Run. Run was all she could do. It didn’t matter what happened in the past, or whatever things he said, all that mattered was if she could make it now. It was so far away but she didn’t slow, she didn’t stop for her breath.

There was someone who needed her help, whether he knew it or not. Whether he knew her or not. Long ago, in some sort of haze, she recalled that he asked her something. Something that she answered right away but the meaning of it lingered in her mind afterward and into the waking world.

If this was someone else, would she run so much, so fast?

Maybe. But maybe not. All she knew was that he needed her and that she would be there.

Barric’s first vivid memory of Helena was of her laying down, eyes closed, in a meadow with a dozen picked flowers on her chest. At that moment, even against the flowers in full bloom, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The way her long golden hair sat under her, how her little hands rested on her chest, and most of all, how peaceful she seemed under the sunset.

The village, her father, was in an uproar trying to find her. Since that morning she had been missing. A fairly wealthy merchant came to visit and he brought his son along, for reasons not quite obvious to Barric or some of the other children yet. But, thinking back, Helena must have known. During that time, Barric simply thought that the Elder loved his daughter more than anything else, hence his panic at her disappearance. Of course, the Elder did love his daughter but he also loved what she could do for him.

Barric, instead of taking her back and perhaps earning the praise of the village, the gratitude of the Elder, chose to lie next to her. She opened her eyes and sat up, eyeing him closely. The look she gave him was a mixture of surprise and worry. He wanted to wipe all her fears away so he took her hand.

She quickly drew it back but didn’t retreat from him. “I-Is my father coming?”

He shook his head and picked up the flowers she dropped, “No, and I don’t plan on telling anyone you’re here. I-I was wondering if-if I could enjoy the sunset with you…”

She smiled and gave him one of the flowers she picked, “These are supposed to be an apology for my dad but this one is for you, thank you. Thank you for joining me.”

The way she spoke was unlike the other kids. While they were nearing adulthood, both of them being thirteen, she was already far ahead of anyone he knew. Never could he ask one of the other village girls or boys just to sit and enjoy the sunset without talking. And so, for as long as the sun lingered, they sat in silence.

When they returned to the village, Barric had offered to return at a different time but Helena insisted they go together, the Elder lashed out at him. “You, you! What do you think you’re doing with my daughter?”

Barric flinched and held his head down for as long as the lecture would go on for. The Elder loved to hear himself speak and also loved to put others down. This would go on for a while.

“Father, stop. He found me and brought me back.”

The Elder’s eyebrows knit together and his tune soon changed as other villagers came out of their houses to see the commotion. “Well done boy!” he said, “I know your father and will surely tell him of how much you helped me and my daughter today.”

At that time, Barric and his family hadn’t quite made it big with their farming efforts but slowly and surely they would make it. Even then, even as he was a regular child belonging to a regular family in the village, Helena turned around and waved to him mouthing the words, ‘Let’s meet again.’

She was put under stricter rules and confined to the house. The Elder, however, was kinder to him.

Since those rules went into place, he would accompany his father on his trips outside the village to the town or other places in the hopes that he would catch a glimpse of her as they walked past the Elder’s house. Sometimes he would catch her staring at the sky, sometimes he’d see her drawing by the window, and sometimes if he was lucky, they’d make eye contact and a smile would spread to each of them.

He drew her often in a little notebook he always kept with him. Whenever he saw her, he’d store the image of her in his mind and sketch in his free time.

Fortune smiled upon him. His family ended up acquiring more animals and producing more than they needed for the winter and thus they slowly built up wealth. When he was sixteen years old, he took the opportunity. With the help of his father, he made a bid for Helena’s hand and won. Then disaster struck and the animals meant to secure their marriage ran off into the wild.

He knew what kind of person the Elder was. He wouldn’t marry off his daughter unless he gained to benefit from it and it didn’t matter whether or not the deal would be completed in the future, he wanted the rewards right now.

When Barric heard that Helena was kidnapped, stolen away by the crazed miner, he was the first to volunteer. Perhaps he’d win the Elder’s favor like he had all those years ago. When he heard moaning in the abandoned shack, his thoughts immediately turned to the worst possible outcome and he blindly shot inside. To his relief, they both burst out of the shack with all their clothes on. Still, his anger did not cease. He shot again and again, missing each time.

When they came over the snow-covered hill, the madman had crouched down, holding his head and crying like a child. Was he surrendering?

