#hidden fangs

Kind of just out in the forest. Compared to the other Vamptrap AU's... when Hidden Fangs Vamptrap encounters Y/N, he happens to be injured in the moment, and was just kind of wandering.

He’s not taken Y/N’s blood, or anyone with Y/N—yet—because Vamptrap worries about waking any of them up, and his identity being known.

Although... that’s still a very rare thing for him to do. Practically every encounter that Y/N and the others have with him happen during the night.

He stumbles across a little group—which includes Y/N, who makes the decision to help him out.

I want to take a different approach to these opening chapters, so I don't mind at this point sharing them publicly since they won't reflect the final version of the story. I want to get a little bit of Hidden Fangs out there for people to read early in the hopes of getting anyone interested. That being said, I don't plan on Hidden Fangs: Return to Childhood being my first published work, so it could be years down the line before it's ready.

These chapters have already been torn apart by some early readers and they have a lot of issues which I plan to address in the next draft. I want to make Claya more of an active protagonist than what you see here. But feel free to give me feedback anyway if you want.

Here's a synopsis for the overall story:

This is no world to bring children into. For over three centuries, human-kind has been confined to dome cities scattered across the globe where diseases and crime take lives under careless governments. Leaving the domes means almost certain death from the dangerous wildlife that have taken over the planet. However, the most terrifying monsters are those inside the domes: Cultists who kidnap innocent children as sacrifices for their religious beliefs. Graham Clacky's life outside the domes is ruined by one such cult.

On his way to hunt down those monsters---Graham encounters dome dwellers for the very first time, and joins a para-miltary organization called Salvation that braves the wilds to hunt down these cults and save the children from decades of relentless torture.

One of Salvation's commanding officers works undercover within one of the largest cults called Lur, where he is introduced to an isolated village full of men, women, and children who are victims of generations of abuse. Graham and a powerful strike team are tasked with helping their commander in liberating the people of this village. They hope to regain advanced technologies from Lur that have been lost to humanity since the domes were erected. In doing this, they might have the means to wipe out the cults and reclaim the world outside the domes. For the children.

These three chapters take place in the village mentioned above.

Chapter One

The Psychopomp

A rumbling avalanche of logs poured out of Claya’s wheelbarrow, becoming lighter as more and more firewood rolled into the pile. She tilted it forward until every last log was unloaded.

Mr. Fein had been watching from the windows as she added to the pile, at least she assumed he was.

Back to the woodhouse for the next load. Back through the busy, noisy streets to bear through that heavy feeling of a whole lot of people looking at her. She left her mouth clamped shut, and her single remaining eye looking straight ahead, with an eyepatch over the empty socket where her other eye used to be. She could swear people stared at her whenever she was out and about.

Children smaller than Claya played in the street, their screams were loud and piercing. A woman pulled more than twelve squealing pigs all on her own with one hand. Carts with rattling supplies were drawn by horses clacking their hooves over the frosted soil. So many people had talked at once. Their voices buzzed in Claya’s head like a swarm of flies around a dead body. Now and then, she thought she heard people saying her name.

Cold mucus flowed down out of one nostril, the other had been congested. She wiped it with her poncho before it could get onto her mouth. The poncho was covered in filth from work, she’d have to clean it after dinner, then put it back on to go to sleep. She couldn’t imagine going anywhere without her poncho. She wore it inside even if the room was warm and she felt too hot. She didn’t care.

The street noise faded away as she turned down the dark lonely alley between two wooden buildings. Pins and needles crept down Claya’s spine whenever she was alone. She would have pushed faster to escape that feeling, but then if someone saw her going so fast, she would attract their attention.

Keep your head down. Turn your mind off. Shut it out, Claya told herself in her head. Until work is over, and you can go home.

Even when she was absolutely out of sight, the looming sense of being watched was always, always there.

She came out to the outskirts of the village, where the snow in the valley reflected so much sunlight she scrunched her face out of reflex. Claya looked out past the valley, up the short hill, and into the trees that formed a circular barrier around the village.

The forbidden realm.

Sometimes Claya wished she could step into the woods and be guaranteed to die, but that fate was reserved for the lucky ones. The only thing that was guaranteed by going into the woods was pain.

The woods did not judge her whenever she looked at them, unlike people. But the deep shadows tormented her in a different, more quiet way that wasn’t any less scary. She tried to force herself to see the woods as a safe place, but nothing ever really felt safe.

She pushed along the edge of the village, staring into the quiet blackness of the forest. Today, actually, that was all it was. Empty, quiet, soulless.

