I had managed to get some sleep at the bottom of a hill on the other side of a road. I knew that I probably shouldn’t have been following the road at all,that I was much more likely to be seen and tracked, but I knew that terrible things lurked in the wild parts of this realm. What exactly those terrible creatures were, I hadn’t the foggiest idea, I only got a punch in the gut of fear any time I even thought of going off the road and making my own path. Whatever recesses of my mind had these strange bits of memory and knowledge did not want me to contend with whatever it was that lurked beyond civilization even if it was stubbornly refusing to give me any exact information on exactly what I was supposed to be afraid of. The problem was that I was getting close to where I was going to have no choice but to stray from the farm houses in the distance. The place I knew I needed to go was much off the beaten path in an area people tended to intentionally avoid. My understanding of where I was going was specific and clear, yet fuzzy and vague, it was very disorienting knowing exactly where I needed to go but not why or what even to do once I got there. I could remember that there was a stone, unassuming and appearing like nothing special that was the key to getting out of the realm. There was no time to waste trying to figure out anything beyond getting there, hopefully some other part of my mind would unlock as I got closer, that seemed to be the case thus far.

Brushing off the bit of plant matter that clung to my clothing from having laid on the ground all evening, I stretched my cramped legs and rolled up to my feet. The world went a bit fuzzy around the edges and I felt light headed enough to wonder if I might stumble back to the ground. I had not been given any food while being held captive, so that would have been at least several hours without eating and I had no clue how long it had been before coming to consciousness. By the feel of the emptiness in the pit of my stomach, I would guess that it would have had to at least been days since my last meal. I was inclined to believe that even that estimate would be conservative or perhaps I frequently had long stretches between meals given how gangly my limbs were and how little body fat I had. I wasn’t particularly muscular, so it stood to reason that I wasn’t some sort of athlete, which was blatantly obvious by how winded I got after even just walking for just a quarter hour at a time. I was built like someone who had been held captive for a long while and barely fed enough to be kept alive, but not to enjoy that time spent living. Perhaps if I had been some sort of spy sent to keep surveillance on that castle then I would have trained my body to endure long periods of starvation, though that still did not feel quite right. Surely a spy would still be healthy enough to be able to flee and disappear when necessary, which I suppose I had managed. Though, the moment anyone caught sight of me and decided to drag me back to the castle, there was a very low probability that I would have enough stamina to outrun them. My body had sailed past running on empty not long after fleeing the castle and was in the actively consuming itself as a last chance at survival stage. I did not have much time left to get to somewhere safe, so no matter how much my stomach cramped and my muscles felt heavy, I needed to keep going and get to the human realm. Only once I was there and sure I was not being searched for, then I could try to find answers to the multitudes of questions that were gnawing at the back of my mind.

The creaking wheel of a cart caught my attention, it was not too far ahead, if I peaked my head over the small hill I was walking alongside of, I probably could have easily spotted it driving towards me. There was a small fork that should have been not too far ahead of where I was now where one of the farming villages met the road for another village. The two paths converged to make the main road to the castle and was commonly used by farmers traveling to the market, which made it all the more dangerous to have been tracing alongside it the whole time. I had been intending to be smart about it and walk only when it was dark, but my exhaustion had gotten the better of me and I had slept right through the day and most of the night and now I was on some really strange schedule where my body was giving out and telling me to rest at random times where I had no choice but to give in. My only option for the past day and a half had been to walk while I had the strength to continue, then collapse to wait until I could stand up and shuffle forward again.

“His daughter was so lovely…”

The farmer did not have a particularly nice singing voice. In fact, it grated a bit on my ear drums a bit and made me scrunch up my shoulders like I wanted to block out the melody, but there was something about the song that immediately made me want to hum along. The lyrics came to me in a flash though with absolutely no memories attached as to how I knew a demonic folk song so well.

“...I had to meet her myself. A dozen days I waited by her gate, hoping to catch her just for a chat.”

I stopped and waited, singing along in my head until the cart passed. At one point it sounded like the cart came so close that I froze, eyes trained on the crest of the hill expecting to see him look down at me at any moment. Luckily for me, that did not happen, though near where I thought he must have been right next to me, I heard a soft thump that was nearly drowned out completely by the old cart and his warbling. Intrigued, I waited until I could no longer hear him, then scrambled up the hill, staying low to the ground in case my senses were not as sharp as they needed to be and he was close enough to look back and see me. Peering over the hill, I saw no one in either direction on the road and slid down the other side to where I saw a plain brown sack laying in the dirt next to the ruts the cart had made in the road. Curiosity took over and I scooped up the bag, it was heavier than I thought it was going to be for its size. Not wanting to get myself caught out while I figured out what I had found, I refrained from investigating further until I was safely back on the other side of the hill. Between climbing up and back down, I was already exhausted again, my breath coming in more ragged gasps than I was comfortable with. I was thirsty and hungrier than ever and I knew I would not last much longer unless I figured something out. Part of me regretted not getting the attention of the man on the cart and asking for help. What good was it to stay hidden and safe from being caught if I was going to die anyway?

