Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Mira stood in the small inn room, checking her gear for the third time. Everything had its place. Everything had a purpose. Sword — sharpened that morning. Daggers — three, hidden where deliberate hands could find them without thought and unwanted hand would either be lost or get cut. Bow — strung tight. Arrows — thirty-two in the quiver, heads dipped in wolfsbane, hemlock, and garlic, she always had one garlic. Her fingers ran over the small pouch tied to her belt. Runes. She counted them silently. One missing rune could mean death if the situation gets hairy. She exhaled slowly. Ten years. Ten long years since that night. The memory sat behind her eyes like a wound that refused to close. A cattle brand on her very soul. The anger corrupted her. She muttered to herself as she packed. “Fucking monsters… all of them… all of them will pay”. Her jaw tightened. “Every last one.” She shoved the last of her belongings into a leather pack. Clothing barely mattered anymore. She wore what she needed for travel and battle: a hardened leather jerkin over titanite chainmail that rested cold against her skin. The rest of her things stayed behind. They would be back. They always came back to somewhere, for now. She took one final look around the room. Nothing forgotten that isnt a necessity. Good. Mira lifted the heavy iron key from the table, stepped outside, and locked the door behind her. 

Scene 2 – The inn looked different in daylight. When they arrived just a week ago it had been dark and quiet. Just another place to sleep after hunting. Now sunlight poured through the windows and illuminated the interior. White painted walls reflected the light warmly. Black window sills framed the view of the town beyond. The hearth fire burned brightly against the cool spring air. It was one of the nicer inns they had stayed in. Too nice for hunters like them. It was also clearly the barkeep’s home. Children’s voices echoed faintly somewhere deeper in the building. They welcomed Elias and Mira with open arms. They even invited the hunters to the families meals. The barkeep himself was currently nowhere to be seen, probably splitting firewood. There was a distant chopping sound carried on the wind through the window. Mira stepped behind the bar and placed something on the counter. A folded note and an onyx coin. The note was simple. "Thank you for your hospitality. Please keep our rooms. We will return within a fortnight". She hesitated only a moment before turning and walking out. 

Scene 3 – The Market: The town was alive and well.They had stayed here nearly a week, but Mira had barely seen any of it. Crowds filled the streets. The river road led toward the market near the granary, and the smell of fresh food drifted through the air. Fish stalls lined one side of the road. Vendors shouted prices over barrels filled with river catch. Beyond them were tables stacked with different fruits and vegetables, bread, cloth, and an array tools. Some traveling merchants had erected temporary stalls with colorful canvas roofs. Animal vendors shouted over the noise. "Want to by a goat, eh?" one vendor chimed in a very rehearsed voice. His eastern accent did nothing to convince Mira a goat would be worth the trouble. The town was wealthy. Prosperous. Peaceful. Too peaceful. Mira had a sense of unease as she moved through the crowd with practiced ease, ignoring much the noise. Elias would be here. He always found the markets. He loved talking to the people and Mira loved that trait of his. Sure enough, she spotted him near the butcher’s stall haggling over something she couldnt quite make out. 

Scene 4 – Elias the Negotiator: Mira approached the stall. Elias leaned casually against the counter, laughing with the butcher. A sack of dried salted beef sat between them. The butcher crossed his thick arms stubbornly and gave Elias a look that very clearly communicated "Not today little boy". Elias grinned wider. The tension between them was obvious. Elias always did this. He pushed for a lower price even when he didn’t need to. Its a game to him. Eventually he tossed a few coins onto the counter. The butcher looked down at them and snorted. “You just paid the full price anyway, why haggle?" Elias shrugged loosely. “Worth a try. Remember me when I get back, friend”. "I dare say, it will be difficult to forget Elias the great piss taker" the butcher chortled. They smiled warmly at one another and shook hands and Elias picked up the sack of beef. He had already gathered fruit and sugarloaf bread as well. Enough food for several days not including hunting rabbit. When he turned, he saw Mira and her usual scowl. His grin widened immediately. “Well, well, look who finally joined the living.” She didn’t smile, just questioned, “Where’s the donkey?”. Elias chuckled. “Oh, you mean Mira Junior?” She stopped walking. “Why would you name a donkey that?” “Because you’re both stubborn, mean, and secretly love bread. Actually, that last one isn't a secret, is it?” For a moment Mira almost smiled. Almost. Elias noticed, he always notices. She scowled again immediately after. “Where is the donkey?”, she repeated. “Oh, she's by the granary up the road. Im sure you passed her on the way" Elias gestured up the road mira had just walked down. 

