The forest was a keeper of secrets, and one of those secrets was sealed deep inside an innocent creature: an orphan girl named Cassie.
Cassie wasn't like the other children in the orphanage. She had special interests—she loved drawing and was deeply in love with nature. She was always protecting the forest in any way possible, often scolding anyone who tried to trash it.
One day, when Cassie was four, she was adopted by a lovely lady. The lady had orange hair, nice round glasses, and a constant smile. At 50 years old, she took care of Cassie as much as she could. They didn't live in a normal house; they lived a simple, peaceful life in a tent in the forest.
The Insult and the Mask
When Cassie was about nine, she was sitting at home with her mom. Her mom sent her to the store, and as Cassie was walking, she saw a patch of her favourite flowers and stopped to pick them. A group of kids was nearby. Cassie, shy but hopeful, walked up to them and asked if they would like to be friends.
The boy in the group scoffed. "No, you look like a freak," he sneered, and they all started making fun of her, laughing loudly.
Tears streaming down her face, Cassie ran back to the tent. In her despair, she looked in the small mirror they had. She didn't recognize the sad, ugly face staring back. In a fit of rage and pain, she shattered it with her hand. She fell, her arm now filled with blood from the sharp glass.
She returned home without the flowers. Her mom looked at her in shock. "Cassie, what happened? Why didn't you get the flowers? I saw your favourite ones out there."
"Nothing," Cassie mumbled, pulling her sleeve over the cut.
"Don't worry," the lady said in relief. "I'm making pie today. Get ready."
Cassie looked at her mom, managed a faint smile, and went to her room. She immediately started making a mask cosplay.
That night, the tent was thick with the sweet smell of baking apples. Cassie sat at the table wearing her new mask—a brown paper mâché face with a faint, stitched-on smile.
Her mom set the warm pie down and chuckled warmly. "Oh, Cassie, what a beautiful mask you’ve made! It's really very good." She cut a slice. "But you know what? The face underneath is more beautiful, like the sun."
Cassie smiled a true, small smile under the paper. "Tomorrow," her mom announced, "we’re going to the park."
Rejection at the Park
At the park the next day, Cassie watched the other kids playing. They were a blur of motion—tag, chase, a group huddled together, giggling. A small circle of girls was talking, their arms linked as they walked, and then they stopped and hugged their friends. They looked so connected.
She overheard a group talking. "We’re having a sleepover on Saturday. Wanna come?"
Cassie took a shaky breath and walked over to them. "Hi, can I come?" she asked softly.
The girl who had been invited first looked at Cassie, then walked away with her friends. "No place, wierdo," she said over her shoulder.
Cassie stood alone for a moment, then walked back, wrapping one arm around the other, holding her own arm. She sat on the grass beneath her mom’s bench, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to disappear. The sounds of laughter felt like painful stabs.
When her mom took her home, Cassie was desolate. The pain of rejection felt huge. She went to her corner and picked up her beautiful drawings. They felt like lies now.
With a sudden, desperate cry, she grabbed the dull scissors and started cutting into her drawings sadly. Snip, snip, snip. The pictures were shredded into scraps. She stopped, kneeling in the mess, crying on the ground.
Her mom, hearing the noise, came in. She didn't say anything, just knelt down and pulled Cassie into a big, warm hug. "Oh, Cassie," she whispered, confronting her gently. "It hurts now, but it will be okay. You are the kindest, bravest girl I know." Her mom carried her to her room and tucked her in, staying until she fell asleep.
The Silent Birthday
The biggest sting came a few months later on Cassie's tenth birthday. Her mom had tried to make it special, decorating the tent with wildflowers and baking a large cake. Her mom had encouraged her to invite the few children from the small nearby village.
They sat and waited. Cassie, dressed in her best clothes, kept checking the path. One hour passed. Two hours passed. Her mom kept reassuring her, "They are probably just delayed, honey."
But no one showed up. The big cake sat untouched. Cassie finally put on her wooden mask—a newer, smoother one she had made. She couldn't bear the disappointment on her face. Her mom hugged her tighter than ever, and they ate the cake alone, the silence of the forest feeling heavy and mocking. The desperate sadness of it all sank deep into Cassie.
The Final Farewell and the Fall
Years passed, a quiet, isolated life. Cassie grew up, still drawing, still loving nature, and still fighting the deep sense of being an outsider. Her mom was her whole world, the one safe harbour.
Then, one cold autumn day, her mom got sick. It was fast and unexpected.
Cassie was seventeen when she sat beside the cot and held her mom’s hand as her breaths grew shallower. The woman who had been her sun was gone. The grief was a crushing weight. Cassie was so desperate and utterly, utterly alone.
She buried her mom under the old oak tree, and then, putting on her smooth, wooden mask, she walked away from the tent. She felt like she was drowning in the emptiness. Crying, she walked away, leaving everything behind.
She stumbled into a small, run-down village. She looked lost, a girl in a wooden mask. A group of older people saw her. They started to mock her, calling her names.
They became aggressive, chasing her out of the village. She ran blindly until she reached the edge of a cliff. They didn't stop. They kept pushing, taunting. One shove was stronger than the rest, and Cassie lost her footing.
She fell.
The world turned into a dizzying rush of wind and rock. But instead of rock, she hit something softer, something giving. A huge, thick pile of hay lay at the base of the cliff.
Dazed and hurting, she looked up. The people who pushed her were gone. But she wasn't alone.
A circle of figures stood around her. They were all wearing masks, her same mask—smooth, wooden, and featureless. They looked at the poor child lying in the hay.
They didn't speak. They gently reached out and took her with them.
The Hay Prisoner Rises
This was a cult, hidden deep in the shadows. They gave her food, a clean place to sleep, and called her sister. As Cassie grew, they never asked her to take off her mask. They understood her need for it, showing her a fierce, protective love. When she would occasionally cry, they would all instantly gather and sit next to her, a silent, comforting ring of masked figures.
She never had to hide her face again. She only had to be the person under the mask.
Because she was the last one to join, the most broken, and the one they had found in the hay, they began to see her as chosen. As Cassie grew up hiding her face, the cult made her the leader—the one they called the Hay Child. Her grief and desperation had been remade into a quiet, cold power.
Then came the Eclipse.
During the rare, dark phenomenon, she saw the terrifying Eclipse Witch. "Your cult will die," the witch rasped. "All your devoted followers will be scattered and killed if you do not obey me."
The fear of losing this new family made Cassie instantly yield.
"What must I do?" Cassie asked, her voice steady and hollow beneath the wooden mask.
"You must bring me the shard," the witch commanded. "It lies within the heart of the great Bear of the Northern Thicket. Kill it, and claim your destiny."
It was her first mission. She hunted the bear and killed it. Deep inside the creature, she found a shard of dark, cold metal. As she took it, a cold power flooded her. This confirmed her destiny: she was the Hay Child.
The acceptance, the love, the deep, burning wound of her past—it all warped her. Cassie was completely gone. She became the most savage, most insane, and most powerful cult leader the forest had ever spawned.