In this moment, the forest hadn’t seemed all that bad. Her imagination hadn’t conjured anything haunting, she just saw it for what it was. What was different about today? Was this finally the day where she would be fixed and be normal like everybody else? Would she turn the next corner, see a crowd of people and think: I’m one of them, I belong, I am okay. She tried to stop herself from getting hung up on these thoughts. This had happened a few times before, where suddenly she felt really good and then the tiniest thing ruined her mood and everything fell apart all over again.

Something caught her attention on the road, something moving. Just when she had felt somewhat relaxed, her heart began beating fast.

It was a vehicle, black. A head shorter than an adult horse. The lords were visiting Brabantia.

Now, more than ever, keep your head down, she tried to beat into her thoughts. Do not do anything to catch their attention, just work. Shut it out.

The car traveled down the main road that came out of the forest and went straight through the middle of the village, disappearing behind the buildings. Unfortunately, that was where the woodhouse was. She hoped the lords would move far ahead enough down the road to not notice her, or they would attract a huge crowd, or they would drive all the way through the town and go to that black shiny building that looked pretty close to the village, peeking over the trees.

This was the last load of the day, so she’d fill up the wheelbarrow, haul it over to Mr. Fein’s shop, and then go home and eat some of Ms. Green’s cooking.

She turned the corner. Her heart twisted inside out when she saw that the car had stopped very close to the woodhouse.

Only one man stepped out. The car reversed out of the village, leaving him there. Claya kept her eye forward and did not blink as she pushed ahead. Had the lord inside the car seen her when he passed? If she had known they were leaving that quickly, she would have waited before coming out this far where she would be seen.

Grab the load and go, Claya reminded herself.

She could hear the lord on the street speaking to a gathering crowd of villagers.

“Hey guys!” he said.

But they only gathered in front of him. She was completely visible. She released the handles of the wheelbarrow and began quietly stacking logs as quickly as she could. Her jaw was clenched, and her nose began to leak again but she let it run, as cold and uncomfortably tingly as it was, dripping down her lips. The man’s back was facing her, and she hoped it would stay that way. She hardly made out the shape of the man, her entire impression of him was a blurry figure in the corner of her eye, and his bright and twangy voice that was like one of Ms. Vola’s string instruments.

“Ah, beautiful day, ain’t it, folks?” he said to the crowd of villagers.

Claya heard them speaking amongst themselves as one lady stepped forward and asked if there was anything he needed.

“Well, before I settle down at my place I was wondering if I could meet y’all’s chief?” he said.

The subtle clacking of logs against each other was loud when the lord and the villagers paused between words.

“My lord,” a man’s voice called out from the crowd. The villagers stepped away from each other and created a gap for him. She caught a glimpse of the man bowing to the lord.

“Hey, nice beard,” the lord said. “Aha, you must be the chief.”

“Yes my lord, I’m Glint. Welcome to Brabantia,” Mr. Glint said.

“Oh y’all ain’t gotta worry about all’at with me. Just call me Roger. Roger Leonard Crainsfield, at your service.”

Claya thought she saw the lord nod once and reach for the tip of his hat.

“Yes sir, Master Crainsfield. We have refreshments at the town hall, if you would like,” Mr. Glint said.

“Y’know – ah, just Roger’s fine. I’m something of a gasoline butt myself, so I think for starters I’d like to get a tour of the village. I’m mighty excited to see what y’all got going on here.”

Claya had been so focused on their conversation that she became careless with her work. A log slipped from her grasp, and banged and bounced off the edge of the wheelbarrow and hopped down the street like a loose cart wheel. It slowed to a roll and nudged the lord’s glossy black shoe.

“P-please forgive me, my lord!” Claya said on her way to the log. “I have made a grave mistake, I wasn’t working hard enough- I am so sorry.”

She kept her head down and dropped to her knees and grabbed the log. She stood up and bowed, then snapped around and jogged back to her workspace with the feeling of a hammer slamming inside her chest and her brain rolling and bouncing in her head like that log had just done.

“Oh, it’s alright. It ain’t no biggy,” the lord said.

Claya gave up on being subtle and threw the remaining logs into the wheelbarrow and pushed off. She heard the lord and Mr. Glint speaking to each other, but she decided to shut it out and stopped listening.

Claya shifted to return to her route to Mr. Fein’s place once again. She planned to look into the forest and try to calm herself down, and if that didn’t work then she would drown herself with the frenzy of busy street noises until she was so overstimulated she went numb.

At this rate, Claya would be so stressed out and exhausted that she would just skip dinner and bath and go straight to bed.

“Hey! Hold up!” the lord yelled.

Oh no.

She’d done it now. With her offensive mistake, she would have to go to parole and pray she would forget about it just like last time. Hopefully she could keep her home and her job, Claya had no idea where else she would go. She knew nothing about the orphanages, or if they were better or worse than living with Mr. Dran and Ms Green. Dying wasn’t an option, as much as she wanted it to be.

