HWATW SAMPLE

           Mother always loved the forest. Swathes of smothering trees interrupted by the bluest rivers, both of which you could lose yourself in. Summer, winter, it didn’t matter which. She swore the spirits of the wild woods were mostly benevolent as long as you played by their rules, and she reminded me of them incessantly: Whisper your prayers, light your candles, watch your steps, cherish your life. And most importantly, don’t look spirits in their eyes or let them know your name.

             Father hated the forest—especially after Mother disappeared—but he never stopped loving her. He whispered his sorrow, lit candles on her shrine, and never seemed capable of lifting his heavy stare.

             But with time, he stopped cherishing his life. I saw it in small ways. He wouldn’t bathe, wouldn’t eat. It was on a night so similar to the others that a terrible spirit consumed him.

             Father sat motionless, staring westward. His eyes were vacant, his back bent. And he looked to the edge of the forest as if it might give him an answer to the question wedged into the gaps both our broken hearts carried. Where had Mother gone?

             What slinked unbothered through our protective wards, into our home, and around Father answered back with silence, but Father screamed. His eyes were full of rage, fear, and remorse as he was eaten alive. Not lost in the wild, as many men go, but by then, I was old enough to know he’d lost himself.

             I huddled into myself and kept my eyes on the floorboards as I whispered my prayers. I felt that same insidious spirit observing me as I prayed to the towering trees, the wailing wind, and the steadfast soil. And most importantly, I prayed for my missing mother. She had left just before my fourteenth spring, and now Father was gone too, just after my fifteenth winter.

             I can’t tell you how long I sat there in my heavy, soiled grief. Days. Weeks. Merely minutes? Mother had been summoned by Lord Kiyo of the Still Valley to the west to ward his fields, and had never returned. Father was gone now, too, but I’d witnessed his end. No whispers there. But he never screamed my name, Kazuki, perhaps remembering at his end one of Mother’s main rules.

             By the time Father’s wailing had given the night back to the sounds of nature, his blood had seeped into our floor mats, and I had to watch my steps to avoid spreading his mess further across our home.

             Father had been a strong and kind man, but he couldn’t dilute his love for Mother. Not with love for himself, or for me.

             I checked the wards around our home, as Mother had taught me. I lit fresh candles at both her shrine and the new one I built for him. I did other, sadder things, but I always made sure to cherish my life.

             A breeze rattles the leaves; Father’s sad spirit lingers. I hear his whispers.

             There was a darkness across our home that even the boldest breeze couldn’t blow away, though it tried. Storms raged for weeks after Father’s passing, and to this day, I can’t say it’s unrelated. Spirits and storms often chase each other, but which was predator and which prey, I couldn’t begin to fathom.

             During the day, I’d forage, keeping to the paths Mother had taught me… but hunger and the sounds of rainfall were my constant companions. At night, spirits would come, testing my wards. But never the one that had consumed Father. I’d stare at the tips of lit candles and whisper my prayers until sleep took me. I know it isn’t the life Mother or Father hoped for me, but if they wanted better, they shouldn’t have left.

             This cycle repeated until my clothes grew too small and my dreams too large. If I were to die, I wanted it to be a glorious death. Father had taught me many things: how to write, the beauty of a poem, and the necessity of swordsmanship. But in his death, I saw something I wouldn’t ever want for myself. I wished to die a good, meaningful death. The sort of death that accomplished something, not the way he went, screaming from the world.

             When the spirits came that night, as they ever did, they found an empty home. Though our home had truly been empty for years before I left. I’d been as much a specter as they, the way I lingered. I think I hoped Mother would return. When I left, I took the chance to leave a message for Mother, just in case.

             I have grown hungry; grief no longer nourishes me. I will eat the wild.