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Chapter 1: The Dark Forest

Crows caw from above their heads and leaves crunch beneath their boots. These woods are dark and wet, the smell of sap strong in the damp air. The area is more swampy than forested, and the trees look more and more unhealthy as they walk the path. Snow follows the huntsman, not entirely knowing where they’re going or if she can even trust him.

“Is this the edge of the Dark Forest?” Snow asks. 

The huntsman confirms that it is. His face doesn’t give anything away about how he feels about their surroundings, but he pulls out a knife from a sheath on his hip. Only the tenseness his shoulders and stiffening movements of his arms give off gives him away.

Snow reaches for the sword that should be on her own hip but only feels empty air. It had been dropped and left behind in the scuffle just an hour earlier. She feels completely defenseless and stressed without it, part of her wishing she could go back and retrieve it. 

They have come to a small bridge made of cobblestone. It’s covered in vines and moss. A large willow tree looms above it, its wet fallen leaves strewn everywhere, including all over the bridge. There are chunks missing from the footpath and the edges of the bridge, it looks like it was built a long time ago. The stream below it is small and moving very slowly. The bridge is very nearly not necessary, the two of them could easily step over the little stream.

On the other side of the bridge, the forest becomes much thicker, the trees more in numbers and closer together. It’s much darker on the other side and many of the trees look like they are dead or dying. It’s more than just the autumnal time of year. It’s clear by just looking that the forest is very sick and diseased. Snow wishes she could have seen it when it was healthy and green, as it must have been at one point in time. 

The huntsman has noticed something, he stiffens even more, bringing the knife higher. He’s taken on a defensive stance. She stays closer to him, listening carefully to their surroundings.

“What is it?” she asks quietly.

The huntsman hushes her as they step onto the bridge. Once they’re higher above the stream Snow can see what has him so nervous. All along the sides of the river, in the water and on the other side of the bridge, lay bones and broken items of all sorts. She spots remains that look all too human as well as what look to be broken wagon wheels and large splinters of wood. Much of it is old and rotted, destroyed by the wear of many seasons. There are other pieces of bone and wood that look startlingly recent. 

There’s a clattering from behind them. A series of clinking and soil being moved, like it was being dug through. The moment turns into chaos in less than a heartbeat. A heavy rumble sounds as an enormous creature shows itself from underneath the ground. It erupts from the ground they were walking on mere seconds ago. It rips up from the ground, a larger-than-life living gargoyle of stone and moss, and snarls at them.

“A troll!” the huntsman yells. He lashes out wildly, landing a slash with his axe before he’s thrown into the air by the monster’s huge hand. He flies like a ragdoll, his knife soaring like a bird away from him. 

The monster whips out with its other hand and sends Snow flying in the opposite direction. She loses consciousness for a second- everything goes dark for a moment- then she’s alert again and scrambling up off the ground. Her head is spinning badly. She looks all around for the huntsman as she scrambles up again. He is nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly a sharp pain shoots down her leg as she tries to stand. She sucks air in through her teeth, tears coming to her eyes. She hadn’t realized she had landed on some of the wagon remains. There is a large shard of wood jammed through her leg. With the adrenaline pumping, she hadn’t even noticed she’d been harmed. The pain sears through her as she lays eyes on it and it takes her breath away.

Again, she looks all over for the monster. For the huntsman. For anyone. 

Then she spots him. The troll is making its way to him, crawling on its hind legs, using its fisted hands to gain momentum. The huntsman is on his feet again, swinging an axe at the creature. There is a slash of red and the troll howls, batting at the huntsman again and missing. The huntsman dodges under the monster’s legs, hitting it from behind, and slashing the creature again. He tries to dodge another blow but is off by mere seconds, giving the troll an opening to swipe at him, sending him flying backwards. 

Snow watches in horror as he lands four metres away in a patch of stones. He doesn’t get back up. The monster growls loudly at him again, sending spit and ear-splitting sound at him. He still doesn’t move. 

Snow is frozen, mouth open as the creature stomps and approaches the huntsman, sniffing at the ground. She wants to scream at it to get away from him but can only stare in open-mouthed shock. 