The lord approached Claya with labored breaths.

“Gosh, ya took off so fast I dunno if you even heard me. I just wanna make sure you know it’s no big deal, mistakes happen. I’m sorry.”

He’s sorry?

Claya swallowed a heavy clump of phlegm that nearly made her gag. She took a quick breath, a slow blink, and turned around.

The lord wore pants as black as his shoes, and a puffy zipped up gray coat that looked smooth and made up of square sections like a quilt. He had a large forehead that made it hard to tell if he was losing hair or if his skull was just bulbous at the top.

Claya frowned, though she meant to be expressionless, and gave a slow bow with her head. She didn’t exactly look into his eyes but she could see they were blue. His pink face was wrinkled and crusty, but not as much as Mr. Dran back home, who was fifty-something years old. The lord was probably forty-something.

Her eye shifted around, never meeting his gaze. She knew this was a mistake, but she could never bring herself to look people in the eyes.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked, as he removed his hat and scratched at his black hair like a dog with a ferocious itch.

“Claya, my lord.”

“Claya, it’s my pleasure.” He gently replaced the hat and shifted it until it fit just right. “I’m Roger. You ain’t gotta worry about none of that ‘lord’ business with me.”

The way he said ‘lord’ made it seem like the word was unsavory for him. Best to avoid that term, then.

“Forgive me, my- Master Crainsfield,” she said.

“Well, if you gotta be formal, then you can call me Mr. Crainsfield if ya like. But really, just Roger is fine.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Crainsfield.”

“So uh, I asked the chief and he said it was alright, but I was wondering if you would like to be my tour guide, take a break from your work there. Completely up to you, though, you just look like you could use a change of pace, I’ve got an eye for that sorta thing,” Mr. Crainsfield said.

Claya looked far past the lord and noticed the crowd had dispersed and gone back to their business, but Mr. Glint was standing there with his arms crossed. His thick coal-colored fur coat and long black and gray beard made him look large. Not as large as Mr. Vitt, but large. Even from this distance, Claya could see the intensity in his brown eyes, the fear. She wasn’t sure if he was watching her, or watching the lord. Mr. Glint never made Claya uncomfortable before, so she hoped that her judgment of him was true and he was watching for her safety. But the urge to believe he was making sure she would say yes to the lord’s request was strong.

“Yes sir, I can do that,” Claya mumbled.

She hated how her words never came out as clearly as they sounded in her head. Other people made sure to let her know they hated it too. She waited for the lord to raise his voice, or his hand.

“Alright, cool, is there anything you need to finish up, or…?” he said.

Best not to keep him waiting. Mr. Fein would be angry, but making a lord upset was not an option.

“No sir, we can go now.”

“Oh, a-alright then,” his voice was shaky and uncertain. “Lead the way, I guess.”

They were in the center of the village, and Claya wondered where she should take him first. Touring every single street would probably have taken until the next morning.

“Uhm, how much would you like to see?” she asked.

Mr. Crainsfield loosened his jaw and cocked it to the side and looked around.

“Uh— let’s see now… Well, I figure seeing all of it in one evening is too much to ask… Why don’tcha just show me… your favorite places?”

Her favorite places? That… she didn’t know what to think of that. Claya didn’t have favorite places, she didn’t think?

“Yes sir, we’ll go this way then.”

She began walking towards the east half of the South district. Mr. Crainsfield’s lips made a sound of separating from each other. Claya wasn’t looking at him, but she figured he was smiling.

As far as lords went, this one was strangely nice, that was what made him so frightening.

Chapter Two

Faith

Claya would make up the route as they went along, but she knew to end it in the West district so she could go straight home after the tour was over. Claya had a good idea of where everything important in town was, but she wasn’t adventurous. Maybe there were things she didn’t know about. Most of Claya’s days were spent working for old Mr. Frien, hauling wood to and from his shop for the people in the West district.

The first significant place she brought Mr. Crainsfield to, was a pub. The Golden Self, was what the wooden sign above the door said. They stepped through the creaky door that couldn’t even latch properly. It swung open pathetically, and a thick alcoholic scent wafted through Claya’s clogged sinuses. It smelled just like Mr. Dran.

Why had she taken Mr. Crainsfield here? She was unsure, it just happened that way.

The lord placed his hands on his hips and looked the place up and down, smiling with his mouth open a little. The people who were sitting at the tables, booths, and bar all straightened their backs as best they could, for being supposedly drunk.

The bartender cleared his throat and said, “Welcome, my lord.” He walked around the sprawling bar and came towards them.

“Howdy,” Mr. Crainsfield nodded once.

‘Howdy’? She wondered what that word meant.

