(What you're about to read is something I made for a school assignment on October 31st, 2025, where my teacher asked me to make a story relating to Halloween words. With confidence in myself, I immediately went to writing. I have written some things before, so I knew what I was doing. After reading what I wrote multiple times over and over again, I wanted to show the public what I wrote in pride for what I have done. I hope you enjoy it! I have no idea about making this a full story.)
The usual luscious bushes of the forest were now turned into decayed husks as the sky was as dark as empty eye sockets. Darkness itself swallowed the rugged environment of the stripped King Vardicus Thalrin roaming the area, his robe ripped and rugged, with shards of his crown the only thing to remind him of his royalty. This was all his fault. He had the power to stop the witches from corrupting the moon—he had the power to end all of this. The suffering. The nightmares inflicted on the weak by this insatiable darkness. He was supposed to be the one that the children and commoners looked up to, but he was just as weak as the people he looked down upon. He was cast away and stripped of his power by his own suffering mother. The public had embedded a cruel reminder in his skull—a button that let him use his blinding power, at the cost of his sight. He also wields a golden sword of light given to him by inheritance to slay disloyalty, deceit, and evil.
Skeletons with their jaws stripped surrounded his waking step for each second, the queasiness in his spine growing. The chill wind blew his cloak and slightly made him concealed so any other person would not recognize him. Others trembled and saw him as an eerie, dark figure without a past—a mere ghost. His power was too insignificant to hold any real significance for either the people or himself. Hurtful words of the people, like "You failed their legacy!" still rang in his ear, but he was always taught to never let words affect him.
Witches scoured through the place, their long hats curving downward so that they could fly with it. It was fairly odd to look at, as their brooms were rather seen in their hands as weapons. Their green skin was clearly darker than usual, and their jaws were more elongated than their arms. Their sadistic laughs were as well heard as shrieks of terror. Vardicus only scared them with his eye.
After nearly an hour of walking, he stumbled upon a decrepit house older than time itself. "The Aftermath," it was called, the home being seen as a more dangerous entity than what it is supposed to be. After a few moments of contemplating, the king goes inside. Already, he was greeted by corpses and an odd red light emanating from the roof. Though from certain angles, it would shift into a yellow light. Voices started to enter his ear, reminding him of his failure. Flashbacks of the disappointment and fear from the public made him extremely anxious. Danger was lingering in the air, but he went forward with his unwavering determination.
Thalrin was smart enough to not go toward the red light, so he went to the bedroom. In here, it was unusually warm, and it smelled like a fresh pool of blood and anguish. Through each step the floor cracked and broke, reminding him of The Aftermath's fragility. He decided to explore the room a bit, looking in drawers, under the bed, and even out the window. When he reached his hand to open the window, he was startled by the shriek—one he recognized as those witches. Opening it a second after, he tapped his implant and blinded whatever was inside the closet.
She was an old and malnourished witch, her hat impaled through her chest and visible rips. Her eyes were uncannily human, and she only responded with a shrill, blood-curdling scream. The brim twitched with each breath, as if remembering flight. But now it was a stake, not a crown. Chains of luminous green coiled around her limbs, not as rings of iron but as manifestations of betrayal. They shimmered with a sickly glow, pulsing faintly like veins of suppressed power. Each link seemed forged from the remnants of broken trust and twisted purpose.
After a couple of seconds, Vardicus tapped his implant again, expecting the witch to be completely burnt despite his blinded eyesight. But instead, she was reaching her hand out in complete helplessness and fear. Without hesitation, the king unsheathed his sword, his rage blinding him more than his power ever could. The witch barely blocked with her broom, begging the king to see from a different perspective. Silence hung in the air more than the bats nailed to the wall, and the king gave them permission to explain.
She had once been a force of nature—untamed, feared, and misunderstood. No family claimed her, and no coven guided her. Only one saw potential in her destruction—not as something to heal, but to harness. That singular ally shaped her into a weapon, directing her toward the moon, the sky, and the heart of humanity. She became the instrument of a curse that darkened the world. When her will faltered—when she questioned the path carved for her—she was not met with mercy. Her own hat, once a symbol of her identity, was driven through her chest. The chains followed: around her arms to suppress strength, around her legs to deny movement, and around her throat to silence defiance. They were not meant to kill but to preserve her as a relic of warning—a monument to obedience.
The king couldn't fight how he felt—he actually felt sympathy for a witch. Who would've thought? Despite her tragic story, he held his ground with a face full of skepticism. She did not speak any more, unable to vocally deny his inner thoughts to kill her. With a mind full of conflicts and ideas, he eventually lets down his guard and attempts to slice off her chains. Unfortunately, it does not yield. Each attempt leaves him weaker, the implant pulsing with blinding flashes that burn his vision and blur the room into a smear of red and yellow. He collapsed to his knees as the house began to close in around him—not with a creak, but with a terrible, deliberate shudder, as if the walls themselves were drawing breath for the last time. The door slammed shut behind him, sealing the space in darkness. Upon its surface, a carved face grinned mockingly, its smile too wide, too knowing.
In that moment, the truth settled like ash in his chest: the witch had never been the threat—she had been the bait. A lure for him. A trap disguised as a plea. Desperate, he struck the implant on his forehead again and again, flooding the room with bursts of blinding light. But the house swallowed each flash like a void, and the light grew dimmer with every pulse. His vision faltered, then vanished entirely—his second blindness, this time permanent.
He reached out and found the witch beside him, still bound, still breathing. He sat beside her in silence. No words passed between them. There was nothing left to say. They remained there—two broken figures in a house that fed on failure. They could not save each other. They could not save themselves. And beyond the walls of the Aftermath, the world continued to suffer beneath a fractured moon.