Once the monster loses interest in him, it sniffs the air again. It then turns its enormous head towards her, spotting her instantly. It huffs at her from a distance, bouncing a little on its arms, then races towards her. Her heart races in her chest as it bounds towards her, roaring. 

Then, without a thought, she opens her mouth wide and lets out a piercing yell of her own. She pushes all of her pain and fear out into it, her whole chest vibrating with the noise. This seems to take the creature off-guard and it slows, circling her a little before huffing at her again through its nostrils. The creature narrows its eyes to slits, peering at her and coming a little closer.

“NO!” she screams, not losing eye contact with the beast as they both breathe heavily. Both of their chests heave. It stares her down but then eventually drops eye contact and backs off. 

The creature makes its way toward the hillside, glancing back at her briefly. After pawing at the dirt a little, it lays down there.

Snow stares at it in awe as it makes itself comfortable like it hadn’t just attacked them out of nowhere and injured the person she was travelling with. And that’s what she told herself, that he was just injured. He would get back up soon enough and they would escape.

She looks over at the huntsman again, waiting for him to move, or even just twitch. Any sign that he’s going to be alright, any at all. He’s just unconscious.

She tries to stand up again, then begins to limp slowly over to him. The creature lets out a low growl, watching her, and she freezes, slowly turning her head to where it sits on the hill. She turns her head back over to the man laying on the ground, his face is covered by his hair and she can’t see his features. She begins to move again. The creature lets out a louder, even deeper growl. A warning. She stops moving again. 

It doesn’t want her to go over to him or doesn’t want her to move at all? She isn’t sure which it is, or if the beast even has reasoning at all, but now that she’s a little closer to the huntsman she can see the degree of the damage. There is blood. A lot of blood. It’s pooled all around his head onto the forest floor. He landed on a patch of rocks, some of them looking dangerously sharp. She wonders if he’s merely been rendered unconscious or—?

Her leg is ready to give out from under her and she’s forced to sit back down, not able to endure the pain any longer. She leans against a broken tree for support and lowers herself to the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in the direction of the huntsman, before finally letting herself rest.

Chapter 2: The Other Troll

She sits in a very old, very large tree stump. There are unknown bugs, beetles, and worms crawling about all over. The bark is dry and falling apart but the stump still grants her some protection from the elements. 

The huntsman’s axe is only metres away from her. If she could crawl over just a bit she would be able to reach it and maybe defend herself, if it came to that again. But crawling over to it would mean taking it from him . It would mean acknowledging that he hadn’t made it. She hadn’t barely known him a day but the thought of taking the man’s axe from him makes her eyes feel wet. She can’t help but feel sorry for him. She hadn’t even known if he was trustworthy. Was he truly going to help her? She had no way of knowing now. She couldn’t help but feel bad about everything he had clearly been through.

That wasn’t all, though. Leaving the stump would also mean giving up her hiding spot. Giving up what little safety she has. The creature had only been turned around for a couple minutes when she took refuge in here, surely it wouldn’t have much of a problem finding her. She can hear it sniffing at the air not too far away. Can it smell her? Surely it can smell the blood oozing from her leg. Does it know where she is?

The sounds of the creature’s fists crushing the dead leaves and twigs on the ground meets her ears as it skulks about. She can imagine the large hulking figure lumbering around. The stretches of mossy stony muscle that could crush her in an instant if it really wanted to. She wonders if it had just been batting them around at first to play with them like a cat with scared birds.

She decides against going for the axe. For now.

Eventually, the monster goes away and she sleeps there for the night. Not well. Her rest is mostly off and on as animals howl in the distance and the dead trees creak in the wind. She’s kept up by the strange noises of the dark forest all night. 

Hours later, she considers again going to grab the axe that’s not far from the fallen huntsman. Maybe nothing would see her in the dark of the night. Maybe she could grab it very quickly and come right back. After a few failed pep talks to herself she decides against it again and stays quiet and still. 

In the very early morning, she wakes up with sticky dew on her skin. The smell of the dead forest blown in the wind that comes through the hole in the stump. The smell is of dry bark, dew, and rotting leaves. It’s a sweet and heavy smell.

