“Wake up. Wake up. I wanna get some water from this here well.”

There was a strange throbbing in the back of my head. My back ached from sleeping on an uncomfortable surface, at an uncomfortable angle.

“Mao….Mao. Wake up, chuu. Get up.”

Chuu’s annoyingly petite voice disturbed my sleep, my hands swatted at him reflectively. Clearly, I missed because a moment later Chuu barreled into my face knocking me over.

I awoke to the sight of Chuu floating above my head, I could see the well to my left and an impatient man tapping his feet in front of me.

“Finally. Not get out of the way. You’ve been sleeping all day. How about waiting till the sun starts coming down before getting drunk and passing out.”

“Wha…what?”

“Aw forget it. Just move.”

The impatient man waved me off as he went to draw his water from the well. The sun was setting it would be night soon. Something’s off here. My eyes searched around as I scratched the back of my head why did it feel like I was forgetting something.

“Mao?”

“Hmm?”

“What are you gonna do, chuu?”

“Do about what?”

Chuu paused for a moment his big eyes surveyed the area before he continued.

“What are you gonna do about the witch with purple eyes?” Chuu whispered the words.

Before I could even ask what, he was talking about my chest felt heavy, along with this heaviness a memory came flooding back to me. Witch…with the purple eyes.

That’s right. That little girl was a witch. I remember now. Right before being here there was that strange little girl…

****

“Something bad might happen to you?”

A cold shiver went down my spine as I jumped back distancing myself from this weird child. She giggled which unnerved me to hear.

“Your blue pet must be cold. Maybe you should warm him up.”

“Mao, Mao. Mao…it’s…it’s the witch!!!”

Choosing to pay Chuu no mind at the moment I focused my attention on the little girl. She twirled her finger along one of long twin tails smiling innocently.

“You wanna do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Cut the shit.”

The little girl paused with a confused look on her face. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I don’t know how you managed to hide it. But now that you’re up close there’s no mistaken that stench. You’re a witch.”

The little girl hung her head down so I couldn’t see her face, she seemed to be trembling. Was she crying? No wait…she’s laughing.

“Hahaahahahahaa!!!! So, what if I’m a witch. You’re gonna play with me and be my friend whether you want to or not. See look I’ll show you.”

*Snap*

A couple of the townspeople started gathering around.

“Hey! You with the spiky hair. Were you the one picking on my son?”

“You like picking on kids do ya! Well, how about we pick on you?”

What terrible timing.

“As you can see here I’m a little busy at the….great, what a pain in the ass this is.”

It was fainted by a purple energy wafted off the townspeople like a miasma. They had been bewitched.

“What will you do? You can’t hurt them, they’re just poor defenseless…”

“Aaaagh!!”

“Stay back!!!

“Oh no!”

“I’m on fire. I’m on fire.”

It took a matter of minutes but dispatching the bewitched townspeople was child’s play. The little witch didn’t seem too pleased by that fact.

“What? What kind of asshole attacks innocent townspeople?”

Without missing a beat Chuu pointed at me and said. “This asshole.”

The most annoying part was probably how proud Chuu sounded when he said it. With a glare I directed my attention to the witch.

“Now. What should I do with you? Huh? Where’d she go?”

A quick scan of the area told me she was still nearby, I wasn’t able to see her but I could still feel her presence. It was possibly that she was just hiding somewhere. There were a number of hiding spots that she could choose from. There was also the possibly that she was currently invisible. Taking all that into account I decided my next move.

“Hahaha. I’ll just burn the whole town down.”

Even though I couldn’t see her I could tell the witch thought I was bluffing. Well I guess my only option then was to show her how serious I was. With a deep breath I clenched my fist and brought my arms up in front of me crossing them into a guard position. A faint red aura mixed with small flames began burning across my body as I exhale.

As the crimson red aura grew in size and ferocity, so too did my flames.

“Gate of…”

Out of nowhere a shadow dashed toward me, before I had time to react to the shadow it jumped to my side. My eyes followed after the shadow. It was the little witch her eyes widened flashing a purple light…

****

After that I awoke by the well. Her attack must have knocked me unconscious. The fact that, that little girl got the drop on me was infuriating.

“Where’s that witch? I’m gonna find that little girl and make her scream and cry. I won’t stop tormenting her even if she begs me. I’ll be merciless. Muahaaha….ha….oh…”

Stare. Stare. Stare. Stare.

A handful of the good townspeople of Rockfell took time out of their precious day to stare at me as if I was some sort of deranged pervert. Yeah! Keep it up. I’ll burn this whole town until there’s nothing left but scorched earth. First things first, where was that little witch?

“Mir! Mir! Mir! Where are you?! Mir! Mao? Have you seen Mir, I can’t find him anywhere I think he ran away?”

The last time I saw Mir it was when he was being bullied by that trio of children. Hang on Mir’s eyes were purple last night. He had trace amounts of magic left on him. And he was found in the forest by Chuu, who also mentioned the purple eyed witch.

“Maria, has Mir been disappearing a lot lately and if so since when?”

I could see that Maria had to really think about my question before responding. “He’s been distance since his father Mar died. But he didn’t start running off until recently. About around the same time as the mines closure.”

I thought as much. If I told her that I suspected a witch was involved and that her son was probably bewitched and possibly at the mine what would she do? Honestly it didn’t really make much sense to bother finding out.

“Mao, Mao please will you help me find my son?”

I already had an answer but then I looked into Maria’s eyes. They were puffy and watery from crying. There was something else something that I had seen, or more accurately caught a glimpse of from time to time in Granny Hana’s eyes.

With a sigh I relented. This was gonna be a pain in the ass.