Fear

Drinking was dangerous. So was smoking, and drugs, and anything else that might even touch upon breaking the clear sobriety that had saved Ashlen's life all too many times. More times than any person should have to worry about the idea of death, much less escape it directly.

It started out small, subtle. Things were just out of place enough in his childhood bedroom that he would trip into nasty falls. Scrapes and bruises became the norm for him, and eventually they became cuts and several broken bones. 

Ashlen had never been a paranoid child - he was more the type to dive delightedly into abandoned back sheds and dusty closed rooms and convince the other children to follow. Not so incautious to play with things beyond his understanding, and adventurous enough to show a clear mark of his character. So, when the quietness and the fearful glances and the injuries started up, most people assumed something was going wrong with the family rather than something... else. Ashlen, of course, denied all accusations against his family. He was described as confused, and somehow angry at such accusations, which made others just feel like even more dangerous actions were taking place. 

Perhaps they just wanted a simpler explanation than the truth. 

Ashlen was not being harmed by his family. Like most families, it’s not as though they had a perfect relationship, but they did get along alright most of the time. He had a reasonably good relationship with his mother and father, and could get along with his elder brother and younger sisters - enough that there wouldn't have been any cause for such rumors in the first place. The Brightwells were strictly against violence as a form of punishment anyways; a startling move in the time they lived in, but not a bad one. But the marks on his skin remained and friends of the family began to drift away in concern.

It always happened when he was alone. Everything would be fine, and when he would decide to put his book away, or grab a snack late at night, he would be on the ground bleeding and crying minutes later. Whenever someone would find him, the tears would just be tracks on his face, and he would just be staring blankly at the new wound. His mother would gently patch him up, and his siblings would tease him about being clumsy, but no real harm had been done.

The first time someone saw it happen was when he was thirteen. He and his brother were messing around climbing trees. Ethan, who was the heavier of the two, would test branches to ensure they could hold their weight, and Ashlen would follow along, perched on the ones deemed "safe". The tree was tall and intimidating and Mary told them to come down after they had gone up a few feet, but was ignored. The fifth branch broke under Ashlen and sent him tumbling to the ground. He landed with his left arm in front of him, and it snapped from the fall.

Ethan and Mary hurried him back to the house, just as pale as Ashlen was growing to be form the pain and fear. Not even Mary, who had been worried about a nasty dive, thought that the branches they had currently been on could snap. The tree they were climbing was centuries old, and its lower branches had been thick and sturdy. When their father checked the area later, he was startled to see no evidence of infestation or damage. What sent a cold chill down his spine though, was the clean, flat face of the branch that had fallen - too smooth to have just snapped, and too large to do so under the weight of a child. Foul play was suspected and an investigation quietly started while Ashlen began to heal. Nothing was found.

When he was fourteen items began going missing from the house. It began with small trinkets that wouldn't be missed. Hair clips and pennies.

It was when he was sixteen that half a statue disappeared during the night. A bust of his father's father. Everyone was upset, and naturally, a little afraid, but the cold fear that set Ashlen on edge was unique to him. It was a threat, unlike any before.

Ashlen left that night, a note explaining his disappearance. He would not be coming back. The accidents around him did not stop, but he was released from them taking the people he cared about as victims.

He traveled on his own for years, never staying in one place for too long, leaving before anyone was more than someone he happened to eat at the same table with a few nights in a row. He had already learned that he was a danger to others, even if he didn’t know the exact cause. Theories, but no evidence.

It became somewhat of a game for people trying to get him to drink. Whenever he stopped into an inn, Ashlen would politely ask for food and water and settle down quietly in a corner. Every so often a drunk person would stumble through their drink over to him and demand loudly for him to join in with the fun. “It’s a night of revelry!” they’d say, “A party!” Ashlen would wave them off, and perhaps finish his food a little faster than normal. Those people rattled him in a way he could not describe, so much that even if he didn’t have his reasons, he doubted he would agree anyways. Their smiles were too wide, their joy a bit more gleeful than it should be; and the people that seemed to be with them always moved a little too slow where they moved too fast.

Intoxication was dangerous. It meant he might miss holes in his path. Tripwires in the doorway to his room for the night. It could mean taking a wrong turn when it felt like the right path was cloaked in shadows that were too dark, nights where he would be so close to turning around and fleeing but couldn’t because everything he’d ever own would be in the dinky inn that was down two alleyways and he really needed to get back. It meant that he might miss the moment where he finally saw whoever was doing this to him, whoever thought it was funny to antagonize someone for long, to go to such lengths to follow him.

It meant, that when he did finally see the source of his misery that he knew it was real. 

The night was bright with the full moon and clear skies. Ashlen slept soundly for the first half of the night, but woke up some time late past midnight. It was still dark out and the moon shined into his room giving it a blueish, ethereal glow. He had been dreaming a relatively nice dream about sheep herding and was pondering what could have woken him up from such a nice dream when out of the corner of his eye he spotted movement in the open doorway of his room. 

