Alarms had to be her least favorite thing, she was convinced. Scarlet sat up, flinging the comforter to the side and stretching before trying to pull the kinks from her neck and shoulders. Sighing and rubbing the last of sleep from her eyes, she looked towards the window, watching the sun sink for a moment before finally shutting off the chimes coming from her phone. Six in the evening. She had about an hour to pull herself together and get to her job at Tanner's, the rural bar she'd been tending for about six years now. She knew the regulars and could spot all the new faces, knew how Al liked his beer room temp and that Joe wouldn't tip, knew how to ease the tension when Ralph and Cameron both came in (Cameron's wife Abigail had had a long affair with Ralph before leaving their marriage, just down the road from Cam to Ralph's much larger property). It wasn't the job she knew so well but the people, people she'd grown up with and knew all about thanks to the workings of just about every small town in history. 

Sighing again, she stood, tossing her phone to the side and tugging off her sleep shirt. She went through the motions, the same ritual since she'd started the job at twenty. At almost twenty-six not much had changed besides the dull pain in her lower back and neck and her attitude towards the place. She didn't dislike it per se, it was just so… Repetitive. The same dramas, the same regulars, the same drinks, the same coworkers, even the few new people who stopped in either began blending together or stayed around long enough to cement their place in the monotony. She was bored. Even the drama never changed much- hell Abigail had a whole affair and shook up the little town and still ended up just right down the road. She shook her head and pulled on a white tank top and dark jeans that were maybe a little too tight for her chubby frame. She examined herself in the mirror, deciding that a black tank top would probably be better to hide the soft tummy she'd grown. It was one of her newer insecurities as she watched herself aging, she'd moved up to a size thirteen jeans from her high school five and had needed a closet refresh recently to compensate for the new curves. And she was curvy- she wore the weight well at least, in her opinion, and she knew she had a pretty face. Watching her own pale green eyes as she brushed on mascara and some liner, she smiled. She began touching up her dark circles with concealer and tapping on a nice reddish blush atop her high cheekbones, just chapstick on her full lips. She looked like her mom, with the same upturned nose and those silvery greenish eyes, striking against her long black hair and pale skin. She tapped the photo taped to her mirror, giving her mom a silent thanks for giving her the face she'd grown up loving.

She scraped her hair back into a high ponytail while she slipped into a pair of well- loved sneakers. Turning to the door, she stopped and grabbed her phone and the small crossbody purse she'd had far too long- it was barely attached at some seams and definitely needed replacing. Friday, she thought, I'll make a trip to town and treat myself. She swiped a jacket out of her closet to ward off the chill that never seemed to leave the air outside. Shutting off the lights, she made her way to the front door and grabbed her keys, not bothering to lock up the house- nothing ever happened here in this tiny town in rural Canada.

She walked into the dim bar, only Old Joe sat at the bar, Tanner leaned up against it nearby. Both watching the football game on the only TV in the room. Tanner gave her a wave and smile, brown eyes shining with humor like always, salt and pepper hair pushed back out of his face and in need of a cut. His prickly face almost always had a smile and it seemed like he never had a bad day. She liked her boss a lot, he'd been new to town about twenty years ago when he first opened the bar and quickly became a town favorite for his low prices and cheery demeanor. There's nothing drunks loved more than a good time and around Tanner it was just too hard to not be as chipper as him. Even Scarlet couldn't help but smile when she got to work. She returned the wave and stuffed her purse unceremoniously under the bar and tapped on the well-used register screen to clock herself in. Idly, she began tidying up- an almost unnecessary task since they'd barely opened four hours ago and rarely got more than the odd day-drinker or late luncher coming in before seven. She hummed along to the music flowing from the jukebox as she rearranged tables, refilled condiments, and organized the glasses. All the same things she'd done day in and day out. 