“W-where would you like to sit, my lord? And how about your choice of drink?” the bartender asked. His knees were pointed toward each other and he shivered, though he smiled like he was perfectly calm. He tried to anyway, his mouth and mustache twitched.

The people at the bar looked around and shifted in place, maybe preparing to make room for Mr. Crainsfield if he decided to sit over there.

“Oh I’m just looking around, y’all chill out and enjoy your drinks,” Mr. Crainsfield said.

The bartender went on to say something polite when the smell got so suffocating it made Claya’s eye burn. The empty socket behind her eyepatch ached, and she covered her nose and mouth with her poncho and accidentally made a loud gag.

Mr. Crainsfield noticed, and turned to her.

“Yeah, tell ya what- this ain’t no place for a kid,” he said. “Alrighty, y’all take care now. I will be back.” He laughed, as they went out the door.

Claya pushed the broken door forward, she was pretty sure it wasn’t meant to go that way, with that stink stuck in her nose as her shoes crunched into the dirt.

“This ain’t no place for anybody…” Mr. Crainsfield mumbled.

The cold, but fresh air cleansed Claya’s nose of the smell whilst she wondered what he was talking about.

Mr. Crainsfield had stopped smiling. He looked back at The Golden Self, and then around at all the passing villagers on the road, who Claya could tell were doing their best not to look at him. It seemed as if this place had made him sad.

Well, this is all your fault, she imagined saying to him. She imagined him saying ‘I’m sorry,’ again, and dropping to the ground and crying, saying: ‘No more parole! No more village! You’re all free to explore the outside world!” And at the same time, Claya’s head would become clear and she would never think about being sad ever again.

The outside world...

All Claya knew about the outside was that she could see mountains very far away past the forest, surrounding the trees like they did around the village. The lords apparently lived in those mountains. That was where the livestock, horses, wood, kitchen supplies, tools, musical instruments, alcohol, and everything else came from. But Claya hadn’t so much as touched any of the bordering trees, let alone a mountain. Those who stepped foot into the forest were lucky if they never returned, assuming they had the privilege of dying.

She had been outside, once. But it wasn’t because she tried to leave the village…

Shut it out. She buried the memory.

The village itself was like a forest of brown buildings, but Claya knew where she was at all times. She and the lord approached a church. The black roof was far too steep to walk on, and there was a tower on top where a bell used to be.

“What’s this place?” Mr. Crainsfield asked, squinting his eyes at the building.

“This is the gathering hall for the South,” Claya said.

The lord showed signs of a smile again as he looked it up and down.

The door was open, and the hint of an herbal fragrance from within tickled her senses.

“What do they do here?” he asked, as they stepped inside.

“Uhm, maybe someone in here can give you a good answer,” Claya said.

It was dimly lit by lights that were too high up for even the tallest villagers to reach without a ladder. Two sets of five or so rows of pews ran down the room parallel to each other, leading to a stage only a couple steps higher than the ground. A small podium stood at the edge of the stage in front of a huge circular symbol on the wall.

That herbal scent in the air was strong now, and it made Claya think of tea. She wished she would have just come straight here from the start.

“This looks like a church,” Mr. Crainsfield said.

“It was! Almost one-hundred years ago,” an excited woman said, peeking out from a door next to the stage. “But ever since The Mediators were founded, this has become a place where we gather to help each other become our best selves.” As she walked, she flicked one of her two brown, rabbit-ear-like bunches of hair away from her neck, and it rested over her shoulder. Each one grew out of the spots just above her ears.

It was Ms. Urba. She was wearing a reddish chestnut shirt with short sleeves and thick leaf-green wool pants.

Mr. Crainsfield smiled. “Yes, I’ve read about you Southern district folks. ‘Become your best self to enrich your inner experience and to help others’, right? Something like that, anyhow.”

“Uh, y-yes sir. I’m sorry, I’m Urba.” She almost lifted her arm, like she was going to initiate a handshake.

Claya hated handshakes. People told her that even though she was a girl, she should ‘have a firmer grip.’ They congratulated her when she went for another handshake and gripped harder, like she had done something surprisingly spectacular for how pathetic she was.

“Roger,” Mr. Crainsfield said, holding his hand out. "Roger Leonard Crainsfield."

Ms. Urba shifted around where she stood and flashed a nervous grin that quickly turned into a frown, then she smiled again, and shook his hand.

Mr. Crainsfield was unlike any lord Claya had seen before. Some of the lords smiled a lot like he did, sure, but they made Claya feel like they were hungry animals eager to devour her at any moment. That was not the feeling she got from Mr. Crainsfield. This lord’s smile wasn’t giving her the impression that it was a mouth full of teeth that could harm her... His smile was self-contained. Like he was doing it for no one but himself, like he enjoyed being himself. It reminded her of Ms. Urba, in fact. Claya thought that these two were cut from the same cloth, so to speak.

