Strings of light shone in through a hole in the cave and illuminated a drooping and uprooted tree in the middle of the darkness.
Its bark teemed with algae as green as fir and fungus as white as snow. The trunk was hardly visible from the amount of green and white parasites that covered it.
Elise stirred awake with a gasp. A shiver went up her spine from the sudden pain that hit her. Moaning, her hand instinctively reached for her throbbing head.
But she couldn’t move. She was tied to the dead tree and became the new target of the fungus and algae that lived off of the tree.
Her eyes wandered to the darkness in front of her, trying to catch a glimpse of what hid in the shadows. But it was easier said than done.
The only source of light that illuminated her surroundings came from a small hole above her, which was as big as her fist.
Overcome with panic, she shouted at the top of her lungs to be set free. Not because she wanted the trolls to hear her, but because she sincerely believed someone above the hole would hear her pleas and come to her rescue.
“There’s a person here! Somebody help me! Please! You must call my father!”
But it was not the humans or the deities that heard her cries and gathered around the tree. It was the trolls that showed up from their hidden corners in the shadows, humming and tapping in a mystical rhythm.
Their saliva dripped down their thin lips just as green as the rest of their body.
They tapped and stomped their feet and hands faster and faster, chanting a song to the cadence of her racing heartbeat. What was going on, she thought, as the trolls drew closer.
Without warning, they lurched forwards from all directions and touched her legs one after another. The sinister song they hummed never left their wolfish faces, it only grew louder and louder.
Like the wicked things they were, they cheered whenever they dug their nails into her flesh and tore her skin off bit by bit. As the touches frequented, their courage grew and so did the enchanting song. It deafened out her cries.
Elise shot her already bulging eyes open with a screech, putting up a fight despite her tethered hands and feet. But the trolls were persistent.
They clung to her legs and hung down from them, determined to eat her whole.
As the eerie chant grew louder and louder, it evolved into a high-pitched shriek. She threw in the towel, loosened her fist and let the trolls have their way.
Just as she thought everything was over, the trolls whimpered away one after the other and returned to the shadows.
What was that? Shivering and shuddering from fear, the trolls soon made way for another sinister being coming towards her. But it was so dark that she couldn’t make out what caused such terror.
Running through the darkness in no vain, she saw nothing but the contours of dozens of tiny trolls with large noses and heard nothing but their whispers fraught with fright.
Until then. A large shadow, perhaps darker than the darkness, arose from out of nowhere and anywhere at the same time.
It approached the tree through the crowd of trolls with steady steps, taking its sweet time. Elise held her breath. What in the world was this- this thing!?
Trollemor pushed aside her children without mercy so that the wicked things fell left and right in all directions. The thick and slimy saliva spread all over her jutting chin and pooled beneath her.
Her dark-brown skin was once a foul shade of green like the other trolls’ but became darker over the years as filth caked on its raw flesh.
The trolls watched her approach the girl with quivering eyes, afraid she’d dislike her present and eat one of them instead. Certainly, it wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.
Trollemor licked the saliva off her face. Its eyes fixed on Elise as it moved closer to the rotting tree with scuffing feet.
A smirk appeared on its thick, parched lips filled with worms trying to escape.
“What have we here… ah, a foolish human?”
Trollemor lifted the girl’s head and turned it from right to left. The poor thing shuddered with fear at its mere touch and looked as if she’d pass out any second.
Its saliva dripped down on her torn cloak and soaked her wet with filth.
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“I’m- I’m no human, you filthy thing!” said Elise before spitting on its hideous face.
Trollemor wiped off the spit with the back of its hands teemed with scars and then proceeded to lick it. Smacking her thick lips, the female troll savoured the slimy taste.
It stretched out its tongue next and licked Elise’s face until it was no longer fair and just as hideous and full of dirt as its own.
The girl turned her face away, her lips pressed together, determined not to let the saliva seep in through her lips. But it was too late.
The taste of mucus and cadaver slipped in and lingered in her throat like a pest that’d never fade away. It turned her stomach upside down.
An urge to vomit grew in the blink of an eye. She tried to hold it back twice but failed and let it all out without a chance to hinder it.
The taste of acid washed her throat clean from the wicked thing’s saliva. She breathed out in relief. The taste of mucus and cadaver was gone and no longer making her belly twist and turn with disgust.
Trollemor smirked and stared down at the puddle of vomit before crouching. Its yellow eyes lingered on Elise the entire time.
“You taste like human to me…”
Its purple tongue wiped the vomit off of the ground, twisting and turning in a merry dance. Then she halted as if she just realised something and turned its huge head and sticky long hair towards her wicked children.
“Lick.”
