The rain had been pouring for a week straight, and everyone in town had been having the same nightmare every night.

It wasn't the thought of a flood that had them worried, nor the drowning of harvestable vegetables still trying to grow - oh no. It was far worse than that. You see behind the image of a perfect community, one that not only was filled with love but thriving with possibilities too, there was a darkness. A palpable cloud of hidden pain; a history so cruel that everyone pretended not to know, but it hummed with every breeze that whipped through the cobbled streets. It was the foundation that their homes had been built on; the solid ground that not only lifted them up but protected them from the damp below, from the rotting of their skin. Thanks to it they could pretend to be kind, happy people, without a care in the world.

But the rain brought a chance for that to wash away.

Lucy Brittle knew that all too well - how many times had she been told the stories as a child? The boogyman who could appear at any moment, the devil rising back up from the stone below their feet. Stories that had slowly lost their warning, their urgency to prepare. It wasn't that the threat had dissipated, but rather that the length of time that had passed since the proclamation made it seem unlikely to happen. Were spirits even real? And if so, would the one they feared truly come out to punish them all if the weather told it to? Could it truly rain and snow at the same time?

The name used to be whispered so infrequently that it was almost taboo, or so Lucy had been told. Over time it had lost its menacing aura, its ability to widen eyes and dry the mouth. Now, it was a story told around the fire, a name giggled about when it presented an opportunity to entertain.

But Lucy had heard it clearly tonight, and now she could do nothing but stare out the window, breath held. Waiting for a sign.

Akronis.

She didn't truly know if she ever believed the story - that the place she loved so much could have only existed with so much evil behind it. Could her ancestors truly have done something so wicked? So selfish?

But she knew the truth - she had seen it in her dreams.

Yes. It was real. She had watched night after night, behind the lids of her eyes, the screams dragging her into grief.

It was three hundred years ago - a time that seemed shrouded in darkness and struggle. Her town hadn't been doing well, with barren fields and cold winters, her people had been dying. No matter what they did it was as if the land had been cursed, the community bound to end up in the ground or strewn off to some place else. This wasn't a place of abundance, but one of death. With their arms weakening and their will shaking, every person that died was an omen of what was to come. Why was it that they had been condemned to this fate - to live in the shadows while others basked in the sun.

They blamed who was different.

They all knew the rumours; the man with eyes as dark as the abyss and a soul that satan himself had his claws dug into. It was only his wife that could keep the fires of sin at bay, only she could control the monster that threatened to rise.

But the people didn't mind much at the beginning. He and his wife lived in a small hut at the edge of the community. Atop the hill where the water streamed down from, they lived quietly. Solitary even, tending to the area so the people didn't have to, and their water never ran dry. They weren't seen often, only when the woman would come down to the market for herbs, or other ingredients she needed. At first she went unnoticed, mixing in with the other pale faces that only bought what they could afford, she'd smile graciously and leave without a fuss.

But as the weather got colder and the food scarcer, people started to notice.

How exactly were she and her husband sustaining themselves? Had the issues with crops started before they lived beside the mouth of their water supply? In a place where suffering seemed like the only way of life, why would people move there?

The whispers began quietly; only the few who were untrusting, their lips numb with the frequent frostbite they sustained. But then it got louder. The whispers turned to shouts, the sly glances to stares. Soon there was not a person in town who didn't look up at the hill in distain, in fear. They were blamed for everything; from the withering plants to the loss of a child. There was not a day that passed that someone did not curse the couple for ever coming to their land.

And the accusations grew bigger:

The couple were poisoning the water from the source.

The herbs she bought were used to curse their children.

He would come down from the hill one day to kill them all.

Soon it became clear that thinking any different was wrong. The people wanted a way to blame someone else for their problems and it would be much easier to deal with the pain if they thought it had been intentionally inflicted upon them and it wasn't just a case of bad luck or punishment for their own sins.

The priest spouted the words the loudest, demanding to be heard by the people who had started to wither in their belief of him.

'You see,' he'd say, pointing towards the hill, 'God is not here while the demon remains.'