At the eight o'clock mark, patrons started trickling in and filling their usual seats and tables. Ralph and Abigail, Bobby and his crew of peaked-in-highschool ex football "stars": Jason, Riley, and Garrett, the older group of regulars: Millie, Theo, and Al, who'd been causing trouble since their own long-past teens. Benji who was currently chatting up his newest conquest Jessica while his most recent ex Melissa stared longingly across the room at the two. Benji had a new girl just about every week but Jessica was dragging the man along and he just would not give up. Good for her, Scarlett thought, He could use the humbling. She chuckled quietly and shook her head to herself. There was a new face, too, she noticed. An attractive man that looked to be in his thirties, sitting off in one of the darker booths at the back of the room who seemed to be watching everyone nonchalantly with his deep set almost black eyes. His hair was longer and falling over his forehead and cheeks, the brown seeming darker against his pale complexion. He looked like something out of a movie, unsettling and dark. He nursed a glass of the cheap red wine Tanner kept more for appearance than anything else- this was a bear and liquor town for sure and the only people who ordered wines were people passing through or trying to impress a date. 

Just then, he looked up and caught her eyes. He lifted his almost empty glass with a small smile and nod towards it, a silent but polite bid for a refill. Scarlet poured a second glass and popped it onto the mostly full tray of various shots and beer, quickly handing out the other patrons orders on her way to him and mentally ticking off everyone who needed something else. 

"There you go, can I grab you anything else?" Scarlett asked with a smile as she placed the wine in front of him and took away his empty glass. The man regarded her curiously in silence for a moment.

"What's your name?" He asked in a voice much deeper than she was expecting, smooth like honey but with a slightly rough edge to it. 

"Scarlet?" Her tone made it sound like a question, she raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for the usual pickup line that almost always followed. 

"You're Rosalynn's girl." This wasn't a question, and unnerved Scarlet further. Her eyebrows crinkled and she felt the frown tug her lips down.

"Everyone here knows that, but you're not from here. At least, I've never seen you around."

He smiled wider. "I used to live here, back in the day. I went to school with her." He was lying. Her mom hadn't gone to school here, her dad had. Rosalynn had moved here after dropping out of college, met her dad, then settled down. But why would he lie about such an odd thing? He clearly knew her mom, if not by friendship then by her face, so why would he tell her this? She kept her face neutral when she responded.

"What's your name? Maybe she remembers you!" She cheerfully retorted, testing him. "Or we could look you up in her yearbook?" His smile got even wider, almost as if baring his teeth.

"I doubt she'd remember me, we didn't talk much. But she had a very distinct face, seeing you I almost thought it was her. How is she these days?" So, he doesn't know she's dead, she thought to herself.

"She's good! Still into her painting, you know she won an award in high school for it! They've still got one of her paintings up in the school." Another test- her mother was a terrible painter, she kept to her garden more than any other hobby.

"Ah, I remember that happening, it was a fantastic piece of art." Another fail. She pursed her lips into a tight smile.

"Who are you?" Scarlet asked again, her voice a little sharper than she intended but if he noticed, his face gave nothing away.

"A friend. You're turning twenty-six next week, aren't you? Here's a little something for an early present." He took a big swig of his wine, dropped several hundred dollar bills on the table and stood, deftly moving past her and exiting the bar before she could say another word. She stared in confusion at the front door, then at the five hundred dollars sitting on the scarred wood table. Shaking her head, she gathered the money and his abandoned wine and headed back to the bar. That was weird. Her eyebrows crinkled again as she rinsed the empty glasses she'd picked up on her way back and loaded them into the dishwasher. Tanner peeked his head in the doorway to the kitchen and she gave him a wry smile. 

"You okay, kid? What did that guy want?" His voice took on a protective edge, he cared about his staff and treated them all like his own. She shook her head.

"Nothing. Just an out of town weirdo." She said lightly, hoping he wouldn't probe more. She was already confused enough and still didn't quite understand what had just happened.

"Well, if he comes back, you let me take his table, or Mike. You deal with plenty of weirdos in our regs." He winked and dipped back out of the room. She finished up and headed back out behind him, forgetting about the odd encounter as she slipped back into the flow of a busy Saturday night. The rest of her shift was uneventful, save for Cameron coming in and confronting Ralph after one too many beers. Thankfully, this time they kept it to a low shout instead of taking out another barstool or any beer bottles. Tanner had been able to smoothly separate them and called Cameron's sister Tabby to come grab him from his drunken heap in a back booth. 

When two came and all the last-calls were ushered out (some without their keys) Scarlet had already done most of the cleaning and left Mike and Tanner to finish packing up the bar, their usual closing routine. As she grabbed her bag and began fishing her keys out, Tanner came over. He tapped the screen to clock her out and she smiled appreciatively- she forgot all the time. Leaning against the bar, he watched Mike head out the back door with three bulging trash bags and then turned to her.

