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ren-c-leyn · 5 years ago

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The Cost of Desire

It’s been a while, but here’s another short story for the blog. Figured it’d be a good way to slowly get back into tumblr.

This is a fusion story using these 1,2 prompts by @thependragonwritersguild, this prompt by @humdrummoloch, this prompt by @promptsforthestrugglingauthor, and these 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 prompts by @givethispromptatry.

Fair warning, while this piece doesn’t have any gore or violence in it, it is a more tense piece with the narrator stuck waiting impending doom.

I remembered that day clearly, the one that began this secret obsession of mine. It was just one of those moments that never left me.

Mother was an alchemist whom always gathered the ingredients for her potions herself. I don’t remember why exactly but she had decided to take me with her, but I remember being excited to go on a ‘real life adventure.’ I clumsily carried some of the baskets and trotted after her on my short legs. It went well enough, until we got to the forest filled with mist.

“Shhh…” She held her pointer finger up to her lips. “We need to be quiet here.”

“Why?” I whispered, still somehow loud enough to cause an echo.

“There’s something that sleeps here. We don’t want to disturb it. Now stay on the path, don’t stray from it for a second.”

I listened, but only because mother was there with me. Something about not being allowed to stray from the path and make noise made me want to run off the path and scream ‘hello there’ at the top of my lungs. And that desire never left.

As I got older, I got more and more curious about the forest and what slept in it. Often, I would stray from the path, a little more each time to see if I could find anything besides the endlessly swirling white. My best friend, however, was a tattle tale and the one day I did stray off the path while they were with me, they ran all the way back to the village got my mother. Whom, was of course, furious.

“You’ve been told many times to stay on the path!” mother shrieked, pacing the main room of our tiny house. “One of these days something is going to take you!”

That threat was enough to curb my wanderings until I became a true adventurer and discovered the secret of that forest. It was a place wizards hid powerful artifacts, artifacts powerful enough to make me the best adventurer of them all. A lure I couldn’t resist.

Equipped with my weapon and my armor, I felt more than confident enough in my ability to take down the guardian of the artifacts. I strode into the mists, not even trying to muffle the clinking of my gear. All of mother’s warnings and rules were broken. I didn’t even remember most of them in that moment, my mind was focused on the prizes that awaited me.

Oh how foolish I was.

In less than an hour, I had found a stone path. It was strange, I hadn’t remembered coming across one so close to the main path, but I was not going to laugh off this bit of fortune. For all paths must lead somewhere, and the only thing to go to in this forest was the place the relics had been locked away. I rushed down it, drinking in the muffled sounds of my own footfalls as I went.

And it was on that stone path that I met the creature mother had been so terrified of finding me.

Two opalized eyes blinked at me through the fog. I could see no discernible pupils through the gloom but I knew that those eyes were sorting through my very character, figuring out who I was without a word. Chills ran up my spine, breathing got a little harder, and my heart sped up against my will. My legs, dear gods my legs, they trembled and nearly gave out beneath the weight of that stare. Run, run away, my instincts screamed. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t run. Not without something to show for my courage, or stupidity, in coming to meet the guardian.

The eyes vanished and the mists began to clear. I sucked in a breath of relief just before the hairs on the back of my neck rose. The ghost-like chill of breathe on my neck nearly made me jump right out of my armor as I spun around, hand gripping the hilt of my sword for all it was worth.

Before me stood what looked like a young girl. It’s difficult to recall exactly what she looked like. Whenever I try to focus on her appearance my mind goes hazy and I nearly forget what I was trying to remember. The one thing I can recall clearly was the sound of her voice. It was as if there was a constant whine of wind trying to drown out a girl’s voice, and it echoed in my mind. Her eyes were like opals and had no pupils, and I can’t recall there being any color to anything else about her. Just... cloudy whiteness, like a phantom.

No, not like it. Not at all. She was a phantom. The ghost of every misdeed and mistake ever committed. That was her, that was what I faced that day.

“Who are you?”

I grinned, clenching my teeth together to keep them from chattering right out of my gums.

“I am the greatest adventurer to ever stand before you,” I declared with shaky bravado, “and who are you?”

“Oh, no one important.”

“Well, that’s solidly not true.”

She laughed, though it didn’t seem to come from her. It seemed to come from the forest itself.

“It is in the grand scheme of things. In fact, I am no one,” the smile fell from her face into a dark stare that nearly made my legs give out from under me again. “but that doesn’t matter here because you are someone, someone who does not respect the grand scheme. And someones are not allowed in here. You must leave.”

“No. I’m the greatest adventurer there ever was, and I’m not leaving without at least one artifact.”

She shook her head, an amused smile growing on her lips.

“They all say that, all of the somebodies. But you don’t understand, you never understand. Nothing you learned up there will help you survive down here.”

I paused at that. Down here? Weren’t we still in that forest? I looked up but al I could see was more mist.

