Chapter 1

"I shall give to you this word of caution, child," the old man warned her as she was about to exit the building. "If you must venture outside our boundaries, keep silent and do not linger. Stuff your ears the moment you step across, lest you hear him speak. You must prevent that from happening, at all costs."

She paused and turned to stare at the elder in confusion. "What? Who's 'him'? Why is it so bad if he finds me?"

"We are not to speak his name, under any circumstances. I only ask that you heed my warning." The old man gazed at her earnestly. "For it is said…'to whomever he speaks, death shall soon follow'. It has been years since the last incident…but one cannot be too careful."

"R-right," she stammered, unnerved by the old man's cryptic words. "So, um, if you can't tell me who he is—er, can you at least tell me what he looks like, so I can recognize him when I see him?"

He didn't answer her, simply pulling a small, crumpled-up envelope from his vest pocket and handing it to her. He placed it into her hand and closed her fingers around them, his grip firm. "Take a look at this, if you wish," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "It may give you some insight that I cannot, for I have not opened it. But if by slim chance you do run into him…flee without hesitation. You must not let his voice reach your ears, child. It will bring about your end."

In hindsight, venturing out on her own probably hadn't been too smart.

Not that Lucy was afraid of the subject of this legend, of course—far from it. If she was being honest with herself, she was more afraid of getting lost and getting attacked by a wild animal in the thick bramble than running into this supposedly supernatural being that could end people's lives with just the sound of his voice. Her ears were stuffed full of cotton as per the old man's advice; she could hardly hear her own footsteps, much less anything else—which was dangerous out in the wilderness. She should've at least brought a local as a guide that actually knew their way around.

Stupid Lucy, she scolded herself internally, you should've known better than to jump into this without thinking! You always do this!

But it was too late for her to go back—she could see through the thicket of branches above her head that the sky was starting to turn a pallid pink now, and by the time she found someone actually willing to escort her through this forest, it would be too dark for them to proceed, and she didn't want to wait until morning. She was too hung up on this legend—nothing had intrigued her this much before in her life, which was certainly saying something what with all the traveling she had done—and she wanted to learn more about it as soon as possible.

Lucy sighed to herself once with a resigned smile at her own rashness, brushing several locks of her golden hair out of her face before forging on, her pack that contained her notes and writing tools, plus an extra jacket in case it got too cold, along with several high-energy snacks, a bottle of water, and extra flashlight batteries (and the flashlight itself, of course) heavy on her shoulders. While the locals had said the forest could get pretty difficult to navigate at night, she was confident that she would be fine as long as she kept track of the clear worn path winding around the trees, because that was how she'd entered the woods to begin with. As it was, she only had a couple hours left before she had to start heading back, and she didn't want to waste time.

As she continued to hike and search for any clues, her mind was going a million miles an hour. The envelope that an old man in the village had given her was all she could glean from the townsfolk themselves, and it wasn't very much to go on. There'd been a fuzzy photograph of a human-like blur that appeared to be running away from the photographer and a short note enclosed in it that described that photographer's encounter with this "him". Apparently this woman (the writer of the letter had a female name) had gotten lost in these woods some years ago—around three, according to the date written on the note—and had encountered him when the sky had gone completely dark.

"I ran into the one you mentioned the night before my departure," the note had read. "He couldn't have been older than sixteen,and he was out here all alone. I wondered if he'd gotten lost, the same as I had, and I opened my mouth to ask…but at that moment, he backed away from me and pointed to my left. I looked where he'd pointed on impulse and caught sight of the town lights. When I looked back, the boy was fleeing.

Contrary to what you told me, however, he did not say a word to me.

I managed to snap this photo of him before he vanished from sight. I will include it as proof of my encounter with him. I request some truthful answers this time. I will be waiting for your reply."

That bit of information clashed with the tale the old man had told her. In his story, it had sounded as if the "one" mentioned sought out people who got lost in these woods and spoke to them with every intent of ending their lives as punishment for encroaching on his territory. The one in this account—a boy appearing about sixteen (closer to nineteen now if he was still around)—had done the exact opposite. He hadn't gone hunting for the woman—she'd come across him. And the first thing he'd done was point her in the direction of safety and attempt to run away from her the moment she'd looked away. If anything, this boy had been trying to avoid encountering people, even guide them to safety, instead of actively seeking them out to kill them for trespassing.

Which account was the true one? Had the old man lied to Lucy in his tale? Or was this woman the one who had lied to him? Or was there something more to the contents of this envelope and to the origins of this story she'd heard that she didn't know yet? It was difficult to tell.

Then her mind went to the blurry photograph of the fleeing figure. There hadn't been much she could make out in terms of recognizable human features besides the human-esque build of the figure thanks to the odd flash lighting of the camera used and the probability that it had been nighttime when this photo had been taken, but there was one more detail that stood out to her like a beacon: the boy's hair. It had been pink. Bright pink. Definitely an unnatural hair color.

The sun was sinking more rapidly now, dyeing the sky and landscape in brilliant shades of red and orange and stretching the shadows of the trees around her to their limits. Lucy finally paused in her nonstop trek, taking a moment to catch her breath as she stared up at the sky, and realized how late it had gotten. It would be dark by the time she returned to the town if she didn't head back now, and while the idea of spending the night in the woods was tempting, getting lost here in the dark would be very bad. Not to mention she hadn't really brought along much in the ways of camping equipment .

