The Suitors
You open your eyes to a blindingly bright white light. The light slowly fades until it remains only at the edges of your vision before it disappears into nothingness. What remains before you is a dense thicket of trees and a heavy layer of fog. The moon hangs in the distance emitting a pale glow that doesn’t help illuminate your surroundings. An earthy smell wafts to your nose and as you look around and see the never-ending rows of trees and brush, you realize you’re in what seems to be a forest.
A chill breeze blows through the branches, sending a few leaves tumbling down and stirring the fog around you. A shiver travels up your spine. What is this? And where exactly are you? As you ponder the answers to these questions, your ears pick up a slow creaking noise from behind you. Steeling yourself, you turn around, careful not to make noise.
You aren’t prepared for the glowing red eyes that are aimed in your direction. Stifling a gasp, you look more closely at the figure hanging on a low branch. The eyes appear to be part of a head with half its flesh rotted away to expose a blackened skull underneath. The rest of the creature’s body is skeleton-like with chunks of flesh clinging to the bones.
The creature’s mangled mouth opens, and with a raspy, grating voice it states, “At the end of the winding path behind me, there is a graveyard. Carry me there and bury me so I can be laid to rest. Then, and only then, will you escape this reality and return to yours.”
“Very well then,” you reply, attempting to hide your trembling hands by clenching them together to form fists. It’ll be okay, you reassure yourself. After all, this is all just a part of Mari’s experiment.
You walk towards the branch and maneuver the body into your arms. As you begin the walk along the barely visible twisting path, the creature’s mouth opens once more.
“There is a long journey ahead of us. To pass the time, let me tell you a story...”
—
Once upon a time, in a far-away kingdom there lived a loyal advisor to the king. This advisor had a loving family; he had a wife he cherished dearly, a beautiful daughter, and a loyal son. His daughter was so beautiful, in fact, that she came to be known as the most eligible maiden in the kingdom. Being aware of her own beauty, the daughter resolved that she would only agree to be wed to a man that was clever, wise, or brave.
One day, the advisor had to go to a different kingdom on some business for the king. There, he encountered a young man, who having heard of his daughter’s beauty, requested her hand in marriage. The advisor explained his daughter’s stipulations and asked the young man whether he was clever, wise, or brave. The man claimed he was clever and built a flying chariot to prove his case. The advisor was ecstatic and agreed to set the marriage date in a month’s time.
Meanwhile, a childhood friend of the advisor’s son approached the son, asking for his sister’s hand in marriage. Upon hearing this, the brother explained his sister’s conditions to the man. The man said this was no problem at all because he was very brave. He demonstrated his skills in weaponry and combat. The brother was impressed by his talents and agreed to set the marriage date in a month’s time.
At the same time, the advisor’s wife was approached by her friend’s son who asked for her daughter’s hand in marriage. The mother then told the young man of her daughter’s requirements in a husband. The man claimed he was wise because he acquired the skill of seeing the past and present. After proving his talents, the mother was satisfied and agreed to set the marriage date in a month’s time.
Come the marriage date, the family was shocked to find three grooms standing at the door. They determined that the daughter ought to decide which man to wed. They searched for the daughter in the house and all around the town but could not find her anywhere.
The wise man used his skill to determine that she had been kidnapped by a demon and was trapped in his lair in the forest. Using the flying chariot made by the clever man, they all traveled to the demon’s lair. The brave man was able to defeat the demon who used a great number of deadly weapons and curses against him. Upon rescuing the girl, they told her of all that happened and asked her to decide which man was to be her groom.
—
“So friend,” continues the creature, “which of the three men should this beautiful maiden choose? Be careful in your answer. If you know the truth and speak it, I will return to my dwelling on the tree at the start of the path and you must begin this journey anew with a new tale. If you answer incorrectly, I will return to the tree but speak the same tale. If you know the truth and do not speak it, you shall never return to your reality.”
Hearing these stipulations, you ponder your fate. Weighing your options, you decide it’s in your best interest to answer the question.
Author’s Note: I wanted to leave the introduction at a suspenseful cliffhanger and based on the comments on my Comment Wall, I’m glad I succeeded. In this part, the reader picks up right where they left off, except this time, they’re in the simulation itself. My intention with this storybook was to create my own take on a frame tale, or multiple smaller stories within a larger, overarching story. The larger story is set in a sterile, clinical, and modern environment. This is juxtaposed with the setting in the simulation which is purely nature with an eerie twist. The character that accompanies the reader is this grotesque, zombie-like creature. In the original text, Twenty-Two Goblins, the physical appearance of the goblin is not described in detail, but I wanted to enhance the visual imagery of this story by including more descriptive language. The story that the creature tells the reader is a paraphrased version of a story in the original text. The theme of picking among suitors was a common one, so I chose my favorite among the tales with that theme and did a close retelling. I also wanted to partially include some element of reader interaction. To incorporate this, I added the buttons at the end to leave it up to the reader’s discretion which choice they wanted to make. The reasoning for why one choice is the correct one will be made in the following part.
Bibliography. Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder, with illustrations by Perham W. Nahl (1917).