He woke up. He felt himself being dragged carelessly along the ground by some thin hands. His head ached, and his body felt as if it were not his own. The man tried to move his hands, but he could do nothing. His limbs were felt, but his mind somehow could not remember how to control them. The same thing happened to his legs. He could feel the ground under his feet, but his legs refused to obey.

There was a bag on his head, which was pulled especially tight, as if someone wanted it. He could not see anything because of the density of the bag.

When trying to understand what was wrong with him, the man remembered only his buns. From too much ale and wine, his legs and arms also stopped obeying, and his legs were giving out. Maybe someone had stolen him while he was lying in the tavern or something like that. But he did not feel hungover, he saw no reason for kidnapping. Neither he nor anyone else owed him particularly large sums. No one would kidnap someone for a couple of coppers. And it doesn't look like slave traders either. The king had caught all the trappers himself in recent years and sent them to hard labor. He had heard rumors that some nobles were kidnapping free peasants to enslave them, but he considered such rumors nonsense. Although maybe he was wrong?

Yes, he was still wrong. After a while, he began to hear cries. A terrible wail of hundreds of people, their voices merging into one terrifying cacophony that weighed on the mind. The wail could drive a man crazy if he heard it every day.

Now everything became clear to him. They were on the border and had been kidnapped by elves. All these terrifying cries were people who had been kidnapped for profit, skinned, and then nailed to trees to die slowly. The elven forests were magical, which allowed people to writhe here for months. There were rumors that some of the sufferers grew into trees and ceased to be themselves.

Everyone on the border was ready for this. People stayed here, because the danger in the form of elves was covered by generous crops, privileges, the opportunity to serve in the army in slightly higher positions and lower taxes. Because of this, there were constantly new faces here, which then quickly disappeared due to carelessness, which usually manifested itself in the fact that people settled too close to the forest. The Forest of Lement. The elves did not kidnap those who were too close. They simply left their homes at one point. The Lement that people heard penetrated their heads and drove them crazy. Therefore, no one settled where that scream could be heard.

The elves did not catch those who lived nearby, but went further and kidnapped those whom they could or wanted. To prevent the Leaf-eared from freely leaving the forest for new victims, four strongholds were built along the border: Phalanx, Littlefinger, Wormstone and Sharp. The garrisons of these fortresses tried to prevent the elves from leaving the forest.

In the depths of the lands, the soldiers and hunters of the kingdom regularly caught the elves and burned them. They gave nothing to interrogation because no one knew the elven language, although they tried to decipher it. Attempting to enter the forest yielded nothing. Everyone disappeared.

Thinking about his last moments, the man began to regret. He was shocked that he had succumbed to the temptation of an easy life here. The land here was good, the taxes were minimal. The years that he had lived here were surprisingly easy. He quickly built himself a hut and prepared to start a family. Now he regretted that he had left his rocky hill near the mountains that separated the Dragon Empire from Haigara. He was attracted by the good land, the bountiful harvests, the low taxes, and the status of a yeoman. He did not think about the dangers and did not listen to his father's advice not to go here. Now he regretted leaving that rocky hill, which was too lazy to throw stones and push the plow. But it was too late. The man knew it. He simply began to pray to Mercy, the Giver and Creator.

That was all he had. Faith in some miracle that would save him at the last moment. Like any person, he grabbed at the last straw. At least something.

Gradually. As the screams became louder and the voices more numerous, hope left the man. He no longer wanted the sack to be taken off him. His imagination pictured a forest with people nailed to the trees without skin and constantly screaming. A strange enchanted forest that continued the suffering of people for months, if not years. He didn't want to see this, and he hoped that the bag would stay on his head and he would die with it. But elves were not known for their mercy.

The movement began to slow down. The realization that they were close to their destination made him even more afraid. His limbs still wouldn't obey him. He didn't want to die, but he tried to accept it again.

They put him on his feet, and the bag was removed from his head. Unfortunately for him, the night was moonlit and everything was clearly visible. The trees were tall, and there were many people on their trunks. Some of them were crawling, some were not. Some still looked normal, and some already had moss instead of flesh. Everyone was calling out with their own and not their own voices.

Before him was a granite altar of a perfect rectangular shape, on which the runes of the elven script shone. Two elves stood next to him. Perhaps women. They were dressed in strange clothes that looked too big on their thin bodies. In their hands they had strange tools. The man guessed what they were for, because he had seen similar ones at the tanner's.

