Only the sound of wind rustling through leaves and the babble of a stream flowing over the rocks accompanied the sound of horse hooves. The people remained silent and so did the horses they were riding. Even the birds and beasts of the forest had fallen silent last night. An uneasiness hung heavy on their heads like a sword attached to a thread.

Shadewolf. A name any child of Clover or even the greater world beyond it knew. It appeared in the bedtime stories their parents or grandparents told them. It was a creature of myths and legends, just like voros.

It seldom appeared before human and those who met it seldom lived to tell the tale. So not many knew what it was capable of, or even how they looked. But no one expected it to look like an ordinary wolf. And now its child died by their hands.

The other travellers fidgeted restlessly on their horses. They stiffened their backs from time to time. They all sensed an invisible eye watching them. An eye of wrath. They were being hunted.

Only Erhan’s mind was elsewhere. He stared at the trail they travelled through, he listened to the gurgling stream on one side of the road, he gazed at the gently rising hillside on the right with grass growing in the fields along its sides. They used to grow their grains on those fields, now weeds grew on them.

A small hut lay on the side of the road. Its mud walls were broken from wind and rain, its roof... there was no roof, only half of the wooden frame used to hold up the thatch remained like a broken skeleton. Other than a few scattered bundles of straw here and there, the silver light of an early full moon poured in. the door and windows lay open, hanging on their hinges.

Desolated and abandoned. Those words didn’t only describe this hut. But along the way, the few huts and houses had the same dilapidated look. Few except for the many others that had been burnt down by their dwellers. Those left blackened ruins of half-fallen walls, barely recognizable as houses.

It was Arlat, the village Erhan left nearly four years ago. His home.

“An abandoned village,” Garan said. “Tomorrow's a hard journey ahead of us. So Let’s camp here. What do you say?” he asked everyone.

“I don’t think so,” Arda’s eyes travelled over the burnt ruins as she said, “We don’t more bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” Garan said with a chuckle. “It's just abandoned. Don’t be so superstitious.”

“It’s a plague site.”

“Plague site?” Not only Garan, but the rest of the team except Erhan looked around apprehensively.

“Is that why they even burnt the huts down. They didn’t need to do that, ” said Arban.

Erhan closed his eyes as he thought back to the blank, grief-stricken faces of the few remaining villagers. They had to. Regardless of whether they needed or not. They had done everything to escape those days.

“Let’s move on then,” Garan said, sighing with regret. “And it’s such a good site for a camp too.”

They spurred their horses to a trot, intending to leave this unlucky place as soon as possible.

Yes! They were moving on! Erhan didn’t have to stay here. There was no chance of seeing that accursed place again. Erhan was relieved.

.

“Erhan?” Sena called out. “Why are you stopping? Come on.”

What was she talking about? Why would he be stopping? Weren’t they the ones going fast? Erhan looked down at his horse. It had stooped. But why?

“Yes!” As if from a deep abyss inside his mind Erhan heard his own voice.

No! What is he doing? He didn’t want that! No no no! Stop!

“We will stay here today,” the voice said, sounding calm.

He needed to face it. He needed to move on.

Erhan walked on the rough overgrown trail road branching out to the various abandoned houses and ruins scattered around the village. Looking around at the familiar places where once familiar faces lived.

There! That was the tailor’s house. The Ekards. Only six months old Barkley Ekard survived among the family of five.

The small hut on the right was where the old stargazer had lived. He had escaped the plague by dying two years before its arrival. Truly escaped. Dying of old age was a far more pleasant experience than Fading.

Erhan walked past them and past another few where people who laughed and cried with him, celebrated and mourned with him once resided. Who among them had lived then? Who had died? He didn’t remember. He had not been in a condition to pay attention to them then. He wished he had.

He walked in silence until he reached the eastern end of the village. Under the cracked and burnt stump of a willow tree lay a blackened patch of ground the size of two or three huts together. Too big for three people to live. Nothing remained on the burned and cracked earth, not even one piece of the ruin. His fire had been too powerful to leave anything behind.

