"Everybody rise and shine!" the Groundhog, Hoagie, cheered, cupping his paws around his mouth. He then furiously clapped them together as he continued to move through the burrows connected by short tunnels.
"Rise and shine! I didn't see my shadow when I went up there. Hibernation is ooover!"
All around him other groundhogs began to wake, yawning and stretching to rid of the sleepiness.
"Chop, chop!" Hoagie said, nudging two groundhogs that were still snoring, "Up and about, gentlemen. We've got work to do!"
"Aw, Hoagie, " one of them groaned into the dirt, his words muffled. He weakly waved his arm at him, "Five more minutes."
"Come on now, Frank," Hoagie grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up from the ground, "You've had four whole months to sleep. Now, you've got to find yourself a nice lady like everybody else and get to work."
At that, Frank snapped out of his grogginess lit up like the sleepiness had disappeared in a snap. After a quick apology and a wide smile, he took off dragging his still sleeping friend by the arm.
"Get everybody woken up down here!" Hoagie called all around, not running about since almost all his woken comrades in the burrows could do the rest of the job. Instead, he made his way back to his own burrow and popped up the main entrance to get a real whiff of fresh air. He hadn't gotten the chance to from just checking for his shadow at the end of his hibernation ten minutes earlier.
"Ahhh," he sucked in a big breath, closed his eyes, and exhaled, appreciating the crisp cold air and the bright rays of the sun, "That's what I'm talking about. Missed you Mother Nature."
The soft breeze blew against his coat as a response.
Suddenly, a shadow casted right over him and blocked the sun so abruptly that it took Hoagie by surprise. When he flashed his eyes open, he was met with the gazes of two. No, one. One of beings standing before him was extremely tall, slim, and faceless, all white skin absent of any features. He wore pitch black clothing that even extended down to his wrists that dangled down next to knees. A woman stood beside him, her skin wrinkled, decaying and ashened, looking as if she'd just crawled out from six feet under.
They were clearly not humans. They must be Spirits like he was, but still he hadn't any idea who they were and why they decided to appear from out of nowhere.
"Who are you?" Hoagie questioned suspiciously. His muscles tensed at their presence and an odd feeling began to creep on him. This was not a good start after hibernation.
"Call me Slender," the tall faceless man said and immediately Hoagie was confused as to how the man was able to speak without a mouth, "You're the Groundhog, Hoagie, I presume?"
"Yes, I am," Hoagie replied. The off-putting feeling was giving him bad vibes, "What do you want?"
"Mary, would you do the honors?" the tall man, Slender, asked.
"Mary?" Hoagie said in confusion. This tall man was unfamiliar and among the Spirits like North and Bunnymund, Hoagie had never seen him in the two hundred years after the Man in the Moon chose him as the Groundhog. Then Hoagie's eyes widened when recognition hit him hard as the woman's face became more and more familiar.
"Bloody Mary? No, that can't be," he wheezed, "I thought you were gone. You should have been sealed away."
The terrifying woman grinned wickedly and opened her wrinkled hand, a gothic mirror slowly materializing from a red mist in her palm. Her pitch black eyes shined with malice and her sharp, rotted teeth were just as horrifying.
"I'm afraid not," she lightly cackled as she strode towards Hoagie. Her haughty and horrific demeanor started to overwhelm him as she got closer, "Well, I was sealed away back in England, but my new friend Slender here was oh so kind enough to free me."
"No," Haogie breathed and shook his head furiously from growing anxiety, "That can't be."
The woman clenched her free hand and gracefully waved the mirror, the red mist returning as fog and surrounding the groundhog quickly as if it were a snake. In mere seconds, Haogie was engulfed, yelling for the others to escape while fighting to free himself. But his efforts were useless; the fog completely sucked him into its hold and returned back into Mary's mirror as fast as it came.
"Yes," she grinned and hissed wildly, "It can be."
"Hallow," Decima said, her skinny fingers hovering below a row of strings, "Five more are coming to their end."
Hallow glanced at the two Fates working at the far side of the chamber and silently sighed. Five more newly dead souls to retrieve, and he'd just returned from fetching six.
"Alright," he replied as he released the six souls into the intricately carved stone caldron. The souls glowed a soft blue and delicately sunk down with the rest he'd already collected. Just a little more and the caldron would be full enough for him to move the souls behind the gates. What a task that was.
"Cut the string, Morta," Decima's quivering voice cracked from across the room. Her sister beside her immediately snapped the scissor's handles together, and the blades cut through the string with one clean snip. Somewhere in the world, five people had just taken their last breath.