Then, it came. A black, shadowy mass of terror. Somehow, one of the village men ran straight at it and that broke Barric from his fear sustained trance. He shot at the monster and the arrow bounced right off. He shot again and it bounced off so he grabbed Helena and hid. The madman joined them but he was too afraid to push him away. All his strength had left him. The screams haunted him.

Once all that was left were the dead or dying, the monster started moving toward them. Why was it moving toward them?

The madman. The madman was still rambling, clutching his head, crying. Tears streamed down Helena’s face as she held a hand over her mouth. Barric took a deep breath and hit the miner over the head with his bow. He fell in one hit.

But that didn’t stop the monster. No, It heard them. It knew they were there. It could sense their fear. As it wrapped its hand around the boulder and the darkness choked the life out of them, there was a sudden flash and the monster was gone. He peeked over the cover and looked all around but couldn’t catch a single sign of it, almost as if it never existed. His only proof was the dead bodies of his fellow villagers.

Helena fell.

He turned and came face to face with an unimaginable monster.

Those eyes… I know them all too well. They’re afraid, of course, they are. It’s not pointed at me, they’re not afraid of me, but I can’t bring myself to look at any of them. Especially the women weeping. All the men they sent were killed.

Whatever the survivors went through today, it’ll spread throughout the village like a disease. I can tell right now that even if the miner somehow was allowed to stay here, he’d be treated like a monster.

The Elder quickly snags his daughter away from us and has one of the men on duty escort her away as he turns his attention to the miner. “You damn dog!” he beats the unconscious man with a cane while the villagers watch in silence, in acceptance. Each one of them is looking at this and seeing it as justice served or righteous punishment. It’s not. It’s wrong. But no one will listen to me if I speak.

“Father, stop!” Helena yanks herself free from the man escorting her and uses herself to shield the miner.

Gasps and whispers erupt from the villagers. Barric’s mouth widens in disbelief. “Helena, what are you doing? He kidnapped you and led to all of the men getting killed!”

“He did and I was afraid,” she says, still hovering near him. “But beating him to death will get us nowhere. Look, blood already flows from his head. Any more and we may never know the truth behind his madness.”

“We know,” Patricks shouts, grabbing at his clothes. Lynn tries to hold him back. “We know the reason. You should know it too. It’s-It’s that monster!” he points into the forest. “And… And I think I know what he was doing. He-that man right there was trying to offer you up to it!”

The Elder’s eye twitches violently. He throws Helena to the side and begins beating the madman even harder. The other villagers, though somewhat silent before, quickly being voicing their agreement. “Kill him. Beat his head in. Make it so he never walks again.” Snow, ice, sticks, and dug up stones fly from the crowd.

Total chaos.

“Stop it. You’re all overreacting,” Christopher stops the Elder’s cane and pushes him back. “Even if he was planning to offer her up to the monster, that doesn’t justify a public lynching. The captain will decide what to do after they return.”

The Elder’s face twists, “You!! You’re the insolent adventurer who tried to ruin me! You dare come back here after what you’ve done and try to stop the will of the people? You dare try to rob us of justice? How will this village fare now that six of our men are dead?”

“I don’t know. You’ll face an even harsher winter than you would have otherwise but in the end, nothing will change if you kill him. You will think you’ve wrought justice but when that monster comes back before we hunt it down because you killed the only person to have a brush against it and survive more than once, you and everyone else here will be the ones to suffer.”

The Elder lets out a huff, looking to the crowd for support. They waver and so does the Elder. “So be it then. However, know this, if an incident occurs again, you and this madman will both receive the punishment. And it will not be light in any sense of the word.”

He pulls his daughter away and orders the watchmen to drag the miner along.

“What a mess,” Christopher whispers. He tells the rest of us to wait in the village while he goes to inform the main group of what happened. “If we’re lucky, that monster returned to the mines and they’re fighting it right now.”

I hope that too but how likely is that to happen? Even if it did, what I feel is that… they won’t win. I mean, look at Patrick and me, we’re both messes just barely keeping ourselves together. If I saw its face, maybe I’d already be broken.

Lynn and her party drag Patrick away. Lynn beckons me over and we find a little shelter to rest under. It offers little protection from the cold but it has something to sit on. I choose a corner away from the others but the other girl in the party, Aya, sits unusually close to me.

“Hey,” she whispers. “You saw it too, right? W-What kind of monster can do that? When Patrick came back after missing all night we were so relieved, but when we saw him he looked so afraid. We asked him what happened but he wouldn’t say a word. He just told us we had a quest to go on otherwise he’d be taken into custody. I know it’s not polite to ask but after seeing what we saw today, I think we should know.”

