Demon of the Forest

Golden light cascaded slowly across the area as dusty pinks and reds, the leaves dull and browning rustled and pulled away from their branches with cracks and crunches. There in a small clearing in the trees, with dusk descending upon the land, stood an older man. His dark hair shaggy and shoulder length, fluttering and slightly frizzy from the dry late autumn air. Green eyes, accented with bags and wrinkles from sheer exhaustion, focused on the ground before him. A small bead of sweat trickled down the nape of his neck, a dull thumping grating on his nerves. Gritting his teeth, the man concentrated on the circle he was finishing with a stick in the dirt. There before him was a pentagon with a slightly crooked circle around it, unlit melted down candles at the tip of each star.

“Finally, finally I can call you forth!” The man exuberantly yelled out to the heavens, after all it was Samhain, the one day that the spirit world and the physical world's veil was at its thinnest. Raising both hands up, his sleeves rolling back the smallest bit. Fingers splaying wide as his large palms faced the empty circled star's center.

“Ignem accendere.” He whispered softly, with a swoosh each candle lit into existence with a flickering yellow flame. Grinning the man focused back on the circle once more, reaching into his pocket he procured a small book. Opening it he breathed out slowly and closed his eye, raising one hand towards the circle and reopening his eyes he focused on the scrawling text and began his chant.

“Demon of the forest I call upon you, come forth now and hear my call.” Repeating the phase, he called out in the ancient tongue of their people. The words of power rolling with his incantation.

“Daemon saltu prodeunt audite vocem meam.” He waited with baited breath for any sign of response as the sun finally sank fully beneath the horizon. Darkness encroached further with its inky hands, stretching to leach any warmth or light from the land, the only light to see by was the candles. The man's breathing picked up as he wordlessly screamed when nothing responded to him, his cries reminiscent to a wounded animal when suddenly an eerie cackle filled the air.

Whirling, the man found a pale woman standing before him. Her head slowly tilting up to show eyes as crimson as a blood moon with small laugh lines crinkling the corner of her eyes and lips faintly. Slowly she stepped towards him with a stalking gait, his green eyes alight with excitement that slowly bled to fear.

“You called upon me mortal?” The man staggered backwards as she approached. A small smile curving his lips in amusement.

“Stay back foul beast!” He called in a wavering voice, his hair flying around flippantly as he fell backwards.

“Awe that's no way to speak to me, you're the one who called...” She pouted as a malicious glint entered her eye, “After all you entered my home!” With that she lunged towards him, lips parting to reveal fangs. Bats chirped and screamed above in a black cloud that covered the waxing moon, the faint scream of a man from below in the forest was the last noise before all fell silent.