My Totem
1342 Words
“Who are you, human,” she demanded, her voice ringing like struck silver, “and how can you see me?”
Karl lay frozen beneath her, lungs burning as if the air itself had turned against him. Terror clawed at his chest, yet threaded through it was relief, fragile and trembling, born of the strange, almost holy calm in her voice. He forced himself to breathe. He forced himself to speak.
“I… I don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know either.”
The girl stiffened, then rolled away from him in a single, fluid motion. Rising to her feet, she pushed back her hood.
Karl was speechless
Her skin glowed a warm, earthen brown, her eyes molten gold, bright as embers caught in shadow. Short black hair framed her face, but it was her ears; long, elegant, and sharply pointed, that shattered the last shred of doubt in his mind.
She definitely wasn't human.
“Forget this,” she said sharply, already turning away. “Forget me. Pretend you never saw anything.”
Karl scrambled to his feet and followed.
“Wait! Please!” he blurted. “There has to be something I can do for you!”
“Yes, Disappear.”
“I can’t!”
She stopped so suddenly he nearly collided with her.
“My totem,” she breathed. Panic bled into her voice as her hands flew beneath her hood, then across her clothes. “It’s gone.”
“What’s a totem?” Karl asked, instantly regretting it.
She glared at him, fury blazing in her eyes, sharp enough to cut. This was not the moment for ignorance. Still, Karl pressed on.
“Look, my father,” he said quickly, words tumbling over each other, “he used to know magic. Real magic. If your totem matters as much as it seems, he might be able to help. And, you’re clearly not from here. You’ll need someone who knows this world.”
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she exhaled, a defeated sigh, rubbing her brow as if the weight of entire realms rested there.
“What’s your name?” Karl asked, extending his hand.
She hesitated.
“Please,” he added.
“…Olenna.”
“Olenna who-”
“That’s all you need to know.”
“Okay,” Karl said softly.
She walked on, her composure cracking at last.
“This is my first mission,” she choked. “And everything is already wrong. I can’t do this.”
“Don’t say that,” Karl said, unsure why he believed the words as he spoke them. “I believe in optimism.”
She laughed briefly, then returned to her gloomy mood, “I was sent here to kill a wanderer.”
“A what now?”
“Demons,” Olenna said, eyes darkening. “Spawn of the Abyss. They feed on human souls. I fought it, but it escaped, slipped through the portal into this world. I must have lost my totem then.”
“And the totem gives you magic?” Karl asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Mostly.”
Karl’s heart thundered. Magic, real magic. He was filled with excitement, now all he had to do was find a totem.
Suddenly Olenna stiffened.
“I feel it,” she said.
Before Karl could respond, she leapt into the air, sprinting away with impossible speed.
“Where are you going?!” he shouted, chasing after her.
She stopped at last, right in front of his house.
“I don’t understand,” Karl said. “Why are we-”
The front door exploded inward as Olenna burst into the building. She landed in the sitting room, knees bent, eyes blazing. “Show yourself, demon!”
“There’s nothing here,” Karl insisted, panic rising. “You’re going to wake my-”
A cold liquid drop splashed against his face.
He looked up.
The ceiling crawled.
A monstrous chimera clung above them, crab-like in form, its shell warped and swollen, massive yellow eyes bulging with sick intelligence. Squid-like tentacles writhed from its underside, slick and pulsing, while colossal claws snapped together with bone-shaking force.
“Run!” Olenna screamed. “Get away-!”
The creature dropped.
The impact shattered the floor. Karl was hurled into the wall, pain detonating through his body.
Olenna ripped a deck of cards from beneath her hood and shuffled it quickly, hands moving in a blur.
“Eyes of the Creator,” she prayed, voice steady despite the terror, “favor me this day!”
“Little elf,” the demon crooned, its voice wet and echoing. “No totem.”
Olenna froze. “It speaks… an intelligent one?”
“Only recent,” it rasped.
One tentacle lifted a silver bracelet.
“Totem makes demon strong,” it hissed. “Demon strong. Demon smart. Demon speak.”
“You bastard!” Olenna cried. “Give it back!”
She flipped a card to reveal a whip etched into its surface.
“Manifest!”
The card ignited into reality, transforming into an actual whip. She lashed out, severing tentacles in flashes of motion, but more grew in their place, the demon roaring as it tore through the house.
Karl staggered upright, horror numbing his limbs. Olenna fought like a storm given flesh, but her weapon dissolved into ash.
“Damn it!” She drew another card and flipped it, but the card was empty this time
"A blank!!," she shouted
The demon seized her, lifting her toward its gaping jaws.
“I always wondered,” it drooled, “what elf tastes like.”
Karl screamed. He hurled a glass dish at it with everything he had.
“Hey! Over here!”
The demon turned, and froze.
“Impossible…” it growled, staring at Karl’s necklace, his mother's necklace.
“What?” Karl asked.
The creature lunged, faster than thought, binding Karl in its crushing coils. It clawed for the pendant.
“No! Don’t!”
The claw exploded in a burst of light as it reached for the pendant
“A protection spell,” the demon snarled. “If I can’t take it, then I’ll kill the boy!”
Olenna moved again, drawing her dagger from her belt.
She severed the tentacle holding her bracelet, reclaimed it, and power roared back into her veins.
“Die,” she commanded, she drew a spell in the air and clapped
A magic circle bloomed beneath the demon. Chains erupted, wrapping and dragging it screaming toward the abyss. It tried to pull Karl with it, until Olenna blasted its limb apart with fire.
Silence fell.
“Are you alright?” she asked, rushing to Karl.
“Yeah,” he said, breathless, smirking. “I think so.”
“So am I,” she replied.
“Is that a totem?” he asked, pointing at the bracelet on her arm
“Not a totem,” she said. “My totem.”
“Cool. How do I get one?”
She touched his necklace, the pendant humming softly. “It seems you already have one, so that’s why you could see me.”
“I don’t understand.”
She smiled. “You shouldn’t.”
A groan echoed upstairs.
“Karl… is someone there?” his father asked
“Dad, wait!” Karl shouted, but his father came down anyways.
"What's going on son?"
"He was about to explain when he noticed the house suddenly whole again. No demon. No elf. No destruction.
Karl ran outside and saw Olenna jumping into a portal
“Olenna!” he called out, but she didn't respond as she vanished through the closing portal.
Heart breaking, Karl spotted something on the ground, one of her cards had fallen. An eye on its stared back at him. He flipped it to reveal the word "Death" inscribed onto its surface.
A warning from the universe, and he knew it.
Karl clenched the card. He would not obey fate.
He chose to forge his own destiny, no matter the cost.
- Writer
