Hain looked around himself in the darkness-shrouded cave. His heart raced against time and throbbed hard against his ribcage.

The dagger the wizard gave him wriggled underneath his clothing and touched his bare skin. It felt like ice.

How did he end up in the trolls’ lair? He didn’t know. Why didn’t he speak his mind and say he was scared?

Even as the headmaster and the others squeezed him into the cave – with blood, sweat, and tears – no words escaped from his chapped lips.

Reluctantly, he stepped further into the cave. With each step, the darkness became thicker and the faint light coming through from within the wet walls became duller.

His heart raced out of control, beating so loud that he thought it’d rip out of his chest and make a break for it.

More than anything, it was the profound silence that unsettled him and put him on edge. Where in the world were the trolls!

It was as if they had vanished into thin air and become one with the surrounding darkness, perhaps watching him in the shadows where no light penetrated.

He turned around. A gasp escaped from his parched lips. Something cracked and breathed down his neck. But there was nothing behind him – nothing but the choking darkness. He shouldn’t have come here.

How did Elise find her way out of the cave, anyway? Not to mention escape without even getting a scratch on her arms and legs when he barely saw where he put his foot! It was too dark – too dark for his liking, that is.

The sound of his shallow breathing drowned out all other noises, even his footsteps that echoed throughout the cave gave way to it.

Wheezing, his quivering eyes darted around the darkness as something passed by him in the shadows again and pumped his veins with warm blood. His hand pressed against the blade tucked underneath his cloak.

What was that sound? Someone spoke to him. The guttural voice reverberated throughout the cave. It belonged to a female, one with an uncannily deep and booming voice.

“Another human…?”

Hain looked around himself to no avail but saw nothing! He could see nothing but the darkness itself!

His eyes widened with fear, darting back and forth, from side to side, following each movement in the shadows. But he couldn’t let this thing, whatever it was, take over his mind and fill him with fright.

The wizard told him that he’d have to speak to the mother of the trolls, a creature that went by the name ‘Trollemor’.

They wanted him to ask it why it was hunting for humans in these parts of the dense woods, which was forbidden for the trolls to trespass according to the rules set by the Council.

“Who- who is this?”

The female voice said nothing for a while. For a second he thought the voice disappeared for good or was never there in the first place – a hallucination.

A trick his mind played on him to ease his nervous mind fraught with fright. But he knew that wasn’t the case.

The booming voice returned, much louder this time and clearer. Strangest of all, no longer as if from all directions but… right behind him?

Hain gulped and pressed his fingers against the sharp dagger, ready to draw it out and slash whatever lurked in the darkness.

Then he heard it. Chills ran down his spine. Something breathed down his neck again, a rotten breath that sent a wave of nausea wash over him. The creature dug its nails into his flesh, deeper and deeper, until blood ran down his neck.

Drawing out the dagger in a flash, he wielded it high above his head and slashed the thing behind him. Blood, purple as the colours of twilight, dripped down the blade and painted the wet ground.

Huh? He looked around himself, confused more than anything, before returning his gaze to the bloody dagger.

A hallucination? No, it couldn’t have been! He slashed something! But what was it? A troll? Then where did it—a hand tapped his shoulder.

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A pair of yellow eyes met his grey ones in the profound darkness as he turned around with the dagger pointed straight ahead, ready to use it for a second time without batting an eye.

Trollemor drew closer and exposed her greasy hair and big fat nose filled with slimy gunk. She wore a wolfish grin on her hideous face full of bumps.

Hain grimaced. The female troll smelled just as bad as the sewer back in the abandoned restroom at Lárhus. It was as if this thing hadn’t touched water for too many moons.

Purple blood ran down its chin that was cut deep in a horizontal line and exposed the just as purple flesh beneath the loosely hanging skin.

The female troll smirked. She licked the blood clean in a circular motion with its huge fat tongue like it was the most delicious thing ever.

The smirk turned into a huge grin that exposed its rotting teeth as black as coal and overcrowded with worms and maggots.

Hain followed its gaze to the dagger only for a second. When he looked up again, he noticed that the female troll gestured at something behind him. Before he knew it, a dozen trolls charged at him from all directions.

They scratched his body so that it turned into one big bleeding scar, roaring like the wild beasts they were and biting off chunks of his flesh.