It brought more people to his door, those begging for him to help, to show them how to come back to the lord and his religion after dismissing it so carelessly.

'It's not that he's no longer looking down on you,' he would shout, a firm grip on their shaking hands, 'It's that something is blocking his view.'

For the first time in years the priest became the voice of reason, the previous failures and grievances forgotten in aid of finding a different source for the negligence of their god. People listened now, they took his advice, his promises. They began to trust in his words again.

The desperation of the people caused them to be blind to their morals, to the realisation that perhaps there was another reason for their pain - one had been offered, one that would explain it all, so why would they question it? A man of god would not lie - but a man of satan would.

That is why the next time that the wife came down to the market, it was her last. For there she found not the usual smiling, albeit strained, faces of the familiar crowds, but faces that were filled with rage. With contempt. In a matter of moments she had been whisked from the stall she stood at and into the church, her cries muffled by the sweaty hands of panicked people that she thought she could trust.

But Akronis heard her. From high up on the hill he felt it in his bones, the fear for her life overwhelming him so much that he crashed through the front door and charged towards the town. His cries of anger were heard echoing through the rain.

The people became scared, they asked the priest what they should do, they looked to him for guidance, for how to escape the hell they had been punished with. The walls of the church could only protect them for so long, what was it that they planned to do with the wife?

As Akronis made it to the church, his figure seeming to grow in size with every step, they brought her outside. Bound by rope and gagged by cloth, her eyes glistened as she saw him. Her heart aching to reach for him.

The priest began his words, an old scripture from passages which were bound in blood and forbidden. The people were unsure, for although their fear was high they knew that by using this, they too were no better than the curse that they wanted to escape.

Perhaps, given more time, they would have changed their mind, maybe the blood spilled that day would not have soaked the ground. A different outcome could have been found.

But the priest felt the hesitation from the people and his own pride blinded him, refusing to concede his power he completed the ritual, providing the one thing that was missing. Blood.

With the ring of his words still hanging he plunged the knife into the woman, only the hilt stopping it from going further. There was a wave of shock through the crowd as the priest stepped back, letting the convulsing body drop to the floor.

Akronis himself dropped to his knees, his wails of agony causing the people to choke, their lungs smothered by it.

The priest held up the blade as the blood pooled into the stone, his voice clear above the smog of disbelief.

'You are condemned!' he bellowed, pointing it at Akronis, 'Bound by blood you are condemned!'

The people watched as the air began to move, swirling around the sobbing figure as the earth below him began to crumble.

'No,' Akronis growled, his words ringing in the ears of every person who stood there, 'I condemn you. I condemn you to years of abundance, of thriving plants and sunshine ridden skies. I condemn you to live long and happy, with full stomachs and greedy hands. I condemn your people to thinking they are safe.'

The priest looked almost smug, the wide eyes of those around him hopeful at the words spouted from the demons mouth. But his confidence began to wane as Akronis stood, his legs shaking against the power of the curse but strong enough to hold out a little longer.

'And I condemn you to have children. They will grow and have their own children, and then their own children and so forth until the day that my name is laughed at. Until the day they forget this feeling of doom and the devastation that comes with it. And then I condemn them to me.'

The people look at him in horror, watching as the grin spreads across his face and laughter begins to bellow from his lungs.

'I condemn them to watch as the rain is joined by snow, to watch as I rise again and exact my revenge. I condemn them to watch as everything they know is ripped from them, including their lives. I condemn them to stand and bare witness to my atrocities, just as they have stood and bore witness to yours. Your people will die because of you - that is what I condemn you all to.'

And then the ground beneath him disappeared and the manic laughter of Akronis faded as he slipped from view, his fingers outstretched towards the body of his wife.

It felt like Lucy had been there herself, the image so clear that she must have seen it with her own eyes. It was hard for her to distinguish between her own memories and these - they seemed to plague her with every waking hour.

Even now, as she watched the rain begin to turn into snow– no, that wasn't right. It was doing both.

Her blood chilled.

She heard the crack of the ground before she could even take a breath, the hairs on her arms rising as she watched from her window. Waiting.

