From one, there were five.
The lover, she was easy to define, for feign and fawn were the extent of her graces. Then there was the muse, her place being to aspire and inspire, to seek fortune in all forms of art and the occasional artifice. The fighter, he had a temper that was quick to rise, sparking a fire that fast burnt through any sense of logic. Thankfully, there was also the thinker, she whose task it was to consider and consult, to range and rectify, life a series of knots waiting to be untangled. Then finally there was the darkness, a shadow that sought other shadows in which to multiply, the world one lived at night and all an excuse to sink into sullen depths.
Together these five formed one, she being little more than a waif, a child that might well be hidden behind a sapling should the need arise, though lost as she was amid the trees, there was no current reason to be secretive, discovery instead being that which drove her.
Straight black hair hung to sallow cheeks like the curtains of the window she had slipped from, the rise and fall of her chest echoing the sleep of the woman from whose lips the promise of adventure had arisen. Escape, she had warned the child beneath the warmth of a feather-filled duvet. And the nightmares will betray your dreams.
Those words, spoken every night the same, had born in the child a need to test their truth, and as such commit the first betrayal.
"You must adorn yourself in flowers," the lover advised, her voice like silk upon the dark skin of the lost girl. "For how can anyone be expected to find you if you look like that?" she added with typical scorn for the girl's appearance, the truth being that the waif was much too young to be concerned by attracting lovers.
The fighter, wrestling himself free of the tree he was attempting to fell, laughed at the soft, romantic notions of the lover. With eyes brimming over in hungry rage, he spat and stamped upon the mark it left in the black soil. "We need no one but ourselves," he growled. "And any who oppose us shall feel our wrath."
The girl, a single tear running down her cheek despite the company of the five, did not look like someone who could succeed in making anyone feel her wrath, and so she turned from the fighter to the thinker, hoping that she at least had something of value to offer.
"Moss grows on the north of the tree, and when a cow sits in a field, it means it will rain. That being said," the thinker countered, pausing for a moment. "The origin of everything is the start, and so perhaps we should seek the author of the end?"
As normal when the thinker spoke, the girl felt herself amiss among such wise words.
A whisper came from her side, emerging from the darkness that she rarely saw. "We are right where we need to be," it reassured her despite the creeping cold. "Deep night will come, and with it despair, disaster, death—"
The girl shook her head to rid her thoughts of the darkness, its advice always the same.
"Why can't you help me?" she pleaded, spinning on the spot to gaze up at the towering trees, each of which leaned forth with prickly branches as if to swoop her from the ground and wrap her in their sap, she then a prisoner of amber to be stored in a dusty room where children would offer but a passing glance before sketching the contours of dinosaur bones.
"I don't want to be encased in amber," the girl cried, the tears both hot and cold upon her hollow cheeks.
The fighter, lost for words, turned to look for whoever it was bearing amber, a pursuit that took him back to fighting trees, each punch only causing them to sway more violently and thus further inflame his fury.
"The moon is round, but not all the time," the thinker announced.
"And we can gaze upon it with our lovers," the lover agreed.
"Or write a poem to capture its magnificence," professed the muse.
"Or let it fall and crush us whole," whispered the darkness.
The girl closed her eyes, trying to recall how she had become so lost, what had driven her to listen to the five and seek that which she had been warned not to find.
The snap of a twig caught her attention, her eyes opening to reveal that she was alone, truly alone, the clearing in the wood an empty expanse that yawned around her.
"Hello!" she called out, wishing the five would return, their voices better than the silence.
Again the snap of a twig, this time accompanied by the rustle of leaves that warned of someone lurking in the shadows, night taking the place of day amid the flesh and ribs of the trees.
A form, a person or an animal, something living and wretched with hunger.
It grew like a cloud of black steam until it entered the clearing on padded paws and stood before her, its jaw fixed in a smile that radiated sullen wickedness.
"Egad!" the creature exclaimed, the word thick and rich upon a swollen tongue encased in black gums. "What do I find before me?"
