Rue: A short story, Part 1

Death is funny. Some fear it, some resent it and some accept it; most deny it and do their best to avoid the topic altogether. 

Rue lay in the field of freshly bloomed white lilies, a sense of calm washing over them as blood splattered from their mouth in a half smile. Rue, who once felt empty and lost, was surrounded by a group, or rather, a pair of unlikely characters who they had met on their journey. 

A frog who went by the name Batrachian, and a Japanese Spider Crab who called themselves Macrocheira Kaempferi, or Kaem for short. 

Batrachian, a fierce warrior from an old Kingdom once thought lost to the world,  donned a simple set of leather armour, leather boots and a sword scorched with the history of hard-wrought battles. Kaem was a tall and lanky self-proclaimed coward who hated to fight; they didn’t have an aggressive bone in their body, opting instead to search and scrounge for tiny hats. Kaem liked to find hats on the bodies of their enemies and, in battle, would often wear an old WWII helmet for protection as they searched the battlefield. The fighting would always be left to Rue and Batrachian. How Rue came to be bleeding out in the middle of a field with their closest of friends is one of fraught terror and hopelessness, but also one of strength and courage.

This is Rue’s story.

 ***

Rue was awoken in the cold dead of night to their window wide open; this was strange because if you knew anything about Rue, you would know that they are meticulous, triple-checking everything before going to bed. It was something of a ritual that Rue had—first, they would go downstairs and check all the locks, then they would check the windows, and then they would repeat the process upstairs, doing this again and again until they were satisfied. 

Upon locking the final window, Rue heard a strange noise coming from outside, nearest to an old rundown well in their backyard. Rue focussed on the bizarre noise; it sounded almost like a woman speaking in riddles but otherworldly and distant. 

‘In the dark, where we gather, many have come to carve out a new destiny. But where crossroads blur and fates intertwine, a new fate is sure to arrive. Can you outlast the scratching that doth slumber?’ The woman muttered.  

These words were odd but alluring, calling to Rue. By the time Rue realised that they were standing by the well, it was too late. Rue felt a forceful and heavy pressure come from behind them. The darkness was blinding; there was nothing to be seen as Rue fell deeper and deeper down the well.
 

‘What happened?’ Rue said out loud to no one in particular. Upon reaching a hand to the back of their head, Rue felt something warm and gooey. She withdrew her hand quickly at the sting she felt. Had she been unconscious? Rue wasn’t certain she hadn’t felt anything touch or push her, merely a pressure like she had become top-heavy and tipped forward into the well. 

 Rue felt the heaviness of her eyes. They felt like someone had strung up heavy bags to her, pulling her into a drowsiness that would surely mean sleep soon. She knew she couldn’t sleep, not here; she didn’t even know where here was. Rue felt the sting of her head wound again, the pain getting worse as Rue became more lucid. 

Exhausted, Rue forced herself up to her feet and scanned the surroundings: cobwebs and giant spiders were the only movement, hunched over prey in their corner kingdoms. Rue felt a sense of unease come over them. 

Rue looked into the pool beneath them. A face smiled back at them. 

Clean white teeth, kempt long brown hair with shiny brown eyes. They donned a leather blouse with black jeans and tired old leather boots. The reflection suddenly distorted and changed. The image now shown was of one who had just been injured from a fall; a nightgown that was once the purest of whites was cut and frayed, and covered in muck and grime. Long brown hair was messy and knotted and wet with dirt and blood which covered up a bruised and battered face. Brown, tired eyes with bags as big as the moon featured prominently.

‘I must be really tired, that can’t be me. I know I fell, but it surely wasn’t far enough to do this amount of damage,’ Rue said while picking at her hair and poking the swollen bags that lay under their eyes. 

‘Where am I?’ Rue began walking around and could see only wooden walls. It was as if she had fallen into a large square box.
‘Hmm, this feels oddly familiar,’ Rue thought to herself, passing by cobwebs, and damp mildew.
‘How does mildew form inside of a box?’


As Rue’s walk seemingly got her nowhere, she stopped in place for a moment, hoping to formulate a plan… or at the very least get her bearings back. Suddenly a voice came from behind her, coming from a puddle. Rue made their way back and found herself talking to something in the pool, another of them perhaps, or possibly something more sinister.
‘Just keep walking, don’t look back…’ Rue thought to herself, lips trembling. Footsteps kept a steady pace behind Rue, suddenly speeding up. Rue’s walk had now almost turned into a jog. The footsteps behind Rue kept pace, forcing her into a sprint. Objects appeared out of the dark forcing Rue to hurdle over them. They couldn’t keep this up for much longer; it felt like Rue was running through a neverending hallway. She decided to stop and confront whatever was chasing her. It was supernatural how it kept up, as if it was attached to her back.
‘Wh—who are you?’ Rue asked uncertainly.
‘Me?’ The puddle spoke.
‘Who are you? It seems most days you can’t even tell that yourself.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t know me!’ Rue yelled in frustration.
‘Oh, come now Rue. I know you better than you do.’ A big, toothy grin gleamed.
‘Most days you can’t even figure out if you are she, they, them whatever the fuck you call yourself.’
‘Well, if you haven’t worked it out yet, I’m you. And I am here to fix you.’ The face in the pool gleamed with a toothy smile.
‘N—no I am me, and I don’t need to be fixed,’ stuttered Rue. 

‘Oh, give me a break, are you not sick of being bullied at school? Everyone calling you names and making fun of you. Is that not why you are always using a different pronoun each day of the week?’ 

The water's grin was big and wide; Rue thought it looked kind of human. But there was something about the teeth it bared, toothy. The way it smiled was uncanny. It was disturbingly wide and the face’s eyes showed nothing. Rue knew something was wrong. Slowly she got up, knees wobbly, hands grasping at their head feeling a bit woozy.
‘Aww, poor Rue, does your head hurt? Fear not, just let me inside and it will all be over soon’.
‘What does that even mean? Let you inside?’ 

Rue realised she had no time to lose, she needed to get away from whatever this thing was as fast as they could. Rue thought she could hear the rustling of water as she turned her back to the puddle. They had no time to panic as a peculiar looking white rabbit shot straight past them, heading for a tiny door at the end of a hallway that suddenly appeared. 

What now? Rue thought, already having enough to deal with. While Rue was distracted, she didn’t register that the reflection was no longer a reflection, and that it had followed after the rabbit for the door. Shock and horror suddenly overcame Rue like a black cloud overhead forecasting nothing but dread, pain and suffering for the rest of the week. Rue felt for the first time in their young life the kind of horror that they thought only existed in horror movies; a tribal kind of fear, an old fear.

End Part 1.

Author: Lachlan Malden

Editors: Minahil Amin and Elizabeth Porporis