 She hears something stomping around. Is it the troll coming back? Or had it ever left the area it had attacked at all? 

 She decides to take a quick peek around the side of the stump, showing her head to the world. She sees nothing but the forest.

The huntsman is still lying where he fell last night. She halfway limps and halfway crawls over to his body, deeming the surroundings safe enough for now. She takes the axe, flinching away from his unmoving face. She shuffles back to her stump carefully, trying not to snap any twigs or rustle too many crackly leaves.

Before she can make it she hears a great rustle of branches and a growl. She snaps her head in the direction the sound came from and is confronted by a monster’s drooling face. She’s not sure if it’s the same one, this one is much lighter in color and far thinner. Its horns are smaller and curled closer to its head. It roars at her again, the sound ear-splitting even from a fair distance away.

The monster closes that distance in a heartbeat. Before she can even try to scramble back into the stump the thing is there in front of her. She rushes and tries to claw her way into the stump but it has grabbed her by her ankles and is dragging her backwards. She screams as her injured leg is grabbed hard. It lets her go briefly and she takes a swing at it with the axe still in her hands but the weapon is batted away from her like it’s nothing but a child’s toy.

She stares up at the monster, its eyes glowing bright and sharp pointed teeth bared wide, spittle going everywhere. There’s then another growl, but not from the monster in front of her. The beast above her is momentarily distracted by the sound and she’s able to scoot back a little. 

She’s immediately glad that she did as not a second later the attacker is being thrown by a bigger troll. She recognizes the beast, this is the same one that attacked them last night. 

Snow manages to crawl back to the hollow stump, tears streaming down her face. The damage to her leg is even worse now, the piece of wood that had been stuck in her leg is partially broken off. The wound has been ripped open even further and it’s bleeding profusely. Her pant leg is completely soaked, now a dark, dark brown. It’s clear she’ll be wherever the huntsman has gone soon. And she will be with her father.

The two trolls outside her stump can be heard fighting loudly as she tries to hold the bleeding. She rips some cloth from her dress and attempts to wrap it around the wound, trying to somehow avoid the terrible splinter of wood gouging through her leg. Touching the wound makes the pain a hundred times worse. Snow has never been injured before and has never had to treat wounds. She tries to think of any information she could have possibly ever heard for treating wounds of this nature. She can think of nothing.

She sits, axe in hand, waiting for the fight to stop outside. She’s leaning against the inner stump in a sitting position, her good leg brought up to her chest and the other splayed out in front of her. At least I’ll go out fighting , she thinks to herself silently. She grips the axe tight.

Eventually the sounds of the fight come to a halt. Her head is spinning and she can’t really say how much time has passed or how deadly the fight had become. She doesn’t dare stick her head out from the stump again, lest it be swiped right off. 

All is silent for a few minutes, all she can hear is the wind and her hard breathing as she tries to keep her breath steady. A nearly impossible task at this point. 

Her ears perk at a rustle of movement. Then the sounds of snuffling and sniffing are in the air. The sound of fists crushing the ground is in her ears again. She trembles, axe in hand. The sounds get closer until suddenly there is the face of a troll taking up the entire entrance to the stump. She jumps as it looks at her. It snorts at her loudly and though she can’t be completely sure, she thinks it’s the troll from last night. 

It snorts at her again and she panics and with a yelp swings the weapon she holds at the monster, then scootches back as far as the small space will allow. As far away from the hole as she can get. It grimaces at her and the face disappears from view only to be replaced by an enormous fist. The creature sticks its huge hand into the hole like a bear sticking a hand into a giant beehive, in search of honey.

 It feels around, then rips the axe from her hands and steals it from her. The brief thought crosses her mind that maybe that’s all it wanted and it would go away now. 

She feels silly for praying that was it when the axe is thrown behind the creature. The troll peaks into the stump again and they stare at each other for too long of a moment. She doesn’t take a single breath. Then the face goes away once more and its hand reaches into the stump again. 