Elise shot her eyes open. The cave quivered and shook as a dozen trolls jumped out from their hideouts and licked the vomit like they were bewitched slaves who could do nothing but follow the female trolls’ every command.
Trollemor watched over her children with a proud smile, letting out a sinister cackle before stomping on the ground in a steady rhythm.
It then spun around and chanted a song; the faster it spun the more the trolls licked the vomit without respite.
Her children joined the macabre chant and she spun faster and faster to the cadence of the eerie beat, merging with the shadows and becoming one with the darkness. Tirelessly. As though the wicked dance would never end and the sinister song never cease.
Until then. Trollemor came to an abrupt stop. Everything fell silent. It tilted its head so low that its sticky and greasy hair fell to the side and covered one of its bulging eyes.
No cheer or song slipped its foul-smelling mouth. To her dismay, the girl no longer looked at it with disgust. Instead, she looked past her children and somewhere left of the darkness.
The trolls stopped licking and dancing too, acutely aware of the sudden change in their mother’s mood. They all held their breaths and shivered in place, thinking one of them had made a grave mistake.
Scared witless, they dared not even lift their heads and peek at what caught their mother’s attention.
Trollemor bore her wide-set eyes into Ode’s. The giant troll stood on its own in the shadows, hiding, with a racing heart.
She gestured for him to come forwards with her crumpled finger and join his brothers, but Ode avoided her piercing eyes, even as she repeated only for the giant troll to abide.
“Lick.”
Ode glanced at Elise and then his big brother Ude beside the pool of vomit. Drawing closer, he gulped and kneeled as slowly as he could, as if delaying what he ought to do would make any difference. Its jaw hurt from clenching it.
A shiver shot up his spine as his huge knees touched the vomit. Ducking its giant head, he stretched out his tongue with a grimace on its massive head.
The acidity on the tip of his tongue burned like fire. It shut its eyes the moment the liquid ran down his throat, making his round belly churn and twist.
Trollemor cackled like the wicked troll it was and patted the giant troll, who at last lifted its head off the vomit and met his big brother’s concerned eyes.
Trollemor’s next words would linger and ring through the two brothers’ minds in a vicious loop for all eternity and remind them that only those wicked enough to be Trollemor’s children deserved her love.
“Not a weakling… after all.”
Without saying anything else, the female troll walked away and disappeared into the darkness. A dozen trolls followed their mother with their eyes without budging an inch.
Only when she left did they loosen up and return to their shadow-cast corners in the cave.
All of them left the dead tree, everyone saved the two brothers, Ude and Ode, the oldest and the youngest of Trollemor’s wicked children.
Ode stared at the vomit in front of it with a lowered head, grimacing as the taste of acid lingered in its throat. Rather than joy and merry for finally being acknowledged by his mother, he felt a surge of shame from his actions.
He couldn’t bring himself to lift his head and face the poor human, who trusted it with her life. Ude patted its back and tried to persuade him that there was nothing to do, but follow their mother’s orders to survive.
“You only did what you had to, Ode.”
The giant troll pulled away from its big brother. Too overwhelmed with disgust to utter what went through his mind. Still, his brother knew him all too well.
“What is it, little brother?”
Ode looked up. His eyes welled up with tears.
“I- I can’t live like this, Ude! Not anymore. You already know… what I am.”
“Scchh! Don’t even say the word!” Ude warned as it looked around them in the shadows. “What if someone overhears you and tells Mama?”
Ode peeked at the girl briefly. “She did nothing wrong but try to help me! I- I can’t let Mama hurt her.”
“What nonsense are you saying! We’re trolls! We eat things like these!”
“Ude, you already know that… that I’m not like you. Not like our brothers. I can’t eat—”
“Hush with you!” Ude softened his words upon seeing his little brother drop his head. “Listen carefully, little brother. I don’t care what you are or what you are not. But if you want to stay a troll, you must grow some courage and start acting like one of us.”
Ode shook his head. “I cannot! I cannot!”
“You must try, you dimwit! At least, pretend.”
“Up until when, brother?”
Ude hesitated. “Until you no longer can.” He paused before proceeding. “I give you my word, little brother! The moment you no longer can pretend, I’ll do whatever I can to help you flee! But you must try first. You must show me you at least tried!”
“It’s too late! I’ve already made up my mind.”
Ude blinked. “What you say?”
“I said, I made up my mind! I’m not letting our mother kill that poor girl because of my foolishness!”
“Don’t you do something you’ll regret!”
But it was too late for regrets. Ode rose to its feet and approached the dead tree.
Everything happened so fast that there was no way Ude could’ve hindered the giant troll from doing what it eventually did.
Tears welled up in his tiny eyes because he knew very well that the moment his little brother opened his mouth his fate would be sealed and his life be at the hands of their mother.