Chapter 1 – Chap 1

I see things that nobody else sees. At least that’s what I used to think. Now it seems more like I see what everyone else is afraid to see.

Myths, urban legends, fairy tales. Everything has a base in fact. I cannot be the only one, at least, not the first one. My name is Jackson and I see what everyone else is afraid to.

I call it my “cursed blessing.” Or, rather, I would if anyone believed me. As a child, i was ‘imaginative.’ As a teen, I was ‘childish.’ And now, as an adult, I’m quiet.

People see and experience unexplained phenomena all the time, but they usually equate them to something they can accept or understand or something they are comfortable with. Of course, it isnt all bad. It can’t all be nightmare fuel and demons. But there cannot be light without dark, and I have seen both. One of the only constants that I have noticed is that the older I get, the more evil I see.

The first memory I have of my cursed blessing is when I was seven years old. I lived down an old dirt road in the country of one of the southern states in the U.S.. Our family owned a lot of acreage of woodland. As a child, it seemed infinite; so vibrant and green. Impossibly tall trees, rolling hills carpeted with fallen leaves and pine needles. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for me to spend hours playing in the woods near my house. Simpler and safer times. On one warm, sunny afternoon, I found myself walking in a part of the forest that I was familiar with when I came across a small trail in the leaves. That’s when i saw it, a kind of shimmer in the air. It wasn’t quite distortion, more like a ripple. I blinked and she was there. A tiny forest Sprite.

I was small for my age, but she stood a full head shorter than me, and thin, with a body akin to a teenage girl. She had long, dirty-blonde hair to her waist and wore a form-fitting brown and green tunic with soft brown boots; not quite leather but not cloth either. Her face held sharp features. The most unsettling thing about her was her eyes; slightly too small for her face and completely navy blue.

I remember feeling a mixture of things in that moment. Amazement, surprise, but mostly a calm and warm feeling. She stared back at me, seemingly unsure of me or if I could even see her.

I pointed at myself and said in my tiny voice “Jackson.”

Her eyes widened with the realization that I was actually seeing her.

She shivered slightly, either out of fear or excitement before pointing at herself and saying “Piri.”

I laughed my innocent child laugh and shuddered in excitement. Piri just stood and watched me in excitement.

After a moment, I held my arms out wide and asked “play?”

Her laughter rang out like the tinkling of crystal bells as she nodded excitedly. I didn’t have many friends as a child and it seemed to me that she was kind of lonely too. She took me by the hand and we ran and flitted about the forest. I taught her hide and seek and she showed me how sprites grow seeds to sprouts with a quiet word and a glow from her hands.

We played for hours, watched by curious animals calmed by Piri’s presence. We were laughing and running near a small stream that I had never seen before when the sun began to set. That is when I saw the darkness for the first time.

I saw Piri in the shadow of encroaching nightfall and nearly screamed in horror. Piri’s skin appeared as rotted and barely hanging to her sinew and bones. Her fingers were tipped in vicious, bony claws and her hair was stringy and white. Perhaps the most unsettling, though, was her eyes. They had gone from their navy blue to a deep and sickening shade of red.

Piri saw my reaction and immediately darted to a patch of sunlight where she returned to normal. Tentatively, she motioned for me to join her in the rapidly disappearing patch of light. And as trusting or naive as I was, I did so. Reluctantly.

“Close eyes.” She said in her musical voice.

I did.

“Piri not bad. Not nymph. Just old. And hungry.” I heard her say, though, her voice began to grow coarse and raspy, and it sounded like I was hearing it from a dream.

When I opened my eyes, Piri was gone and I was curled up in the grass of the field just outside of my back yard fence. I walked around the house and opened the front door. I walked in and shut the door and went into the kitchen where I could hear my mom.

“Jackson!” My mom cried, “Where have you been?!”

“I was just playing in the woods, Mama.” I replied, confused as to why she was so hysterical and out of sorts. “What’s wrong?”

“Jackson,” she said shakily, “you’ve been gone – missing – for four days.”

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This is just the first memory of many that I have. I know it’s not necessarily scary but the child’s mind is an innocent one.