When you asked me to write you a story, I wasn’t sure what you wanted. It took me a while, but it’s finally finished. Here it is, the story of my life.

August 20, 2018. I was just getting to school, and it was my first day. He and I didn’t know each other. I knew that this year was going to be different, but I didn’t think that I was going to meet the most amazing guy known to the seventh grade. He was taller than me, like most people, he had dark brown hair, he didn’t talk often, and he was smart. I have the decency to change his name, but everything else about him is true. His name can be Eric Arel. He wore basketball shorts almost every day and he sat with every popular guy at lunch. Eric was on team C and his locker was close to mine. I’m on team B so I didn’t have any classes with him but still, I “knew” him. We didn’t talk, we didn’t sit close, and he didn’t know I was alive. I think about what I'd said to him if he came up to me, but every time I do, I fail to finish a sentence. He was the best person in my life at the time, even though he wasn’t really a part of it. He was perfect. We were partnered up for a project, we became the best of friends, and I loved it. Eric would face time me every night so we could talk about our project. I thought that we were becoming something more, I was obviously wrong. Eric called me while I was at my dad's. I hadn’t answered, but I knew for some reason I should. I called him back. 

“Hey,” a ball formed in the pit of my stomach

“Hey, what’s up?” I tried to sound like I was busy.

“Can I ask you something?” He now sounded fearful.

“Of course you can.” This was it. He was going to ask me out, and we were going to become the best-looking couple. Calm down. It’s time.

“Is your friend Lexi single?”

“Um. I think so.” I hung up. I haven’t spoken a word to him since. The saddest part of this story is that it’s completely true. My best friend is still dating him and neither one of them knows.

@SK_Shepherd I didn't know what to begin with so, hope this is good.

"Ms. Borne, you must leave."

"Leave? But I only just got here!" I cry out. I had done one simple job for them. I was told this would induct me into the organization. Of course, I expected to be double crossed at some point, but never had I expected it so soon.

My reaction obviously one they had expected, so the man in the orange suit continued to explain what he had meant. "You must leave... permanently."

"Permanently?"

"For heavens sake, girl! You must die!" The man settled back in his chair and huffed a deep sigh. "You have served your purpose."

"But, it was a good purpose." The man in the blue suit leaned foreward into the light so I could see his face. He was ghastly pale with flaming orange hair, much like myself. My brother.

"I-" I couldn't formulate words correctly, so I just stood there for a few seconds of awkward silence.

"You can choose how you go." A man in a green suit said. He had a thick accent, and I imagined his face having a sneer.

"I want to be shot." I say, point blank. I had thought about this before, of course, coming from a criminal family. It would be quick. Relatively painless. "Once. In the head."

"Shot?"

"In the head?"

The men all muttered and a few gave short chuckles which sounded more like a coughing fit. I pointed to a spot on my head as if confirming.

"Alright then. Aldridge, come here."

Aldridge?

A tall guy around my age with black hair and narrow, upslanting eyes stepped forward into the light.

"Sir, I don't really-"

"Do it, Aldridge."

The eyes I had come to know so well, with the lashes gracefully curtaining his eyes, were full of fear. "Sir, I don't want to kill her. She's... she's my fiance, sir."

A gasp sounded to my right as a short, plump man in a yellow suit covered his ears with his hands as if to wish the words out of existance. At least somebody knew this was wrong.

"Aldridge, you can shoot her, or I'll shoot you both."

Daniel turned to me, a look of pain on his face, as he raises a gun.

"Dan, it's okay." I whisper. I didn't want him to die as well.

I walk over to him and direct the gun to the front of my head. The cool barrel made the idea that I was about to die so much more real.

"No." Daniel whispered and dropped the gun.

The gun had barely hit the groung when I heard a shot ring through the air, and saw Daniel drop to the ground. A scream must've left me at some point, but I wasn't loud enough to hear what came next.

"Good. I was needing to get rid of him."

Then nothing.

Long, long ago, in lands mirroring, yet, not our own, there was a village named Khonstant. Khonstant was renowned among travellers for their long and harsh winters, and the banshees that stole women, men, and children alike if they found them alone in the storm.

Khonstant was small, but had no shortage of funds for when it came to their faith. The marble-hewn mosque that lay to the outskirts of the village was a testament of their devotion, as were the adorned vestments worn by the priests and acolytes, renowned for being forbidden to touch. But Miera had touched them. Many times.

