Mr Hessler is a careful man. One who lives his life one uncertainty at a time. Each of which requires three proofs to dispel. He rationalizes that first is easily a mistake, second a potential coincidence, third… Well third is a pattern. This way of thinking has led to a life that’s at worst slow but at best, successful.

Mr Hessler has followed his wife to this park on two other occasions. It is distant enough from their cosy condo to make it a trek a careful man wouldn’t bother with on a whim. However, a paranoid one would. One that sees his wife meet up with an unknown man for the third time this night.

Mrs Hessler wouldn’t know of her husband’s stalking. She’s careful herself, knowing how to avoid husband’s controlling whims after a decade of marriage. It was knowledge built on mistakes and bruises but nonetheless knowledge that got her this far. This man, only known to her as Bill, will get her the necessary documents to get away from him, a few thousand miles away. From there, she can find support to finally divorce him safely. 

On two occasions before has she met Bill. First time to consult, second time to pay, and third time to pick up the passport. A risky streak of proofs for her husband, she knew, but even if she was to appear now escape is imminent. 

Mr Hessler observes from a considerable distance, binoculars in hand. An odd thing to see in a park but a necessary measure for resolution of his doubts. In his eyes, this is a proof of infidelity. The two haven’t touched each other, sure, but that’s a ploy. Deniability if caught red handed.

This is, of course, a wellspring of uncertainties. Divorces are messy, long, complex. Dozens of things to dispel at the very least. Mr Hessler feels anger like never before. At perceived infidelity? No, at inconvenience. He wishes she… they… would just be removed from the picture. Alive or dead, a quick resolution.

Anger deafens him to the subtle footsteps that edge closer to the bush he was hiding in. Ambush is expressed in a single sentence: 

“For a morsel of food, I would help you soothe”

Mr Hessler whips around, anger stifling any yell that would have come out otherwise. Confusion and fear leaving hands at the height of his sagging face.

But, then, he heeds the words and he perceives a being in front. One seemingly void of decorum. A humanoid figure barely over four feet. Straw hat and old raincoat covering dry, greyish skin. Face is difficult to distinguish past a yellow smile of broken teeth.

“Who are you?”, Mr Hessler responds with the last bit of composure left.

The figure cackles soundlessly, before its creaking voice says:

“Haglin haglin across the field.

Haglin haglin does not feel.

The romps of hills the dips of valleys

Trades throats for a full belly”

Voice comes out sounding like the heavy compression of an iron lung. It scratches against the cochlea. As disorienting as the voice is, its message is clear to the man. Decidedly he reaches into his pockets, offering whatever snacks were left in his suit’s inside pocket.

Mr Hessler observes as the cracking, long fingers reach beneath the slicker and grab the sweet. A wicked smile is followed by the skipping of the short apparition. Brandishing an odd necklace made out of dead sparrows, a makeshift shiv, and a pair of circular glasses which rest on its slicker, the creature prances towards the couple.

“Haglin Haglin it cares not

Haglin Haglin for no big plot

It wears a silly beige slicker

Little trinkets and a lamp’s clicker”

The creature sings in an underhanded tone while the man who made a pact with it rises above the bushes he had been using for the scouting mission. Breathing heavy under the bulk of his weight, Mr Hessler stares at the departing figure while cleaning his grey suit.

Leaves shuffle occasionally on this evening of the corpse-white moon. Their disturbance is carried by the wind which indecisively comes and goes. Bill and Mrs Hessler have finished their trade and started going their opposite ways. There’s relief in the air on both ends. Money and freedom exchanged, to a mutual satisfaction.

Four footsteps parting at an old oak, they get met by a third set. One accustomed to a quieter walk, a sneak in step, shiv in hand. It’s the Haglin that drives near, from tree to tree it hides its visage. The two may be going opposite ways but both of those ways face north, one northeast and the other northwest. Northwest is the first to greet Haglin as Bill makes careless footsteps upon the stoney walkways of the old park. 

Haglin shuffles close behind, letting the man pass a few more benches. Feeling of safety, that will be the greatest killer tonight. Slicker-wearing creep climbs to one of the thicker canopies close to the road. That of a weeping willow behind whose thousand strands now peaks a jagged smile. It stares at Bill, sizing up its prey.

Now, with shiv firm in hand does the Haglin drop off quietly, only the whistling of the wind through his slicker giving any warning to the victim before blade cuts into the cheek and mouth. A calculated, painful, deathless strike.

