Sally sighs in relief, kneeling next to her mischevious child.
"Please, don't do that to me. I'm already scared that one of these days you'll go into the forest and won't return." she says, wrapping her child tightly.
Daniel hugged her back, leaning his small head on her comforting shoulders.
"Sorry mama…" He muttered, knowing she was scared, but not what for. He was brave, and craft, and he always came back home. Alays. always.
"Can you still tuck me in?" He asked, twirling her hair through his fingers
"It's okay, pumpkin. I know you don't understand." Sally says, relief and amusement evident in her voice.
She nods, lifting Daniel and tucking him into his bed. "Goodnight, pumpkin. I'll see you in the morning."
Daniel smiled, closing his eyes and nestling into the bed.
However, the sounds of the night and the light of the stars called to him.
Something, called to him.
He rummaged out of the covers, glancing toward the window, then back at the door. Just for a little… He thought, slipping on his boots. I dont want to worry mama anymore
Sally left the room quietly, going to the hidden cellar door and opening it, slipping inside. A few steps later, she is in a vast cavern that she had discovered just over a month ago. It seemed to be a volcanic crater, but it didn't make sense. She investigated 'til midnight, then sighed and went back upstairs, checking on Daniel. His bed was empty. Evidently, he'd done this before. Quickly, she went to the front door, calling for Daniel.
"Daniel? Daniel! Get in the house, now!" she called out, but the only sounds that replied was the wind whispering in the trees, the crickets creaking out their mournful songs.
Daniel slunk through the forest, laughing as he chased after a very interesting lizard as it darted through the rocks and sticks and brush.
Though soon enough, Daniel became very lost. He looked around, attempting to get his bearings, but seeing nothing recognizable though the very dim light.
"Mama!" He called out, tripping over a branch and skinning his knee. He began to cry, making his shouts louder. "Mama!! Where are you!!"
Sally runs into the woods, but in the moonless light she can't make out anything. Nor can she figure out how Daniel might be able to see anything in these dark woods.
She doesn't hear Daniel's shouts.
"DANIEL! WHERE ARE YOU?" she shouts, near tears.
Daniel tripped again, drawing more blood as he cried harder, curling up as he begged for his mother.
He didn't even notice the odd shadows closing in
Sally, crying now, was still wandering around the forest, knowing what lurked about at night, knowing that Daniel- she cut her thoughts off with a sharp scolding to herself.
"DANIEL?" she calls, knowing it's unlikely her child can hear her.
Daniel had no warning, just an extremely painful sting that echoed all through his innocent, frail body. He screamed, a wretched scream that echoed through the forest as he collapsed in pain.
Sally hears this, at least, and follows the echoes- but when she reaches where she thought the scream came from, nothing was there but churned earth and- blood. She stifles a gasp, and sinks to her knees.
"Oh, gods… oh, no…" she whispers, clutching at her chest like she was having a heart attack. Which, in a way, she was. She stayed like that until morning, then through the next night, unmoving.
Daniel awoke from his unconsciousness with the morning light, his head throbbing with unimaginable pain as he stumbled. "M-mama…"
Slowly, over the course of the year, she fades, becoming more and more vengeant, falling deeper and deeper into a pit of black despair that had no return. Slowly, she became cold, desperate, hateful…
When she finally gets up, she has no real recollection of who she is, only that she needed to find something that she had lost.
Daniel spent countless hours trying to find his mother, sleepless nights, until he was overtaken by the thing that had won over him that night, and it was terribly hungry. The young boy, now called Epsilon, now found themselves partaking of the nightmares from people's dreams, sometimes waking them up to the sight of a grief-stricken child
They continued on, forgetting more as Epsilon lived their life, though with the same mentality of Daniel. The same voice, the same mannerisms.
Sally, now known as Half-Life by the people of the mountain and forest villages because of the way she seems to be half alive, wanders across the entire continent, then the world, then other dimensions, trying to find what she had lost. Rumours slowly spread of a Shade, one more terrible than had ever been seen before. It was nearly a decade later that she remembered. She slowly came back mentaly, but physically stayed the same, her aura unchanging.
"Daniel?" was the only word she said from that point, posed as a question to any boy that looked like her child.
Epsilon continued as a stolen spirit, whenever shifting into their unconscious form to feast, they often cried, deeply saddened by something they did not remember. Little did they know that in that form, their face was frozen as Daniel's was when he realized he was not going to be saved, permanently the face of shock, fear, longing.
One dreary night, the young wanderer found themselves in the room of a woman trapped in a troubled sleep, shifting into their dream form, the frozen face softened, starting to cry more at the sight of Half-Life.