Chapter 3: The Cave

She yells and kicks the hand with her booted leg, the good one, as hard as she can. The beast doesn’t even falter from her blows. The enormous, mossy stone-like hand grabs her legs and drags her out, holding too tight, squashing her injured leg and her uninjured leg together. She screams in agony as the pain rips through her. She can feel blood gushing down her legs, she doesn’t know how she could lose so much blood and still be conscious. Her head swims, her mind bleary. She’s never been in so much pain in her life. She begs the creature to let her go, her words not even making sense to her in the slurry of pain and rage. 

Once it has her out of the stump, everything comes to a halt. She pants heavily, tears streaming down her face… Nothing happens. The creature stares down at her from above, chest heaving. She stares up at it in shock, catching her breath. It tilts its head ever so slightly then leans down low to the ground, closer to her face. And sniffs. She flinches away, shutting her eyes tight and bringing her arms up to cover her face. She expects the monster to sink its sharp teeth into her flesh, to be ripped apart. Turned into a meal.

No such pain comes. After a moment passes she opens her eyes again. It lets go of her legs and grabs her around her middle. It brings her close to its chest and then begins walking. The creature walks on three limbs instead of four, clearly so as not to crush her, shocking Snow with its carefulness. She’s frozen. What could the monster possibly have to gain by keeping her alive? she wonders.

Once the shock of it wears off she yells “put me down!” as though the creature could understand her. She huffs angrily, still in an immense amount of pain. Even though she is being carried rather gently, she is barely holding back tears from the pain she is in. 

The tree stump and the clearing she and the huntsman were attacked in are growing further and further away by the second. The road disappears into the distance along with her only way of navigating the woods. Her head is very light and her vision is becoming dim. Her bandages are long since bled through. She thinks she may be leaving a dotted red trail through the forest as they go.

The woods are filled with strange noises of animals, the squishing of the monster’s footsteps on the swampy land, and sounds she could only assume were coming from other monsters and animals. The huntsman’s body and her only chance of escaping the queen’s wrath grow further and further away. The creature carrying her stomps through the undergrowth, grunting all the while. Paying no mind to her plight.

Eventually, her vision goes very dim and then finally, everything goes totally dark.

She wakes up in the dark. Her eyes are terribly dry and burning badly. She feels around in the darkness for something- anything. There is nothing and no signs to explain to her where she is. She’s totally blind.

Her face feels salty from all the day’s tears and she wished she at least had a little water to clean up with. Her eyes take a while to adjust but when they do it’s clear that she is entirely alone. The monster is nowhere to be seen. 

It takes a while longer still for her eyes to adjust enough to see that she’s in a cave formation of some sort. The ceiling of the cave is fairly low and she can’t imagine the monster getting in here easily. It would be a squeeze. 

Was it the creature that put her in here? Or had someone else found her and brought her to this cave?

 If it had been someone else, where were they now? Would they really have just saved her and dumped her here?

It is freezing. Her damp leather trousers and ripped shirt aren’t doing much to keep her body warmth contained. The stone she sits on is cold, as well. Her butt and her legs are somewhat numb, but she relishes in the absence of the mind-splitting pain she had been in out in the forest. 

Her leg is still very clearly injured, the jagged thorn of wood sticking out of her thigh gruesomely. It’s half the length of her forearm, at least. The blood that soaked her leather trousers has dried into a crust and smells strongly of copper. She has to find some way to clean it before it tries to heal over like that. 

Her hand hovers over the wood, shaking violently. Would she be able to do it? 

All she had at this point were her clothes to halt the bleeding. If she used her clothes to stop it then she would have even less to wear in the cold night. 

She makes up her mind. Tenderly, she places both her hands on the large wood splinter, grasping it, trying to steady her tremor. She breaths, once, twice, and then a third deep breath. She heaves over, dry gagging, puking up nothing. She breathes heavily, shaking, sobbing silently with no tears to show for it. 

She places her hands on the wood splinter again, still in her leg. Another deep breath, another— then she pulls with all her might. It makes a disgusting squelch noise as it comes out of her leg. The wood splinter goes flying across the room as she screams through her gritted teeth. 

Tears flood her vision as the agony rips through her whole body this time. She falls to the floor, feeling the blood gush from her abused leg once more. She scrambles to rip off her cloth corset, the thickest material she is wearing, and wraps it around her bleeding thigh.