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They began to say something. Their language did not sound but flowed into the ears. Every word engraved beauty for the ears. And they themselves were beautiful too. Suddenly he was distracted by the thought that such beautiful creatures should not be so cruel. It was not a sin for people to fall in love with such women and men.

He was led to the altar like an ox to the slaughter. He fell to the altar, one of the elves took his head with one hand, and with the other took the tool. The elven steel began to pass along his neck, causing slight pain. Surprisingly. The prisoner expected that blood would flow now and he would quickly die of bleeding. He hoped, but this did not happen.

The elf almost painlessly passed the blade around his neck. The coldness of this blade frightened him even more. Having finished, the elf put down one tool and took another. One by one the elf made incisions under the skin, separating it from fat, flesh, blood vessels and bones.

Horror gripped the man. He knew what awaited him and wanted to resist. But he could not. His body became a cage in which he was locked. He could not even grimace in pain. The fate of cattle being slaughtered awaited him, forcing him to utter one silent cry after another, because even his mouth did not obey. Chthonic horror took away the crumbs of his mind and will and began to bind him.

What had once been his face was now in the hands of the elf, giving his naked flesh on his face to all faiths.

One of the elves approached and stood on the altar. The elf who was tearing his face off handed this flesh to him. Standing in the center of the altar, the elf placed the flesh on his face. For several seconds nothing happened. Then the moonlight began to grow brighter near the elf, and the flesh in his hands crackled with strange yellow flashes. The man tried to squint, but he could no longer do it, because his eyelids were gone.

For a few seconds the elf was not visible in the light, but then the light began to dissipate. The elf was gone. Instead, there stood...him. His arms, legs in elven clothes. The elf, who was peeling his skin off, nodded in satisfaction. The faceless man was pulled aside and undressed. The elf with his face took his clothes and left.

His mind was leaving him. He had lost everything. Even his life and individuality. Some elf had stolen his life. The only thing that kept him warm until he became one of the screamers who were nailed to a tree was that he was the first and did not watch as the rest were done the same.

This cover embarrassed him. This cover was disgusting to him. Now he looked and felt like one of these worthless creatures. The cover was just an illusion. It allowed him to remember dreams and thoughts, to adopt the habits and skills of the original. Therefore, it was easy for the elf to find the dwelling of the former owner of the face. It was not difficult to deceive people. The necessary words and thoughts came to his ancient mind by themselves. The spells of the moon priests are not just a deception, but a substitute for reality. He almost became this mortal. Almost.

Gradually, the elf was able to adopt all the habits and almost completely became that man. Would his closest relatives have noticed anything strange. It was good that only lonely people who had not yet had time to find a family were kidnapped. Therefore, there were no problems with either strange behavior or the sudden disappearance and return of someone.

The most difficult thing for the elf was to get used to the human rhythm of life. Their deafness to the world around them, their inattention, their haste. He thought that people live so little that they strive to do everything in time. People are deaf to the earth, so they have to work it in every way, to torment it, to get at least something from it. This is not to mention how fragile, vulnerable and ugly people are. The elf just tried to get used to their appearance for the first few days. The wrinkled old people reminded him of rotten trees, and the middle-aged and poor people looked like piles of walking manure. They moved no better. But he got used to it. Children. He was confused by children. There were many of them, they were noisy and restless. The very sight of children confused him because they were rare among elves. And in better times, elves were not particularly prolific, and after their fall, children became as rare as magical fruits. There were few among the elves now whose union was strong enough to overcome the curse of their ancestors and bring a child into the world. But the sight of children did not bother him in itself. It was their gaze that disturbed him.

From time to time, the elf saw a child staring at him. Then the children pointed their fingers and said to their parents something like "why does this uncle have such sharp ears, and his arms are as thin as sticks." Adults looked at him, saw the illusion, and then told the children that it was not right to slander a man. Such situations happened often. Approximately, every twentieth child spoke about sharp ears. The elf refused to believe that the human brood was able to see through the illusion. However, just in case, he kept in mind the fact of the strange behavior of children.

Nevertheless, he was able to get used to his existence among people. The only thing he could not get used to was the word elf. That's what people called them. Elf is almost consonant with his native word Kelf, which means hymn. Elf didn't know how to take it at first. Was it a joke of fate or had some clever person introduced such a name for the people?