"Who are you?" the girl demanded, falling backwards as the creature showed little regard for personal space.
Circling, its thick, stinking fur brushed against her shaking arms and shivering legs. The creature stopped an inch from her eyes, its sly smile set at an angle which meant only one yellow eye could regard the glistening trails of her tears.
"I heard you," it began, its voice like fingers upon wet sand. "You were talking to yourself."
The girl shook her head. "I was talking to the five," she explained, the terror in her tone causing each word to tumble from her lips.
The creature looked down as if expecting to find the scattered remains of fallen letters at its feet.
"The five?" it asked.
The little girl nodded. "Where there is one, there is five."
Taking a step back, she held hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelids. "The lover, she sees hearts in everything and fires arrows into those she wishes to keep."
"Arrows?" the creature asked, watching the girl with a yellow eye, its lips kept moist from a tongue that whipped each vowel into shape.
The girl adopted the pose of a boxer. "The fighter, he wishes to watch the world burn, for you cannot be a champion unless the rest are fit to lose."
"Wise words," the creature nodded.
The girl was now seated, her chin upon a fist as she held a palm to her brow.
"The thinker," she continued. "She knows everything and can solve any riddle."
Before the creature could say anything further, the girl span on one foot and sang in a clear voice: "The muse can make a song out of the darkest day."
"And the fifth?" the creature asked.
The girl stood still, the clearing encased in black as a cloud passed before the bright, white moon.
"The darkness," she whispered. "It lives for darkness and death."
The creature smiled. "Perhaps I too am such darkness," it purred, its jaw opening to reveal silver teeth like a thousand knives guarding a swollen tongue.
The girl, realizing too late what kind of being this was, had only a moment in which to scream before the creature stretched its jaws and swallowed her whole, her cries nothing more than muffled murmurs as it sank into the shadows of the trees.
"Egad, egad!" the lover declared. "How shall our prince find us in here!"
"A knife, I need a knife!" the fighter announced, dancing on the spot with fists raised and ready despite the damp darkness of the creature's stomach.
"And so we sail into the distant unknown," the muse professed before the darkness took up the tone.
"And unto death, the wind has blown."
The little girl, too terrified to cry, turned to the thinker and pleaded with her for help.
"By all accounts," the wise one began. "We should be already dead."
The little girl waited, but the five had fallen silent, none able to offer anything more than the memory of why she had left the safe bosom of her family home - the five seeking sustenance to ensure their survival.
The lover needed a rescue, the fighter a fight. The muse sought inspiration and the thinker a difficulty to ponder. As for the darkness, well, the darkness had found that which it had wished to find.
"If only there were one more," the girl cried to herself. "A sixth who wished to be me and not another."
As if in answer to her prayer, she saw a glinting light from deep in the darkness of the creature's belly, a shimmering form like the sun upon the surface of a lake.
Approaching, she was amazed to find the contents of someone's tiny bedroom, an empty bed surrounding a jumble of miniature furniture as if the creature had feasted upon a child's dollhouse prior to consuming her.
On a tiny vanity there stood a tiny mirror, it being that which had offered the glint of light.
"What did she see?" the girl asked, the woman's smile accompanying the placement of the book upon the table beside the bed, she then reaching over to tuck the duvet around the girl.
Wind rattled the frame of the window as the shadows of the trees swayed and the girl clutched the five soft toys that inspired every story the woman ever wrote.
"Well, that will have to wait," she replied, her short hair tickling the cheeks of the child as she leaned over to kiss her goodnight. "Now sleep, and don't let the nightmares betray your dreams."
Darkness turned the furniture of the room into shifting shapes as the girl listened to the fading footsteps of the woman.
Rising, she placed the lover, the muse, the fighter, the thinker and the darkness into a small backpack before peering outside, a separate bag hanging from her shoulder, ready to house the sixth she knew to be waiting.
"Don't betray your dreams," the girl whispered to herself, the voices of the five masking the crack of the window as the wind swept away the remnants of her childhood.
The End