A guttural scream attempts to make its way out but the path is blocked by the blood and broken teeth. By the chips of wood and razor from the shiv. It soon becomes hard to breathe for Bill as his eyes bulge out in utter terror. Heart pounds and hands confusedly seek for salvation. 

The voice like sandpaper on tin whispers to his ear.

“Haglin haglin gives its praise

Haglin haglin painful gaze”

Sadism takes precedence as Bill’s face is pushed into some mud by the road. 

“As it tosses grimey rot

As it leaps from spot to spot

As it drops a necklace spare

Of dead sparrow, jewelry rare”

As the words say so the Haglin does. The necklace finding its way into the hands of the man who now finds his hands punctured by beaks and claws long past rigour mortis. Scream comes forth again for the pained eyes and hands but the pooling of imminent death goes from mouth to throat. Giving merely a minor gurgle to the anguish.

The sadistic murder goes on for another minute, during which the shiv is stabbed through Bill’s back another dozen times. Head kicked until it bleeds, skin torn from useless struggle. It’s unsure what the killing blow is and it matters not. Haglin had its fun while fulfilling the arrangement and now rushes eastwards. In a gleeful sprint of an excited child, Haglin doesn’t see something fall out of its pocket on the way to the second victim.

She is all too happy and pleased to leave the park. Knowing just where to go now, with the future dazzling freely in the night sky. Who cares if her husband finds out now? The escape is hours away and she is ready to go. 

However, the freedom blinds oneself to the remaining few dangers of their jailed life. And so does she trip on a peculiar trap in her way. It’s a minor tumble but it nets a few bruises. She turns around, rising to her feet. Curiosity lets her see what the tripping hazard was. A morbid image draws her out of daydreams. An image of Bill’s head which rests on the walkway. 

She has very few moments to scream before trying to run. The attempt is met with a hard hit to her skull from behind. One from a sling the Haglin wields. Ms. Hessler falls over again while the sadistic steps approach, with a little hop and skip. 

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A few more rocks are thrown as she yells out for help and stumbles back onto her feet. By the time she starts running, the gangly hands are already on her shoulder. Haglin pushes her over once more 

Haglin Haglin now is here

Haglin Haglin throat will tear

With a shiv of broken glass

Happy change from boredom has

A short joy but it will pass

As before, the stanza mimics the world. Where Mrs Hessler finds the shiv quickly lodged in her throat. Choking continues for a little while before she bleeds out, eyes gazing at the gate of the park while body inches closer with the remaining moments of life left within.

While the second carnage of the evening occurs, the dropped item finds a carrier. Her name is Edna, and in her three decades of life she hasn’t spoken when not necessary. Not that the world allowed her many chances to do so, but she got by.

She is privy of the incident that just happened. Finding herself in the thicket of the park at just the wrong moment. She didn’t let out a sound, avoiding the sight of the Hagln. Edna tightened her winter jacket and left as soon as possible. Surely, she thinks, authorities should find the murderer fast with the extra proof.

Police arrive shortly and information is exchanged. Edna gives a few words and fills in the rest through writing. Quickly departing after the routines are done. Her green rain boots stepping on the light muck as she makes her way back to the cheap studio apartment.

Edna has made this trek a thousand times before. The only bit of freshness and exercise in a constant funnel of concerns. With uncertainty breaking through at every step, she learned how to savor the moment.

Once she gets home, Edna realizes something. The proof is still with her. No, there was no forgetfulness, remembering is about the only thing she was taught back home. Now back at her apartment, she gleams at the proof. There is a reason it wasn’t split away from her. The reason needs to come still but until it does, the proof will rest inside of a simple jewelry box.

Sleep takes her easily, a bit too easily for one who has witnessed the indulgent carnage. But who can really tell thoughts of a person who never speaks their mind. Whose each sentence is a shuffling of feet. However, this time, she too was confused by what she was thinking, although that worry remained further away, already having shuffled off to another room.

The ease of sleep doesn’t land in the hands of Mr Hessler. The actions of the night were turbulent, to say the least. Even without the macabre end of two lives, he would feel a certain level of inescapable unease. 

Not at the “cheating”, not at the dirty deed, not even at the awkward conversation with the cops who found him near the crime scene. No, the fear was one that lacked knowledge. Something that crept from the first mewling of a child. The fear of that which he doesn’t know.

Even a crime fades at the self-inflicted doubt. Did any of it truly occur? Were his eyes fooling him? How will he explain any of it to anybody? Most of all, Mr Hessler’s mind wrestled with a question he was too afraid to form until wee hours of the night: What if he comes back?

