"I hear you Mom, I hear you!" Raya hollers on her way out the door, slamming the squeaky hinges closed behind her. Home by dark, she thinks, I can do that.

Her well-worn backpack slung over a shoulder, lantern in hand, Raya makes her way deep into the forest behind her family's squat excuse for a home. She stops and looks back at it once, as though to reassure herself of its presence, and continues on her way.

The sun dips just below the horizon in front of her, basking her skin in a golden light, warming the dark hair atop her head. She weaves her fingers through her curls, a nervous habit she adopted after several of these visits to the woods.

I'm basically Red Riding Hood, she thinks, except way cooler.

Raya lifts her skirts with her free hand as she walks, saving the delicate pink lace from the countless puddles of mud and herself from her mother's wrath should she ruin it.

On a dry patch of grass, Raya stops. She tucks her hair behind an ear and listens intently to the sounds of the forest life. Birds in the trees, a rabbit nearby. And, ah, a deep rumbling some thirty or so feet away. I must be close, she thinks.

She holds the lantern out in front of her as the sun droops further away, illuminating the path cleared from the brush, and the large, muddy footsteps that litter it. She matches the footprints as she follows them, step for step, and comes upon a familiar pile of stone.

Not a pile— a home.

Raya approaches it gingerly, adjusting the bag on her shoulder once more, and sets her lantern atop a tree stump by her side.

"Hello?" she tentatively calls.

The answer comes as a deep rumble, the stones in front of her trembling from its bass.

"It's me," Raya reassures. "I brought you some things."

She takes off her bag, emptying its contents in front of the stone house. Bread, cheese, an apple. "It's all I could manage."

Her voice shakes as she speaks, fearful of what might lay within that had yet to show itself to her. But whenever she comes, it takes what she gives.

Raya only hopes it never asks for more.

"Okay, well," she whispers, taking small steps backwards on the path she came from, "I'll see you... tomorrow..."

The last word fades into the wind as Raya pauses, hands trembling when a figure rises from behind the stone house. When it stands fully, it has at least six feet on Raya.

"Holy shit," she whispers. The creature peers at her.

Lantern back in hand, Raya dares to raise it at the figure. It lights up what few features are visible of the creature, long hair hiding most of its face. The creature feels feminine and yet masculine, young and old, nothing and everything.

"I'd... best be going," Raya squeaks. She takes hurried steps in retreat, afraid to turn her back, but afraid to stay any longer. She goes increasingly faster, stumbling over roots peeking from the ground, swallowing her fear and beginning to wonder what good she ever thought she was doing by coming here.

"Wait."

It speaks in the deepest of voices, assuring Raya that this was what was rumbling all these weeks as she dropped off what she'd started to refer to as her 'donations'. Raya freezes, feeling paralyzed when it speaks to her. She stares up at it, silently begging herself to grow a pair, to say something, anything, to not get herself killed over a stupid mistake like forgetting her manners.

The creatures bends down, a scraggly finger poking out from its long, wispy sleeves — that much resemble that of a grim reaper, she thinks — to hook onto a strap of her backpack, lying in wait next to the food she'd left.

Of course, she'd forgotten it.

Raya watches as she creature moves ever so slowly, as if to keep Raya in this state of paralysis for as long as possible.

It rises to its full height again, holding Raya's bag with a boney finger. This is it, she thinks, it's gonna kill me.

"You forgot this."

It extends its finger towards Raya even as she flinches away, arms over her face, which she thinks might permanently be contorted into a grimace after tonight.

She reaches out slowly, before plucking the bag from the creature's finger as though it might explode.

"Thank... you..." Raya squeaks, then bolts.

She swears she saw the creature smile as she turned to flee, the stringy curtain over its face doing nothing to hide the glimpse of bliss emitting from its form.

writing an actually decent story with so few characters to work with is more difficult than i remembered