Felix tramped through the snow, shivering as an icy wind blew through the trees in the thick woods. The falling of the snow was waning. The full moon was at its highest in the sky: midnight, the witching hour.
Felix stopped to make sure his recorder was on. This was probably the best and worst anonymous tip he'd gotten in awhile. There had been a recent lull in paranormal activity around Victubia, which gave Felix more free time and more angry radio listeners clamoring for more paranormal escapades. The tip had arrived just in time to save his broadcasting career. On the other hand, it was a ghost that only appeared on a night like this: snowy, cold, at midnight, under the full moon. As much as Felix would rather be in his brand-new house next to his cozy fireplace with his wife, Marzia, he had a job to do, and he'd be damned if he left this creepy forest without getting it done.
The snow crunched as Felix made his way through the woods to the clearing he had been instructed to go to. He didn't really have a plan as far as what he was going to do when the ghost appeared. This was usually the case, though; Felix rarely had or needed a plan when approaching ghosts, thanks to his sixth sense. The Sense.
Only about 9% of the population had as strong of a Sense as Felix had. It enabled him to talk with ghosts, to reason with them, and it made it a hell of a lot easier to find them. It might be true that many of the "ghosts" Felix encountered were poltergeists—non-corporeal beings created from fear, whose only purpose was to cause others suffering—but some were real ghosts, with unfinished business, or who had just been misunderstood by the inhabitants of the place they were haunting. The anonymous tip hadn't said whether the apparition was a ghost or a poltergeist, which made it harder to prepare what little he had to. That didn't matter, though. Felix was sure everything would go fine.
It always did.
Felix could see the clearing through the thin line of trees. He was working his way through a particularly troublesome tangle of woody vines when he heard shots.
He ducked instinctively, clutching at his precious top hat, and one of the bullets whizzed past where his head had been. In the distance, a man's angry voice rang out, although the rushing of blood in Felix's ears was too loud for him to make out what was being said. The thorns on the vines he was stuck in pricked his skin, and he cursed quietly. Felix didn't dare to move, even to breathe. His heart pounded in his chest, waiting for the final shot, but it never came.
It was all silent now, and the snow had stopped falling. Felix wasn't able to tell whether the gunman was in front or behind him, and he didn't want to find out. He had to get out of this spiny bush sometime, though.
Felix stood up hesitantly, feeling at his face for blood. Luckily, the thorns hadn't punctured the skin, just scratched it. He looked around to see if the attacker was close to him, and heard more shots. Felix flinched, but it seemed like whoever was shooting either had bad aim or wasn't aiming for him.
Felix made his way into the clearing, hoping that the open space would make it easier for him to see. He finally made his way through the bush and stepped out into the clearing.
The stars seemed much brighter out here than they did in the city. The evergreens on both sides of the clearing loomed ominously over Felix's head. He wasn't quite sure what to do: there was a gunman out here somewhere, but he had to catch this ghost if he wanted to continue his radio show.
Suddenly, a person burst from the line of trees on the other side of the narrow clearing. Felix was only barely able to dodge them as they barreled towards him, looking back at the thicket they had come out of.
The two made eye contact, and in one fluid motion, he and the man revolved around each other in a simple, graceful dance. Felix drew his sword and the other man extended his right arm quickly, although to Felix it seemed as though they were moving through molasses. When the dance was done, Felix's sword was at the man's throat, and the man's hand was pointed towards Felix's chest, shining shards of magic circling lazily around it in the air.
Now that Felix had a chance to see the man, he was more than unnerved by his appearance. He seemed to be fairly normal. The man's light skin—what little Felix could see of it, anyway—seemed to glow under the moon. He had short, dark brown hair, messy around his face: that is, if you could call it a face. In fact, Felix's uneasiness was caused by the absence of that very thing. Where there should have been features, there was only a white mask: at least, Felix thought it was a mask, but it didn't seem to be attached to the man's face with anything. The mask was expressionless. Only two large, vaguely almond-shaped eyes and a line served to identify the surface as the representation of a face.
Despite the prodding his Sense was giving him to keep a lookout for the ghost around here somewhere, Felix smirked, tipping his hat at the stranger. "To whom do I owe the pleasure?"