He tried to scream for help, but his cries did not reach the ears of Grendel and the others waiting in front of the cave. A lump of his own leg was forced down his throat to silence him.

Throwing in the towel, he let the wicked things have their way. It was not long after this thought that he noticed something. The trolls were not trying to off him. No, they… they were looking for something.

The mysterious necklace rolled down. It shone in the shades of green and exposed the hideous faces all around him.

Hain reached for it amid the chaos, but a troll beat him to it. The tiny creature then handed it over to the female troll.

“This necklace,” she said, adding, “where did you find it?”

But Hain couldn’t speak even though he wanted to, so two trolls shoved their hands into his mouth and pulled out the lump of flesh stuck in his throat.

They then pushed him forwards, closer to the female troll, before they retreated along with their howling brothers.

“Speak, if you want to see the light of day again!”

“I…”

“This is not yours, is it?”

Hain didn’t know what to say. Why was the female troll looking at the necklace like this? As if she knew who it belonged to.

“Speak! Who gave this to you?”

“Someone—”

“Someone did…?” A smirk curled up on its thick and dark lips. “Are you telling me a dead man gave this to you?”

“A dead man?” Hain repeated. “No, he… he was—”

“Then someone else gave this to you…” She cocked her head unnaturally. “But why? Why would anyone give such a precious thing to a kid?”

“I- I don’t know, I…”

“Something so precious must stay with me.” Her eyes grew wide as she twisted and turned the necklace in its filthy hand. “With this, I can finally—”

With the last bit of strength left in his body, Hain snatched the dagger from the ground with a swift move and didn’t hesitate.

Everything happened so fast that neither the trolls nor their wicked mother could hinder it.

The bloodied necklace fell.

Trollemor’s slashed head rolled further into the cave until it came to a dead end. The rest of its heavy body fell sideways to the ground with a loud thud and made the whole cave quake.

Hain picked up the necklace and directed his dagger at the trolls, ready to defend what was his without batting an eye or showing mercy.

Within seconds, the antsy trolls ran up the cave at the same time, causing a slight earthquake in the process.

Their cries reached the ears of the headmaster and the others, who waited outside of the cave with their longswords held tightly in their hands.

Little did the trolls know that the headmaster was there to separate their necks from their bodies in an act of revenge.

Ude remained inside the cave and survived on his own. He did not even budge an inch as his brothers screamed their heads off for help on the other side of the cave.

He wasn’t afraid of the boy or the bloody dagger he held onto. Something about the way he looked told him that the boy was not a threat to him.

Even as the boy locked eyes with him, he did not point the tip of the dagger at him. He simply scuffed his way out of the cave.

Perhaps the boy was aware that Ude was the only one of his brothers who did not touch a single strand of his hair.

Watching the boy disappear out of the outcrop, Ude hid in the shadows until he no longer heard the cries of his brothers or the sounds of blood dripping inside the cave like a downpour.

That was when he saw them, the two dark shadows. Ravens, two of them, flew inside the cave brimming with purple blood.

Ude held his breath and observed the ravens as they cawed repeatedly until they turned into the shape of humans, talking amongst themselves as if they were taking notes of the carnage.

Ude backed away and hid in the shadows, too afraid to show himself to the humanlike ravens. What were those things?

They were so dark that they became one with the darkness, seamlessly blending in, and their muscular arms were covered in feathers.

Wait a second, he thought and opened his eyes wide, what were they doing?

The raven people licked the cave clean of blood and ate what remained of his brothers until all evidence of the massacre vanished into thin air. Like it never happened.

One of the ravens then turned to face Ude, who went unnoticed until then. He flinched and fell on his buttocks. But the raven people did not do him any harm, instead, they threatened him into silence.

“You did not see us…”

Ude nodded his head repeatedly like a pigeon with a broken neck, too scared to speak. The raven people then morphed back into ravens and flew out of the cave just as quietly as they appeared.

Rising to his feet, he dashed out of the cave with all his might and never once looked back. Not even his mother put this much fear into his tiny heart. What in the world were those things, even? Humans? Or were they ravens?

Yet, there was something Ude did not know. It survived, not because the ravens pitied him or out of the goodness of their corrupted hearts, but because another quest awaited the troll. There remained but one more job for it to take care of.

And when the time came, as it indeed would, no entity could save it from a certain death. This was the fate of the troll, whose brother, Ode, acted more human than the humans themselves.