She takes several more deep breaths, then lets herself fall against the cave wall again. Closing her eyes tight, trying to think of anything else. Anything but the puddle of blood she’s sitting in. 

Something startles her awake. Had she passed out from the pain? Or had she simply fallen asleep from exhaustion?

She feels something, a whisper of her senses. A little hint that something is off. She rolls her head off of the cave wall and glances around tiredly. 

It’s hard to see- hard to make out anything at all. But a cloud drifts to the side in the sky and the moonlight shines just right, just for a moment. At the cave entrance she can see a figure, a hulking figure. It’s the same thing that brought her here. She knows it though she can only see the outline of the beast. As she stares, the moonlight shines brighter and a pair of glowing blue eyes form from the darkness. Her breath hitches in her throat. It’s the beast. It’s been watching her. 

Chapter 4: The Remains

She must have fallen asleep at some point. She opens her eyes and all of a sudden there’s sunlight peeking in through the cave entrance. She’s already shivering when she wakes. The air feels somehow even chillier now that the sun is peeking out. The stone floor she sits on and stone wall she’s leaning on for support feel like ice on her rump and back.

While the light barely touches the shadows of the cave, outside it is bright. The land is lit up enough for her to see the outlines of the trees. She can see the sun rising over the hills in the far distance. The thick, dark forest looks far less intimidating in the light of the morning. She would like to think everything that happened yesterday was just a bad dream. But that isn't the case. She dares not hope any of the forest's dangers have been mollified overnight. She doesn’t let herself wonder if anything has changed, if anything has left or moved on. It’s still the same cursed place as it was when they were attacked, when the shadow crept all around. The same dangers are still roaming out there. Who knows what roams waiting to catch her scent.

Soon it is bright enough to see the hulking form sleeping outside the mouth of the cave. The creature lays on its side, slowly breathing in and out. It snores lowly. It's apparent that it's in a state of deep slumber. It growls lowly under its breath, and it paws at the ground. She freezes. It’s eyes stay closed. It doesn’t move. It must be dreaming. She wonders what such a monster could possibly dream about? Was it reliving its kill from yesterday? Was it relishing it over in its mind?

Her injured leg is throbbing, the pain having worked its way both up and down her entire leg. She wishes she had something, anything , to take the edge off the pain. Her makeshift bandage is soaked through, but none of the blood on the stone floor is wet. Instead, it has become sticky and dry. She takes this as a good sign, though she is still dizzy. 

Once she’s fully awake she decides to explore the cave a little. It’s hard to see even once her eyes are as adjusted to the dark as they can be. It doesn’t take long to discover that there’s not much to be found here. The cave is too dark to go very far into without a torch of some sort. Because of how it’s formed, even in the brightest part of the day the cave wouldn’t be fully illuminated. 

Hoping her eyes will adjust just a little bit more, she takes a few blind steps deeper into the cave. It’s not long before the toe of her boot bumps into something in the darkness. Struggling against the shadow, she squints with all her might. She wills her eyes to reveal something. Anything that might help, anything that might save her from her wounds, from the cold of the morning air.

There is an outline, just the faintest outline, barely discernible. There’s an old, long burned out campfire. Cold charcoal and sticks lay in a small pile. Nearby it sits a dilapidated tent of sorts, crumpled in on itself. 

She edges closer, then freezes when her foot comes into contact with something. It rattles hollowly, clattering as she bumps into it. Though she can’t quite see it, Snow has a terrible feeling that she knows what it could be. Bones. It sounds like bones, unfortunately.

Eyes adjusting ever so slightly more, she spots a tarp or cloth of some sort lying on the ground next to the pile of bones. Her stomach flips a little before she reaches down it picks it up carefully. It’s a long coat made of hide and a scratchy woolen cloth. It’s heavy and seems like it could be warm. It seems she has no other option at this point. She walks quickly away from the scene, an apology silent behind her lips.

Back near the cave entrance the light shines on the coat and she can now spot the layers of dirt, dust, and pollen that cover it. It appears that whoever’s bones those were, they’ve been sitting in this cave for a long time. The feels terribly for them, knowing they must have met an unpleasant fate. She can only pray she doesn't find a similar one.