The stranger didn't respond, although Felix could have swore he saw the "eyes" narrow at him briefly. The two men stood there for what seemed like hours, neither daring to attack for fear that he would be the one on the losing side.
"Who are you?" the man finally asked. "Why are you here?" His voice was...strange, Felix supposed was a word for it. It was low, dangerous, sultry, almost. He could feel the sounds flowing over his skin, and the tips of his fingers tingled. The voice had evoked a feeling, a feeling that was somehow familiar and yet entirely foreign.
"I could ask the same thing of you, friend," Felix replied, smiling genially. "There aren't many reasons to be out on a night like this. Especially not in your...ah, suspicious attire."
Felix didn't hear or see anything, but the aura around the stranger changed when he said those words. The mystical blades pointed at Felix's heart started to revolve faster around the man's hand.
"It seems you have a death wish," the stranger said, and Felix identified the feeling the stranger's voice had awoken: fear. Legitimate fear. Felix had never encountered other people on his outings, and those rare few that he did were always scared, hiding, simply in need of help. This was different. No one had ever threatened to kill him, not unless they were a ghost. He thought of what scenarios would unfold if he died out here, alone, murdered by some mysterious man wearing a mask. Some things would take care of themselves: his carrier-duck business would continue to be managed by his older sister. But of course there were other things. What about all his fans? What about the pugs? What about—oh god—what about Marzia, his beautiful, talented, amazing wife Marzia?
For a moment, he saw her, sitting in the olive green armchair by the fireplace, surrounded by boxes they still hadn't unpacked. Everything in the lounge was blue except for that chair: it's had been Marzia's grandmother's before she passed away. Marzia would often curl up there, writing another horror story, or drawing a new design for her boutique, or just sipping tea and smiling at him. For a moment, he wanted nothing more to do with the paranormal. For a moment, Felix wished that he and his wife never had to deal with the Sense.
But it was only for a moment.
Felix pressed the edge of his sword on the man's throat. Not hard enough to draw blood, but enough for it to hurt. The stranger tilted his head to the other side, exposing more of his neck to the blade. He closed his hand slightly, and the blue translucent shards inched closer to Felix's rapidly beating heart.
"When I close my hand, these knives will run straight into your chest," the man said. It was quiet, but his words seemed to echo through the forest. "They will rotate around your heart, cutting a perfect circle into your body. As your heart slides to the ground, you will still be conscious. In between gasps, you will beg for a quick death as you collapse, and then, I will leave." In the span of a blink, Felix could've sworn the mask cracked, twisted, revealed a demented grin full of jagged teeth, with the eyes, the lifeless, static eyes, staying exactly the same. When he blinked again, the mask had reset to its neutral expression. "You will lay right here, in the snow, and bleed out in agony. It's unlikely that someone will find you before your body's gone stiff or blackened from the cold."
"Is that a challenge?" Felix retorted, tightening his grip on the handle of his sword.
The mask's line turned up ever so slightly. The long fingers began to close.
Time slowed down. This man was obviously a mage, and although Felix himself did not possess any magical powers, he had a pretty good idea of how they worked. If this quickly formulated plan went as it was supposed to, Felix would make it out alive and with few major injuries, if any. If not, he was going to have his heart painfully cut out of his chest by a mysterious masked stranger in the middle of a forest clearing. No one would ever know what had happened to him.
Felix grinned.
With a quick, practiced motion, Felix drew a dagger from inside his sleeve and threw it at the man's torso, still holding the sword against his throat. As he had expected, the man used a shield to protect himself. The magical blades faltered, although only briefly: whoever this was was more powerful than Felix had thought. The opening gave Felix just enough time to kick the stranger's legs out from under him and grab his dropped dagger. As he drew away, his sword cut deep into the thin exposed skin of the man's neck. The stranger cried out, falling to the ground with a thud. A weak bluish dome appeared around the man's collapsed body. Through the dome, Felix could see that the man was actually bleeding from two places: his neck, where Felix had sliced through the skin, and another wound on the back of his body, lower right side. Felix stepped closer and leaned over the man. The blood had soaked through his jacket in a circle, more or less: it must have been a bullet wound. The shots Felix heard earlier; they had to be coming towards this guy. But who were they coming from?
