A little girl ran through a misty forest. She took constant glances back as she heard uncanny and inhuman screams. Her unruly brown hair flew around uncontrollably making it even harder to see amongst the mist.
Young me… Well, younger me I guess. I was 7 at the time. Maybe 8. My mother thought it’d be a good idea to throw me straight into the middle of the Gallaway Forest which is, fun fact, the only remaining gateway to hell in the United Kingdom.
At this point, my unfortunate past self had already been in the forest for 3 days and up to this point everything was fine. I had a nice little campsite near a clean water source… Until beasts corrupted by Demonic Energy came.
At the first sign of losing sight of them, I quickly climbed a tree to get a vantage point. Even with the augmentation of my Mana, stamina was at an all-time low and running seemed unrealistic.
Atop the tree, I saw something which intrigued me. Distant cobwebs scattered over a wide area which were large enough to trap a fully grown adult.
“The territory of another Demonic Beast? If I could get them to fight then maybe…” I mused, considering my options.
Demonic beasts didn’t have much sentience. The demonic energy drives them insane so all I’d have to do was make the ones chasing me annoy the one who made these massive webs.
Hearing the ghostly howls growing closer, I didn’t have much time to consider how safe my plan was so I kind of just had to go with it.
Taking a deep breath as I circulated my mana, I jumped from the tree and began running at my top speed towards the webs. The usage of mana gave away my location but it was only a matter of time until those creatures found me anyway.
Despite running at my top speed, an 8-year-old simply wasn’t going to outrun fully grown beasts, much less ones amplified by demonic energy.
Grabbing the first thing I found that could be used as a weapon which happened to be a particularly sharp rock, I barely made it into the webbed area when an overwhelming feeling of dread washed over me. An invisible force that pushed not only me to the ground but also the demonic beasts who followed me.
As I turned to face them, watching as they got up considerably faster than me only now did I get a chance to really look at them.
Smiling foxes, two of them. Sadistic creatures that revel in the fear of their prey. Perhaps they let me live for so long because I didn’t show much fear. That’d make sense considering the moment that feeling fell onto me, terror could be seen in every fiber of my body.
“Stay back.” I tried my best to command while holding my rock like it’d do something.
To this day, I remember the permanently smiling faces of the foxes. How they looked into my soul before lunging at me.
I barely managed to move myself backwards to avoid the first one only for the second to come at me even more viciously. Didn’t have much choice but to give up my arm to block.
The sound of my bones breaking was deafened by my screams of pain.
It was difficult. Compared to the pain I’ve been in since it’s a miniscule amount but back then, I could barely move because of the pain. My mana was already somewhat low and the only reason it wasn’t tearing through my arm like jerky was because of the unique property of the forest.
The reason demonic beasts could exist in the first place, the forest was full of Demonic Energy which is basically just very pure mana for a Witch like me. Thanks to that, I had a steady increase in mana allowing me to constantly reinforce my body more and more.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Needing to do something, I poured all of the mana in my body into my free hand and slammed the rock into the side of the fox’s head, forcing it off of me even if for only a minute. I then threw the rock at the other as hard I could before getting up from the ground and continuing to run deeper into the territory of whatever demonic beast created those webs.
As I continued deeper, the feeling of dread and danger only grew but what could I do about it? At best, I was stalling for time until more demonic beasts showed up to use some form of chaos to escape.
My exact thoughts are a little fuzzy. I think the pain made it too hard for me to think about too many things at once so I was pretty singled in on escaping.
I do recall that my gamble paid off as I heard a pained groan from behind me. Briefly glancing back, I saw one of the foxes getting sieged by a group of massive spiders which somehow snuck up on us. The second fox turned to help its friend but more spiders fell from the trees to make it impossible for them to escape.
The numbers… 10. Somewhere around that probably. Realizing this was my chance I continued running only to feel a small prick in my back. Like a needle entering my body before I lost all feeling.
That was when I learned how much that old geezer liked using poison. If nothing else good came from the situation, I wasn’t in pain anymore.
The exact time it took for me to regain control over my body is something I don’t recall but I do remember that I regained that before my sense of touch returned. By that time though, I was already in front of him.
His form was barely human. An Arachne would be a good comparison. He had the upper half of a human male with the exception of having far too many eyes and the lower half of a spider only with 20 legs instead of 8.
His appearance was simply… Wrong? It was so close to what humans have documented in myth but was just ever so slightly wrong
.His numerous eyes looked at his new captives which consisted of me and the two foxes.
In this moment it was almost as if the foxes and I were allies as both of us tensed and prepared for combat against that thing. Instinctually, we realized how much more dangerous it was.
“Child of man and Daughters of that damned vulpine. You’ve got quite the audacity to enter into my territory.” It spoke, his voice like a torrent of waves.
I tried to speak but no words came out of my mouth. Not the slightest clue what I would have said but his presence was all that it took to stop me from speaking.
Lifting a finger, webs shot out at me and the foxes.
The vulpines managed to dodge, pushing off of each other quickly enough to avoid the sharp threads but I wasn’t so lucky as it pierced my shoulder without slowing even slightly.
Grabbing the thread and yanking it with all my strength and the little mana I had recovered, I managed to make the spider move through the air.
Be it from surprise or amusement, he didn’t react in time as I landed a solid punch to his face only for him to look at me and send me flying.
As I was in the air, the two vulpines took the chance to attack but their fate wasn’t much better as they got sent into a wall with even less effort.
Touching the inconsequential wound on his face, the spider devil let out a small chuckle.
“Valiant effort, little girl.”
Still lacking any pain, I got up as quickly as possible and started walking towards him only for my body to give out once more, this time coughing up blood.
My organs began to fail yet I couldn’t even tell. I simply continued trying to get up only to fall back down again.
Once again moving his hand, more webs flew forward and picked me up, closing the many wounds that covered my body from both him and my bout with the foxes.
“Hmm, your body is breaking apart yet your eyes say you aren’t done fighting yet… What do you fight for, child of man?” He paused, walking closer to me.
“Alright, color me intrigued. I am Rainforethazzireth. I am the Devil of familial bonds and from this point forward you will be my avatar. Whether you like it or not.”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to deny his offer. The first rule of being a Witch is to never make a contract with an underkin if you don’t have a favorable position in negotiations but even as the pressure that stopped me from talking eased up, my vocal cords simply refused to work.
I wasn’t fully conscious at this point but I was lucky I think. Despite not being able to negotiate the terms, I didn’t lose too much in the deal. If Rain didn’t have such a screwy personality, I for sure would have become a slave to a devil.