(I tried to draw them but I got too lazy and did an artbreeder instead :/ anywaysss,
heres Ep in their physical form -https://s3.amazonaws.com/notebook-content-uploads/content/uploads/original/05a80939-6981-48a0-8cdc-d5bf51ffd841.jpg?1643478634
And their unconscious form (Just a warning, its a bit spooky)- https://s3.amazonaws.com/notebook-content-uploads/content/uploads/original/122d4562-ade9-48e8-b63a-a652e8f2fa6a.jpg?1643478635
(Gods damn, what the hell?)
Half-Life, upon waking from a particularly troubled sleep, saw the boy- but did not recognize him.
"Daniel?" the whisper came, soft, like the silken caress of a cat's paw across velvet.
(… yeah sorry bout that XD)
(Damn… phenomenal descriptions, my dude :0)
Gus shifted into something a bit more easy on the eyes, their nightmarish face slowly becoming more of a timid, outcasted child. A lost puppy with no master, no purpose. They knelt beside the woman, the simple utterance of the same sparking memories long chained by time.
"M-mama?"
(You're good, I've seen worse, way worse, but it was just unexpected here!)
(Bowing shyly Why thank you! I always have been a poet. Or so I've been told. I still don't understand it myself.)
Sally Half-Life, long forgotten by the world as anything but a monster, had finally found her way back to the world.
"Daniel…" she said, on her feet in a flash, wrapping her son in a tight hug, never wanting to let him go.
(Oh yeah. I believe it lmao)
(Seriously tho!)
Epsilon choked on tears, their small arms gently going around their mother as they subbed uncontrollably. She had found them!! She did!! They clung tighter, burying their face into Sally
(Yeah?)
(Lmao!)
Sally, having finally been restored, starts sobbing.
"Oh, Daniel… my baby…" she heaves, still holding her son tightly as ever. Slowly, she gets herself together.
At that moment, a howling, raging wind blows through the world, tearing Sally away from her child.
"NO!" she screams, trying to claw her way back to her son, back to sanity, but the winds were relentless, keeping her away from Daniel.
Epsilon screamed like they did that night, reaching out for their mother as tears streamed down their face in desperate cries for her.
"MAMA! MAMA NO COME BACK!!"
Sally, now property of the Wild Hunt, sighs as her long, insubstantial hair is lifted in a ghost breeze. She has no recollection of her past life, yet she knows she had a past life. She is now Fae, through and through, with the broken, two-colored eyes of those Claimed.
"Gwyn." she says, nodding to a tall, rugged figure striding towards her.
"Half-Life." the figure nods back, leaning down to look Sally in the eyes.
Sally strides away then, a rush of emotions running through her. God damn faeries…
She gets a hint of something forgotten, but she shoves the feeling away. I have no time for remembering…
Silently, she jumps onto her steed, and goes off on her own. None of the others make a move to stop her.
Epsilon sank to the ground, watching as they lost their mother, again.
This was something they couldn't forget.
Epsilon cried, long heavy sobs as he shifted in and out of reality.
"Mama… please come back mama. I'm scared…"
It was some time before Sally was reminded of her life…
It was dawn. The world was, for once, silent. Sally had slipped out of the camp, and made her way to a forest. She did not know why she was there, nor where she was going, but she found an old place, a wild place, filled with the Old Magic. She inhales deeply, tasting the echoes of memory that were left. She tasted something… familiar.
Her eyes flew open. "Daniel…" she whispered. It had been a decade since she had been taken. Taken from her son. Folllowing the echoes, she went to the place of… soup? And there, she found her child.
(The rest we know! Now, what next?)
(I guess just the aftermath!)
Epsilon started to sob again, clinging to his mother tightly. "Mama… I'll never ever run away again. Never ever."
(Fair enough, I guess! Throughout the story, I shall introduce some of the other Hunters…)
Sally's eyes remain dry, but she wraps her arms around Daniel.
"Okay… I'll make sure nothing, nothing seperates us again. Okay?" she murmurs.
Epsilon sniffed, holding her as they twirled their fingers through her hair. “Mama… do we go back home now?”
"Yes, pumpkin. We can go back home now." Sally says, getting up and easily lifting Epsilon up with her. She whistles and her mount appears into the world. SHe hops on, and soon they're racing through the air.
Back home, the first thing she does is light a fire in the long-cold fireplace. She clicks her fingers, and the house is repaired with wood from the surrounding forest.
"Okay… I need to check something, pumpkin. I'll be back." she says.
Epsilon smiled as they walked inside, laughing as the fire lit.
But when their mother excused herself, they couldn't bear it.
"Mama no! No don't leave!!"