Though Lucy had expected as much, she couldn't help but feel disappointed anyway. She'd come this far and had found absolutely nothing worth adding to her notes about this supposed legend besides what she'd already acquired. It was probably unrealistic for her to have assumed that she'd discover something worthwhile on the first day of investigating, but that didn't make this failure hit her any less forcefully, because research usually came so easy to her.

She sighed in disappointment as she fished out the flashlight from her pack and flicked it on, turning to head back—and in doing so, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, moving to her right. She whirled around, her eyes struggling to chase and pinpoint the cause.

But she found nothing.

Cautiously, Lucy raised her free hand and pulled out the thick cotton balls she had stuffed into her ears, stashed them in her jacket pocket, and continued to scan the ever-darkening area, shining the flashlight on anything suspicious and straining her ears for any strange sounds.

"Hello?" she called out, her voice tense in her nervousness. "Is somebody out there?"

She waited, but there was no answer. But then—

A moment later, there was a sudden snap of a breaking branch, and she yelped in terror and jumped nearly a mile high. She couldn't help herself. She tried frantically to shine her flashlight in the direction of the noise when she'd managed to compose herself somewhat, but all she could do was swing around the beam of light around her uselessly—the sound had echoed around her, so she had no idea where it had come from.

Lucy took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself. It was nothing, she told herself. Don't freak out, Lucy. It was probably just a squirrel or a bear, or—

She stopped herself with a sharp shake of the head. Heading back was looking like a better idea by the minute. She turned around to hike back down the path—and found herself face-to-face with the boy she had seen in the blurry picture.

Lucy had to cover her mouth with both hands to avoid screaming in her shock. She could feel her eyes prickling with tears that had sprung up the moment her heart threatened to leap out of her chest.

How long had he been standing there? Granted, he wasn't right in her face or anything—he was close enough to identify yet far away enough that it wasn't an encroachment into her personal space—but she was sure that no one had been there in the several seconds that she'd looked away.

The boy had definitely aged from the time the photo of him had been taken. He looked older than he had been in the picture, still somehow boyish in appearance, but could pass as a young adult. Just like in the photo, his hair was bright pink. It was slightly longer now, but still in that mussed-up style, bits of twigs and leaves stuck in its locks. Maybe it was just the light of the flashlight, but he looked strangely pale for someone living out in the woods. His clothes were surprisingly well-groomed also, if somewhat rumpled. He was wearing a plain black hoodie faded by constant wear, khaki-colored hiking jeans, and—oddly—dirty sandals on his feet as opposed to hiking shoes.

In other words, he looked surprisingly ordinary—except for his eyes. Since his back had been turned toward her in the picture, she hadn't exactly thought to contemplate what his face looked like, but that didn't matter now that she was seeing it in person. His eyes were extremely distracting, because she couldn't decide what color they were. They were like a kaleidoscope of color, changing every now and again from gray, to black, to brown, to an odd shade of green, maybe even some hints of red under the shine of her flashlight.

And here he was, staring at her intently with those dizzying eyes.

Lucy wanted to say something, but the boy's steadfast gaze kept her silent— which was just as well, because even if she had managed to open her mouth, she wouldn't have been able to think of anything to say to him.

Still, she found this strange. Why was he scrutinizing her so intently? Why wasn't he backing off and running away, like he'd done three years ago? She wasn't sure if she should feel terrified, or excited, or nervous, or something else. After all, every legend had some sort of basis to real-life events, and there was a high possibility that his voice really had killed people in the past. All he had to do now was open his mouth and say something in order to prove it.

But he didn't. She wasn't sure how long the boy had been staring at her, but it felt like an eternity before the boy finally averted his eyes and allowed Lucy to lower her head and stare down at her boots, a flurry of emotion coursing through her entire body at what had just occurred. She couldn't believe it. She'd finally found the boy spoken of in the legend, but she was at a loss as to what she should do now with this opportunity. What was she supposed to do? It wasn't like she could just sit him down to ask him questions about himself and expect him to answer to a complete stranger—not to mention, he probably wouldn't want to speak to begin with. Did he even know how?

She raised her head again slowly in an effort to keep from scaring the boy away. He was still there, looking down at the dirt beneath his feet, but his eyes were out of focus and he was biting his lip—he looked like he was thinking hard about something. The expression made Lucy want to ask him what was wrong, but she stopped herself. She couldn't afford crossing whatever invisible line that existed between the two of them at this moment, so she settled for staying silent and waiting for whatever he was going to do next. She noticed vaguely in the back of her mind that it was getting extremely late now, but she was too focused on the boy in front of her to really pay much attention to the time.

Then the boy suddenly moved—he turned his body halfway, as if he was about to leave her there, but he did something that she didn't expect—he extended a hand toward her and beckoned once, his expression unreadable.

He was asking her to follow.

Before Lucy had the chance to even ponder whether following this boy's odd request was wise or not, he turned on the spot and ran—deeper into the woods, away from the path.

And he was moving extremely fast—if she didn't chase after him now, she would lose both him and the chance to learn more about the story behind this legend, and what better way to learn was there than from the source itself?

Curiosity won out against her better judgment. Lucy sprinted after him.