And then the screams began.

Lucy flew from her room, her feet already making their way to the church where she thought she might be safe. The priest now was not like the one before, he had a kind heart intended for god. Maybe that would be enough.

She tried to ignore the figures on the street, the panicked expressions and terrified cries that followed their feet. She couldn't stop to warn them, to try and explain that the curse was true - because they must know already, and she didn't have the time.If they had not heeded the warnings of their ancestors then that was their own doing, but she knew the truth in the tale.

As she arrived at the church courtyard, she froze. It was too late. The windows were broken, flames billowing out and screams of pain flooded through the doors, spilling out onto the street. She saw the steps, the blood left behind by bodies trying to drag themselves away. She did not know what to do, what could she do in the face of imminent death?

But something tugged at her mind and pulled her in the opposite direction. A dream.

Ignoring the way it pained her to leave her people behind, she moved quickly, her feet already knowing the route that she had wondered about so frequently. On her way, she thought she saw him - like a shadow peeling its way across a wall he moved silently, the cries of people the only indication that he was ever there. She prayed that he would not see her and that she may not see anymore bodies of those she cared about, and it seemed to be answered for before she knew it she was ascending the hill.

The house at the top was old - riddled with plants coating the windows and moss growing from every nook. No one had dared to enter it - even after all these years, but Lucy would. With a crash the doors swung open, their hinges creaking with the pressure.

She knew he had heard it.

The house inside was not old and rotting like she thought it would be, in fact it was quite beautiful and she began to wonder what magic resided here. Without thinking her feet moved to a cupboard where books lay, one in particular open at a page that caught her eye.

It was as if it had been left for her there, the binding feeling almost familiar in her hands as she turned to face the open doorway. The book was heavy, filled with spells and stories that she barely had time to glance at but something in her wanted her to.

No, she thought, I would not give into temptation.

With a swallow of her dry mouth she began to recite the words, at first the passage barely making sense but halfway through it was as if it began to change - suddenly she knew exactly what the words meant, what is was that she had begun to do:

The incantation to find his mate.

If she was reborn and living here, much like the legend had said she would be, then this would show her to them - to him. With their reunion his hatred might dissipate, their land could be saved if he was once again with the woman who could soothe his soul.

Her words rang clear, breaking through the storm and screams from below in the village. But she knew it wasn't enough, words on their own could not find the power to overcome this demon, but something had done many years ago.

Blood.

With a scream that curdled her own stomach, Lucy took the dagger that sat on the desk, waiting for her, and drew it across her wrists. She expected to feel pain, to flinch as she did but there was nothing of the sort, instead she felt a glow, a pulse from deep in her chest that blinded her.

In an instant she knew why she was familiar with the house, why the road to it had seemed to be engrained into the back of her mind. Why she had had so many dreams of this very night and of the horror so long ago.

It was because the enchantment had worked - and his mate was here.

With a jolt her body flew forward and her sight returned, just in time to watch as she fell into the awaiting arms of the man that she had been so afraid of.

"Akronis," she whispered, her shaking fingers reaching to his face like she had done so many times before. How could she forget who she was? Who he was? How had life kept them apart for so long just to snatch her away again when they were so close.

"My love," he mumbled, his hands gripping to her sticky ones, trying to stop the blood but it had already begun to seep into the floor and then to the ground, cementing the fate of the town.

But Lucy did not care about them anymore, for she had remembered who she truly was and what the people below them had done to her and her soulmate.

"I condemn them," she whispers to him, her rage shining in her eyes as she presses her lips to his with her last breath, "I condemn them to you."

And so, hours later, as the last flake of snow fell and the rain finally stopped, there was not a breath through the town. Not a sound remained except the soft running of water that slowly turned red as Akronis washed his hands in it, his promise fulfilled. As the sun rose, he too stood making his own oath to his soulmate:

He had waited centuries for her, and he would wait more - no matter how many years or towns it took, he would find her.

.

.

April 2022 entry for @WattpadDarkFantasywriting prompt contest using prompt 2