Ethereal Chronicles

In a village swallowed by marshlands and plagued with monstrous creatures that roamed the night, there lived a poor man and his wife, Myla. Though their world was bleak, treacherous, the two were happy, content in the one comfort that was their love for one another.

But the husband, Damir, grew restless, haunted by a wandering eye, as too many men are. At first he resisted the pull, dismissing the temptation for the love of his life. But when a new maiden came by the village, her beauty stirred in him something that he could no longer ignore. His wife was a good, honest woman, radiant in her beauty, but she was with child, and felt no desire to satisfy him. It was a vile justification, yes, but for Damir, it was enough reason to chase what his heart should never have considered.

Once was not enough. Damir began vanishing for longer stretches in the evenings, his excuses thinning with each passing day. Myla was no fool, and it did not take her long to catch onto his lies; the absence of his lingering gazes, the faded softness of his affection. So one night, she followed him, through the winding paths of the village and to the maiden’s home. Peering through the window, she saw her husband in the flickering candlelight, resting in the naked embrace of another.

Devastated, Myla fled into the night, desperate for air away from the wretched hut. She wandered farther from the village, the racing thoughts blinding her to the danger about her, the slush of the mud clinging to her feet and threatening to pull her down. Only in the shrill cries of the lurking monsters did she halt, pressed suddenly with a fear that she knew they could smell.

As panic bloomed in her chest, she turned to return home, but as she did so her foot caught on something unseen, and she fell tumbling into the river beside her.

Damir returned home to an empty bed and a cold hearth; no supper waiting, nor a soft voice to greet him. Unease gnawing at his conscience, he stepped back out into the night to look for her, but found nothing. For three days, the villagers scoured the marshes and riverbanks, calling her name. And on the fourth day, her body was finally found, caught in the sluggish drag of the river’s filth and half eaten by the ghouls which had crept from the shadows each night to feed.

But this was not only the end of a tragedy, but the beginning of a deeper horror. The days that followed were filled with silence, Damir moving through them hollow eyed, burdened by grief  and a guilt he dared not reveal. After Myla’s burial, strange things began to happen in the village.

Night after night, a terrible howling rose through the air, far more vengeful than the cries of the ghouls that stalked the marsh. Night after night, people began to disappear, only to be found strewn along the bank of the river where Myla’s broken body had been pulled from the water.

The village quickly grew fearful, the people turning to their gods and praying fervently for forgiveness. But the silence of the gods only tormented them further, driving many to take their belongings with cart and horse elsewhere. Braving the uncertainty of the wilderness with the knowledge that they would get to the next village was more promising than risking their future in a cursed one.

Driven by a need to understand the deaths, Damir took to watching the river one night. Darkness settled heavy and slow, the air thick with the scent of coming rain that cut through the rot that lingered by the water. It was not long before he spotted the blacksmith’s son, barely nineteen winters, walking slowly towards the cursed bank. His steps were slow, dazed, his gaze enamoured by something that Damir could not see. When the boy finally stopped, something emerged from the water.

A sickening lurch twisted Damir’s chest as he recognised the unmistakable shape of Myla. Her hair was full, loose, and the blue dress she had worn the night of her death clung to her like a second skin, not bloodstained and torn but shimmering with water that cascaded over her as though an invisible bucket poured endlessly from above. Myla smiled as the young man approached, reaching her hand out to take his and pull him into an embrace. As she did so, the wild strands of hair began to twist and elongate, snaking about the boy’s ankles so that he stumbled, crashing back into the water.

The boy cried out desperately as she shoved a grubby foot down on his chest and his screams quietened to gurgles. She pinned him there as his struggles grew weaker, his hands flailing in the water. When the final bubble popped at the surface, she let him sink beneath the murky depths, and vanished, but not before turning to fix her gaze on Damir, cold and accusatory.

Damir’s blood ran like ice, and he screamed for the others to come and witness what he had seen. As they dragged the body from the water, he knew as well as they did that this would be his last night here, and he left the following morning.

…

Forty long years had passed since that terrible night, and I had long buried the tragedy of it deep in my heart. I had taken up residence in a quaint town nestled in the northern reaches of Stribogov, untouched by the curse of No Man’s Land and far from the creatures which had haunted the miserable home of my past life. I had lived a good life here, more than I could have hoped for. I remarried, though my wife, poor soul, passed in the agony of childbirth; perhaps another misfortune the gods thought to torment me with. Perhaps I deserved it. But I had raised our daughter as best as I could, and now, with her settled in a home of her own with someone to take care of her, there was one last thing I needed to do.

I was old. Dying, I was sure of it. For I had long felt an ache in my bones, a weariness in my soul that had never been there before. The time had come to face what I had left behind. To give Myla the peace that I had denied her.

So I returned to my old home once more. When I arrived, the place was utterly deserted, the village a hollow shell of what it once was. The death had driven the living away. It must have  been empty for years, the bones of those who once lived here scattered amongst the ruined houses. I left my horse where it stood, and dropped into the muck, keeping the weak torchlight close in the hope that it would ward off any creatures lurking nearby. With slow, haggard steps, I made my way towards the river, five minutes or so from the village.

She was already there when I arrived.

“So.” She whispered, her voice scraping the air, harsh and distorted. “You came back, after all these years.”

Tears welled in my eyes as I gazed upon the woman I once loved. She stood before me ungrazed by time, not a day older than she had been the moment she died, yet twisted, tortured by the curse which bound her here.

“I know what you are.” I said. “And I know how to free you.”
“Free me then.” She said, her voice hard, unfeeling, nothing like the softness I once knew. “Kiss me.”

I did not hesitate to hobble forwards, slowed by my age, and she reached out, her cold hands pulling me into her grasp. Her lips pressed against mine, and with a single breath she sucked the life from me.

The moment the old man fell to the ground, Myla let out a long, sorrowful sigh, her body becoming a beam of light before she disappeared, never to be seen again.

For some, death is nothing more than an end— simple, cold, the absence of life. But the curse of the Rusalka is far more cruel. It possesses the soul of a young woman who has drowned in a state of heartbreak, forever bound to the body of waterwhere she lost her life. Once the transformation takes hold, she becomes a creature of vengeance, haunting the waters she once knew until justice allows her to move on.

She may choose her victims—young men whose hearts are ripe for temptation—and lure them to the water with the promise of a kiss. But as they draw near, they find themselves ensnared by her long, writhing hair, which wraps around their ankles and drags them beneath the water.

A Rusalka inflicts her pain on young men of her choosing, hearts ripe for temptation, luring them to the water with the promise of a kiss. But as they draw near, she entangles them in her long, writhing hair and submerges them beneath the water. Her body is slick, too slippery for the victim to grasp, and her touch is cold. If they manage to fight their way to the surface, she will not allow them to escape, but may tickle them to death—an agonizing, maddening end.