wise one down in its home territory, much less some barely sentient demon horde. I got closer to the creature and poked my head out to watch it like it probably did with me. Interesting creatures hidebehinds, actually one of the very first spirits to hunt me when I was but a child. It poked its head out from behind the tree and tried to look for me but unfortunately, it was looking in the wrong direction, and I took the chance to get even closer. It cocked its head in confusion before slinking to another tree with abnormal speed.

After repeating this process a few more times it was hiding behind one of the posts on the front porch. It was getting frustrated now and in a moment of exasperation stopped its stealth attempts. Once it exited from behind the post its body rapidly decompressed itself causing a major transformation, from being so thin that a small breeze could blow it over into a hulking beast with long mossy looking shaggy hair and a dog-like appearance. It charged around the shack in search of me but when it came up empty it let out a shrill bark that sounded more like a chihuahua than anything. I was amused at its antics and got even closer until my snout was resting centimeters over its shoulder.

I did this unnoticed for a while until it turned to my, lovely, shack and went to bulldoze it down in frustration. Seeing the peril my new shack was in I snickered out loud causing the hidebehind to freeze stiller than a rock, and in an instinctual reaction it compressed itself and went to go for a hiding place but I stopped it with a firm grip on its bony shoulder. It started to shake like a leaf and hesitantly turned its head to my hand and then to my head that was still at its other shoulder, its reaction was priceless. When It slowly turned its head away from me, I let go and backed up before turning back into a, different, human form.

When my hand left its shoulder, it dropped into a squat and curled up tightly before it released its hair making it look like a mossy bush. I chuckled again and put on a laid-back smile, if this happened back in the killing fields I would have torn it to shreds but there was no need now. I crouched and lightly tapped my fingers across its head. It may not have been the best idea to scare the living hell out of it but I wanted it to stick around and not jump back to the spirit realm before booking it.

Its presence gave me a nostalgic feel of back when I stalked the woods along with my little sister in desperate search for food with a .22 in hand, ignorant to the unknown. Sadly, I only had a few memories of my family so I liked to treasure each of them. I wasn’t exactly an expert on hidebehinds since I’ve only encountered them a very few times, but I did have a handful of observations and was familiar with the various wise tells and legends. Not the most reliable sources but most have truth in them. I grabbed some deer intestines I had stored for some divination and tossed them near the shivering creature.