Her father would often find her stroking his silken garments when he returned from the temple just shy of twilight, but unlike the other priests, he would not punish her. He would just hold her on his lap and stroke her hair and tell her over and over how much he loved her. She would fall asleep to the rocking of his chair and the kiss on her forehead.

On Miera’s tenth winter, the one with winds that howled like wolves, the merchants stopped coming to Khonstant. Dry wood ran low that year, but food ran lower. Miera was not afraid of the cold. So on the day that her father was to have a sermon, she pulled her mother’s bearskin coat around her frame, put stones in her pockets and breathed through her mouth as she walked towards the woods. Her breath was like mist in the frigid air, but Miera did not shiver. She stepped into the woods and the trees swallowed her whole.

The girl-child spent the day scouring the wind-pruned trees for sticks that she could carry home for kindling. She searched, and searched, but before long there was a building wind, one that took her breath away. The kind of wind that picked up children, and whisked them towards the gaping maw of the banshee who willed it.

Now Miera was shivering. She couldn’t tell whether the howling she heard was from wind or wolf. She almost found herself hoping the latter. Suddenly, the smell of sea spray burst across her flaring nostrils. And no matter how the wind whipped and whistled, the scent did not cease. Miera followed it, deciding as any child might, that wherever the smell was coming from, it had to be better than waiting outside for the storm to pass. And that was how Miera came to be sitting at the wood-carved table of a woman she was sure was a witch. But digging into a salted fish bake, Miera couldn’t find herself to care.

Miera fell asleep in the witch’s den, with a full belly and lazy smile, only to be woken up by the white of the sun and the prodding of the witch’s cane.

“I should be on my way,” Miera said, dusting off her mother’s bearskin coat.

“Go on, girl, but first fetch me a flask of water from the stream.”

Miera complied, cursing when she found herself hacking away at the impenetrable ice with a broken branch to no avail. It took her until twilight to fill the flask, and by then, the winds and wolves were howling and Miera had to retreat back to the witch’s cottage.

The witch said nothing, simply snatching the flask from Miera’s frost-burned fingertips, and offering it to her glassy-eyed raven who stuck his beak into the opening, then threw it to the floor. Miera ate bread and cheese that night, and the warmth of the witch’s den lulled her to sleep.

Miera awoke on the seconds morning, and upon telling the witch, “I should be on my way,” the witch now replied, “Go on, girl, but first fetch me five mushrooms as big as your hand from the woods south of here.”

Miera complied, but finding even five of the mushrooms that the witch demanded took her all day. And soon, the winds and wolves were howling and Miera was grateful to return to the witch’s cottage.

The witch said nothing, simply snatching the fungus from the girl’s hands and throwing them into her cauldron. Miera ate mushroom stew that night, and fell asleep in the witch’s den once more.

On the third morning, Miera stood and told the witch, “Thank you for sharing your fire and your food, but I should be on my way.”

To this the witch replied, “Then allow me to give you a gift before you leave, girl.”

So Miera lay down on the floor as the witch bade her, and closed her eyes to the soft caws of the witch’s raven and the smell of the salts in the witch’s fist held close to the girl’s nose. For you do not simply decline a witch’s gift. And when the girl opened her eyes again, she was peering at her own body on the floor, eyes closed.

“Return to your village,” the witch said, facing the now raven-girl, “and see why the wind brought you to me.”

Miera flew and flew until she spied the window of her father’s study. She landed lightly on the windowsill, her heart leaping with the thought of seeing him again, but the sight before her made her blood run cold.

She returned to the witch’s cottage, and upon the touch of her raven-feet to the stoop, she opened her eyes – a girl again. The witch did not ask what she had seen. She likely already knew. So the witch was not surprised when Miera asked to become her apprentice.

The witch placed salt on Miera’s hands, under her tongue and spread the crystals across her forehead. They tumbled down the girl’s cheeks but she did not complain. She could think only of the golden-haired girl on her father’s lap, her salty tears mirroring those which cascaded down from Miera’s brow. The silent pleading, the open “no” of her sobbing mouth.

Miera did not want to believe that her father could do such a thing. But she had seen it. She had seen it. And in those moments, Miera swore under the witch’s steady hand that she was going to be a hunter, not a witch.