He stepped on the depressed ground and extended his hand in front of him. The door had been here. He closed his eyes. Maybe, just maybe if he opened them, it’d all be there. Maybe he’d been too tired after working in the field yesterday. Maybe he’d just fallen asleep on the fields and just now returned home. And maybe… those three years, the Fade, all of this was a nightmare.

It had all been just a horrible... long… nightmare.

The door was there, he could almost feel the familiar texture of its wooden surface on the tip of his fingertips. He just needs to push it open, and he’d see Leah smiling at him in that calm, simplehearted way. And Ellie, she’d dash towards him and jump into his arms, regardless of his tired and dirty appearance from the field. Her voice would be like the call of a songbird waking him up as she’d say—

“Papa!”

Yes! She… called him out? What…? was he hearing things?

“Papa!”

Erhan’s eyes shot open. He gawked at the oak door in front of him. A door to the biggest house in the village, his house. He backed up a few steps in shock as he looked up at the window. The silhouette of a woman, the shadow of her auburn hair flowing out of the window obscured her face as she leaned in to look at him.

Ehran gulped. His throat was dry and his heart jumped in his chest like a mad rabbit trying to get out of its cage. Wh- who was that? He couldn’t see clearly! Who—

“Why are you standing outside Erhan? Come in. Ellie’s waiting for you.” the silhouette said.

“Yes, papa, come in. I want to hear that story again.” the other voice said from beyond the door.

A breath escaped Erhan’s throat like small laughter of desolation mixed with disbelief and hope. His knees nearly buckled under him as he took a step back towards the door. His body wanted to fall down! To kneel and weep. But he held it up.

So real! Their voice calling him. Was he dreaming?

He took short quick breaths, reaching out towards the door with light and cautious fingers, afraid the dream was too fragile. His fingers touched the door. Touched it! The door creaked open by that light touch.

A little form in white dress ran out of the door. He extended his hand to hold her, but she giggled like a chime of bells as she skirted him and ran outside. “Catch me, papa!” she said.

The silhouette at the window laughed. “Go and bring her back. I’ll get supper ready.”

Erhan smiled nodded. “I’ll be back!” he whispered at the door and turned around, chasing after his daughter.

It wasn’t a dream.

Sena woke from her sleep with a start. She was sweating a little even in this chilly weather. She had been having a nightmare. It’s a nightmare she used to have quite a lot when she was little. The nightmare that was a memory too. The memory of her twin sister Sara’s death. A death that should have been hers.

“It’ll be fun. You’ll be me and I’ll be you,” Sena had said to her sister that morning. The seven years old she had hated those hard and painful sword lessons. Sara had always been better than her in them anyway. And It wasn’t like it was the first time they had exchanged places, so once more wouldn’t have mattered, right? After all, that was one of the perks of being twins.

And so she had been free to roam the city that morning, go to her favourite sweetshop. She bought some sweets for her sister too. She also liked them after all. But Sara hadn’t been able to eat those sweets.

The house had been in chaos when she returned. The sweets had dropped, smashing against the stone floor when her eyes fell on her sister’s broken, lifeless body.

It was an assassin.

Someone had killed their sword teacher and replaced her. Just as Sara had replaced her to receive the lesson. She had received a vicious, gruesome beating before her death instead. The imposter had first crushed her throat, so she couldn’t scream, then broke her bones as she was alive. And then after there was nothing left to break, ended her life with a stab to the heart. They had never found the assassin.

She had later learnt, it was all politics. Someone had wanted to warn Robert Moras, the heir of the house, about something. The death of one of his daughters was that warning.

Many people had later told Sena How incredibly lucky she had been. Her mother, Serena Moras had told Sena, It wasn’t her fault, she could’ve done nothing. Her father still as unrattled as ever had told her nothing. And Sena knew her sister had died a death that should have been hers. After all, that was one of the perks of being twins.

Wasn’t it?