Haglin haglin grumbles on

Haglin haglin deals its scorn

Which manifests in reddest night

It will cut and cut and cut

Apart thief who got to see

What treasure was below the tree

The stanza reflects reality no longer. Nor does this instance truly get sung in the moonlight of the city. It is a song heard by the two who knew. The two who were involved last with the slicker-wearing killer.

Both jerked from sleep by a jolt that ebbs and flows while eyes dart across the room. Edna sees nothing, the sparsely furnished studio apartment giving little to hide behind. Lest that which follows her can fit within a desk drawer or a night stand.

However, Mr Hessler won’t have to spend time in paranoid consideration as that which seeks is plainly seen. The same dishevelled and inhuman imp whose services he paid for in the park. The face is far from one seen in the park. It is crumpled and strained, excessive fury flowing over it as nostrils open wide to exhale the angered breaths. 

Find the thief, treasure, both

Before with bones they are sought

From your body a compass needle

And remains I turn to a fiddle

Give me back my dearest sin

Return to Haglin joyful grin

Mr. Hessler may do little else but nod. There are no words that can rationalize a second encounter with the supposed apparition. There is also no response one can give to that which shouldn’t be. Doubly so when it seems angry enough to tear your face off with its bare hands.

Doing his best to stumble towards a phone, he begins a call. Mr. Hessler had multiple acquaintances within the police force, which is another reason tonight’s run in didn’t hit quite as hard as it would. With merely a few strings pulled, he gets a name and an address. There is no power quite as contacts, seemingly surpassing even the capabilities of the creature which now rests at the foot of the bed.

It takes a few stuttered words to get the Haglin screeching with the sound of a struggling railcar and jumping out of the open window to pursue the target. Not keen on exchanging a second more with Mr Hessler.

Neither is Mr Hessler, as the apparition from the park enters the darkness of the alleyways he slumps back. A careful man who has made a grave mistake it seems, Mr Hessler calms himself down through rationalization. Not of the events that have transpired, there is quite little you can rationalize there. Rather, he chooses to rationalize what the answer to this new trouble should be. 

Twice already has Haglin intruded into his organized life, Mr Hessler will make their third meeting be the last too. And this time, he will be the one initiating it. He pushes the floorboards, lifting one of the looser floorboards out of the way. Inside, a nicely secured box rests with a small lock on it to which he has a key. Inside rests a large revolver of top notch quality, the answer to his newest concern.

While the recovery of Mr Hessler’s box proceeds, Haglin makes his way to the address provided. Hopping across the roofs in a pinpoint focus and with a scowl on its face, Haglin spends no time thinking, gripping the shiv in hand, and clenching his craggy teeth.

She lays in bed. Covered in heavy blankets to ignore the lurking cold of an unheated apartment. The jewelry box which hosts Haglin’s possession rests at her stomach. Occasionally, she’ll look at it, a weird feeling of warmth enhancing her evening rest. It feels like holding onto an emotion.

Despite being nightmarishly roused from her sleep, Edna calms down quickly. It’s rare that she gets to rest in such a consistently joyful manner. Uncertainty and fear being a constant in the many passing years of her life. Family provides no warmth, scarce are friends that stuck around. This oddity though? It feels like part of her life that was always missing.

Moments to indulge such thoughts are few as Edna hears a breaking of a window. On the other side of the room, the living “room” of this studio apartment, she sees a short figure in a beige raincoat. Its eyes glisten lightly in the moonlight while broken glass adorns the form of the trespasser. 

Edna grips the jewelry box tight, trying to make it to the exit as the figure stands there in silence, breathing heavily. Few steps are made before Haglin, more feral than ever, lunges at her with the shiv. 

The blade strikes at the shoulder, yet she keeps onto the box. Eyes calm despite the tense exchange. Her primary goal, survival, will not be dissuaded by the heavy bleeding from the arm. With a kick, she manages to put some difference between her and the Haglin, before the creature can rush her again, Edna makes way towards the doors.

Hallway with barely three steps of space now seems endless as on her first step the assailant manages to get another hit, this time in Edna’s lower back. Shiv tearing skin and meat but slipping out as Haglin slumps to the floor with uncharacteristic sloppiness. 

Edna has reached the doors now, turning the key as fast as one feasibly could. Pain accents each move as blood drips without reprieve. The box is hugged tight, agonising run towards a fire escape commences.

Haglin tries to mumble a stanza. A nigh magical chant of joy and sadism. However, no murderous lines leave his mouth, just growls of a beast and screeching of the wronged. The creature rushes the doors, managing to enter a hallway while nearly breaking the shiv with the force of the grip.