 

Scene 5 – Mira Junior: The donkey stood calmly at the hitch near the granary. Elias stroked the animal’s neck affectionately. “See? She likes me better already.” Mira ignored him and began loading their supplies. They worked quickly but gentle enough not to agitate Mira Junior. Neither of them liked overloading animals. So most of the weight went into two small sacks they would carry themselves. Elias wiped his hands. “I did hear a few things about North Hollow.” Mira glanced up. “Go on.” “Problem is, none of it agrees.” He counted on his fingers.“Some say wolves. Some say spirits. One man swore it was witches.” “And?” Elias shrugged.“I also heard something else.”Mira waited. “Ghouls on the road.” She frowned. “Ghouls are rare.” “Exactly.” He shrugged again. “Probably nonsense.” Still, Mira adjusted the grip on her sword. Just in case. “There’s a small village on the way,” Elias continued. “We stop there. Get better information. We cant stay though,  there is no Inn.” She nodded. Plan first. Hunt second. They began walking. 

Scene 6 – The Mask: They had nearly left town when children ran toward them. Three of them. Dirty-faced. Breathless. “Travellers!” one shouted. “We found something!” They held up an object wrapped in cloth. “Washed up by the river!” Elias knelt and examined it. A wooden mask, yet the craftsmanship made it look stone work. Dark. Almost black. Moss clung to the edges. Strange carvings lined the inside. Sigils. Old ones, ones Elias or Mira were unfamiliar with. The wood looked burned. Like it had been cut from a tree used in sacrifice. Elias frowned.“How much?” The children together, “Silver coin!”. Elias laughed. “For a piece of driftwood? I’ll give you two copper and that's generous.” The children crossed their arms in protest.“Silver!” they exclaimed. Elias smiled, rolled his eyes skyward and glanced at Mira. Her eyes were fixed on the mask. Something about it clearly bothered her. He sighed, "Fine.” He handed them a silver coin each. Their eyes widened but in their excitement they grabbed the coins and bolted away—taking the mask with them. "Shit!", Mira cursed loudly. Elias jumped up. “Hey! Get back here.” A town guard hear the ruckus and stepped into the road and stopped the children. “What’s going on here?” his deep, thick voice scared the children. The children panicked. “We didn’t steal!” Mira strode forward, snatched the mask back, and held it up. “We paid.”The guard studied the mask. His jovial yet stern expression slowly changed. Unease. Then something close to fear. “That thing… is bad luck,” he muttered. He handed it back carefully. “You should take it out of town.”Mira nodded.“Thank you. Gladly.”

Scene 7 – Leaving Town: She returned to Elias and Mira Junior.Neither of them spoke for a moment.The mask hung from Mira’s belt now. They began walking the road north. Behind them the town slowly looked smaller and smaller until, it was gone from sight completely. Another journey. Another hunt. Another step away from the night that shaped them. And toward something far worse.

Chapter One

Chapter 1

Elias wakes in darkness.

At first he doesn’t know where he is. The nightmare still clings to him—blood dripping through floorboards, Mira’s hand clutching his sleeve, the laughter of the thing that slaughtered his family.

Then the smell of stale alcohol and damp wood replaces the scent of blood.

He realizes he’s lying on cold stone.

He pushes himself upright slowly. His head throbs. His mouth tastes sour with old mead.

The room around him is dim, barely lit by thin slivers of daylight slipping through the cracks of the floorboards above.

He recognizes it.

The tavern cellar.

A few large casks of beer and mead sit along the walls. Stacks of sacks—grain, flour, dried fruit—are piled near a corner. Clay jars of rendered animal fat sit on a low shelf.

Somewhere in the darkness something skitters.

Rodents.

He hears them squeaking and scratching against wood.

Elias exhales slowly and rubs his eyes.

The drinking had once helped keep the nightmares away.

But lately the memories have been coming back stronger.

More vivid.

Almost like the past is refusing to stay buried.

He mutters softly into the darkness.

“Mira?”

No answer.

Only the scratching of the rodents and the faint noise of voices upstairs.

He pushes himself to his feet and finds the cellar stairs.

The tavern above is already alive with the low hum of morning drinkers.

Sunlight spills through the windows, bright enough to sting Elias’s eyes after the darkness below.