"What did that guy say earlier?" He watched her closely, looking for a reaction.

"Really, it was nothing. Said something about knowing my mom from high school here and then when I lied about her being a painter he went along with that, too. He didn't seem to know she was dead, either." Her mom had committed suicide when Scarlet was barely five, and even she'd never really known her. She had pictures, some videos, some journals, her still thriving garden, and the scarce snippets of her own young memory, all supported by her dad's stories and he'd gone when she was sixteen, missing on one of his usual hunting trips. After six months of him being gone, presumed dead, the small court in town had allowed her emancipation instead of pushing her into the foster system several towns over, provided she could prove that she could support herself. So scarlet had gotten her first job at the supermarket in town and stayed in the house her parents left her, her father had left her a shockingly large amount of money in his will and when she turned eighteen she was also given access to the money her mother had saved so she had a very large nest egg that kept her very comfortable on top of her job at the bar now. She rarely even needed to dip into it unless she had the itch to spoil herself a little or her car or house needed a major repair. Now, Tanner was looking at her with an uncharacteristic dark expression on his face, a mixture of worry and a tinge of anger. She watched him, waiting for a response.

"Did he say a name?" Was all he mustered.

"Just some brooding 'a friend', and left. Oh and he gave me a massive tip and knew my birthday." She added at the last second. His eyes snapped to hers.

"He knew the exact day? But didn't know your mom was dead?" This time there was worry in his voice as well as his eyes.

"Well he knew it was next week, he didn't say the day." 

"Humor me, Scar." He said with a hint of desperation. He reached into his pocket and held out his hand to her. She opened her palm and he dropped a smooth, flat stone into her hand that had an eye sized hole in it. It was wrapped in copper wire and attached to a thin piece of braided leather cord. "Take this. Just… If you see him again, look at him through this." His face was so serious that Scarlet closed her fingers around it and slipped the cord over her head so that the stone settled over her heart. Tanner looked pleased and nodded his head absently, his brown eyes still glinting with the same worry but his wrinkles easing. 

"What is it?" She asked as she gently touched the stone again.

"It's called a Hag Stone. Supposedly you can see into different worlds with them." He said with a wry smile. She laughed.

"Different worlds? Like alternate dimensions?" She laughed again but sobered a little at seeing his cautious look.

"It's probably superstitious nonsense." He said quietly and wandered away to finish closing up.

She left feeling odd, her stomach not wanting to settle and the hair on the back of her neck standing on edge. Tanner had always been superstitious but never enough to give her one of his many talismans and he never spoke to many people about it. Fair, in a small town like theirs. People judged quickly for all their own faults. She tried to shake the feeling off as she unlocked her car and got in, but right as she went to close her door behind her the trees nearby shook and let loose a small flurry of bats, spooking her even more. 

When she reached her house, she locked the door behind her after moving faster than normal to get inside. She usually took a moment to water the garden and unwind but something in her gut told her not to tonight. She peeked out her front window after double locking her front and back doors, nothing. She gave the backyard a quick glance too, nothing. Then she had a thought. You're scaring yourself again, Scar. She thought as she lifted the small rock to her eye and peeped out back again. Nothing. She slowly walked to the front windows and repeated the action. Noth- Just as she thought it she caught a glimpse of something. An almost shimmering in the back corner of the garden where a small wrought iron bench sat nestled into the overgrown greenery and flowers. Curiously, she tried to peer closer, leaning in and squinting to try to make out more in the darkness. She lowered the stone and looked again- nothing. Raising the stone once more she jumped back, falling over a book on the floor. 

Something had been right there. Right at the window. A humanoid form but all black. Her heart pounded and she scrambled away from the window, running for her purse. She ripped her phone out of the bag and dialed Tanner. He answered on the second ring and before he could get a word out she whispered,

"Tanner, something is here." She stared at the window, the blinds back in place now and hiding her from the thing but also hiding it from her. 

"I'm coming. Stay on the phone, Scar." She could already hear his truck starting up on the other end of the phone. This wasn't the first time she'd gotten scared and called him, he was the closest thing to a father figure she had anymore. This was the first time she'd actually seen something, though.