“Look, I don’t know what mind games you’re playing, guardian, but I’ve come too far to back down now. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

I turned back around and started to walk forward. The sense of dread and impending doom grew as I took the first step, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away from that being. But guardians aren’t known to just stand idly by while someone comes in and raids their treasure troves, and she was certainly no exception.

“You’re not excused!” the forest howled as the ground quaked.

I struggled to keep my balance as I looked around for the source of the earthquake. The next thing I knew she was standing in front of me, arms outstretched.

“Not unless you turn around and leave. That’s the only way to walk away from me, somebody.”

Irritated, I reached out to push her aside, but she was a little faster than I. A freezing cold hand wrapped around my wrist and sent what felt like ice up my veins. Everything was so cold, and so numb. I felt my strength all leave me as pain took it’s place. Soon, I was on the ground and the little girl was leaning above me.

“You wanted to be the best. Now look at you. It’s going to kill you,” she whispered into my ear.

The tingling feeling of paralysis held me in place, though I violently wished I could unsheathe my sword.

“It’s going to hunt you down and kill you. Your end is coming. Even if you should leave, somebody, you’ve sealed your own fate.”

Then, she was gone. Just like that. The feeling of dread, of being watched, it was all gone. Except I couldn’t move and I felt the cold spreading throughout my body. I struggled at first, but of course nothing move. Over time, I got some feeling back and was even able to push myself up a tiny bit. But the hours were so slow in passing that I caught myself wondering if time was moving at all. I leaned back against the ground, knocking my head on the cold stone.

It was pointless. It was so pointless.... Trying to fight the paralysis, trying to escape, wasting all that time talking to some strange girl, even coming here. I was going to die, and there would be no point to it. The ultimate tragedy.

I was always terrible at goodbyes. I had a tendency to avoid them, if at all possible, and other times gave a simple wave and ignored the probability I would never see them again.

As I found myself alone, struggling to make my body to move, I wished I had been able to say goodbye. If only to my best friend, who warned me not to go.

Then, I fell asleep, letting the cold consume me. But that was not quite the end of my tale.

The mid afternoon sun filtered it’s way through the sheer curtains to fall upon my face. My eyes slowly blinked themselves to awareness as sleep let go. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even in the forest anymore. I seemed to be at my best friend’s cottage, laid out in the guest room. The scent of herbs and incense filled the air as I looked around in a daze.

A dream?

I was not that lucky, though. A chill rose in my blood and pain began to fill my senses. While I could move, it was stiff and agonizing.

My friend popped their head into the room.

“How are you doing?”

The bitter pain of the curse settling into my bones clenched once more, pulling a gasp from my throat.

“Oh, you know, like I’m dying.”

They crossed the room and settled into one of the chairs next to the bed.

“By rights, you should be dead. You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that? I can’t believe you went out of your way to provoke the creature of those woods.”

“I am shocked and appalled that you would believe for even one second that I would do that.”

“Are you though?”

“Not really. How’d I get here, anyways?”

“I went looking for you and found you laying face down in the grass beside the path. But you wouldn’t wake up so I drug you here and got the healers, who got the priests, who got the mage, who is sending a letter to the wizard’s guild.”

I let out a low whistle.

“Damn, sounds like you’ve had all kinds of interesting company while I was out cold. Why do you always meet the interesting people while I’m gone?”

They laughed, but it trailed off into a grim expression.

“I’m afraid that you’ve had your last adventure, friend. The priests and mages don’t even know where to begin tackling the curse that you ended up getting. What did you find anyways?”

“Some... weird girl.”

“Some weird girl doesn’t tell me a lot.”

“She’s the Keeper of Forbidden Artifacts, and to be fair, she did warn me before she decided to kill me.”

“Kill you?!” they jumped up out of the chair.

“The curse.”

“The hells she will!”

And before I could stop them, they ran off, like they were going to get mother again. Only, mother wasn’t here to save me this time. No one was. I was doomed to a slow death, feeling my energy be stripped away day by day while others have adventures of a lifetime.

So I pen down this tale as warning: Do not enter the mist-filled forest, for it is no place for mortals.

The very slim chance of success, if it should exist at all, is simply not worth the cost of desire: a constant pain and chill that will slowly devour you and steal away your life while you fear the impending end that forever sits at your bedside waiting for you to finish withering away into an empty husk. Abandon ambitions of recovering lost treasures forged by over-ambitious wizards and find a more worthy quest to pursue.

Taglist, feel free to ask to be added/removed at any time:

@nemowritesstuff, @likelyfantasywriterspsychic, @dawnoftheagez, @orphicodysseywrites, @hannahs-creations, @writer-candy, @kaylewiswrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @tenacious-scripturient, @ofinkblotsandscript, @mischiefiswritten , @kespada, @asterannie, @silvertalonwriteblr, @inspiring-prompts, @greenwood-writes, @wemitodd, @elkatheinkstained, @n1ghtcrwler, @writingiswilde, @say-no-to-negativity, @wordshavings

#fiction #fantasy #dark fantasy #original story #My writing #writeblr #a story by Ren

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