*PROMPT: One night you awake to find yourself in a mysterious forest. After wandering for what seems like an eternity, you reach an ancient oak at the heart. Upon its bark are carvings of the name of an old, forgotten god. The name that's inscribed is yours.*

Starting the climb up the wooded hill dotted with snow, the unknown figure trekked silently toward the center of the woods. Silent watchers noted his entrance but did not know the true identity of this phantom lest they had warned all the inhabitants of the unsuspecting town. Later, rumors spread that he entered that haunted grove because someone had summoned him. A popular theory is that the tree with that curse of a name carved into it was enough to call him back to our town. There is no real proof that any one person did this, but we will teach our children to curse the one who let this monster return as long as we curse the monster himself.

Personally, I think there was no one person who summoned him. Maybe we had cursed ourselves through our arrogance. We were so certain he would never return that we became lazy. We forgot the stories of him, of his power, of his charms. We became complacent in our own lives; that only made him stronger in comparison.

At first, most people didn’t even know that he was the one who arrived. In order to fool all of us into a false sense of security, he didn’t reveal his identity or all the tricks he had up his sleeve. We didn’t make the connections fast enough: the fact that a storm rolled into town the same day he did, the way he rose from the fields, the smile that shot down all your defenses, those eyes that could do anything for him. Those that noticed were ignored by everyone else; after all, not every new person that rode into town was him. Looking back, it’s actually quite incredible that we didn’t immediately pick up on the hints through what was taught to us through word of mouth and song. I guess most of us weren’t alive when he first arrived, so it was easy to doubt or disregard the omens. By the time we started paying attention to them, it was far too late.

As time went on, everything became more apparent. He started to cast his spell on a few of the townspeople with a smile and a wink; not too many people as to arouse suspicion, but enough to begin to sink his claws into the whole town’s backs. Soon, he had a third of the town swooning at the mere mention of his name. A real knockout, they said. Such a handsome young man, said others. More and more people were falling under his spell into his baby blue. Soon enough, all the women of the town were caught in his trap with no escape, the trap he had set in his hidden eye.

That eye. The all-seeing eye. The eye that saw the weakness in our defenses. The eye that was foretold to bring our destruction. The one that nearly obliterated our whole town and had returned to finish the job. The one that the prophets had warned us about time and time again but we ignored to our own demise. The one hidden under the mysterious snow-white eyepatch.

Once the stranger had left the town once more, we finally remembered him. No one knows where he took them, but we never did see any of our mothers or sisters, lovers or daughters ever again. The city of men forever remembers the name of the one who brought such destruction upon us.

If it hadn’t been for Cotton Eyed Joe

I’d be married a long time ago

Where did you come from

Where did you go

Where did you come from Cotton Eyed Joe