secret
Two young white-tailed deer walk quietly side-by-side in the moonlight. One watches the stars dreamily through the gaps in the treetops, and the other watches the foliage surrounding them. The star-bound deer brings their head back down, looking towards their friend, and stopping. The companion stops just the same, concern rippling in her expression.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Their voice broke the tense silence.
“What?”
“A secret, Hecate. Can you keep a secret?”
“Verity, it won’t be a secret anymore if you tell me.”
Verity cocks their head to the side, surprised by Hecate’s negativity. “Look, well, it’s been a secret for a long time. And I just think, you’re my friend, and I think you should know.”
Hecate scowls. “Well, go on then.”
Verity is unimpressed by their friends' bluntness. “Well… It’s more of an ‘I show you’ kind of thing.”
Hecate sighs. “Go on then, as long as you don’t get us killed.”
Verity’s expression falls and turns away from Hecate, and begins heading westward into the thicker part of the forest. But Verity doesn’t speak. They walk on silently, eyes focused directly ahead of them. Hecate tries to ignore the feeling that something isn’t right, trying to concern herself with safety rather than Veritys’ silence.
It trails on and on. Just when Hecate thought they might have reached their destination, Verity adjusts their trajectory and keeps walking on. Verity has never done this before. Usually Veritys’ secrets included flowers and friends and harmless fun. That’s what she loved about Verity. She loved Veritys’ existence, she loved the company of someone so unlike herself. But now Hecate is walking with a ghost of herself. A sorrowful, distant, unknown version of herself.
Verity stops and Hecate follows their eyes up the entrance of the cave before them. Faint claws grip at Hecates’ flank, sending shivers through her body. Verity looks at Hecate with a blank unmoving stare. They open their mouth. “Please find me.”
And Verity is gone.
She stands alone at the mouth of the cave now. Blinking wildly to try and find the wind they seemingly disappeared upon. It beckons her inwards, into the gaping jaws of earth hidden from the moonlight. With hesitation, she places one hoof in front of the other, and begins her death march.
There's a secret within the encapsulating walls. A secret that told itself, and begging to be deciphered. A lingering dread is hanging on every misleading passage, yet promises through the worst of it. She is drawn inwards, following the familiar essence that reflects within her.
Through the blinding fog of her mind, Hecate becomes aware of the sickening stench of blood that has been enticing her onwards. But the path doesn’t diverge from here, it leads to a clearing, an end to the nightmarish caverns. She walks, ignoring the ever-growing scent of blood as she moves.
Her eyes adjust to the moonlight that trickles in from a crevice above. Gore infesting her senses, she looks around.
“Verity!”
Not of her own conscience did Hecate run towards her friend.
Verity is dead.
With her stomach sliced open on a gruesome display, Verity lies still in the moonlight. Her guts still shining with blood, the last slivers of life ebbing away. Through it, Hecate cannot find grief. Pitiful jealousy and desperation strip her last words from her.
She rests her head beside Veritys’. “You could've just told me. It didn’t have to be a secret.”
Verity was dead, still, and gone. There was no going back now. Nothing can change this now.
A stag emerges from the darkness. He approaches Hecate from behind, blood dripping from off his antlers, painting his head in a threatening red.
Hecate knows he’s there, but shuts her eyes tightly. Verity is still beside her, everything is how it should be. Just don’t move. Don’t think about it. It’s fine, they’re fine, everything is fine.
The stag contorts his expression, grinning thirstily down at the tragedy below him.
Hecate has met him before.
His offer still remains just as enticing as ever.
“You can join her.”