"Please hurr- oh, what the fuck." Her voice instantly raised a pitch and a slow tapping began on the window she was so closely monitoring. "Someone is tapping the window. Tanner, I looked through the stone and saw some creepy black thing first and now it's knocking." The words, though whispered still, ripped their way out of her throat and she sounded hoarse.

"I'm coming, just stay with me." He sounded like he was trying to keep her calm but she could hear fear in his voice as well. The tapping grew louder. 

"It saw me, it had to have seen me, it was so close to the window-" Then the window shattered. She jumped and barely managed to swallow her scream. "It broke the window, Tanner." She barely breathed the words and heard him curse. 

"I'm coming." He sounded strained. The blinds tore down from the outside, something pulling them fiercely outwards and she frantically grabbed the stone to press it to her eye again. This time, she screamed. 

The thing was at least seven feet tall, shimmering and featureless at first. The more she tried to focus on it, the blurrier it seemed but she could see teeth. It had rows and rows of teeth in a mouth that seemed far too big for it's own head, just a gaping hole filled with sharp, yellowed teeth. And it's eyes. Pure white and wide, emotionless and empty. It seemed to sway side to side, the way a cobra does before it strikes. It had too-long arms and they spread wide as if opened for a hug and tipped with razor sharp talons. Scarlet felt like she was going to pass out, she could hear something now. A low growl and Tanner babbling on the phone she'd dropped to the floor. 

Wendigo. The word popped into her mind of it's own accord. Her body began to move without her consent, moving faster than she'd even thought possible to the ax her father had hung over the couch and then she lunged at the same moment that it did. She barely noticed that while the stone had fallen from her eye, she could still see it, more clearly than before. Her ax connected with it's neck and she swung again, it's claws raking down her stomach and leg, cleanly slicing through her jeans and then skin. She screamed and swung again, until it stopped moving. She could feel the blood pouring down her left side as she swung over and over, unsure what her body was doing still, unsure what she was trying to do. She watched as her own hand, now covered in black blood dug into the cavity she'd created in the thing's chest and ripped it's heart from it. The thing in her hand barely beat but beat still, chilling her palm and fingers as if it was made of a block of ice. She stared at it in both horror and fascination as her front door burst open. Tanner froze and stared at the scene in front of him.

"Can you see it?" She whispered, unwilling to take her eyes from the creature's heart resting in her hand. Thump. It beat again and it seemed like Scarlet snapped back into her body all at once. She flung the thing down, dropping the ax and falling with a hard thud onto her backside. What. The. Fuck. 

Tanner slowly walked into the room, eyes moving over every inch of it to see that the danger was gone. He gently set to work starting a fire in the small fireplace and then turned to her again. 

"You might not want to watch the next part." He said quietly, his voice gruff. She widened her eyes incredulously and looked back at the thing lying massacred on her living room floor.

"There's a lot I wouldn't want to watch but-" She gestured to the thing. "I think it's a little late for that." She finished with a small huff. The shock was wearing off and she suddenly felt her left side, remembering she was severely cut up. She cried out when she tried to stand and Tanner caught her before she fell again. She leaned on him as he helped her to the wooden dining room chair and looked at it, tears coming to her eyes as the pain rushed to the front of her mind. The thing had cut her almost to the bone in some places and her muscle showed through the ripped jeans, blood flowing freely over it all. And then she passed out. 

Scarlet opened her eyes groggily and looked around her room. Placing a hand on her pounding forehead, she tried to remember the previous night's events. As they came flooding back, she noticed her hands shaking. She reached out and slowly pulled the comforter off her legs, eyes widening in horror, taking in the heavily bandaged wounds covering her stomach and thigh. The only thing she wore was her bra and underwear, the same ones covered in her own blood and the black liquid the thing had spilled all over her as she'd chopped into it. She briefly considered what that meant- Tanner had obviously done it and it made sense that with their story he couldn't necessarily take her to a hospital. What could he tell them? A low tap came from the closed door and she gently tugged her sheet up over herself. Nothing he hasn't seen at this point. She thought humorlessly.

"Come in." She scrubbed her hands over her face, noting that they'd been cleaned. It seemed like everything outside of her underwear had been meticulously wiped down. Tanner entered the room and kept his eyes graciously averted, which she appreciated. He held her mom's old tray in his hands, filled with a plate of fried eggs-over easy, the way she liked- with a couple biscuits, and crispy bacon. He'd filled two glasses, one with chocolate milk and the other with iced water and he'd added a fork and napkin as well. He set it down gently on the bed beside her.