Stop it, she said in her head. Don’t trust anyone.

“I’m sorry, you’re a lord, right? Is it really okay if we act so…” She waved her hands side to side awkwardly and groaned. “...Familiar?”

The lord chuckled and stretched the wrinkles around his eyes. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You're gonna be seeing a lot of me from here on, anyway. I'm actually the uh, new Middleman, as it happens.”

A Middleman… So that was why he wanted a tour. This had been no temporary visit, this lord was here to stay for what could have been many years.

Ms. Urba’s thin eyes shifted around, showing more than twenty different emotions in an instant, before settling on reticence. “Oh, the Middleman? It’s---It's my pleasure,” she said.

“Yup.” Mr. Crainsfield nodded, with his hands on his hips. “I already asked your chief to schedule a meeting with him and the village council tomorrow morning. I'm super stoked to learn more about this village, and to tell you folks some of the things I know.”

“Funny you say that.” Miss Urba’s usual ditsy demeanor had started to return. “I’m actually on the council, myself.”

Mr. Crainsfield's eyes widened, and his head tilted to the side. “Oh really now? So, you wear a lotta hats, I reckon…” Something caught his attention at the farthest end of the room behind the stage. “What do you know about that?”

Ms. Urba’s eyes cycled again, and settled on ecstatic. “That symbol?” Her arm shot to a point towards a yellowish, circular wooden slab behind the podium that was almost as big as the wall it hung on. It portrayed a variety of unique shapes spiraling around a relaxed looking person who had light beams coming from them.

“That is our mandala. You see, the first of our people who were brought here as children and forced to build Brabantia had eventually—” Ms. Urba’s fast words became noise.

Claya had been developing a cold since the night before, and now nausea was beginning to set in. She wouldn’t dare tell the lord, absolutely not. Hopefully Ms. Urba would wrap up her history lesson soon and they could finish with the tour. Claya had no idea when it would be okay to stop and go home. She decided to wait for the lord to call it quits, no matter how long it took.

“---that is the true meaning behind the mandala. To center oneself and find balance within. Unfortunately, this difference in beliefs between us and the other districts makes for… tension between us. But we, The Mediators, work closely with the council to ease that tension. Some days are… better than others, but we try.” Ms. Urba finally remembered to take a breath.

“Wow, I could listen to you geek out all day,” Mr. Crainsfield said.

‘Geek out’? Another strange term Claya had never heard before. ‘Howdy’ and ‘geek out’, just what was the outside world like where people spoke so differently? And that accent…

“But we better get our little tour back on track, I don’t wanna keep my guide away for too long,” he said.

“Oh! yes-yes sir.” Ms. Urba nodded and blinked rapidly. “If you ever need anything, please come visit the Gathering Hall. Oh, hi Clara!” She finally had taken notice. “My god, I didn’t even see you there, my bad.” She scrunched her nose and laughed.

Claya gave a bow that was more like a nod. She didn’t waste any energy in correcting the ‘Clara’ thing.

“Alrighty, have a good night Urba, we’ll see ya later!” Mr. Crainsfield said.

She said bye to both of them, and Claya wondered where to go next.

“Gotta say, a pub and a repurposed church, not the places I was expecting to be your favorite spots.” Mr. Crainsfield laughed.

Claya didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. Safer that way.

*

Claya swallowed a thick clump when they arrived in the East district.

“You okay?” Mr. Crainsfield asked.

She tried not to gulp so loudly, but she’d been on the brink of choking, and so she had to. Claya sniffed in her runny nose whilst the nausea grew heavier in her head.

“Yes sir, I am fine.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t.

They came up to a building similar to the South’s Gathering Hall, though this one had a browner color to it, and up in the tower, it still had its bell.

“This is the East district’s Lur temple,” Claya said. She thought she’d save him from asking. Save herself from making him angry, though she began to wonder if this man could get angry.

“Oh, yeah…” His voice went low. Was there something wrong with what she said?

A tall man with copper skin and black hair pulled back into a bun, stepped out of the temple.

“My lord.” The man, Mr. Vitt, bowed.

The muscles in his neck tensed under his squarish, heavy chin as he leaned forward. His thick, yellowish-vanilla coat made him look twice as big as he already was without it.

Mr. Crainsfield bowed silently in response.

Mr. Vitt’s green eyes narrowed. Lords don’t bow back, Claya guessed that bothered him.

“Sorry to barge in on y’all, Claya here was just showing me around a bit,” the lord said.

Mr. Vitt’s eyes studied Claya warily, like she was a threat. Her interactions with him were few and far between. Mr. Vitt was always on the move, and he always had that scowl on his face.

“H-howdy,” Claya said, with the most uncertainty she had ever said anything, from as much as she could remember from her blurry memories.

