Safernoc
In the town of Safernoc lived a girl and a boy. It was said by the residents of the town that they were the emptiest girl and boy in the whole world. The girl and boy often met on rainy afternoons to sit, laugh and cry. It was hard for them to accept their fate; to be comfortable with the gaping hole inside them. The boy would sometimes play piano, and the girl would accompany him with table and chair. Sometimes they would stand in silence for hours.
It was on an eventfully dry afternoon that the boy discovered the book which gave him the answer to their problem. Following the crudely drawn map on page 268 of the untitled volume bound in black, the two empty children set off from the town in the direction of the river and the moon, crossing barren fields long since deserted and often removed of life entirely.
As they approached a forest, a strange thing happened. The trees, lush and green, dropped their leaves and sighed. The girl glanced at the boy as if to speak, but their shared expression was enough to convey any desired meaning, and they began to venture through the forest. In the centre stood the tallest tree in the highlands, and atop it sat a bird. With a shriek, the bird flew down from its wooden throne and launched itself, claws first, at the empty boy. The boy screamed and ducked, but the bird tore hair from his head and drew blood from his scalp. The child fell to the floor, screaming. "Fear the Barghest! Fear the Barghest!" cried the bird, violently, on its return flight. This time the girl stood, arm outstreched, in its path. The bird came to land on her arm, and gazed at her with a colourless eye. "Fear the Barghest!" it screamed again, took off and floated into the trees, now murky with a hastily descended dusk. The children continued along the path, undeterred, if a little shaken.
On the far side of the forest lay the steep slopes of the highlands, at the bottom of which lay the river they sought. The girl and boy stumbled over discarded rocks and black tree stumps, falling to the floor by skulls and skeletons of devoured creatures, long since recognisable, all the time their eyes locked on the ribbon of water countless feet below. They travelled for days, but not once did the sun come up to light their passage. Often, one or the other would hear the sound of stones underfoot, or spot a shadow moving in the corner of sight, but not once did they set eyes upon another being, short of apparent paranoia or tricks of the light.
On the fifth night, the river so close they could feel its cold, lifeless flow, the continual blackness above was punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning, followed seconds later by rumbling so deep and surrounding it seemed too alive to be thunder. It was during one of these flashes that the girl first spotted the dog that had been stalking them since they made their way onto the lower slopes two days earlier. The large black creature approached the boy and pushed him effortlessly into the water ahead, before diving in after him. As the child struggled, drowning, the dog lurched from the water and grabbed the girl's dress, pulling her into the river to join her companion. As she watched the boy die; as he watched her with his final breath, the colour drained from their eyes, hair, clothes and skin. At that moment, they knew how it felt to be truly empty. They had given so much of themselves to each other that they had never appreciated what they had been given in return.
As the boy's lifeless eyes closed for a final time, and his body floated away down the river, the girl picked up a rock and broke it upon the dog's head. Dragging herself from the water, she watched its body follow the boy's out of sight. Then, looking up in the direction of the town, she decided to return and tell its residents of what had happened, hoping to save them all from the pain of longing. Unfortunately, at that moment, a horse climbed from the river on its hind legs, grabbed the girl and carried her screaming into the fog, never to be seen again.

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