The old (undead) hermit.

There was always a fairy tale on my home village, about an old man who lived inside a well and a forest now long dead. The story says an old hermit was a dark wizard of immeasurable power who terrorized the land, who consumed the life of all the living things around him…

They say that the dead forest far away from town is a product of his presence, that the trees stay dead forever and that the grass dies because he fought the druids who lived in the forest and cursed the land dozens of years ago.

I didn’t believe that story, it was just something they told the little kids in the village to make them behave.

Now that I’m ten years old (basically an adult) I don’t have to fear fake hermit-wizard guys. I only fear bandits, and bad people, and maybe the demons under the bed, but they only show up sometimes.

Though it just so happened, during one nice day, that the town got attacked by bandits, who quickly overran us.

I started running away from them but some of them had followed me and I ran faster, ran through the creepy forest of the old hermit. That was a bad idea. Maybe.

I ended up tripping over one of the dead roots of the trees and feel over and scraped my knee on the floor. Ended up backed against a tree, all while the bandits caught up and looked at me like my brother’s dog looks at his food…

In this situation, all I could do was cry and scream for help, even though I knew no one would come.

…

But then a magical skeleton man appeared out of nowhere and killed them all with his creepy magic.

I say it was creepy, because he just… grasped the air with one hand and then the bandits started to clutch their own chest and choke, the ones that didn’t do that just lit up in flames and fell over really quick.

There was more stuff too but uh… I rather not describe all of that. It was somewhat traumatic.

In the end, I was left alone in a creepy forest with a magical skeleton man, a lot of corpses from bandits that chased me for Gods know how long and a very bad scrape on my knee. It was bad, really.

So when the skeleton man who just killed those bandits without any effort turned around to look at me, I just forced myself to grab a rock and threw it at him.

In retrospective, that may have been a bad idea.

“Ow.”

The rock hits his head and the skeleton just… slightly moves his head, as if trying to act like it had hurt.

“That’s really mean you know?” The skeleton in front of me speaks, his tone chiding “Here I come, after a girl that’s screaming for help and what do I get? Rocks thrown at me, that’s it.”

He puts a skeletal hand to his head before letting out a sigh.

“The living, I swear…” He mutters.

“Aren’t- Aren’t you going to kill me?” I ask, stuttering in fear.

The skeleton freezes before his head snaps back at me, I can’t help but wither under his gaze the second his eyeless head stares at me.

“What? Heavens, no! What kind of person do you take me for?” He screams, as if he was offended.

The skeleton tsks and looks around, over the remains of the bandits laying on the forest.

He sighs “You know what? I’ll- I’ll just clear this up and be on my way” He begins.

He takes a deep breath, somehow, and shouts “Emile!”

Nothing happens, and he’s standing there for a few seconds, before he starts grumbling.

“Where the hell is- EMILE!” He screams, louder this time.

More seconds pass and shortly after his scream a decently sized amount of black mist appears from nowhere, right next to the skeleton. A figure reveals itself from within the clouds, and once enough of it clears, I see a somewhat rotten person standing there, an undead maybe.

“Ugh.” Is what comes from the moving corpse, who seems to be wearing some expensive clothing.

“And just where were you Mister? I told you I needed your help five minutes ago!”

The skeleton starts arguing with the undead, ignoring me completely while he speaks with him. The interaction somehow shaking me out of my stupor and reducing my fear, just a little.

“Uuuuuugh.”

“What do you mean I was busy!?, I asked if you were busy with something before I asked you to help me!”

It all feels so… surreal.

“Uuuugh!”

“Something last minute!? I literally asked you FIVE MINUTES- !” The skeleton cuts himself off almost immediately, pinches his nose (at least the place where it used to be), takes a deep breath and starts again “You know what? Just- Just clear this up, I’m done. I’m done, this isn’t worth it.”

The skeleton gestures to the bodies of the bandits strewn across the forest, the undead simply staring at the skeleton, like if he was challenging it, for a couple of seconds.

The skeleton puts his hands on his hips, kind of like how mom does when she’s angry with us, and after some more seconds of staring the undead gives another ugh before moving towards the corpses in the regular fashion that an undead would. Which is slowly, very very slowly.

“And you.”

The skeleton’s words make me jolt, the fear in me bubbling up once again.

I don’t know why I haven’t run yet; I don’t know why I haven’t kicked or screamed or anything. Despite my wound I could have probably made enough distance between us by now

The little part of my head that tries to be rational even in this situation tells me it’s my fear stopping me from doing anything but shaking.

When the skeleton looks at me, a small but sharp light filling the empty sockets of his eyes, I feel the full force of my fear hit me again. I can feel my heart thunder in my chest, almost as if it was going to jump out of my mouth right then and there.

But his next words make my fears go away-

“You need a hand with that knee or can you go back home on your own?”

-and replaces them with sheer befuddlement.

“…Huh?”

…And that’s how I found myself inside Mr. Skeleton’s cave sitting on a very ornate chair and sipping orange juice while the magic skeleton man (who’s not really that scary anymore) entered the room with a box and some wipes, kneeling right next to me and cleaning my wound.

“So, I could just use magic to heal this, but it turns out I don’t particularly remember how necrotic magic affects kids so… band aids will have to do. Sorry about that” He says, while putting the band-aids on my knee.

“It’s okay.” I mumble, while sipping from my glass of juice “Thank you for helping me Mr. Skeleton…”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m just doing what anyone else would.” He waves his hand while sitting down next to me and grabbing a glass for himself, from which he takes a sip, somehow. We stay in silence while drinking juice and all the while I can’t help but think that…

…Mom’s gonna throw a fit once I come back home.