7 March 2024

I heard a song on YouTube by Trickywi called “Perish Song”, inspired by the Pokemon move of the same name. Something about the song just niggled at the back of my brain; there is a story in there somewhere. It wasn’t until the past couple of days I nailed down who I’d want the character to be and what there story should even kind of look like, but a lot of the writing I managed to do in March was poking at the idea

Seila had always been fascinated by the old crypt that ran under the village. Apparently, there had been a great battle here hundreds of years ago, full of mages and whatnot. Actually, the crypt was most of the reason the village even existed; many of the villagers, including Seila’s parents, made their living delving its depths for treasures and old forgotten magics.

So when she found a strange door while playing hide and seek with her friends, Seila got super excited. She managed to open just enough to slip inside, where she found a tall, skeletal statue offering a scroll.

Seila’s eyes widened. She was too young to really understand the details, but she knew a scroll like this would be worth a lot of money. She hesitated a moment; Mama always taught her it was dangerous to touch strange things in the crypts. There was more than one person in the village who’d been killed by traps. Still… Seila couldn’t help but imagine how proud Mama and Papa would be if she brought back this scroll.

Doing her best not to touch the statue, Seila shimmied the scroll out of its grasp. It took a while; the statue seemed to tighten its grip a bit when it was almost out, but Seila got it. She must have imagined it. The scroll itself was old, held closed with a seal of black wax.

Excited about her discovery, she raced back to the other kids, heedless of the fact she was still supposed to be hiding. “Look what I found! LOok what I found!”

Her best friend, Mina, scowled at her. “Seila, you’re supposed to be hiding!”

“Yeah, but look what I found!” Seila shoved the scroll in Mina’s face.

Mina’s eyes went wide. “Where did you get that?”

“There was a room with a creepy door over there, and inside a skeleton statue was holding onto it!”

Mina bit her lip. She was the sort to always keep the rules, so she was probably conflicted. Seila just grinned at her and grabbed her hand. “Come on! Let’s find everyone else and go outside so we can open it!”

Before Mina could reply, Seila had dragged her off.