The memory had been a nightmare to her, waking her up, up until her early teens when it had gradually stopped. Until today, when she saw it again. Only, unlike through her eyes, she saw the nightmare through the eyes of the assassin.

Her mind had been trapped into the assassin’s body. Watching her own sister writhe and thrash before her as she felt each blow of the heavy wooden practice sword through her arm. She had seen her sister’s angry face turn into a pleading one, and just before her consciousness had left her when her little form was barely recognizable anymore, there had been relief in those eyes. She knew that relief had been meant for her as she had felt her handhold the dagger and plunge it into her sister’s heart.

And she also felt what the assassin had felt. Like the assassin, she had… enjoyed it! Each moment of the act had been the strongest stimulant to her. She had enjoyed killing her sister. Intoxicated by it. It was the final straw that woke her up.

Sena sat staring vacantly at her own two hands under the red glow of the dying embers from last nights fire. A sick feeling rose from her stomach as the vivid images of the dream still burned in her mind like a roaring fire. She still felt the sensations in her hand, the beatings! The stabbing! ….And the enjoyment!

She cringed. What had she done? She- she had killed her sister! No! It wasn’t her! It wasn’t—

“Sena!”

The voice startled Sena. She looked up, searching for the source of the voice. A thick fog covered the predawn darkness in a hazy white blanket. Vague silhouettes of the group’s sleeping figures laid around the fire. Erhan who was supposed to keep watch was nowhere in sight.

Who called her? So familiar! Whose voice was it?

“Sena! I’m here!” the soft voice pierced through the fog to reach her.

Sena sprang to her feet. She recognized it. She had heard it so much when she was little! It was her own voice. Or rather, it had been both of theirs…

Her eyes turned towards the right. There, just beyond the edge of the light of embers, half-hidden by the fog and mist stood a little form, indistinguishable and intangible like a deeper shade of the fog itself.

“Come, Sena, come to me.” the form reached out with the thin, small hand of a child and called Sena. the voice sounded far away, but also next to her ears, as if from another plane. It tugged at her heartstrings, hypnotizing her. As the form turned and disappeared into the fog, calling her name from its murky depths, Sena also stumbled forward, drawn to it like a sailor drawn to the siren's call. She left behind her companions, sunk peacefully in the mires of their dreams and nightmares.

Only the edge of her left foot brushed against the edge of the blanket covering a hulking figure on its way. She didn’t notice it, neither did the figure leading her, but the blanket stirred.

Sena followed the figure half awake, half asleep. Her mind a jumbled mess of thoughts churning against each other like the stormy seas. They headed deeper and deeper into the woods until they came to a clearing. There the form stopped as it stared into the fog in front of it.

It wanted to lead her further, but it couldn’t now. The figure turned and looked at Sena, looking at her in silence.

“Who-” Sena stopped and swallowed heavily, “who are you?”

“Who am I?” It asked as all the fog around it grew fainter and fainter. Its form grew tangible as all the mist gathered toward it. When all the fog was gone and the air grew clear, a little girl with shining golden hair stood under the moonlight. She smiled up at Sena’s face, stiff and pale with shock, and said, “Don’t you recognize your own sister?”

“Sara…” Sena’s voice shook as she backed up a step. “No!” said she. “No, you can’t be her!”

Sara laughed. “Why not, sister? If not me, then who am I?”

“No,” Sena shook head in intense denial. “I watched you die! You died—”

“Because of you.” Sara completed her words. Her calm, quiet voice was like a knife cutting through Sena’s heart. “I died in your place.”

“That’s not—"

“It was your day to practice wasn’t it?” said Sara as she took a step forward and Sena backed a step. “You should have been there, not me. Then why am I dead? Why not you? Why—”

‘Snap!’ Sara’s throat caved in, but her voice didn’t stop like that day. “Why?”

Snap! Snap! Snap! With each step forward, Sara’s bones snapped in front of Sena’s wide horrified eyes. She wanted to go forward, to stop the tiny form from breaking any more, but her legs stuck to the ground. She shook all over like a reed in the wind. In her whole life, she had never felt so helpless.

