In the days when the Black Death did haunt the land and nights were thick with sorrow, there was a boy, the son of a humble carpenter, who oft crept from his mother’s hearth when the moon was full. Cloaked in midnight’s shroud, he tread barefoot across the cold earth, seeking the rare and perilous Nightbloom Flowers that unfurled their petals only beneath the fool moon’s light. His mother, a woman of toil and tenderness, took no heed at first, thinking mayhap her son had found love or adventure to steal him away. But as the weeks waned, her heart grew troubled.
One morning, as the sun rose weakly over the plague-ridden land, she stood over her pot of beef stew, stirring with a steady hand. The scent of roasted meat and pungent spice should have filled the room, yet her nose caught a sweetness unfamiliar—the scent of Nightbloom Flowers, fragrant and thick as a summer breeze. Puzzled, she took a sip of her stew and near spat it out, for though she had seasoned it well, it was unbearable with salt and pepper. And yet, the air was filled with wildflowers. Her blood ran cold.
She turned sharply, clutching her ladle like a weapon, and when her son stumbled in from the night, dirt upon his hands and petals in his cloak, she knew the truth.
"Thou fool!" she cried, seizing his arm. "Ye risk life and limb for flowers that bloom but once? Dost thou not know the perils that linger in the black of night? Witches prowl and wolves howl, seeking boys such as thee!"
But the boy, wild-eyed and trembling, tore himself free. "I cannot sleep, Mother! I cannot rest!" he shouted. "I must know the truth, the future! I must see beyond the veil of ignorance!"
Before she could halt him, he ran, clutching his satchel of Nightblooms, into the darkest part of the Eastern Woods, where none but madmen and the doomed dare tread. Through twisted boughs and damp earth he fled, until he came upon a clearing where an ancient tree stood, its gnarled roots thick as castle walls and its bark dark as old blood. The air around it trembled with strange, eerie laughter—laughter not of man, nor beast, but of something older, something wicked.
With shaking hands, the boy crept into the hollow of the tree, where the air was thick with shadow. Before him stood two figures, neither living nor dead, their eyes glowing like embers in the pitch-dark. Witches. Their breath was sweet with the scent of old magicks, their limbs twisted with time’s cruel hand.
The boy fell to his knees, laying the Nightbloom Flowers at their feet. At this, the witches cackled with glee, seizing the petals and rolling them into a thick, twisted cigar. They burned it, and the tree filled with curling smoke—sweet and acrid, dark and dizzying. The boy could scarce breathe for the weight of it.
"Tell me, carpenter's whelp," hissed one of the witches, her voice like wind through dead leaves. "What is it thou seek?"
Terror clutched his throat, but he had come too far to turn back. He clenched his fists, summoning all the strength of his father’s steady hands, and cried, "I must know—who shall win VNDS?"
At this, the witches inhaled deeply, their eyes rolling back, their laughter rising like the wail of the damned. The smoke from their lips curled and twisted, forming letters in the thick air before it surged forward, rushing into the boy’s lungs like a stormwind.
And in that moment, he knew. The witches had spoken, and their wisdom was never false. The answer was written in the ways of old, in the whispers of demons plotting beneath the moon.
The answer was clear: "Addi Pose."
The boy gasped, the truth searing his mind. The witches shrieked in triumph, their mad laughter echoing through the hollow tree. And when at last he stumbled from that dark place, the world seemed changed, his lungs filled with the scent of Nightbloom Flowers, his mind forever haunted by the knowledge he had sought so desperately.
He had his answer. But at what cost?
