Rise of the Night Witch

Chapter 5.1 - Marissa Alone

Recap: Last time, the school just got destroyed and we saw the aftermath.

Over the last few weeks, I thought about the meaning of true despair. Despair wasn't just fear. It wasn't sadness. It wasn't depression or anxiety either. It was absolute hopelessness. The knowledge, that things never got better.

I had that feeling three times in my life. When I walked through this very park at the tender age of seven, a bunch of meanies stole my necklace, threw it around, and played monkey-in-the-middle with me. The necklace carried sentimental weight. Dad was always overworked and Mom had some secret job she never told me about. So, after she gave me that necklace for my seventh birthday, I couldn't stand seeing it tear apart. I ran away crying and attracted demons in my first moment of true despair.

The second started shortly afterward. When the demons were about to eat my face off, a robed figure arrived and gave them the lightning bolt treatment. This figure, as it turned out, was my mother in disguise. It not only introduced the supernatural world to me, but it also turned what would otherwise have been a moment of despair into hope.

Which made it hit all the harder when I learned that my mother couldn't come home anymore. All because she broke a law I didn't know of a society I didn't know, resulting in the second low of my life. It was a low I never quite recovered from. Mom introduced me to the supernatural and I had to deal with aether streams in my head without knowing how to ward them off. All while dealing with the usual horrors of adolescence and living with a single parent.

The third moment was now. I had lost everything. Siris, my good reputation, the fight against evil, you name it.

My robe didn't attract much attention, given the time of the year, but I had to drop my burner phone to avoid being tracked. Sure, the Wild Hunt didn't use geo-tagging, but maybe the Enlightened won't find me if whatever the Erlking was doing kicked off a war.

No-one caught me so far. It was stupid to walk around alone at night but walks cleared my head. Walks distracted me and kept me awake, but they also tired me. My nocturnality potion ceased working for good. All those nights I spent sleepless, studying to be the hero I could never be, caught up with me in that instant.

I walked into Summer Hill Park. The Hill after which the town was named was here. It was covered by cherry trees that during spring carried the soft scent of blossoms. Even now, when they carried the scent of the looming Wild Hunt round two, the breeze before the storm felt oddly calming.

I wanted to sleep. Badly. Siris, were you?

"I hope you are not giving up already," Evil Siris said. "Our cooperation has only started."

I was a battery that had been emptied and couldn't be recharged. I clutched my rod and I tried to levitate a leaf, but no life energy, no mist, no magic came out of me.

"I am talking to you," Evil Siris responded.

I collapsed into the soft, wet grass. The mud that covered my face felt as soft as a pillow. At least I earned my sleep.

The gentle breeze picked up the pace. It gave me time to acclimatize so that it didn't disturb my sleep.

Useless. Everything I did over the past two months was useless. If the Erlking only wanted to, he could probably use the last name I gave him to kill me right here and now. Or send his Sluagh to do so as was happening right here and now.

Spectral horrors struck out from the silver lines of moonlight that covered the night sky. Ghostly men with wings and antlers instead of heads swooped down from the cloud canopy, their swords pointed in my direction like sabers. Soon, they would kill me, make me theirs, and force me to join their meaningless Hunt for all eternity.