“Why was I the one to suffer like this, sister? When It should have been you?” Sara’s voice grew to fill up the air around them.

Sena’s legs buckled and her knees touched the ground as Sara came to stand in front of her. Face to face now, She kneeled and stared at her sister’s accusing eyes.

“It hurt! It hurt so much, Sena.” Sara crooned as she reached out and took Sena’s hands in her broken ones and raised them in front of their eyes. “You know, don’t you? You’ve done it yourself with these hands.” She leaned forward, her lips next to Sena’s ears. She muttered, “Do you still feel it, sister? Did you enjoy hurting me?”

Sena shivered as the memory of the dream surfaced again. Her insides churned from revolt and disgust towards herself. Somehow she found a bit of her voice that she pushed through the lump in her throat. “I didn’t—”

“You killed me. You killed your sister, Sena!” Sara said as she drew back again and stared at Sena’s eyes as her voice grew deeper and deeper, changing into another person’s. “Just as you killed my child.”

“Wh- What?” Sena gaped stupidly at the eyes of her sister, or rather the one that took the form of her sister.

“You should have been the one who died Sena. Not your sister. Not my child.”

Sena began in a breathless voice, “You are…”

The broken figure of Sara restored to her former healthy condition as she turned back. “Your sister didn’t deserve to die, neither did the child. They died because of you.” her grief-stricken voice turned as hard as stone as she said, “You deserve to die, so kill yourself.”

Grief, guilt and anger burned inside Sena’s heart as she stared at Sara’s thin back with wide eyes full of blood threads. She wasn’t her sister. She had only taken her form. An imposter. “The dream—”

“I sent it to you,” said the imposter, “to make you understand how deserving of death you are.” she turned her head and looked into Sena’s eyes. “So kill yourself.”

Sena bit her lips until she tasted the metallic tang of blood. She wanted to protest. Say she didn’t deserve to die, but the imposter's voice invaded her mind persuading her, compelling her. Sena shook her head. “B- but I don’t want to die.” with an immense effort she stammers out ina tear choked voice.

“Your sister didn’t want to die. My child- she had never harmed you before, yet you wanted to take away her first hunt. She did not want to die either.” grief radiated from the imposter's voice. “So what right do you have to want to live? Kill yourself.” she spread her hand far and wide as she backed away. “Kill yourself and I’ll spare their life!”

From the dark corners of the trees cloaked in the fog around them, four figures appeared one by one. Arban, Herker, Arda and Garan. Except for Erhan the rest of the team was there. They came and surrounded Sena, their eyes closed as if walking in their sleep.

“No, you can’t kill them,” Sena Erhan—”

“The druid?” The imposter in her sister’s skin scorned. “Although, indeed, I can’t kill him, but he’s trapped in his own past. He won’t come to rescue them. Unless you kill yourself, they would.”

Arban opened his eyes and looked down at her. “Kill yourself!” he said in a blaming voice.

“Yes, kill yourself!” Harker said.

“Why should we die because of you?” Garan asked.

Arda sneered. “You deserve to die!.”

“Kill yourself!” “Kill yourself!” “Kill yourself!” they all hummed as one, and with them one by one joined hundreds of her sister’s forms surrounded Sena, singing a chorus of death for her.

The voices tore at Sena’s mind. A hollowness and overwhelming sense of guilt rose from deep within her heart. She killed her sister. She killed the little wolf. And now she had brought calamity upon all of them. Everyone wanted her dead. Yes, she should die.

She took out a small dagger she kept with her even during sleep. The golden willow leaves of Moras on its hilt glittered in the moonlight. She took one last look at Sara. Even if it was a fake, she still wanted to look at her. The eyes she saw didn’t have malice in them, nor was there an expectation or the satisfaction at having reached her goal. They were calm, tranquil eyes full of confidence. They reminded her of that man.

Erhan! If only she could see him one last time. Sena closed her eyes, took a deep breath and plunged the knife towards her heart.