For a moment, he stopped breathing. In that moment, two long spindly arms reached upwards, the fingers stretching and clawing through the air. They reached down and delicately lifted a thin wire, so fine that in normal lighting it would barely be seen, but in the moonlight, it flashed brightly. The arms pulled the wire tight against the doorway, although Ashlen could not see how the creature secured it there. Then, the two arms disappeared into the shadows of the hall, and the door shut itself silently. Ashlen did not move for another hour at least, fearing that whatever that was would just know that he had finally caught a glimpse of it. When the sun replaced the moon early in the morning, he felt it was safe enough to get up as normal. He got ready like he did usually, and before opening the door carefully checked it for the wire. It was high, but low enough it could have been missed if one was not paying attention. When he checked the outside of the doorway, he saw that the ends of the wire were not nailed or tied into place, but that the wire was embedded into the wood like it was used to cut into it. He tested it with a piece of parchment, and all it took was gently tapping the paper to the wire for it to cut in half, revealing how razor sharp the metal was. Ashlen carefully cut the wire down before he left the inn, and wrapped it in cloth before dumping it. The wire was the exact height of his neck. It was a long time before he slept in an inn again.

The accidents never stopped happening to him but since he began traveling, they were... lessened. Ashlen assumed it was due to how often he traveled – two nights in an inn and no direction doesn’t give much time for elaborate planning, even for creepy shadow arms. It did seem that whatever it was that was stalking him did require time to plan, and possibly to get materials since accidents always had taken some time to occur. Whatever it was, it was either very stupid or very uncreative since Ashlen always triple checked places that seemed more devious than whatever it could come up with. He had less scars these days, but it was still terrifying for him to disarm whatever new death trap the thing had set up in the night.

All of this began to muddle together in a mixture of forgetting to care as much about it. It was habit at this point to check for safety, so much Ashlen had done it once or twice half asleep with no injury. So, when a nice young lad cheerfully offered to pay for his drink and they didn’t seem to have eyes that were too wide or arms that were too long, Ashlen finally accepted and drank for the first time at the age of 24. 

The alcohol tasted bitter and somewhat gross, but it didn’t seem to do more than make his head buzz a little. He stayed with the lad and the group they were with and for once had a decent time in an inn that was perhaps a bit too loud. It wasn’t until he stumbled upstairs and fell flat on the floor of his room that he finally thought it been too much. He was still dizzy and didn’t trust himself to move so instead of getting into bed, Ashlen wadded up his jacket as a makeshift pillow, rolled over, and fell asleep.

The next morning wasn’t too bright for his liking, like what he’d heard his father complain of after a night of dancing in the ballroom with guests, but it was bright and sunny. As he began to shift around and fully wake up, he heard a soft, melodious voice from the bed.

“Is it nice down there?”

Seated there was a child, couldn’t be older than thirteen, or younger than ten. They had white hair that draped around their eyes, and a pale, round face eerily similar to Ashlen’s when he was younger. When they smiled, though, their teeth were sharp.

“Good morning, father!”

Ashlen may have screamed a bit then. At least that’s what he remembers – Bacchus, as he would later learn the child’s name was, describes it more of a yelp and then a quieter “eh?”

He asked the child where they had come from and what they were doing there in his room, but all Bacchus would tell him was their name and that they had “come from Ashlen, so where else could I go?” Mildly unsettled by the entire situation, and not entirely discounting his shadowy stalker from pulling some next level shit, he packed up his room and made to leave. Bacchus picked one of his bags before Ashlen could stop them, and quietly followed him out the door.

No one gave the child a second glance, just a little wave from the less hungover members of the party last night to the two of them as they left. Ashlen didn’t know what to do about his new companion who insisted on staying with Ashlen and insisted on doing dangerous things for a child like setting up campfires for the night and chopping up food to boil. Bacchus did not sleep.

It took Ashlen two months of traveling with Bacchus to realize that he had not seen any sign of the shadow haunting him. There were no traps laid about for him to fall into, and no signs of them being removed. Ashlen even asked Bacchus about them, despite his suspicions, and even they came up with nothing. That did not stop Ashlen from checking every morning. 

They were on their way back from traveling through the desert. Ashlen had never visited one before, and Bacchus had been curious enough, but the two weeks of sand everywhere and daily heat were enough for the two of them to turn around. The area was beautiful, but they both agreed that they weren’t a fan of the weather. 

They were camped close to a river that cut through the area, creating a thin oasis on each of its banks. Ashlen was beginning to set up the tent to avoid the midday heat when Bacchus snatched something from the ground and held it above themself like a trophy. 

Ashlen turned to ask what happened, and ended up screeching in fright instead. They were holding a cobra, long and coal black, their hand wrapped just below the beady eyes of the thing. It was unnerving to look at, long, thin and so dark that not even the sun made it have any shine even as it twisted. Ashlen shouted at Bacchus to drop the thing and get away from it, but they just smiled at it, all teeth and no humor.

They spoke then, in a tinny voice that made Ashlen’s ears whistle and cold shivers go down his spine, as they stared into the snake’s eyes. 

“Of course. We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt after all.”

The cobra went deathly still in their grip. They opened their hand and the snake dropped to the ground, stunned for a second before slithering off faster than any snake Ashlen remembered could.

He learned to not be so afraid of the night. There was no longer a morning routine of checking for potholes, or wires, or other traps. 

Whatever was out there attempting to haunt Ashlen did not have the power to any longer. He had someone who was much more terrifying than them on his side.