Title: just a game of telephone (but I'll tell you the truth, and I'll tell you true)
Disclaimer: if you recognize them, they're not mine
Warnings: distant future!fic
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 725
Point of view: first
Prompt: hallowed
Hey, kid, what're you doin'? No, no, come away from there. We don't go there—it's haunted. Hallowed. Why, no one's set foot there since… hmm. My grandpa's day, at least. Even then, it was rundown, old. No, don't go there.
C'mon in. I just baked some cookies, got a full jug of milk. If you need proof for your friends, I got some old collectibles I'll loan you.
Don't worry—all'a 'em took somethin' of mine to prove they went. It's part of the tradition; you new here? Thought so. All the kids born and raised 'round here know from the cradle to not go past the fence. I'll have a stern talkin'-to with those'ns. They should be more careful with newcomers. Y'all're all so fragile.
Don't be ashamed, boyo. Come now, show me a smile. I'll tell you why we don't go there, and you make sure any siblings ya got know the story too, yeah?
Well, it goes something like this:
In the days before the War, the days of ipods and computers, two brothers opened a door they shouldn't've and unleashed an evil so great it started to eat the world. When the brothers, Dan and Saul, realized what they'd done, they tried to fix it. Saul had one of the Winged Messengers as an ally and had escaped from the Torment, and Dan was gifted with abilities the likes of which none of us folk have anymore. He could read secret thoughts and call down lighting and a dozen other things.
Other people tried to help the brothers, but all died because Dan and Saul were chosen, y'see. That's why they could open the door in the first place: their blood was the key. And the evil wanted Dan. It chased him while he and his brother chased it, and 'round and 'round they went. All the time they fought, the evil burned the world, until finally Dan said, "Enough, monster. We'll fight face to face."
And they did, right up there in that house. For days they tangled. At the end of the battle, Dan and the evil were both gone, and most of the block with 'em. Saul, barely alive, crawled for miles 'til someone helped him. His ally, the last of the Winged Messengers, died to save him during Dan's battle, so Saul's the only one to ever know what really happened in that house.
Anyway, after Saul healed up, he came back and rebuilt the house, and there he lived alone for a long time. But eventually, people started moving in and set up Town, and the one day, a man showed up at Saul's house, claiming to be his son.
Saul looked him right in the eye and said, "That you are."
When Saul died, decades after Dan, his son Blake stayed in the house. He had kids of his own, but his sweetheart never set foot in the house. His kids moved away after he himself died, all but one, a daughter who built another house at the foot of the hill, this one, kiddo, and lived there.
Something haunts that house, you see. It is hallowed ground, and only blood-kin of those brothers can set foot there. Everyone else—yes, even loved ones—suffers and bleeds and dies. That's why Blake's girl never went there. No one can tear that house down because no one can get close enough.
They say a door is locked up there. Maybe Dan didn't destroy the evil, just hid it away again. Maybe Dan and Saul are guarding the door they once opened.
Alls I can tell you is this: stay away from that fence. The house has killed people before, and so long as no one goes near, it won't kill again.
Now, take this jar and tell those kids you heard a scream. It's tradition.
Well, if you want to come back, a'course you're welcome. I like visitin'. Yeah, I know lots of stories about Dan and Saul. They had hundreds of adventures. Come back tomorrow, if you want, and I'll tell you about the time they fought the Demon King with only a single knife. Well, it was a special knife, you see, and—
Tomorrow, kiddo. Bring the kids who dared you. I'll make more cookies.
Tomorrow. I'll be here. I'll always be here.