What am I supposed to say? “It’s scary,” is what I manage. “Dark, like a shadow. That’s all I know but… when I saw it, its hand, it was the most terrifying thing I ever saw.”

Her face turns pale. “Y-You mean like-like a demon?” She fishes something out of her pouch, a small notebook, and shows me a drawing. “Like this?”

The drawing is like something out of a nightmare. It’s a monster drawn in complete scribbles as if a child did it. There’s no definite shape nor distinguishable features save for the hollow void of its eyes and mouth.

I almost slap the notebook out of her hand. Instead, I look away. “Wh-Where did you get that?”

“S-So it does look like this… I found this when we-”

“Hey, the roluk over there,” Barric strolls over, holding his unstrung bow in his left hand. “I need to talk to you.”

I glance at Aya. She closes the book and hands it to me, pointing at Barric.

So it’s his?

He leads me out of sight and earshot of the others. I hold up the notebook and he snatches it out of my hand. “I was looking for this the whole time!” he flips the pages. “Where did you find it?”

“Y-You dropped it where you were hiding…”

“I did? Well, thanks for picking it up. Uh, I didn’t bring you over here for this though. Actually, I don’t know why I brought you over here. It was more of an impulse thing. Well, I guess I should thank you first.”

As he talks, the air around us grows colder.

“That’s right, I should go thank the others too,” he sets his bow down. When he looks back up, he stares at me with soulless eyes.

“B-Barric…?”

His hands shoot out, grabbing my neck as he pins me to the wall. I try to pry his hands off me but he’s too strong. My words don’t come out, only croaks. Tears run down my cheeks and freeze. I kick and struggle as he lifts me off the ground.

“Ah… Ahh…”

“It’ll be over soon,” he says. “The dream must continue.”

Black spots start appearing all over. I’m fading. I’m dying.

I don’t want to die.

Suddenly, there’s a snap. His arms, frozen solid and as white as the snow, break. I fall, coughing as I breathe for the first time in forever. He stumbles backward before shattering completely.

“Ellar?” I turn and see Lynn with a crease across her forehead. “What are you doing on the ground?”

“Here,” Barric offers his hand. “I’ll help you up.”

I flinch at the sight of him. His eyes are back to normal. I stand, looking at him and at the ground for proof. His arms aren’t on the ground, they’re by his side… What just happened? Am I just seeing things or, or did that really happen? No, it had to have happened. I can still feel his hands around my neck. Even now I can barely breathe.

“Ellar?”

“I-!” I cough. It doesn’t stop. I’m almost reduced to my knees, tears well up in my eyes.

“You should come sit down, quickly!” Lynn lends me her arm and takes me away.

Barric watches with an expression of shock and worry.

It happened, didn’t it?

Barric was greeted by his father with a tight hug. He wasn’t someone to show much emotion, though he was mostly kind, this was the most affection he was straightforwardly shown. No doubt this was a side effect of the horrible news they returned with.

“Keep the bow,” his father said when he held it up to return it. “After today, you are far more deserving of it than I am.”

“Thank you,” said Barric, unsure of whether or not he truly deserved it. In the warmth of his house and around the dining table, his mind drifted to the attack, to the slaughter. The screams echoed in his head. The bow he held had runes carved into it and was enchanted with the power to pierce through armor. If he hadn’t hidden, if he chose to fight, he might’ve killed it and put everyone’s mind to rest.

But he might have died. And that brought up too many fears. If one were to ask him if he was afraid to die, he’d tell them no. However, if he was asked if he was afraid in the face of that black mass of a monster, he’d nod, unable to speak.

He needed to find a reason for his survival. How come he, the youngest of the men and most likely the least experienced when it came to any combat, lived? Was some higher power keeping him alive? Was he special among the other villagers?

In his room, he picked up his prayer beads and closed his eyes while kneeling by the window. “Give me a sign,” asked Barric, “Oh gods, why did I live?” he waited and waited, patiently waiting, keeping his eyes closed in fear that they might not answer if he opened them.

He sighed. He did not lack faith but he wasn’t as devout as his father nor his mother. Never once had he ever been answered by the gods. As he turned to put his beads away, he heard a whisper. Barric looked through the window searching the skies and the trees.

Listen, the voice said. Follow the roluk. Bring her to me or... bring me to her.

“Yes,” he said as his eyes changed color.