Daphne woke up to darkness. It was not the dark of the night as she thought at first, nor was it the oppressive gloom she associated with being underground. Rather, it was something else entirely, she knew for sure. It was an odd kind of darkness, as it didn't impede her vision in any way. She could see through the black curtains perfectly, aware of everything around her. That awareness only seemed to aggravate the strangeness of the situation, simply because there was nothing else around her except for the inky emptiness permeating the space. She floated through the vacant expanse, experiencing a total lack of weight one would associate with gravitational pull. All in all, she felt bizarrely safe. Really, if it wasn't for the incessant buzzing in the back of her head, it would be just...

Buzzing?

Until now, she didn't even register the peculiar sound coming to her from everywhere all at once. Strangely enough, the noise appeared to bypass the ears entirely, passing through her skull and going straight to the temporal lobe. Perhaps that was why she could perceive the sound at all, as its volume was low enough to be mistaken for ambient hum. Daphne wasn't even sure if describing it as buzzing was correct. To her, it sounded more like static, and as it slowly travelled through the space, as it casually climbed up to her hair and left it frizzy, it certainly felt like she just pulled a wool tunic over her head. Reaching out to her hair, intent on straightening it to get rid of at least a part of the annoying feeling, a startling realization hit her. Namely, it was the fact her hand was made from the same nothing as everything else. Turning around, Daphne saw that the rest of her body was the same. She could distinctly feel herself, sharp edges separating her own being from the external, yet her eyes continued telling Daphne there was essentially nothing setting her apart from basically everything. The disparity in the senses was enough to dispel Daphne's false sense of security, invalidating existential paradigms at the same time without breaking a sweat. All the while, the noise continued buzzing tirelessly. She didn't notice it before, but now Daphne was sure it was getting louder. Panic slowly crept up her spine.

Suddenly, a bright star of light shone straight into her eyes. Blinking rapidly, Daphne had to battle the tears welling up, so at first she didn't even notice the light getting closer. Or was she getting closer to the star, an invisible force pulling her to the brightness? Lost in the ink sea, Daphne couldn't tell. Nevertheless, its presence was absolute, gaining ground inch by inch, indomitably banishing the night from every nook and cranny. Slowly, radiant colors superseded the darkness.

Before Daphne knew it, she was somewhere else, misplaced in a spacious room she couldn't recognize. A tavern, she supposed, judging from the bar, crackling fireplace and many wooden tables weighed down by tankards of ale and, here and there, sleeping drunkards. The tavern seemed lively though, in no small part thanks to the bard dancing and playing the lute. He seemed a master of his craft, skillfully navigating the narrow spaces in between the tables, avoiding the frantic servers jumping around the place. Avoiding them so perfectly, in fact, not even a single drop of ale stained his clothing, not the leather brown pants nor the white tunic covered in bright red rhombi. The man had a strange air to him, a way with people causing them to take his jests in stride, an odd charm that made the ones around him warm up to him in an instant. Daphne wasn't sure what was it exactly that comprised the bard's allure. Perhaps it was the dark blue eyes, oddly calming in nature, or it might have been the impish smile, promising laughter and a childlike wonder… When Daphne realized where her mind was taking her, she blushed. Getting enticed like this, that wasn't like her. Yet, as she took in more of the room, she found out she was not the only one drawn to this mysterious man. Not by far. The women, even the hardened old timers, blushed like maidens, while the men accompanying them laughed and cheered the bard on. Clapping their hands to the rhythm of the bard's singalong. That was the moment the second realization hit her. She couldn't hear anything. Not the song, not the claps, not even the laughs and cheers. Only the buzzing, until now hidden in the background. Yet, as she noticed its unending presence, it came back stronger than before. Strong enough for Daphne to discern individual sounds in the loud static.

“A…ee,” the whispers went. Over and over again. Daphne clutched at her temples, her vision swimming around. When her knees wobbled wildly and she lost balance, she knew it wasn't going to end well. At least she would end up sprawling onto the floor, as there wasn't a table in front of her. If she was lucky, no one would even notice her fall, what with the people's attention currently directed on the bard. All of those thoughts barreled their way through her mind while her face neared the wooden flooring at an uncomfortable speed, and at that perfect moment, the bard jumped right in front of her as if he failed to notice her. The result? Both of them collapsing on hard planks, a writhing mix of dangly limbs. Of course, in that wonderful moment, the buzzing finally subsided, so that she could perfectly hear the weeping wail of the lute and the awkward silence that followed. A horrible feeling settled in her gut. She had effectively just ruined the bard's night. He was going to pull her ears for this, or worse, she was sure.

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Fortunately, she got to her feet faster than him. Unfortunately, when Daphne noticed all the eyes on her, she froze. Meanwhile, the bard finally found his bearing. Disheveled, he stared around in confusion while he cradled the instrument in his arms. Once his gaze finally found her, his puzzlement only seemed to deepen.

