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The Hunter's Pact with the Shadows · Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories

• 0:04
  The howl pierced through the biting cold, breaking apart the
• 0:07
  bitter stillness of the night. Ron sighed.
• 0:10
  He recognized her pain woven within the inhuman cries.
• 0:14
  He shook the light dusting of snow from his shoulders, stood
• 0:18
  up and paced around the frosted pine.
• 0:20
  He had chosen to wait for her beneath.
• 0:23
  The time was quickly approaching, and he wasn't sure
• 0:26
  that he was ready. He pulled his silver ring from
• 0:29
  his finger, kissed it, then gripped it tightly in his first
• 0:33
  as he cherished the delay of the confrontation for as long as he
• 0:37
  could. He cursed the day he chose to
• 0:39
  walk the path of a hunter, but now he cursed more the day in
• 0:43
  which his work had followed him home.
• 0:46
  His negligence had proven to be costly, and now he had to make
• 0:49
  amends in the worst of ways. The crunch of her heavy foot
• 0:53
  falls in the snow and the decisive snapping of twigs
• 0:57
  echoed from the surrounding woods.
• 0:59
  Her heavy panting beat against his eardrums.
• 1:02
  Even at this distance, each of her breaths was a cruel strike
• 1:06
  to his heart, rending him to the point of tears that he fought
• 1:10
  with all his strength to keep from breaching his eyelids and
• 1:13
  cascading down his face. Her howling sliced through the
• 1:17
  silence once again. He looked up to the pale of the
• 1:20
  full moon and kissed his ring once more.
• 1:23
  She was close. He squeezed the symbol of his
• 1:26
  commitment tighter in his grasp, warping it from its perfectly
• 1:30
  circular shape as he stepped back below the shadow of the
• 1:34
  pine. Reaching beneath his coat, he
• 1:36
  hesitantly gripped the handle of his antique muzzleloader, pistol
• 1:40
  and heirloom given to him by her father in place of the dowry he
• 1:44
  could not afford. Ron peeked under the flap of his
• 1:47
  jacket at the inscribed initials of the old man.
• 1:51
  Her father had scratched them out of the finely polished
• 1:54
  wooden grip, replacing them with an inscription of Ronald's own
• 1:58
  right beside them. A tacky but meaningful gesture,
• 2:02
  Ron had always thought. He drew the pistol and, after
• 2:06
  tearing away the paper end of a powder cartridge with his teeth,
• 2:09
  poured the propellant down the barrel.
• 2:12
  He always knew there was the risk that their time together
• 2:15
  would be short. It was only natural in his line
• 2:18
  of work. However, he never expected it to
• 2:21
  end this way. He'd always thought he'd be the
• 2:24
  one to die first. Of all the evils he'd faced, all
• 2:28
  the monsters he'd slain, of all the glories of heaven and the
• 2:32
  terrors of hell, he never could have predicated the occurrence
• 2:35
  of a tragedy such as this. He knew better, but he couldn't
• 2:39
  approach this with the same decisive coldness with which he
• 2:42
  regarded his usual marks. This was the love of his life,
• 2:47
  the spark of warmth that set fire to his passionless and icy
• 2:50
  existence. Ron tensed as the crunching of
• 2:54
  snow drew nearer. He breathed in deeply through
• 2:58
  his nose. He could smell her perfume.
• 3:01
  He closed his eyes, wishing he could wrap himself in the aroma
• 3:05
  and pause time to bask within it for all eternity.
• 3:09
  It was the same sweet scent of roses that had always
• 3:11
  accompanied the arrival of her letters when he was away and her
• 3:15
  presence when they were together.
• 3:18
  The scent that would now forever plague his memories and leave
• 3:21
  him longing for the times before this night.
• 3:24
  His nose crinkled as another smell breached his nasal
• 3:27
  passages. The metallic scent of fresh
• 3:30
  blood invaded his nostrils, cleverly cloaked, disguised by
• 3:34
  the sweet flora like an assassin hiding within a crowd, waiting
• 3:38
  to strike down the innocence of his reminiscence.
• 3:41
  A sour reminder of what she had become.
• 3:44
  Ronald desperately wished he had chosen any other path in life.
• 3:48
  A career as a banker, perhaps. He had always been good with
• 3:52
  numbers, or at least she had always claimed him to be.
• 3:56
  They could have moved to a big city, raised a family grown old
• 4:00
  together. No, he couldn't have.
• 4:03
  He was born into it, groomed for this twisted and hellish role,
• 4:07
  destined to pursue the family business.
• 4:09
  But he tried O how he foolishly tried to have some semblance of
• 4:13
  a normal life on the side. This was the result.
• 4:17
  This was the fruit of his laborers, the price he had to
• 4:20
  pay for carrying the family torch.
• 4:23
  But flames are greedy, and the fire had grown to dwell near his
• 4:26
  hand without him even realizing. Now he had finally felt the
• 4:31
  burn. She stepped out from the tree
• 4:34
  line and into view. A Crimson Sheen shone brightly
• 4:38
  under the light of the moon, crudely painted over the thick
• 4:41
  fur that infested her mutated body.
• 4:44
  She stopped suddenly, raising her snout into the air and
• 4:47
  sniffing suspiciously for the source of his familiar scent.
• 4:51
  He gulped. It was time, there was no way
• 4:54
  around it, and although it pained him, he knew her
• 4:57
  suffering was far worse than his own.
• 4:59
  This would be the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, but he
• 5:02
  reminded himself of the vows they had made to one another.
• 5:06
  He had sworn to be there for her in sickness and in health.
• 5:10
  Now she was sick, and only in death could she be cured one way
• 5:15
  or the other. Tonight those vows would reach
• 5:18
  out and grasp the cruelty of their culmination.
• 5:21
  Tonight, they would part. Ronald stepped out from beneath
• 5:24
  the pine. He dropped his now bent silver
• 5:27
  wetting ring down the muzzleloader's barrel and
• 5:30
  flicked the side to ensure it rested snugly atop the powder at
• 5:34
  the bottom. He held the pistol out before
• 5:36
  him, keeping it pointed at her heart as he edged closer to
• 5:40
  ensure his accuracy. Their eyes met as the lunar
• 5:43
  light flooded over him, and he could not stop a single tear
• 5:47
  from breaking through the barricades.
• 5:49
  Her eyes were the same blue that he had fallen in love with so
• 5:53
  many years before, but no recognition swam within the
• 5:56
  depths of their pristine hue. As her pupils narrowed down on
• 6:00
  him, blood and saliva dripped from her jaw, blemishes upon the
• 6:04
  purity of the snow beneath. She growled lowly.
• 6:08
  He pulled back the hammer with a shaking hand and took one last
• 6:11
  deep breath. Then all became quite steady.
• 6:15
  Cecilia. Ron said calmly.
• 6:18
  She roared, and a single gunshot pierced the forest.
• 6:21
  A howl shattered the stillness of the night once more.