Fog hung over everything like a held breath, clinging to the grey earth, swallowing the horizon whole. No trees. No water. No suggestion that anything had ever decided to stay. Just the white pressing in from every direction.
In the middle of it stood a girl.
She couldn't have been older than twenty. She held a child in her arms — no older than seven — his small body pressed against her chest, his face wet. She was wrapping something around his neck. A crimson scarf, far too large for his small frame, the ends trailing past his knees. She wrapped it once, then again, tucking it with the specific care of someone who knows they won't get another chance.
"Fairy tales are bullshit."
Her voice was flat. Not cruel. Just certain, the way people are certain about things they learned the hard way.
"There's no such thing as a happy ending."
The child's golden eyes stared up at her. Tears streaked his face, more coming. His mouth was open and trembling with the specific grief of someone too young to understand what's happening and old enough to know it's bad.
"Don't cry."
She pulled the scarf up over his mouth, covering the sounds of his sobs. Her hands stayed there a moment longer than they needed to.
"I'll make sure you get yours...Naren."
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Once upon a time, there was a country that set aside their trash. Pushing it all into a set of dormitories set far over a large wall.
The dormitories connected all the children that lived in these slums. Every child cast away by their parents — because they couldn't afford another mouth to feed. Because they died. Or simply because they were unwanted.
They all ended up here.
All of them in a cafeteria too small to truly house the five-hundred orphans as an ear piercing bell rung out. All of them trembling in fear. Cowering behind even an inch of cover.
All except a little boy with big golden eyes, scampering around the back of the cafe. His hands held tightly around his ears.
"Where is it...Where did I drop it?"
Even while the windows shattered, the boy kept his attention to the ground. Occasionally sneaking in handfuls of sludged rice mixed with dirt to make it look fuller than it was.
His eyes wandered around the counter of food trays, landing on a particular boy frozen in place. A dull red scarf draped around his neck.
A smile landed on Naren's face as he stuffed another muddled handful of rice in his mouth.
"Yes!"
"Watch out!"
Naren didn't falter as he watched the boy in front of him turn around in a slow controlled manner. His eyes narrowing as all the blood rushed, fleeing from his face.
The snarled breath of a beast caressed Naren's ears as the smell of rot and iron followed. His gaze moving to what the boy saw.
Too human, but too wrong. Like a man who's been starved for a month, then being stretched as far as possible. Before giving one last tug. Naren grimaced at the sight, throwing up in his mouth but not daring to let it show.
His eyes lingered on its sunken head, translucent veins bulging with each ticking second.
By now Naren could hear it clear as day. The thumping of the boy's heart. His eyes shut closed as Naren could only assume he did to pray. Too afraid to see his last moments.
"Shaman! Coming through!"
When the boy opened his eyes, Naren was airborne, red curly hair tangling in the air with both bare feet aimed into a spearhead directed at the beast.
His heel dove straight into an antler cracking it off in one go.
The creature stumbled back for a second before catching it's footing. Shaking it's head in a daze of pain, quickly shattered by it's hunger.
"...Sha...man...Co..m.."
The Wendigo grabbed the little boy by his leg, pulling him up. It titled it's head as it's bestial gaze locked onto the boy's golden eyes. Studying it.
"Name, Naren! Order — Fire!"
In the next second, the boy vanished, completely disappearing into thin air.
However, before the beast could respond an onslaught of arrows assaulted it first. Pelleting into it, sending the creature into a frenzied shaking state. Each bolt quickly replaced by another, until the abomination became as husk of flesh.
The crossbows clicked, letting the creature finally fall with a cloud of dust to the floor below.
The boy stood in silence, his face completely splattered with blood. He had finally scrunched his face in, tears rolling down as he threw up everything that he couldn't yet eat.
Feeling a strange pull around his neck, he looked up. Naren yanking the scarf off his neck before wrapping around his own. It clearly too long for his small frame.
"Feels better."
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Within the next couple minutes. The students were all evacuated cleanly. Making sure nobody was around to see the cleanup. Except for Naren, of course.
"At least nobody died."
"Not like there's anyone to notify."
The haggard men examined the corpse, muttering amongst themselves. Things that shouldn't, but somehow still reached Naren's ears.
They glanced over at him, before resuming their gossip.
"And who's the kid?"
One especially tall one emerged from their midst. He was lanky enough to be mistaken for a beast himself. Even his steps were stretched and slow.
A very distinct lackadaisical trot that seemed to have no remorse for anything at all.
"Hey! Don't tell me you ate the meat!"
The man grabbed Naren's cheeks, examining the evidence left behind as morsels of rice littering his lips.
