01 Encounter.
“Mom,”
My feet were dimly lit.
Our footsteps echoed, and when we stopped, they finally subsided with a lingering sound.It’s like being in the deep sea.
Warmth, including nostalgia, touching the hand. The hand was my mother’s. We were both climbing up this dark spiral staircase, hand in hand with each other.
“If we get in there, we’ll get out of here...”
A faint light that shines in the darkness. I looked up at the end of the spiral staircase and saw a ray of light shining from the ceiling, and the faint remnants of that light were at my feet.
Everyone under the cover of darkness will act the same way. Our feet naturally got sucked in and sounded on the stairs, step after step after step.
It was as if a large stone had been thrown into the water. Suddenly, a dull sound rang out at the top of the spiral staircase. My mother, who was holding my hand, tripped and put her hand on the ground.
I stopped and looked back in a hurry. Good, she doesn’t seem to be hurt anywhere. I held out my hand again, which had been slipping away. My mother smiled and stood up, taking my hand.
Now, as I turned my head forward and was about to start walking again, another unfamiliar sound echoed down the spiral staircase. His voice is awful and grave.
“You’re not going to get out of this. You’re not gonna get out of this thing.”
Cold sweat trickled down my neck. When I turn around, from a few steps down the spiral staircase I’m on, I see a wreck holding a scythe with a pitch-black cloth on its back. He’s looking up at me.
“No!”
I gripped my mother’s hand tightly and ran toward the light. The violent rhythms reverberated on the spiral staircase, playing an irregular melody.
“I’m telling you can’t do it.”
His voice is laced with an eerie smile.
“You can’t save her.”
Suddenly my arms became heavy and I let go of my mother’s hand that was holding me. When I turned around, the wreckage had grabbed my mother’s leg and was dragging her down the spiral staircase.
“You can’t help her.”
The wreckage smiles more deeply as he drags his mother along.
My mother struggles to reach for me. Of course, I reach out to my mother, too. But I can’t reach it.
“you can’t do it.”
The wreckage stopped, then turned to me and swung a large scythe at my mother.
“You can’t save anyone.”
“No!”
The girl woke up, letting out a loud scream. Her forehead is dripping with sweat like a waterfall. After a few big breaths, she finally realized that this was the bed she’d always slept on.
“I was dreaming again.”
Her name is Olivia. She is fourteen years old. Emerald eyes, hair that looks like a bundle of gold thread that drapes over his shoulders, and a few freckles on his lightly pigmented cheeks capture the characteristics of someone who lives in the area.
She has had nightmares every night since the death of her only family member, her mother, a month ago.
“Mom,”
She vividly remembered the look on her mother’s face as she moaned in pain on her bed with a high fever. And most of all, she could only snuggle, and that weakness covered her chest as a strong pain.
Looking back, my mother was acting strange around the time she went into town with an acquaintance. At first, she had a noticeable dry cough, like a cold. As usual, if she just lay down and let her get enough rest, she would soon be better. Or so I thought.
However, my mother’s condition worsened day by day, her body became thinner and thinner, and eerie blue bruises began to cover her entire body, as if she had been bumped. The symptoms were exactly the same symptoms of the disease that they said had struck this country nearly 200 years ago.
Why did the disease that was supposed to have ended once reappeared? And why did my mother....
Death.
I had heard that my father had died before I could remember.And I had never experienced death so close to me before.
One day things will always come to an end. It’s so obvious, but why hadn’t I noticed it before?
There was so much more I wanted to tell you. Why did the end come so quickly?
Unanswered questions and regrets assaulted her every night, turning into nightmares when she closed her eyelids.
Maybe this is why had the nightmare of being on that dark spiral staircase. she was finally aware of the sound of the strong rain and wind pounding against the house. The sound of the water hitting the windows and roofs is like being in a river.