Mr. Vitt looked at the lord and smiled. He exhaled through his nose and clasped his big hands together. “What can I help you with, my lord?” His voice was as smooth as an iron ingot, and just as heavy.

“Oh nah, nothing. I’m just taking a look around. Mind if we see inside, er…?”

“Ah, Vitt, my lord. Yes sir, right this way.” Mr. Vitt stepped inside and opened the door.

The interior had been full of Lur worshipers in the pews. They all had their coats off, and most were dressed similarly to Ms. Urba. Some had kneeled before the stage, others were huddled with each other, and many of them were whispering.

Their big symbol on the wall, their ‘mandala’, portrayed the head of an old bearded man. He had a third eye over his forehead, and he was surrounded by men who had the heads of animals. They looked just like the men in black armor who drove the vehicles. The angels. The mandala depicted the weapons the angels carried: guns. The border of the image was lined with trees that represented the forest around the village. A perfect circle, just like in real life.

Claya had never been inside the Lur temple before, but she had seen the symbol in passing here and there on plaques that people carried around.

“We are praying to your kind, my lord,” Mr. Vitt said.

Mr. Crainsfield’s lips were barely open, and his eyes looked dead. He blinked twice, staring at the people and said, “So you guys are like, teacher’s pet, huh?”

Mr. Vitt’s eyes darted up and down the lord's face. “Yes sir. If you say so, my lord.” He smiled.

From what Claya knew, these Eastern people were devoted to worshiping the lords, in hopes of garnering good favor with them. She had no idea if it did them any good, but at the very least they got into far less trouble than those in the North, the ones who were called atheists, or heretics. The Mediators in the South stayed out of trouble, and as for the West… The lords, and the other districts talked about them like they were crazy, and Claya couldn’t blame them.

Whilst the East worshiped something that actually existed, the Westerners were devoted to a nonexistent thing they called ‘Brave.’ Claya thought that concept strange.

If the lord was willing, she would probably finish the tour at the West church, where they might meet Mr. Drake.

Shadows passed by the frosted glass windows. Mr. Vitt quickly stepped outside. Claya and the lord followed.

A crowd of villagers walked down the road, all heading in the same direction.

“What’s all this?” Mr. Crainsfield asked.

Mr. Vitt pointed at something at the front of the crowd. Claya squinted her eye to see, and she noticed it too. There was a boy holding a shovel, walking towards the snowy outskirts of the village.

“This can’t be happening,” Mr. Vitt shivered. “This is the fourth ritual today.”

Chapter Three

The Ritual

The Lur temple’s bell shocked Claya’s teeth with every ring.

Mr. Vitt had shouted into the temple, ordering for the bell to be rung. They walked along the edge of the road past the crowd. Claya followed Mr. Crainsfield as he went past everyone to get a look at the boy in front. Claya only realized then that the boy was Syrin.

“Do you know him?” Mr. Crainsfield whispered.

“I do. Yes, sir,” Claya said.

For the last few years, Syrin had approached her and insisted that they were friends. He asked if she wanted to play ‘Like they always had.’ Claya would tell him sorry, because she couldn’t remember him.

She tried her hardest to remember playing with a boy who had short yellow hair a bit darker than her own. His long sideburns were curved and pointy at the ends, floating in front of his ears like a curtain in the breeze. His eyes were blue, somewhat brighter than Mr. Crainsfield’s, and he stood almost two heads shorter than Claya. Nothing ever came to mind. Syrin was a stranger.

Overtime, he talked to her less and less. He looked so sad whenever they came across one another.

As much as Claya tried, she could not remember anything about Syrin from before the day her eye was clawed out.

No, no! Shut it out, she screamed inside.

Syrin looked sad today as well. No, not sad—empty.

He had no shoes on in this freezing weather, and he walked forward with nothing in his eyes, like walking was the only thing he ever knew. There were four adults right behind Syrin with the exact same looks on their faces. In contrast, the rest of the crowd looked wide awake.

Claya knew the state of being Syrin and the other four were in. Her body had been hijacked by a powerful force, and she could do nothing but watch her ritual play out until it was over and Ms. Green came to her crying and hugging her. Did Syrin have anyone who would do that for him? She didn’t know.

The boy’s bare feet stepped out of the edge of the village; into the snow. Mr. Crainsfield made a pained hissing sound. Syrin, however, did not react. He walked up the short snowy hill. His path made it seem like he was headed straight into the woods.

Mr. Crainsfield’s breathing was heavy, while Syrin and the four adults who were under control of the ritual were calm.

The boy stopped at the edge of the forest.

“Is this what you came here to see, my lord?” Mr. Glint had arrived, holding a shovel of his own.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Mr. Crainsfield said, with his chest rising and falling quickly.

