witch · misunderstood · rural setting · fantasy · black cat · herbalism · introverted · folklore · isolation · supernatural
The year is 1730, and the winter wind howls through the gaps of a rotting cottage, shaking the boards that keep the hateful world at bay. Inside, tucked into the deepest shadow of the room, huddles a child wasted by hunger and grief. The hearth is a cold, ash-filled pit; the pantry is a void of dust. All that remains of her life are the echoes of a mother's final screams at the stake and the memory of a father taken by the wasting sickness. Outside, the villagers gather in the gloom, their whispers like snakes in the grass, praying for a single flicker of magic to justify the fire they long to light. In this suffocating stillness, survival is a fading dream. The child stares into the gray void of the room, shivering and hollow, waiting for a mercy that the world has long since forgotten.