Suddenly, amidst the roar of the rain and wind,heard the faint sound of objects rolling from outside, and the sound of something crashing against the wall of the house. The tub used to fetch water from a neighbor’s well may have been rolled over by a strong wind.
Olivia sat up heavily, crawled out of bed, lit the candelabra in the corner of the room, and headed for the front door.
Maybe it’s because have only eaten a little lately, but the wooden door to the front door usually open is as heavy as stone.
When opened the front door, the rain was pounding the ground as if were in front of a waterfall.
Olivia made her way along the wall of the house in the direction of the sound so that her body wouldn’t get wet from the rain. As moved on, she saw the tub swirling and spinning in the wind, just as she had expected. The tub was faintly illuminated by the light from the candelabra that shone through the glass window.
--kaboon!
It was the moment reached out to get the tub. A tremendous roar and dazzling light pierced her entire body, and it was impossible to hear the sound of the rain.
“Thunder!?”
Based on the volume of the sound, it looks like it has struck fairly close. Olivia looked around involuntarily.
“......What’s that?”
When she saw the grassy knoll in front of the house, adjacent to the Shulk forest, she knew there was something there. It glowed vaguely white in the darkness, where there was not a single light.
Olivia looked closely at it. It has a round sphere attached to the end of a pillar-like object, which appears to have a cloth covering the whole thing.
“No way... People!?”
It was shaped much like the shape of a human kneeling. After a bit, it collapsed to the ground as if it were crumbling away.
“Maybe someone was struck by lightning!?”
The moment she thought that, Olivia was running for it. Couldn’t care less about the rain and wind. She had no qualms about the mud splattering and staining her clothes.
Just a few seconds. When she reached the shiny object, Olivia gasped. Pale skin and pure white hair. It looks like fresh snow. There was a beautiful woman lying on the muddy ground.
She is clad in a long, saggy robe, like the messenger of a mythical god. She looks older than me. But is she human anymore? It was even as if she had fallen from heaven because of that pale light she wore.
The area around the Shurk Forest is abhorred by the people for reasons. So, only a few people have lived here for a long time. The white woman was someone had never seen before.
Her eyelids are closed and her brow is wrinkled, but she doesn’t give off an air of disaster. Maybe a divine messenger fell from heaven. It was mysterious enough to think so.
“Um...”
As stared at her curiously, she opened her mouth faintly and her voice escaped. And the eyes that had been closed open slightly.
The white woman’s actions prompted the girl to back away. After a few breaths, Olivia spoke up, with confusion in her voice.
“...Oh, um, what?”
Hearing this, the white woman’s face turned to her. Maybe she can’t see clearly. Her eyes are not set on me, but are looking up in the air with her eyes open.
“...to G... nde.”
Weak voices were inaudible in places, drowned out by the torrential rain.
“What?”
Olivia bent down and pulled her ear to her mouth.
“...To Glinde.”
“...Glinde?”
As the white woman said this, she extended a trembling hand to Olivia. She holds what looks like an old round board in her fingertips.
“...The forest of the shulk.Give this to the witch lives deep in the forest.”
“Wait. What are you...?”
“I don’t have time for.... Please, give this to Grinde!”
She doesn’t answer Olivia’s question, but instead pleads desperately for help. Her face is twisted.
After a few moments, her body, which had been glowing vaguely, began to glow more strongly. Olivia is surprised and takes a step back again.
“Please ...”
In the next moment, something like a glowing feather flew off her back and the area was filled with a strong light.
The glow faded and when Olivia let go of her eyelids, to her surprise, she was nowhere to be found. Looked around and saw nothing. It was just a torrential downpour in a familiar place.
“Why...!?”
What the hell is going on? Don’t understand it at all.
“Have I yet to wake up from that nightmare?”
On the ground at her feet, there is a coin-like object lying on the ground that the white woman from earlier tried to hand.
With a shaking hand, Olivia gently reached for the coin. A cold, hard touch was definitely on her fingertips.