Once, twice did the man open his mouth, only to close it a second after. That was not very good, Daphne was certain.

“What?” the bard finally got out of himself. “I would swear… Where did you come from?” He eyed Daphne warily, while she struggled to to hold her own under the crowd’s scrutiny.

“So, the bard finally lost his footing, eh?” someone in the crowd jeered. Some laughed, yet most people were too baffled by the girl no one noticed up until a few moments ago. They, too, wanted to know what this was supposed to be, how this came about. The thing was, Daphne didn't know the answer herself. So, she did the only sensible thing. She made a bolt for the door.

“Wait!” the bard called out after her. In a second, it became clear Daphne for sure wasn't about to wait, so he ran after her. When she made it out of the door, her heart was beating fast. Sparing a glance behind her shoulder, she noticed two things. One of them was that the blue eyed man gave chase after her, the other one was the big sign dangling over the door. It said: Laughing Pumpkin. Next to the words was a big pumpkin with a literal smile and eyes carved into it. Disturbing.

Looking around, she tried to find out where to go next. A street was in front of her, a street unlike any she had ever seen before. There was only one row of buildings on each side, discernible in the darkness mostly thanks to the shining moon. Maybe a road would be a better suited word than street, as it was made from nothing more than packed dirt, and seemed to continue beyond the last of the houses she could see. The bard was still after her, so Daphne ran straight in between the buildings, disappearing into thick, hip high grass. Grass? Now she was certain this was not her city. Gods, where was she?

As fate would have it, she didn't have much time to think about it because the noise returned. This time, in style. It was loud, too loud, drumming straight into her ears. A silent scream escaped her lips, tears welled up in her eyes and she lost all control over her body. All at once, the only thing she could see was the stars and moon.

Now that it was roaring like this, Daphne realized that it wasn't a sound coming from a single source. More likely, it seemed like a hundred, no, a thousand whispers saying the same thing joined in unison, overlaying one another until only gibberish remained.

Suddenly, a figure appeared in the bottom of her field of vision. The bard was close. Honestly, as the noise pounded her head, Daphne couldn't give a damn. Intensifying every second, the whispers reached a crescendo.

And in that moment, the whispers synchronized, finally producing one perfectly clear, albeit deafening, word.

“DAPHNE!”

Breathing hard, cold sweat on her back, she jumped out of her bed, hastily looking around. And even though she was ready to start running immediately if it was necessary, she found nothing out of the ordinary. She was back in her room in the orphanage. Moonlight crawled its way onto her face. She was safe. She was right where she was supposed to be. Ever so slowly, she calmed her nerves. It was just a dream. She had to stop thinking about nightmares, even the bizarrely real ones, and start focusing on the upcoming exams.

Still, even after she returned to her bed, even as she slowly drifted off to sleep again, she couldn't stop thinking about the whispers and the Laughing Pumpkin.

*

Ezekiel ran up the stairs of the Laughing Pumpkin, stomping furiously. Why was it always him who got the short end of the stick when one of his companions fucked up. And yeah, he was quite sure this was the work of one of his. Luna, he would bet. After all, none of the others could make a person just appear in the middle of the room, and then magic them away again. Unless, of course, he was wrong, and the girl emerged there out of her own volition. Judging from the way her face scrunched up in pain before she simply vanished into thin air, Ezekiel very much doubted that though. No, this had Luna written all over, he growled. It was a guttural sound, coming from somewhere deep inside of him. His eyes darted around the hall once he ascended the stairs. First door on the right, he knew. Still, he waited outside for a bit, trying to cool down. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he willed his arms to stop shaking. If only it was that easy.

Right then, the door opened, and a raven haired woman stepped out of it, taking Ezekiel by surprise. Before he had a chance to compose himself and let her know how annoyed he was with all of this, she smiled at him and said: “Good, you're here. Gather the others and meet me back here in fifteen.”

Sooner than he even answered her, she took off to the stairs. Ezekiel cursed under his breath. Why was he still with these people, he could not fathom.

“Luna! Gods, wait a second!”

She turned around, giving him a quizzical look. “Yeah?”

“The others?” he asked, stupefied. Luna never called these meetings, mostly preferring to do her own thing.

Luna looked at him as if she never heard a more dull-witted question in all her life. “Do you really need me to tell you who exactly I mean by the others?”

“Of course not,” he answered defensively.

“Get to the point then.” Great, now she seemed annoyed with him.

“I want to know why. What's the occasion?”

Suddenly, she grinned. Ear to ear. He could swear he had never seen anything even remotely similar on her face. “I found her.”

For a second, he thought she was really going crazy. Then, understanding dawned on him all at once. “Her her?”

Ecstatic, she nodded back at him. “Her her.”

“So, the plan's…”

Luna beamed. “The plan's finally in motion.”