Once I was able to steady my breathing and feel like I wasn’t going to collapse into another fit of black out sleep quite yet, I reached into the bag with shaky hands and pulled out a strange looking fruit that I recognized. It was roughly a sphere almost the size of my head with a thick, green skin that was relatively smooth with only a few divots and blemishes for imperfections. It was definitely a surprise to see it given the time of year, which probably meant the man had saved it in his cold cellar hoping to get a high price for it now that it was very much out of season. The fruit was nothing all that special, though it was tasty enough and people think more fondly of things when they couldn’t get their hands on them easily. I almost felt a little guilty breaking my thumbs into the leathery skin, but not enough to even entertain the thought of not satisfying a little bit of my hunger. The pungent aroma of citrus and floral exploded from the fruit as soon as it was punctured and precious juice began to drip down my hands and arms. Not caring how ill mannered I looked, I leaned my head down and licked up the trails of juice that tried to escape, feeling immense pleasure from the sensation of liquid on my parched tongue and lips. Apparently I had been much more dehydrated than I had let myself stop to consider because I found myself ignoring trying to open the fruit anymore and instead was trying to suck all of the liquid from the wound in the skin. Getting nothing more than a drop here and there, I gave up and sunk my thumbs back into the fruit and used my remaining strength to rip the fruit in half. It easily opened, revealing two halves filled with loads of chewy seeds surrounded by gelatinous jelly. In mere seconds it was gone, even though it was a fair amount of food to eat at once. I spent perhaps an embarrassing amount of time running my teeth over the skin itself trying to collect any lasting flavor or moisture that still clung to it.

Not wanting to waste fortune smiling down on me, I cast aside the remnants of the fruit and stood, already feeling less light headed, even if it wasn’t really by all that much. Perhaps it would be just enough to get me moving and where I needed to go. Unfortunately, stumbling so close to the man had been a boon, but also a warning, I was probably taking far too many risks of being seen and I needed to be more pragmatic. It had paid off once, but I had a feeling that I would be very sorry if I pressed my luck one too many times. With that in mind and the knowledge that I was reasonably close to where I would be forced to head off into the wilderness anyway, I set my sights on the trees in the distance and began to walk towards them. I was grateful to feel good enough to move quickly, being away from the hill made me feel exposed though I had not seen a single soul on the side I had been traveling since I had started off. This side was earmarked as royal land, though little had been done to develop much with it, a waste really, but it did mean that very few people would dare deal with the consequences of setting foot on it. Convenient for me, except that I knew why it was forbidden, it was where the stone resided and therefore where lots of danger had concentrated itself. How I was going to escape unscathed I hadn’t the foggiest, but not like I had much of a choice.

By the time the true dark of night fell, I had made decent progress, likely thanks to the boost of energy the fruit had bestowed upon me, though it would not last much longer. I had made it deep into the trees and had felt like I wouldn’t know if I was walking in circles or not for over an hour. I was fairly certain that I was going the right direction, but it was getting increasingly harder to tell in the dimming light. I briefly considered stopping, though it was hard to when I kept getting small glimpses or what could have been fractured memories warning me of snarling teeth gleaming in the moonlight. I had not seen a single sign of any animal, predator or prey, but that worried me more than it brought comfort, it was like most things didn’t even want to set foot where I was passing even though it should have been prime habitat for birds and small animals at the very least.

I let out a soft sound of surprise as I tripped over something in the darkness. I had managed to find a break in the trees and had been shuffling around to try to orient myself to where exactly I might be. I knew there should be a clearer area near the stone itself, but surely I could not be too near it yet, I had barely been able to make any progress on foot for days. It would shock me if I had been able to cover an appreciable distance in a relatively short time. Face down in the dirt, my ankle hurt a bit, having twisted on whatever it was I had run into, I laid for a moment, somewhat enjoying the feeling of laying down. Begrudgingly, I rolled over and sat up, reaching down to check my ankle to see how bad I had injured it. It was a bit sore to the touch, but did not seem broken and I thought I could walk on it without too many problems. I was lucky.

Closer to the ground I could see what had gotten in my way and I felt my face pale as the scene around me slowly unfolded. There were three horses, all of them had been horribly slaughtered, their bones picked clean with giant scrapes along the thicker parts of bones where canines had scraped and gnawed. Many of the bones were snapped clean in half and the marrow licked from the inside and the bones themselves were partially eaten. Most chillingly, the saddles were still on the beasts, though shredded from whatever predator had attacked and then ate the flesh it had once covered. I was at least relieved to realize that there were no demonic remains around the animals, though I did suppress the knowledge that demons were probably small enough to be eaten bones and all by whatever it had been that had devoured the horses. The relief was short lived as fear prickled over my entire body and a cold sweat soaked through the back of my shirt, the food still left in my stomach gurgling loudly. I didn’t know how, given that I couldn’t see much outside of the scene in front of me, but I could sense something watching me nearby. Something very, very hungry.