Syrin penetrated the snow with his shovel, his expression unchanged. He stuck a shovel too big for himself into the ground and tossed the load away, over and over.

The possessed adults stood behind Syrin and stared straight ahead into the forest. The crowd of villagers that had gathered whispered amongst themselves. Mr. Vitt, along with many others, prayed words of mercy for Syrin. “By your mighty power, my lords, spare this child’s life.”

Mr. Glint, joined by a few adults wielding shovels, approached Syrin and started deepening the hole he was digging.

“Huh…” Mr. Crainsfield sounded curious.

Before long, the hole was not deep, but it had become long and wide enough for Syrin to lie down flat in, and he did exactly that.

Mr. Glint and the other diggers stepped away and joined the crowd of onlookers.

As Syrin crawled into the small pit, the four possessed adults formed a circle around him, standing just at the edge. Each person pulled a knife from their belts, including Syrin.

This time, Mr. Crainsfield was the one who gulped loudly.

Syrin set the knife flat across his chest, its blade pointed away from his face. The adults held their knives with both hands and pointed them towards the ground. They slowly began to sway their arms from the left to the right sides of their bodies, and repeated those slow, rhythmic motions many times.

The air grew colder the longer they swayed their knives. Claya was entranced by their movements, as if she had become possessed herself.

They stopped, and held their knives in front of their chests.

“Someone…” Syrin’s high voice jittered, “...shouldn’t be trusted with a knife—!” On his last word, Syrin had woken up. He looked like a normal boy again.

His eyes and mouth opened wide, he held the knife pointing down, directly over his heart. The lord’s feet shuffled in place in the snow, Claya thought he might jump into the hole. Syrin swung down fast into his chest, the knife went deep inside of him with a squish and an ear piercing crunch. His arms fell away and his body twitched. In the same moment, a heavy pain struck Claya’s own chest.

Something that sounded like her own voice cried and screamed in her thoughts so loud that her head quaked. Syrin’s lips moved rapidly as tears streamed from his eyes, and a red splotch formed around the knife.

His eyes were empty once again, even while the tears flowed. He was gone. Claya’s vision blurred, and her breathing went fast and out of control.

Thin, pale arms wrapped around Claya from behind.

Ms. Green whispered and shushed softly into Claya's ear, but her embrace was so tight it hurt. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Ms. Green said.

The woman’s emotional reaction made Claya feel even more overwhelmed. She couldn’t see past the water in her eye. Claya didn’t understand why she felt this way. The rituals were an awful thing, and she hated to see people die from them, but why did seeing Syrin… Why did it feel like Claya had lost something that she needed?

Beneath the throttling pain in her head, and Ms. Green’s whimpering, Claya heard Mr. Crainsfield saying, “God fucking dammit,” behind his teeth.

*

Syrin would be taken to one of the cemeteries in town for a proper burial. Nobody who died during a ritual had ever been buried in the hole where they took their own lives. Claya found herself in Syrin’s situation over the years. But unlike him, her rituals could never end. As far as she was aware, she was the only one in the village with that unique circumstance.

Claya sat in front of the fire, hugging her poncho and shivering. Her skin had the feeling of being covered in spiders with sharp needles for legs. Was it her cold making her feel that way, or…?

The juicy smell of pork danced in the air. Ms. Green said she’d start dinner early, but Claya didn’t feel like eating. She planned to eat anyway, so she wouldn’t hurt Ms. Green’s feelings, but she just wanted the pain she felt all over to go away.

When Mr. Crainsfield left Claya, he told her to get rest and to feel better. ‘Feel better’? Had he meant her cold? Or was he talking about her crying?

Claya couldn’t understand why she felt so strongly about someone she had no memories of. The feeling was familiar, that feeling of heavy loss. Claya had a vague memory of when and where she felt similar emotions, but she shut the memory out.

Her mouth vibrated uncontrollably, buried under her poncho, its rough texture chafed her lips. She dared not take her poncho off, it was the first thing that comforted her on the earliest day she could remember from a few years ago. ‘Amnesia’ was what they called her condition.

The door swung open with a fast screech, hitting the wall with a slam. Claya stared into the fireplace, and heard anger huff out of someone’s nostrils from the door.

“No,” Mr. Dran said, sounding disgusted. “She does not get to cozy up after what she did— Or I guess I oughta say what she didn’t do.”

“Leave her alone, Dran,” Ms. Green snarled.

“Hush-it, girl!” Mr. Dran cracked his voice like a whip, and stepped inside. He slammed the door only slightly less violently than when it opened.

Claya felt the door slamming in her head. Every creaky footstep from Mr. Dran crawled up her back. She knew ignoring him would do her no good, so she turned around.

