Something new: A Short Fiction.

A break from the usual. This is a short fiction based on the game I will be running at next years Student Nationals in the "horror" category.

The sun rode low in the sky. Fat, orange and radiating a lazy, heavy warmth onto the dark forests and gloomy buildings.
The children sat around a low campfire, the slowly lengthening shadows of the surrounding plumb trees casing their shade over each of them as tallest boy stood up. Aside from his hight, the  other children note him for his dark eyes, dark hair and thick Barovian accent.
‘Sky is darkening, is time for us to share scary stories!’ His hands rose and his fingers wiggled in clawing motions, the toothy grin splitting his face as he mimed his attacks to the others.
The children shared grins and one of them stood up. Slender, blonde, and carrying bright green eyes he spoke with a soft and reassuring tones, the kind of voice that compels sympathy, understanding and compliance. ‘People talk sometimes of the Walking Man, all who look upon him see somebody different, and all who see him wish to avoid his gaze. Because...’ The young man trails off and begins walking around the fire, snaking his way between the other children who all turn to face him as he moves with nervous grins. 'He will mark you, in his mind, following you. You can run, you can hide, but he will always find you, it is just a matter of time.' A low breeze makes him pause, causing the fire to flicker and a few errant ashes to be caught on the breeze, carried off to the plumb fields. ‘Eventually you can no longer run, your lungs burning, your legs aching you crumple to the floor and look up to see that his steady, endless walking has brought him before you. He will reach down and help you to your feet, perhaps offer you a kind smile. “Why have you run so long? Can you not see I am your friend? Walk behind me, I’ll show you the way." It’s a reasonable request, no? Kind, Charming, and so welcome after your panicked flight from this man who you see now is only trying to help you. It is not until you step into his shadow that you find them… you see them...’  He pauses, turning his back to the children to cast his hands about to indicate the invisible masses he can see in his mind’s eye. ‘A nation of hollow slaves, all following, all trapped in his shadow, and now you are one of them. Each of them looking up to the Walking Man for the respite and compassion he promised, and unable to escape, walking with him now as he sets his eyes on another. Your tired legs march now in the time of the nation of shadows you walk with him to forever keep him company upon his endless hunt, for you feel your will is no longer your own.’
The young blond boy sits down by the fire once more, the other children dissolving into excited nervous whispers, all casting hurried glances now to the growing darkness around them, the soft crackling of the fire the only other sound as silence eventually falls. All eyes now on the twins, their brown hair and green eyes so perfectly matched. The boy and the girl together ready to tell their story, their voices working well together as if they anticipate each other’s words, the young girl starts, her voice light fragile tinted with the Borcan accents of the west.

‘Summer’s here, and with the sticky heat and the plentiful food comes the creatures who hunger for the richness of the harvest…’ Her counterpart begins a low hum, oppressive and subtle, it rises until it’s clear then noise is a hungry buzzing. ‘Flies. Fat, heavy with the fruits of the lands filling the land and skies and they swell their numbers on the richness of summer. Beady green eyes of the legion always ready, always searching to look, look, hungry, hungry, feed, feed, more more!’ Her voice raises and her brothers buzzing gets louder, deeper, more insistent. ‘Fruit is not enough! So they turn their attention to the dead. Swarms massive, hungry, big enough to blot out the sun. Coming to feast on the corpses that litter in the wake of their famine, their disease, their all-consuming greed for even more food, more flies, more hunger… but it’s not enough.’ The children’s eyes now all turn to watch the land around them, hunting for signs of insects that move harmlessly through the tall grass and green leaves. Their attention returning when they realise that the buzzing has stopped, the boy twin now apparently asleep in the grass, his sister crouched over him. ‘They wait until you sleep. Then they begin to crawl into you.’ Her little fingers begin wiggling over her brothers open mouth, as he obediently lies before her. ‘Thousands of black furry bodies wriggling and growing and breeding inside you, eating you up from the inside.’ The little brother begins to twist and writhe as if in pain, clutching his stomach and mouthing silent screams until he finally falls limp, his sister miming the exodus of swarms of flies from his slack and open mouth. ‘Until in the end, all that is left is the flies… and the... soft noise…”
Buzzzzzzzzz
The girls sits down, and the younger brother soft buzzing noise continues, his eyes still closed but a cruel grin on his face. The children look about them, but see no hordes of insects. Relived, nervous laughter begins filtering out again from the campfire.  The twins resume their seats, and briefly pretend to be flies, buzzing and tormenting one another, before the mischief dies down, as another child sands to speak.

Short, stocky and marked by the brand of Falcovnia, the boy’s piercing eyes regard each child one at a time. He speaks with the harsh tones of those marked as property of the kingfuhrer, his words clipped and measured in guttural harsh tones.

‘The children of War, are not Victory and Death. But the birds.’ He pauses as all eyes flick to the sparrows, wood pigeons, crows and ravens that littler the plumb fields. ‘The flocks of birds follow the march of an army, waiting to feast on the bodies of the slain, victor or vanquished, it means nothing to them.’ His fingers make brief plucking motions before his own face, ‘Pecking for the eyes, the tongue, the guts. The softest parts are the easiest to feed from. Better to be blind, and not see the end coming, be thankful to the children of war for their small mercies.’ The children pause and a few go a little pale at his words. One of them putting their hands protectively over his eyes with a hesitant giggle. ‘But when peace reins, the children of war go hungry. So they prey, and cry out. Their voices not a song as many think, but a plea, a bargain, a prayer to any who will listen. “Bring me battle” they shout, “Bring me death, bring me murder, my children slumber in their eggs, they will be hungry. Let others die for us!”’ The birdsong of the Barovian countryside seems to echo his sentiment as the sun settles on the horizon, a hundred different twitters and shrieks seem to herald its passing, causing the children to huddle closer to the fire. ‘And like all prayers, somebody listens. A creature is born, forged out of the prayers for bloodshed and murder, it’s skin made from boiled leather, it’s soul of hatred, and it’s feathers made from the blades of dead soldiers lost in hundreds of forgotten battlefields. The Steel Bird comes for you with eyes of madness and fire. It soars on the cusp of the coming darkness, the birdsong at the setting of the sun is the sound of prayer to him, asking that when he descends to pluck the life from the children of men, it does so close to the nest.’ He pauses and leans forwards, his hands miming with a brutal precision to accent his words. ‘The last thing you hear is the shriek of its steely wings, and the last thing you see is the sharp beak of the children of the Steel Bird come to give you their small mercy before they feed.’

The birdsong settles as the children begin giggling and throwing rocks at nearby ravens who caw indignantly before taking flight. They settle close to the fire, eyeing the welcoming doorway of the building they shelter in, the visible halo it cast now clear as night begins to claim them. As they begin to stir to move, the last of the children stands silently causing them all to hesitate and sit back down.

Willowy, androgynous, the young Lamordian regards them all with his calculating eyes, one green, one blue. He remains motionless until there is total quiet, his words so rare at the best of times, no child is willing to miss them now.
‘This is the fifteenth summer, the leaves will turn red, then brown, then fall, then die. Each of us will be fifteen, and sent out to work in these plumb fields.’ His slender fingers indicate the trees around them, uniformed in their rows, under the shadow cast by the orphanage they shelter in the lay of. Hundreds of trees covering the gentle slope of the hills. ‘None have returned from the plumb fields. We will not come home.’

The words fall flat. The Sun goes down. The delicate flickering light of the campfire gives a small comfort to the encroaching dark. The children remain there in the fragile silence as the darkness draws in.
Autumn was coming.
And it would soon be time to enter the plumb fields.