Three men sit at a table near the fire, already deep into their tankards of mead. Their laughter rolls lazily through the room.

The barkeep wipes down the counter with a rag.

He glances up as Elias approaches.

Elias rubs the back of his neck.

“You seen Mira?”

The barkeep nods toward the window without hesitation.

“Been out there since sunrise.”

Elias turns and looks.

Outside, beyond the tavern yard, Mira stands in the open grass.

She’s drenched in sweat.

Her dark hair is tied back, loose strands clinging to her face.

She moves with relentless precision.

Sword first.

Fast, controlled strikes cutting through empty air.

Then she swaps to the bow.

Arrow after arrow thuds into a distant tree trunk.

She never stops moving.

Never slows.

Elias exhales through his nose.

That was Mira.

While he drowned memories in drink, she burned them away with discipline.

He places a small black coin on the bar.

The onyx surface gleams in the morning light.

The barkeep freezes.

Then his eyes widen.

Without a word he snatches the coin and rushes toward the kitchen.

“Breakfast! Now!” he shouts through the door.

Elias leans against the bar.

He doesn’t mind the wait.

But as he turns toward the back door he suddenly stops.

His sword.

Still upstairs in his room.

Elias retrieves his blade and steps outside.

The cool air clears his head immediately.

Mira looses another arrow.

Thud.

Dead center.

She lowers the bow and glances over her shoulder.

Her expression hardens when she sees him.

“You smell like a brewery.”

Elias shrugs.

“Good morning to you too.”

“You drank again.”

“I always drink.”

“You passed out again.”

“That part was new.”

Mira shakes her head in irritation.

“You’ll dull your senses.”

Elias rolls his shoulders and draws his sword.

“Then wake them up for me.”

Mira raises an eyebrow.

“Sparring?”

Elias pulls off his shirt and tosses it aside.

His body is covered in scars.

Some long and jagged.

Others small and precise.

Marks from claws.

Teeth.

Blades.

Ten years of hunting monsters leaves its record on a man.

“You’ve been practicing all morning,” he says.

“Let’s see if it helped.”

Mira draws her sword.

They circle.

Then clash.

Steel rings sharply in the quiet morning air.

Mira is fast.

Faster than she used to be.

But Elias moves like someone who has spent years fighting creatures that kill faster than humans ever could.

He disarms her twice.

Knocks her blade aside a third time.

But each round she adjusts.

Learns.

Adapts.

Finally Elias lowers his sword.

“You’re getting better.”

Mira wipes sweat from her brow.

“You’re getting sloppy.”

Elias smirks.

“Maybe.”

Then the smell of food drifts from the tavern door.

"I ordered us some breakfast"

The table groaned under the weight of food.

Bowls of oats.

Fresh fruit.

Roasted nuts.

Thick sausages.

Blood pudding.

Warm bread.

A pitcher of mead.

The barkeep hovers nearby nervously.

“That coin… was worth far more than this,” he says cautiously.

“I still owe you change.”

Elias takes a bite of sausage.

Mira shakes her head.

“Keep it.”

The barkeep stares.

“That’s… a week’s profit.”

“Then it’s a good week,” Elias replies.

The man nods slowly and backs away.

Mira eats quietly for a while.

Then she says softly,

“Ten years.”

Elias doesn’t look up.

“I know.”

Neither of them says the name of the village.

Or the thing that destroyed it.

They don’t need to.

Mira finally speaks again.

“Do you ever think about going back?”

Elias considers.

“Every day.”

“Then why don’t we?”

“Because we’d die.”

Mira nods once.

Cold.

Practical.

Ten years of hunting monsters has stripped away the girl who once hid under floorboards.

She’s something sharper now.

Harder.

Around them the tavern patrons begin talking loudly.

One of the locals leans toward another.

“You hear about North Hollow?”

“Whole village under siege.”

“Creatures no one recognizes.”

“Council put out a bounty.”

“How much?”

“Ten onyx coins.”

Elias and Mira stop eating.

They exchange a look.

Ten onyx coins is a fortune.

More than most hunters see in a year.

Too good to ignore.

Even if it means heading north.

Mira wipes her hands.

Elias drains his cup.

Neither of them needs to say the words.

Their eyes say enough.

Another hunt.

Another monster.

Another step forward.

“Finish eating,” Elias says.