His wrinkles were deepened by anger, his bushy eyebrows were pushed high up above his dilated eyes, and his frizzy hair and beard shook along with his body. He smelled as sweaty as he looked.

“You pull that shit again, you get to sleep outside for a few days,” he nodded, and exhaled loudly.

“Please, Dran. She’s getting sick,” Ms. Green said.

“Yeah, I am too! Sick and tired of this useless little skunk getting out of work early! How do you think we put food on the table, huh? We work. And we finish our work, and do a good job so we can keep our jobs.”

“A l-lord needed my help,” Claya mumbled.

“And that stupid shit too- Speak up, girl!” he shouted.

“I had to help a lord,” Claya said more clearly, her throat starting to feel rough.

“A lord? What kind of bullshit is that? The hell would a lord want with you?” He scrunched his face like he had inhaled something rancid.

“Mr. Glint said it was okay. The lord,” Claya cleared her congested throat. “The lord wanted me to give him a tour.”

Mr. Dran approached Claya, and pointed a big calloused finger right up in her face. His voice was low. “If the chief doesn’t confirm what you just said, you’re sleeping outside for a whole week. Got it?”

“Y-yes sir,” she said weakly. Her throat was starting to hurt bad, so she-

Claya’s head twisted to the side, and a pain swelled in her cheek, causing her missing eye and the scar next to it to swell with a pinching pain. He had slapped her with his leathery hand.

Ms. Green gasped.

“I can’t hear you, skunk!” Mr. Dran yelled.

“Yes, sir!” Claya wailed.

Mr. Dran stepped away, hung his coat on the coat rack by the door, and took a seat at the wooden table. “My back,” he groaned. He rubbed his hands together with the sound of sandpaper. “Ah, smells like pork,” he said.

Claya gritted her teeth. It felt like the skin was going to jump off of her trembling face. She slammed her eyes shut and ran towards her room. When she felt the door in front of her, she turned the metal knob and threw it open, then tossed the door behind her to shut it.

Claya’s whole body pounded. She reached for the blankets on her small bed, but fell to her knees and pulled a blanket down with her as she dropped to the ground. She soaked the splintery floor in tears, and curled up under the blanket and poncho.

It wasn’t long before that all too familiar sense of being watched had come in. Thousands of eyes lurked in the darkness of her room with an oppressive glare. The covers only made her a little safer from the shadows, but it was the best she could do.

The village, the world in her room, and the world inside her mind, they were all hell.

Her cheekbones felt like they were about to snap as she bit down hard, and her stomach too heavy to get herself off the ground.

Claya was tired. She hated people. She hated the rituals. She hated life. She hated thinking. She wanted to shut it all out. Forget everything, go numb. Death was not an option, so she would kill her senses until nothing hurt anymore.

She wanted to lay down forever and never ever feel anything again.

*

Claya ran out of tears. Her body stopped shaking. She was somehow both sore and numb. But the eyes in the darkness remained. Sleep descended upon her, and she knew the eyes would follow her into her dreams too.

A sharp squeak from the door’s hinges pinged her eardrums. The juicy smell of pork returned to her senses.

“Hey, sweetie,” Ms. Green said. “I know you’re tired, but you need food to help you sleep better. I’m gonna go to the pharmacy for you in a bit and get you some medicine, okay?”

Ms. Green always treated Claya like she was a little girl. It was annoying and belittling.

Ms. Green stepped along the loud floorboards. “C’mon, honey, you really need to eat.”

Claya felt the blanket pull away.

Stop it, let me be empty.

When the blanket came off, she expected to be stung in her eye by a bright light from the window above her bed. But then she remembered it was getting late. Claya stayed right there against the ground, and stared into the dim, orange sky outside.

“I’m gonna leave your food here, okay? Be sure to eat it before I get back with your medicine, then you can go to sleep.”

Claya pretended like she was already asleep, if it meant Ms. Green would leave sooner. The yuck in her sinuses returned by the second as her numbness faded, and her stomach started to call out for food.

Ms. Green stepped away. “I’m going to talk to Dran about what happened. He won’t touch you like that again. From here on out, he’s not going to be the same…” Before Claya could turn around, the door was shut.

That was… different. Ms. Green had always been afraid of that man. Now she was going to give him an earful? Claya had been hit many times before, and Ms. Green had been as well. Was she going to be punished because of Claya? Some nights, Claya could hear the bed in their bedroom creaking while Ms. Green begged and apologized and wept.

Claya was so hungry now, she couldn’t think straight. The lady was right, the faster she ate and took her medicine, the faster she could escape the world and fall asleep. It was also Ms. Green’s fault for keeping Claya from falling to sleep in the first place.

But the way Ms. Green said she was going to talk to Mr. Dran, it gave Claya pause…