"How are you…feeling?" He asked, seeming to be unable to figure out a better way to ask. He must know she'd barely processed the insanity of what had happened the night before. She gave a dry laugh and lifted her shoulders before letting them drop again.

"Tanner, what the fuck." She asked helplessly. She looked at him in desperation, letting her confusion show on her face. She hoped that he'd tell her she'd hallucinated and that it'd been a dog. She'd never hoped so badly to be crazy, but what else could it be? She was crazy, right? Right? She watched him chew on his lower lip, stroking his stubble, before he blew out a long breath.

"Scar, there's things in this world that most humans don't know about. Things like the Wendigo you dealt with last night, things that are worse, things that are good, too." He watched her face, pausing. She turned his words over in her mind. It really happened, she thought to herself, it really was a Wendigo. She felt her heart begin to race and could feel the shaking return to her hands. Before she could say anything, he continued. "Rosalynn was a good friend of mine, I met her when she helped me break out of a prison crafted by a powerful witch. Your mother- she was a witch as well." He seemed to choke the last sentence out, still watching her carefully. She laughed. 

And laughed.

She knew she sounded a little manic but she couldn't help the panicked giggles that escaped her lips. This is crazy. She laughed harder before the sound suddenly died. She snapped her eyes up to look at him.

"What does that mean? I've heard everything I could about her, I thought. Why wouldn't someone mention this to me? What does this have to do with anything?" She paused, considering. "Does this have something to do with that weird guy from the bar?" She asked quietly. 

"I'm not sure. He's not the first creature to come into the bar, and none of them have ever messed with you before. He didn't seem to really know anything about Ros, but twenty-plus years without information doesn't seem plausible given that he seemed to know you. Ros was out and about in the community but she hid you well. She worried about you. She's the reason I moved here- she'd asked me to watch you. She knew-" He cut himself off, turning away to hide the tears in his eyes that she'd already seen. She knew that she was about to leave me. She finished the sentence for him. He cleared his throat before continuing. "She'd talked about feeling off for a while. Saying things like 'They're coming for us.' but never having an answer about who or why. I always wondered if maybe she was going a little crazy, she didn't make much sense towards the end and she'd been dabbling in practices that are known to have negative effects on the mind of the caster. We all tried to warn her…." He trailed off, looking at the floor again. Scarlet wondered if he blamed himself for her mother's sudden death. Did he think he could have helped her- stopped her? 

"You said something about a prison- why would you be locked up? Why would a powerful creature want you?" She asked, remembering his earlier words as she processed this new information about her mother. She regarded him cautiously, her hand going to the stone around her neck almost of it's own will. He gave her a half smile and gestured towards it. Slowly, she raised it to her eye.

She was looking at the same face she'd known for twenty years but suddenly, golden scales covered his body, only leaving human skin in the area from eye to mouth and the backs of his hands- which now had long, elegantly curved black claws at each fingertip. His brown eyes now shimmered in the same gold and as he stuck his tongue out at her she could see that it'd formed into a forked, reptilian shape. His cheekbones and jawline had elongated slightly, giving him a sharp face, as beautiful as it was unsettling. His neck pulsed as he swallowed, a small puff of smoke erupting from his now flattened nose. Dragon. A voice in her mind whispered. Her breath caught in her throat as she took in the sight before her and when she dropped the stone, his face didn't change. Her brows furrowed.

"Why can I still see you? The same thing happened with the… Wendigo." She finished lamely, her mind racing again. 

"The Hag Stone uncovers what was hidden but your mom had the Sight. It's possible some of it was given to you at birth but normally it takes a powerful ritual before a human can just see without a stone or some other device. It's like unlocking a door and the lock disappearing when a human with Half-Sight uses the stone- once you've seen, it can't be unseen. But some creatures shouldn't be hidden at all by magic, like the Wendigo. They normally have to use more physical forms of hiding, more like a big cat stalking prey. They're always visible, just better at covering themselves until they attack. The Wendigo shouldn't have needed the stone to be seen. Something helped hide it." He didn't say what they were both thinking, that someone or something had sent the creature to her.