“We leave in an hour.”

whispers of ash and blood

Whispers of Ash and Blood

Part I: The Night of the Red Moon

Barrow’s Hollow clung to the edge of the world, or so it seemed. Encircled by black woods and the winding Aelthorn River, it crouched just beyond the gaze of the castle town like a loyal, half-forgotten servant. A hundred souls called it home—farmers, herders, craftsmen—and though their hands were rough and their backs bent from labor, they were content. Their fields bore fruit. Their livestock thrived. Trade wagons rolled weekly to the gates of the stone-walled town, returning with salt, iron tools, and the rare barrel of sweet wine.

But as autumn deepened and the leaves turned brittle and red, something else came down from the hills.

It began with unease.

Cows lowed restlessly at night, staring toward the treeline, refusing to eat. Dogs barked and whimpered, pawing at door frames. Then came the disappearances—animals vanishing without a trace, not a hoofprint in the soft dirt, not a snapped fence post.

The first corpse appeared on a moonless morning.

Old Marna, the shepherd’s wife, found it: a heifer laid open like an offering. Its chest cavity was hollow, ribs split like peeled fruit. The head had been twisted completely backward. No bite marks, no claw wounds. Just absence—something taken with surgical cruelty.

Panic festered like rot beneath the skin of the village.

The priest they summoned from the castle town was young and afraid. He held his crucifix like a shield, muttered Latin with trembling lips, then rode away before dusk. He never returned.

Then came the red moon.

It rose like a wound, swollen and unnatural, casting the village in crimson light. The fields shimmered wet and wrong beneath it, shadows stretched thin and sharp.

The Rowans—ten in all—sat around their hearth, uneasy, yet unaware their home would soon become a tomb. The children played half-heartedly. Elias, barely twelve, chased his friend Mira through the hall, laughter caught in his throat like a cough. They hid, they giggled. The scent of stew clung to the air, masking the distant iron tang of blood.

Then—a scream.

High. Female. Cut off too soon.

Then another.

And another.

A chorus of death began outside, sudden and staggering.

The Rowans froze. Father Rowan stood, face pale as ash, grabbing the fire poker. The mother pulled the youngest child close, whispering prayers.

Elias’s heart thundered.

Mira pulled at his sleeve. “Hide,” she mouthed.

They scrambled to the cellar hatch beneath the rug, hands fumbling at the latch. The trapdoor groaned as it opened, revealing the darkness below. They climbed down, pulling the door shut just as the front door creaked open above them.

Click.

The latch.

Someone... something had come inside.

The children pressed into the cold dirt, breath held.

Above them, footsteps—deliberate, slow. Not stomping. Not searching. Just... walking. A hunter already certain of his kill.

Then a voice.

Low. Velvet-smooth. Measured.

“Such tender little hearts... I can hear you.”

Elias clenched his jaw, hand over Mira’s mouth to silence her whimper.

“I smelled your fear before I even stepped through the door,” the voice continued, almost amused. “So sweet. So... fragile.”

A soft sigh. The sound of a chair scraping back.

Then—violence.

Not the screaming, flailing kind.

The calculated brutality of something ancient and bored.

Bones snapped like dry wood. Limbs were torn, not cut. A body thudded against the floorboards above them, the impact shaking dust loose into Elias’s mouth. A baby cried out once—then silence, and the sound of something wet splattering the wall.

Then... the first drip.

Plink.

A warm droplet landed on Elias’s forehead.

Plink. Plink.

Another. And another.

He didn’t move. He didn’t dare.

Mira had gone silent. Her entire body trembled, her nails digging into Elias’s arm like claws. Above them, the massacre continued, each kill punctuated by a sickening squelch or crack, followed by... laughter.

Not mad. Not shrieking.

Refined. Enjoying.

A chuckle that rolled through the wood like perfume.

Then—thud.

A head, severed, landed directly above them, blood pouring through the cracks in ribbons now. It soaked Mira’s hair. It filled Elias’s mouth when he gasped.

The vampire walked to the hatch.

They heard his fingers brushing across the wood.

Tap... tap... tap.

“You’ll remember this,” he whispered. “That’s what makes you different from animals. You remember.”

Then... silence.

He didn’t open the hatch. He didn’t need to.

He had made his point.

Footsteps retreated. The door creaked open again. Then came the howls of the others, the feral ones—chittering, clawing, shrieking into the woods.

The house was silent.

Elias didn't speak. He didn’t cry. He simply lay there, soaked in blood not his own, listening to the last drop fall.

And the laughter lingered. Always, it lingered.