The Well

“Why do I have to do this?”1

“You were chosen by the town elders, quit complaining. It’s for the good anyhow.”2

A tall, well-muscled older man leads a thin boy along a path through the dense shrubbery. The abandoned trails of tears down the boy’s face sparkle in the fading light of the sun, shooting pinpricks of light into the shadows made by the sunset. The man in the lead simply looks straight ahead, his face blank.3

Soon, they come to a hole in the ground. It is a rather unremarkable hole by itself, but the stone shrines and colorful banners around it make it rather hard to miss. In each of the shrines are small pieces of paper with writing on them, which the man hands to the boy one by one as he goes to them.4

“These are the wishes of the village. Take them with you as you go to meet your creator.”5

“...”6

The boy’s arms are filled with the slips of paper. He looks down and closes his eyes as the man leads him to the hole.7

“Good luck, my son. Never forget that this is for the good.”8

He pushes the boy into the hole. The high-pitched scream is soon stifled by distance, and the echoes from its height soon fade away. The man picks up the wishes that were dropped and carefully places each in a shrine before slowly walking away, a look of sadness on his face.9

“Open your eyes, child.”10

The boy blinks between the darkness behind his eyelids and the blinding light before him. As he becomes accustomed to the rays, he begins to discern a vaguely feminine face smiling at him. Her eyes are the source of the light.11

“... Are you my creator?”12

“No. I am simply the guardian of the well. Can you stand? Good. You see, I was the first to fall by this dark ritual. But the gods of the earth took pity on me, and gave me the power to help others. There was only one condition, and that was that I could never leave this well, or my soul would be banished forever. So I simply stay here, and return the life that humanity’s blind folly has taken from those who shared my unfortunate fate. Now come, you must meet the others...”13