"I'm off," Hallow gruffly bade farewell, but it'd become so routine over the last thousands of years that neither Fates sister replied or even spared a look. He'd be back soon and would leave time and time again to collect souls whenever Decima determined when it was the end and Morta cut the thread.
It was his punishment bestowed upon him by the Man in the Moon ages ago: guiding spirits to the afterlife and keeping them secluded in the Farplane behind the gates after their passing. However, his crime hadn't been done alone. His sister was sentenced to punishment along with him, but was left with the responsibility completely opposite of his and, in turn, submerged him in envy.
He saw it unfair and saw her sentence not as a punishment but as favoritism by the power that damned both of them for eternity. It made him angry. Over time, that anger passed to frustration and frustration to depression. Now, he was ruled over by all three, dragging on with his tasks as the life Reaper along with two of three Fates sisters, Decima and Morta.
What he would give in exchange for freedom, but those thoughts and wishes stopped whenever he remembered that he already was the entity that humans believed to be the one with satanic bargains. He was caged.
Hallow absolutely despised it.
When he returned with the five new souls and after he relinquished them into the caldron, it was business as always but more so as of late.
"It's almost that time of year again," Morta said, gently setting down her scissors on the wooden table, "Have you been preparing, Hallow?"
"Of course, Morta," he nodded, "I already have more ghouls around the gates and in the tunnels. The closer it gets to All Hallows' Eve, I'll be making rounds around the gates myself."
"Good."
"Where's Decima?" Hallow asked, looking around the large chamber. It was odd not seeing the Fate down on the ground floor for she hated walking up the spiral stairs along the chamber's walls to retrieve potions.
"Hallow, we have visitors," her voice came in an echo from one of the tunnels. Morta and Hallow looked over and saw Decima emerging from the shadows, two figures behind her.
"Mary," Hallow gave a curt nod in greeting when he immediately recognized the dead- looking woman.
"Grim," Mary returned the minimal greeting with a mocking curtsey.
"I thought I told you I don't go by that name," he said, annoyed, "Still the leader of the Sirens even after breaking out of prison?"
"Of course," she replied, grinning maniacally, "Would you still like to keep one? A handsome man like yourself needs a Beauty."
"And you are?" Hallow nodded at the tall man, ignoring Mary. She was as irritating as always, but the presence of an unfamiliar being needed more of his unwilling attention.
"Slender," the tall man replied, "Pleased to meet you."
"New Spirit? I've never seen or heard of you before," Hallow commented. His tone carried that of boldness like he was trying to size up to the man's tall stature, but the man's unfamiliarity made it obsolete.
"An urban legend that birthed from modern humans. I believe it's from what they call the 'internet', if I recall correctly," Slender replied, nodding, "Enough people believed in my existence."
"I see. So, what brings are you two here? What do you want?" Hallow asked nonchalantly as he walked up the short steps to his usual seat next to the old desk. He plopped down lazily and leaned on the arm rest, not at all intimidated by or interested in their visit, "It must be important if you've come to bother me one month before Halloween. I'm pretty busy this time of the year."
"Ah, of course. We're sorry," Slender said, "But we've come because we have proposition for you."
"Oh?" Hallow raised an eyebrow, interest instantly coming to him. Ever since his sentence, no one had ever offered anything to him, much less set foot in his home in the last five hundred years. He was all ears even if the one making the offer was inferior in age compared to him.
"What is it?" Hallow adjusted his posture on the small throne, placing his elbows on his knees and leaning forward to listen.
Hallow could have sworn that if Slender had a face, he'd be smiling.
"Two more strings coming to their end," Decima interrupted with a warning, but Hallow ignored her. A proposition was most important to him right now, no matter what it could be.
"It's simple with your choice, of course," Slender said and lightly clasped his long, skinny fingers together.
"What if we told you that come Halloween, your punishment could be over?"
Hallow's eyes widened.
"What?"
Ayyy so I just recently watched ROTG (FINALLY) and I loved it so much that I needed to come up with a sequel of my own. So, here's the prologue that's meant to be just a teaser. The canon characters will show up in the next chapter, I promise.
A few notes about this prologue and the characters introduced though: (1) Mary has an English accent, (2) the Fates are from ancient Roman religion so if you're confused about them, google their names because I totally just took it from the wiki haha, (3) if you're interested in seeing how Hallow looks like, look up the tag hallownn on tumblr because I posted a rough sketch on my blog, and (4) the only pairing in this will be Jack/Tooth and it will play a big part, but it won't be the sole focus of the story.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in reviews or shoot me a PM. Also, critiques and feedback would be swell too, so please take two seconds to drop a review! The continuation of this depends on the feedback I receive.
Thanks for reading! Until next time~