Dark Choice

I swatted at the bloody thing as it flitted back and forth in front of my face. What a nuisance, a real pest. It was just a wee thing and could hardly sting through my crusty skin, but I swung at it again and again.

"Bzzt, bzzt," buzzed the thing as it spun this way past my big right ear and that way by my shrunken left.

Was the blasted thing trying to speak to me? About what? Why? How did it dare, a thing so puny I could squish it between my cloven hands like the hopping things that I made my food from?

"What, what?" I cried out at the buzzer, swiping my hands above my matted, coarse black hair.

"Bzzt, bzzt," was all it said.

Tiring of the game, I bent down with a grunt and dislodged an upturned stone from the boggy soil. I held the stone in my thick two-fingered hand and judged its weight. Just right for knocking a pest out of the air. Carefully aiming at the buzzer, I hurled the stone with all my might.

"Bzzt … Aieee!" the buzzer shrieked as the stone whistled past its annoying little body. A dark limb from a nearby fungus-covered tree also shifted quickly to avoid my air-ripping rock.

"Sorry," I told the tree. It merely shrugged its branches.

"Zzt," the buzzer buzzed.

"What?" I said.

The stone, I now saw, in passing my target – as well as the nimble tree – had caused a ripple to appear in the air before me.

"How now?" I snorted, reaching cautiously toward the ripple. The buzzer was quiet for the moment, fluttering near my pointed, hairy ears.

Without warning, then, the ripple – like a whirlpool – pulled me toward and into itself. In a flash I was drawn through it.

On the other side all was bright sun and blue skies, the exact opposite of my dark, dank wood. I wiped my eyes to block the light. When I was able to see, I looked around this strange new place. It was way too clean and neat for me. I was thinking about how I could try to get back to my own land when I turned and saw her.

A maiden. A cheerful, light-haired, beautiful maiden – at least as the human things go, that is. She was standing next to a big rock. In the rock was a sword. There was something familiar about that to me but I wasn't sure why. This maiden, however, was enclosed in a makeshift prison of thick, twisted grapevines. That wasn't so familiar.

"Handsome sir," the girl asked sweetly, "would you please remove yon sword and free me from this awful prison."

"Handsome?" I asked, wondering what was wrong with the maiden's eyes. "You're talking to me?"

I leaned forward to see my reflection in the glistening sword and sure enough I was one of the human things, light-haired, handsome, properly built and appendaged. I leapt back from the shiny weapon.

"P…pull the long blade from the rock?" I questioned.

"Oh, yes," the maiden said.

"Well."

"Please," she begged. I considered for a moment. Why not? What would it hurt?

I leaned forward to pull at the sword, but as I did I thought I saw something strange out of the corner of my eye. The maiden's lovely white teeth had grown long, sharp and deadly? I looked at her. She smiled back innocently.

Once more I reached for the sword, but this time I turned to watch the maiden. Oh, yes, the long, knife-teeth were there. She tried to hide them with a cough and a hand held up delicately to block my view.

"Uh," I said, stepping back away from the sword and the stone, "I think I'll pass if it's all the same to you."

"Take that sword," the maiden ordered me, in a voice like that of a ferocious beast, "and cut the ropes. Release me!"

"Yeah, well," I said, tilting my head to the side, "maybe next time."

I turned away from the maiden, who continued to growl and howl and curse me, and looked for the strange ripple in the air through which I had walked before. I was lucky. It was still there.

"Come back here, you miserable cur," the once-lovely girl bellowed after me.

Without looking back – I could sense those knife-teeth extending down from the maiden's face, snarling, ready to rip me to shreds – I stepped back through the shimmering ripple and into my own world. I quickly checked my body to see that I was back to my old self. All was as it should be. And, of course, the buzzer was still there, waiting for me.

"Zzt?" it buzzed.

"Don't ask," I told it. "Just forget about whatever that was."

"Bzzt, bzzt," the buzzer replied.

"I'm hungry," I told my wee, flitting shadow. "It's time to get some newts and toadstills. Supper time."

"Zzt, zzt," the buzzer commented.

"It's what I always have for supper," I said with a shrug, "especially after a hard day's work saving maidens."

"Bzzt, bzzt," the buzzer seemed to be laughing.

I shrugged my shoulders and plodded on in search of my favorite meal. The buzzer stayed nearby, making its sound, but not flitting around me anymore. It flew along at my side like it belonged there. That was alright now, it was no longer a nuisance to me.

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