Somewhere, deep within the Traagen Woods, a young man slowly wakes, hanging off the ground by one arm, a wide leather strap cutting into the swollen flesh of his wrist. He lists lazily from side to side, floating mere inches over soil darkened by the steady drip of blood. The hair on the back of his head is sticky with it too, and peppered with bits of wood and dirt.

“It's wakey time, boy.”

Hot breath forces its way into his mouth and nose, ripe with the stench of stale cider and rotting meat. He gags, reflexively recoiling from the unpleasant odor and urging his heavy eyes to open. They lift slowly, unconsciousness a pair of lead weights on his eyelids. The whites of his eyes slowly recede and the world comes into a hazy sort of focus.

He scowls at what he sees.

Dalen's sneering mug hovers before him, sickly pale and dripping with milky globs of sweat. A thin line of spittle oozes from the corner of his cracked lips, caught in an ever-present patch of gray-blonde stubble. A too-wide smile proudly exposes a row of misaligned yellowing teeth. His eyes are bloodshot and unblinking.

The face chuckles, a dry, grinding sound that shoves more of the fetid breath into the young man's nose. He jerks his head away and coughs.

“There he is.”

The gaunt man straightens, and the shadowed interior of ill-kept barn appears behind him. Rusted farm tools hang from hooks wherever the wood isn't rotted enough to hold a nail. Empty stalls bear the stains of pigs long slaughtered for Langour suppers. The faint reek of sulfur hangs over a collection of stained buckets and tubs, bubbling up quietly from a batch of unfinished apple wine.

Dalen kicks his outstretched leg, and the young man swings to the side. He grimaces, reaching up with his untethered hand in the hopes of freeing himself from the tight leather strap, but the sneering man knocks his hand away. He tries to pull his legs beneath him to stand, but they're stiff and uncooperative.

“Where you goin'? You uncomfortable, boy?” The man chuckles again, taking a long swig from a battered brass canteen. A sizable dent decorates its lower edge.

The young man rubs his shoulder. “This really hurts, Dalen. What have you done to me?”

Dalen barks a laugh, spitting stale cider across the young man's neck and chest. “What you mean, what I done? You the one that put yerself there!”

Sneering ruefully, the man reaches overhead and grabs a rope hanging from the rafters and pulls. The strap encircling his wrist tightens and jerks him a few inches skyward. The young man flails in pain, reaching out once more to free himself, but the man is too quick, batting his hand aside like it's nothing. His shoulder screams in protest.

“Dalen, please! You're gonna break my arm!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The sneering man rolls his eyes and takes another long pull from his canteen. He reaches up and yanks the rope again, stretching him ever further. The young man yelps and flails about, banging into the barn wall and kicking up dust.

The motion shifts something in the darkness above, and small piece of wood shakes free of its perch and falls to the earth. A single angled ray of light penetrates the shadows from a new hole in the roof, spearing through the open space to frame a small, motionless figure lying prone on the straw-dusted dirt.

“Help me...” says a small, child-like voice. The prone figure quivers. “...it hurts...”

The young man freezes, the pain in his arm and shoulder a distant concern.

“Aidux?” He blinks, craning his neck to see around the gaunt man blocking his view. “Is that you?”

“Nevin...” Strained and weak, the voice can only whisper. “It hurts so bad, Nevin...”

His legs are stiff as boards, but Nevin forces them to move. He screams with the effort, shaking and shuddering as his knees slowly bend and his feet gouge deep lines in the dirt as he drags them beneath his butt. Sweat erupts from every pore on his head, and the wound on his skull throbs and oozes fresh blood.

“Nevin...”

Dalen charges forward, ramming his shoulder into Nevin's chest and pinning him to the wall. His hateful grin presses up against the young man's ear. Nevin tries to shove him away, but the old drunk is abnormally strong. Hot, rank breath chokes him once again and he coughs.

“You're gonna die here,” Dalen whispers, flinging droplets of spit all over the side of Nevin's face. “We all gonna die here. Your worthless corpse will rot right beside mine, forever. What you think about that, boy?”

He coughs again, the acrid stench of smoke suddenly replacing Dalen's rotten breath. The still air of the barn is thick with it, so thick that Nevin can no longer see the softly whimpering form suffering in the dirt on the far side of the room. The hushed roar of a growing fire can be heard in the distance, steadily increasing in strength with each panicked breath he draws.

Dalen leans away, his spiteful grin stretching to nearly cover the whole of his face. “And the only one to blame for all this...is you.”

Nevin spits, a thick glob of mucus splattering on the old drunk's forehead. It strikes his skin with a vaguely metallic ring and Dalen jerks backwards like he's been struck. Gaining his balance, the man drags a limp hand down his face to wipe away the glob, but as he does, the skin comes with it, revealing a jagged, bleeding gash showing a thin line of white bone. Red drips down his face, into his widened eye and manic grin.

“Nevin...I don't wanna die...”

Orange light fills the room and flames lick at the limits of his vision.

“AIDUX!!!!” he screams.

Dalen takes one last swig from the battered canteen, the dent on its bottom now dripping with blood. “Be seeing you, boy. Real soon.”

The old drunk rears back, and with a burst of unnatural speed, slugs Nevin in his open mouth. His wounded head bounces off the barn wall, spattering the wood with a fresh coat of red.

Pain lances through his skull. Darkness overwhelms him.

The last thing he hears before passing out is a small, child-like voice crying out to him, one final time.