Suddenly, a blue projectile flew at his face. Felix yelped girlishly and scrambled backwards, but he couldn't stop the blade. His hat fell into the snow. The blade flew into his arm.
Felix cried out. His recording device detached itself from Felix's coat, its fall muffled by the soft blanket of snow. The magical knife disappeared into the freezing wind, and Felix clutched at his injured left arm. He had only gotten this hurt on a few of his jobs, and he hadn't even found a fucking ghost yet.
The man had stood back up. Felix had no idea what this thing was; it seemed impervious to a sword and bullet wounds. Just a resilient human? Or something else?
A loud pained sound attracted Felix's attention. It was coming from the other end of the clearing. From here, he could only barely make anything out, but it was quite a beautiful sight. At first he thought it was a swan, maybe, but the more he squinted the easier the figure was to make out. There, at the end of the clearing, was a floating, glowing woman, wailing, with her hand beckoning towards them. The snow layering the ground in the clearing began to glow too, as the woman rose higher and higher into the air. Felix's Sense was going haywire: it was like alarm bells ringing in his head.
Finally.
As much as Felix wanted to go and interact with the ghost, learn more about it, and do what he needed to do, he was in too much pain at the moment. The wound wasn't too deep: obviously the mage casting it was still weak, but that didn't keep the wound from bleeding profusely and hurting like hell.
The other man walked towards the ghost slowly, cautiously. Even in severe pain, Felix couldn't help but admire the man's tact. Obviously this wasn't his first time investigating the paranormal. With good aim and a little bit of luck, Felix might be able to make this his last time.
Pushing himself into a sitting position with his uninjured arm, he removed another small dagger from his other sleeve. It's a good thing he was right-handed. Closing one eye, he aimed for the man's calf and threw the blade as hard as he could. As he had expected, the knife hit the man in the back of the leg, sinking through the man's boot. He cried out and fell to the ground mid-stride, hitting the hardening snow with a crunch. The ghost cried out, flickering, before disappearing altogether. The snow's luminescence faded, and once again the only source of reliable light was the moon and the weak lantern at Felix's hip.
A small part of Felix wanted to lay in the snow for a while, letting it numb his violently throbbing arm, but at this point the majority of him wanted nothing more than to get out of this forest. He heaved himself onto his right forearm, and managed to get to his feet. Holding his bleeding arm, he stumbled his way back into the forest. Felix wasn't going to make the mistake of sympathy again.
He forgot the top hat.
The forest was even more foreboding than before. Felix's blood loss was making him dizzy and hallucinatory. It seemed as though the forest was elongating before him. He wondered if he would make it back to his carriage before morning at this rate. Maybe he'd have to hitch a ride home with someone...no, Mr. Chair wouldn't leave him here like that, would he?
As he walked, the snow on his coat began to melt and seep through to his skin. His heart was racing, and he felt like he was going to collapse at any moment. It was only a little farther, he kept murmuring to himself, just a little farther...
That's when the shots started.
A loud crack rang out through the trees. A bullet whizzed past Felix's face, just barely scraping his right temple. It hurt, but not enough for him to scream. Felix was too disoriented to try and avoid the bullets at this point.
Another shot fired, and this time it didn't miss.
The next bullet tore through the layers of fabric Felix was wearing to make a deep groove in his left side. The sudden, sharp pain shocked Felix into a more alert state, and he cried out in pain. Clutching his arm and his side, Felix stumbled sideways into yet another thornbush, and gritted his teeth as his ankle twisted on the way down. He could feel the sharp points digging into the flesh of his face as he cowered, clutching his side, and thought about how coincidental it would be for this thornbush to be the same thornbush he had hidden from shots in earlier.
More shots above his head. They were rapid now, and slowly getting closer. Had he still been standing (or trying to, at least), Felix would have been riddled with bullet holes.
What little Felix could make out of the world was fading into darkness. Everything was spinning and unsteady. He was cold, and hungry, and injured, and pretty fucking mad that he hadn't gotten any useable recordings for Fridays with PewDiePie. He was weak and his heart was beating so hard that his head was throbbing and everything in his body was so, so tired. God, was Felix tired. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a few brief moments...