Seeing her escape towards the fire exit, in a quadrupedal, animalistic sprint, Haglin rushes down the hall. Distance between the two shortens as doors of the fire escape open. She rushes down them, hitting multiple edges while making the descent. However, she knows the threat of her chaser is worse than any potential injury. 

Haglin is at the top of the fire escape while she’s a floor and a half down. With reckless abandon, the creature jumps off the side of the fire escape, managing to catch Edna during the fall as she faces the outer rail of the fire escape on the next floor. One hand around the neck, and another stabbing a shiv into the stomach, breaking the instrument in the process.

The weight of the creature pulls her off the rail, and into a fall. One that doesn’t last much, but offers enough time for her to push off the Haglin somewhat. They land in a dumpster, which softens the fall to a moderate amount of pain. However, wounds and impact leave her barely able to move, with the pursuer out of sight. Edna stumbles onto her knees, looking for the box.

Frantically she looks for a few moments that pass, finding it in the hand of Haglin. Creature that has drawn the short straw during the fall, cracking its right arm in half at the edge of the big dumpster. 

The grimey, drooling face of primal anger struggles to breathe. Heaving of pain mixing with the scratching of the healthy hand against the jewelry box. It spends a bit of time twiddling with the lock before the box finally opens. 

All of the pain is gone from the face, the Haglin once again bears a wide grin of unhinged satisfaction. Exposing the broken teeth along with the smile. Mouth utters a short cackle and the stanza begins anew.

Haglin Haglin now is -

A loud bang rips through the magic of the song and peace of the night. Its brothers followed suit with another two cuts across the silence of the evening. All of the heavy shots from a revolver finding their place in the tender bits of the Haglin. The wielder of the weapon, whom we’ve left in his apartment, frets the lack of resolution. Hammer strikes again and the fourth bullet blasts through the Haglin’s head. Mr. Hessler is a careful man.

Edna then grasps the jewelry box. No protests come from the corpse. With the remaining life left in her she cradles the open box to her chest, slowly rising to her knees. About to ask for help she is about to release the first vibrant note in however many years. However, Mr Hessler is a paranoid man. There is a chance she knows of his presence in the park, knows about the pact between him and Haglin. The remaining two bullets coldly ring in the night.

Piercing her already exhausted body, the bullets lay her down in the dumpster. Death wouldn't come instantly. One bullet went to the shoulder and another to the stomach.

Mr Hessler leaves before death can ride into the alley or policemen fully alerted. His drive home is short and relaxation of tied ends satisfying as he prepares for bed once again.

But sleep doesn’t come easy. It is not roused by a sudden scratching of copper that the Haglin’s voice was but the shuffling of meek words. It is a voice he has never heard, one he cut off from speaking with lead. 

It is the creeping dread of all the sins of the evening that edge their unfortunate fates upon him. They are not in the room, none of them, but they feel present in every corner and edge of the mind. All led by the shuffling voice, one which seems to act as a beacon for that which has transpired.

Fear has Mr Hessler running through the doors, yet the voices persist. They are stuck to his mind like leeches, sucking down his composure. Or maybe biting rats, each mouth that speaks chips a bit more off the sanity. He runs still, even making it outside of the building.

There the horrors of the mind take shape in his eyes. At the foot of the stairs that lead into the apartment building he resides in, Mr Hessler sees a faintly familiar figure. One that has been stabbed, battered, and shot. Nonetheless, one that sits on her knees, face clearly visible through strands of shoulder-height hair. 

The eyes give off little but solace, however the lips mutter endlessly, wordlessly. Dried blood and punctures of her wounds, they seem to fall off, inching towards Mr Hessler. He can’t move, the biting of the mind rats has rendered him paralyzed with fear, tears streaking down his face while mouth is stuck in a permanent quiver. The wounds latch onto him, manifesting once again the pain felt by Edna during the chase of that evening. 

Soon, apparition seems to gather acquaintances, behind her stand three more figures. Wounded, decapacitated, shot. Their wounds stream down the ghastly, transparent bodies. Making their way to Mr Hessler who has now fallen down on all fours, with Edna’s wounds sending pain into the already suffering mind. It is not clear which wound is fatal. The body that was once Mr Hessler now lay as a barely distinguishable mess of body parts and blood. Its mangled face still wearing a mask of fear.

Apparitions fade, all but one. Edna rises to her feet. Void of wounds, she is free to walk again. With that which was stolen from Haglin, there ought to be a different place in the world for her. Having revenge fulfilled, Edna will mutter in her speechless words of that which beckons her new life. A life in which she is finally free to speak endlessly, one where she is finally free.