"You want something. You all do. I can help you get it." The voice carried throughout the cliffside, echoing down the rocks and across the water, shaking the grass green as one hadn't ever thought could be possible. Through the sky it shook, and even the clouds seemed to move faster, the dolphin in the ocean of the sky leaping from wave to wave with the hope of escaping the dark shadow behind. But all I could focus on was the churning darkness racing up to me, tapping me on the shoulder. Yet I would turn around, and nothing would be there.
I didn't know what to say, so I stood there, frozen as the icy mountain while the wind howled past it, screaming to the moon, praying.
"Tell me..." the sound split my ears, it was like a nightmare happening a world away, a voice full of pain and coldness, like nails scraping down on a chalkboard, making one want to claw their ears until Nothing was left but silence. Cold, empty silence. "What is it you wish for?"
"What do you want from me?" Mine own voice came out quiet and shaking, a quaking tone full of fear, all bravery lost in a puddle of cowardice and scarcity. Once a great flowing river, now something to be disgraced.
"It is not what I want. It is what you want. I can give you anything. A lover's heart...power...wealth. Anything you wish for. Tell me your hearts desire...and it can be yours." He spoke in a drawling voice, taunting, yet also tainted. An everlasting evil resting deep in his soul, a bloodied knife, the taste of a beating heart on your tongue. That was his voice. Deadly. Destroying. Deathly.
"You want something in return." My voice grew trembling still, the earthquake growing, shivering in the blackened room where snow covered the ground, freezing me over slowly. A silent, painful death.
"Yes I do. But nothing you will not have back in time. I wish for something. A wish for a wish, no? That is fair, is it not?" I felt a cold wind wash over me as he spoke once again, and I shut my eyes to the stinging pain until it subsided.
"Show yourself."
"You wish to gaze upon my face...as does every mortal whom I confer with. I am so generously giving you a wish for such a small price. I wish for only one thing..." his voice was soft and calm, yet threatening at the same time. "Your soul."