"Maren...No yelling."
Naren glanced up adding:
"I didn't anyway. You said they were for the hardworking students."
Maren ruffled the red hair into an even more tangled state, the red hair converging into black tips now even more of a birds nest than before.
"Naren...Stop that teleportation. They'll take you for a shaman."
Naren cuffed the scarf, pulling it closer over his face. He nestled his face in it, the comfort it brought almost lulling him to sleep. Shooting a scowled, annoyed glance at Maren.
Shaman were mystical people even Naren heard of. Humans who stripped the magic from beasts, using it themselves. They abided by their own laws, their own hierarchy. They were the only ones able to go to any corner of the earth. The only ones able to survive. And also...
"They can find my sister."
The doors swung open with a sense of authority pooling in. All the men immediately took their stance in reverence, other than Maren of course. He stood there hunched over, hand extended expecting something from Naren. The little boy in return pulled out a lighter handing it to Maren.
The headmasters white coat laced the floor showing just how short she is. Even her posture added up, hunching over as she trotted over to Maren.
Thick glasses that definitely aided in the headmasters hunch reflected off Naren's golden eyes before flicking up, crunching her neck at the abnormally tall man.
"You and your gang. Take our resources. Bring a kid in here. I'm done."
A sigh of grey smoke escaped Maren's mouth as he mumbled.
"I'm gonna get chewed out again."
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"She hired a damn shaman."
In a small hut outside the dormitory, a tall lanky man paced from side to side. The hut was modest at best — a bed, a hammock and a table. A small candle flickering with each step the man took.
"Shaman. Shaman. Shaman."
A little boy with red hair was swinging in the hammock. His golden yellow eyes barely able to stay open, but that didn't stop him.
"Damn it! Those brutes are murderers...They have no moral or ethics, using their mystical powers for whatever pays the most...Listen Naren, Don't talk to whoever that damn headmaster brings."
"Shaman. Shaman."
"You hear me? Make sure you don't."
"I can hear."
"Good."
"But they can find anyone...right?"
A silence took over the room save for the hooting of owls in the background and jittering of crickets.
The hammock stopped swinging, slowly losing it's momentum as the little boy inside stared at the man with beading golden eyes.
"She's dead."
"Nuh uh."
"I told you already. She's drowned."
Naren swung his head back in his hammock, it's gentle swaying continuing.
"No."
"Listen to me! Why does that sister matter so much! I'm the one who takes care of you! I'm the one who feeds you! Who clothes you! What the hell does she matter!"
Naren fell to the ground with a thump. A red bump clearly visible. He stared at Maren with his large beady eyes for a moment. Then in the next he ran off, out the door, the dark forest consuming him immediately.
Maren stood in the empty room, dim ember flickering with each moment. He held his head down, staring at the ground longingly.
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Before he knew it, Naren was sitting at the edge of the white shore, as the dark waves crashed in and out. He was hunched over, violently scribbling on a piece of paper.
The sun had barely broken the horizon by now. Dark murky waters glistening in conjunction to it's bed of white sandy shores.
A looming shadow hovered over him, blocked out by the moonlight. A creature with long strands coming from it's head. A distinct salty smell. It's grey eyes staring right at him.
Naren scampered back yelping, throwing shells at it.
"Ow! Quit it kid!"
Naren titled his head as the sunlight shone through the clouds. A single black ribbon hung from the girls blonde hair. Along with various pieces of seaweed and sand.
The brown coat hugging her, hung over her dress shirt and skirt, failing to provide warmth. Evident by her shivering as her sharp grey eyes stared at Naren. Then at his neck.
"Where'd...you get...that...scarf?"
Naren looked around whipping his head left and right before pointing at himself.
"Yes you!"
He scrunched his face in, holding his ears tight.
"And who are you?"
"A...Sh-Shaman!"
His eyes grew wide with wonder. Not even realizing the scornful look in the shaman's eyes. A look of pure disdain aimed directly at the dull red scarf draped around his neck.
"A shaman..."
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There is a children's tale that many tell but few believe.
They say the writings of Wilhelm Grimm weren't fairy tales at all. That every wolf, every curse, every girl lost in a dark wood was pulled from something real. People laughed at that. Called it the kind of thing you tell children to make the dark feel meaningful.
Then the dark started moving.
Magic and monsters, myths and fables, all were given teeth to bear. The world cracked open and what spilled out of it was older and stranger than any story anyone had thought to write down. Every corner of it held something that shouldn't exist. Every ocean had a bottom nobody had come back from.
But there was one more chapter Grimm had failed to finish. In this world of fantasy, the one's who clawed their way to the top...
...Were Shaman.