1 The First Step

His home had gone up in seconds. A man by the name of Marius had fallen to his knees as he watched the last few flames die out. The tears rolled out, heavily, a situation like this for a man of his status was death. He lived by himself, great distances away from any of the closest villages. He had no money and everything of value inside of his home was now worth nothing. The tears felt more than hot on his face, they felt like the fire themselves. It burned in his soul to feel this much sadness roll down his cheeks.

He watched one last small flame, still burning hot as it danced on hot coals. The crackling began to subside and the man began to remember why the fire had started in the first place. After a long day of tending to his livestock, he had fallen asleep on his hay-filled bed, with a warm fire that burned bright but it was also a bit close. It had carried him away to another place, a place where he didn't wear his hands down to the bone every day. But all of his dreams were ripped away as smoke began to choke his lungs, pulling him into reality. The flames were nigh too large for him to even consider grabbing water from his well.

Marius felt one of the last tears finally fall from his face as another sound started to ring in his ears. His livestock. They were just as restless as him at the moment, Marius needed to check on them. He pushed himself off the ground and onto weak knees. It took him more than a few seconds to finally muster the strength to walk around the back of his burnt home.

He made it around and looked toward his stone walls, where he kept them just high enough to prevent his sheep from wanting to leave. It was one of his greatest creations, he had worked for many days and many nights to build this wall. Let alone sell enough wool to finally acquire two hundred some sheep in his flock.

He made it to one side of the wall and looked over into the other side. All he could see were two hundred pairs of eyes looking at him, all waiting for direction. But Marius already knew that answer stared him directly in the face. He always had a foolproof plan to get through every season and a fail-safe plan if he had to bail out of his current situation. This fail safe was to walk a great distance with his flock and sell them in a village that was desperate for livestock. With his two hundred sheep, he could start from scratch once again, although he didn't want to.

Sure one would think, moving a flock of that size would cause many problems for the shepherd. Those assumptions would be correct, but there were far worse situations than that. The distance he had to cover was mostly blocked by thick forestry. It also didn't help that this was the Hoia Forest. The forest in which was cursed by endless stories of creatures and demons walking amongst it. The most common tale was that vampires that lived in the dark castles atop of the mountain ranges would walk these forests for a quick bite to eat. Kids, the elderly, and farmers would disappear on a regular basis in the Hoia Forest. Unexplainable animal deaths were also very common stories in pubs, some farmers never spoke again after making it out of the forest.

Marius didn't necessarily believe in the vampires, but he did steadily believe in tales of fairies. More specifically the fairies he had respected the most. Ieles, nature's beautiful way of protecting the ground in which Marius walked upon. He had heard stories of people who had seen them in their time in the forest. They usually appeared as beautiful women, all in white dresses dancing upon the earth. They were also seen often hand in hand, dancing in circles. It was common for the land they danced upon to become desolate with no ability to regrow. There was also a curse that laid within the dead circle, the penalty was to become ill for the rest of your life. Marius had once seen a farmer who had come back from the forest missing an arm, he refused to explain how he had lost it. But Marius knew there was something sinister about the arm being gone, it was almost impossible to survive a limb being torn off. Most victims would have succumbed to infection, leaving the earth in one of the most painful ways possible. But the farmer's arm seemed to have been taken but also healed directly after. Easily the work of some witchcraft in which humans had no understanding of.

Marius looked over his sheep once more and turned his attention to the opening of the woods. His imaginary property line had ended along the Hoia forest on one side and this is where his venture would have to start. He looked uneasily toward the twisted trees before him. The mouth of the wooded beast seemed to have bent teeth and a gaping black hole for its throat. Marius felt a breeze roll by him, it felt haunting as a chill danced up his spine. He looked back toward his sheep and looked toward the skies. The night was coming, he knew that he had to get a head start on the walk. Instead of lying in the open, waiting for