She slept and dreamed of her father and the crying girl, dreamed that she tore the girl from her father’s clawed grasp and cut off the hands that had touched her, the tongue that had kissed her.

She would be a hunter. But she would not hunt the deer or rabbits, who trembled and fled. She would not kill prey. She would kill wolves.

From that moment on, no predator was safe.

And on Miera’s eighteenth winter, the one with winds that howled like wolves, she paid her father a visit and returned to the witch’s cottage with a girl with hair like gold.

Cassy Cameel wasn’t very popular, but she had so many people who loved her. Why was she the one to leave? Why not a cat or a street rat or something? Cassy was so nice to everyone. She had blond hair that she would naturally get highlights before summer. She wasn’t tall but about average, and she was on the school track team. She had two best friends, Linn Bray and Haylee Jordan. Linn went missing after some problem with her dad, and Haylee went missing just before another one of Cassy's friend’s, his name was Blake Rider. He and Haylee had just started to become friends when it all happened. Most people say Cassy was afraid of having the same thing happen to her and just left, but they don’t know the real story.

It was a nice Spring morning in Texarkana, and Cassy had just woken up. Her hair was messy, and her shirt was on backwards, but she was still marvelous to look at. She was on her way to the kitchen to get some breakfast when all this sudden, her phone started to make a sound it had never made before. Cassy gripped the phone in fear of what she saw. Haylee and Linn were trying to face time her! She didn’t answer it at first, but they kept calling her. The sound would get louder every time she hit decline, but finally Cassy couldn’t take it anymore, so she answered. Her screen went black and all she could hear were loud screams and scratching. She tried to say something but was to afraid. Her phone shut off.

Cassy was so scared to pick up her phone that she left it there, on the coffee table, staring at it every moment that she was home. She had come right from school on the Thursday of her first date since Blake went missing. Cassy didn’t go find a dress, she didn’t put on makeup, she didn’t even tell him that she was staying home. Now Blake and Cassy weren’t dating, but she was petrified to be such good friends with someone and them leave her for the wolves. Instead, she just sat on her leather worn couch in the same spot she always did. She had been sitting there all night and it was about two in the morning. Her phone started to make that noise again. Not Haylee nor Linn, this time it was Blake. She answered. 

“Hello?” She shook.

“Cassy! Thank god you’re okay.” He looked worried, and he looked just like his normal self all at the same time. “You need to get out of that house. Now!”

“Why? What’s wrong? How are you calling me?” Cassy was so confused that she didn’t even care why she had to leave.

“Please. I’ll explain on the way,” he said.

“Okay.”

Blake told Cassy about what happened to both Linn and Haylee, and that he knew what was going to happen to Cassy if she didn’t leave. Cassy couldn’t believe that at least Linn was okay. Blake told Cassy that Haylee didn’t write the note in her locker, and that he went to go find her. He was almost in tears when he told her the rest.

“Cassy, Haylee didn’t drown. She wasn’t taken either.” He had a single tear in his eye. “She was alive when I saw her.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her over the phone. “Come meet me at Small Rock Park, I'll finish there.” He hung up.

She was almost to the park when she tripped over a twig on the ground. She caught herself and walked up to a bench under what people call the ‘Flag Tree’. She texted Blake to see where he was, and he didn’t answer for about ten to fifteen minutes, so she called him. He answered, but it wasn’t him she heard. The person’s voice was deep and scratchy. She couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, so she kept listening to it. 

It said: “Blake is with me. Come to the old town bank on the West side. If you get here in time, maybe you can save him. Or maybe you’ll be next.”

Cassy dropped her phone. This is what Blake wanted to hide me from she thought. Her mind was racing, and she couldn’t breathe. She passed out, right there, without Blake, by herself. She was awake but couldn’t move. Her body was paralyzed, and she was in a bright room. Cassy moved her eyes around to see where she was. The bank! Cassy saw the old safe near the desks. She saw the broken red chairs that had been demolished by termites in the past years.  Blake was there too; he was staring at her from a far. He folded his arms and slowly walked over. He looked at her, said he was sorry and that he was going to see her soon and faded away as Cassy’s eyes closed along with the faint sound of crying beside her. She was gone. Lifeless. Dead. Blake looked her small body. He kept saying 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Blood was dripping from Cassy’s left side near her heart. Blake walked, away knife in hand and Linn tied to the table beside of Cassy.