"The crooked man, his shadow grows...a twisted fate that no one knows."
There once was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence
Upon a crooked stile...
They say he lived in a crooked house, beside a crooked cat, with a crooked smile.
But they don't tell you where the mile led.
They don't tell you what he paid for the coin.
They don't tell you what moved behind his shadow.
Not anymore.
Now, the rhyme is just a warning, one sung in half-remembered tones by those who still dare to walk the old roads near Hollowmere.
The town's gone now.
The crooked man remains.
The Road of Thorns
The mile he walked was not made of stone or dirt, but of broken truths. The road curved in upon itself, spiraling like a noose. Trees leaned unnaturally, twisted like bones set wrong. Even time bent on that mile, sunlight crawled backward, and clocks grew tired of ticking.
The crooked man walked that road each morning, humming the rhyme he no longer recalled writing.
He limped, not from pain, but from memory.
A long time ago, he had been a father.
A husband.
A man named Edric Malwen, once lord of Hollowmere.
But that was before the coin.
Before the shadow grew.
The Coin
He found it in the roots of a willow bent like a question mark.
A coin, blacker than soot, etched with a spiral on one side and an eye on the other.
He picked it up, and the air changed.
The sky dimmed.
His breath fogged.
And something behind him whispered:
"Take the mile, make the deal. What you lose, you never feel."
He laughed, thinking it a trick of the woods.
He pocketed the coin.
That night, his house tilted five degrees east.
The next night, the dog stopped barking.
By the week's end, he could no longer recall his wife's face.
The Crooked House
It still stands.
Barely.
A black silhouette against gray skies, its windows askew, its chimney curling like smoke made solid. The walls groan in protest, and the door opens by itself if you whisper your true name.
Inside, the furniture floats slightly above the floorboards. The fireplace burns without wood. The mirrors reflect rooms that do not exist.
And the crooked man walks its halls.
Endlessly.
Room to room, muttering, searching for something he's forgotten.
He carries the coin in one hand.
In the other, a lantern that does not glow, only flickers with the remnants of warmth.
Some say he's looking for his family.
Others say he's not looking at all.
He's waiting.
The Shadow
It came on the thirteenth day.
Not cast by flame or light.
It simply was.
A second version of himself, trailing behind him, but not quite aligned.
It did not mimic.
It moved before him, then after.
Sometimes it moved while he stood still.
Sometimes it stretched across the walls to whisper in other rooms.
At first, he thought it was madness.
Then it began to speak.
"You took the coin. You made the mile. Now walk the curse. Embrace the file."
"What file?" he'd asked.
"Your life. Scratched. Skipped. Played backward."
The Fields Wilt
Outside, the world unraveled.
The crops stopped growing. The wind stopped blowing.
The village of Hollowmere fell silent. One by one, homes collapsed inward, sucked into nothingness.
Even the animals fled, except the cats.
The cats stayed, watching the crooked house with golden eyes. They did not blink. They did not eat.
They waited for the final line of the rhyme to complete.
The Visitors
They came, as they always do, chasing riddles and relics.
Scholars, witches, bards seeking forbidden rhymes.
The crooked man let them enter.
Some never left.
Some left missing parts of their memories, or shadows of their own.
One bard came with a silver lute and sang the full rhyme in reverse.
He burst into flames before the final chord.
Another came with a map etched in salt and string, claiming it led to "the unbending truth."
The house swallowed him whole.
Now his voice sings from the ceiling beams at midnight, begging for a name he no longer owns.
The Crooked Sea
One night, the man opened his window.
Where once a village stood, now rolled an ocean of ink.
A crooked sea, its waves curling against logic, its surface rippling with fragments of other stories: glass slippers, scarlet hoods, spinning wheels floating like bones.
In the distance, a crooked ship sailed backward into fog, its sails stitched from pages torn from forgotten books.
On its mast hung a banner bearing the spiral and the eye.
The coin pulsed in his hand.
The shadow stepped beside him and said:
"All stories fold in the end. Even yours."
The Mirror in the Attic
There was one room he had not entered in years.
The attic.
Locked not with key, but with guilt.
One night, the door opened itself.
Inside was a mirror, tall, silver-rimmed, cracked down the middle like a frozen tear.
He looked in and saw not himself, but the man he used to be.
Edric Malwen.
Smiling. Alive. Holding hands with a woman whose name echoed through the splinters of his soul.
"Adeline," he whispered.
Then the mirror fogged.
The reflection shifted.
Now the mirror showed his shadow.
It stared back.
Then it stepped out.
The Final Walk
Now there are two crooked men.
One walks the road at dawn.
The other walks at dusk.
They never meet. But the villagers say that if you stand at the edge of the woods, you'll see both paths glowing faintly with threads of gold.
If you try to speak to them, they'll stop.
And if you listen closely, they'll both whisper the same phrase:
"I am not the man I was.
I am the rhyme they dared forget."
Then they vanish—into the bend of the mile.
The Crooked Rhyme (Complete)
"There once was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile.
He made a crooked deal
And wore a crooked smile.
His house leaned in, his dog went still,
His voice became the wind on hill.
Now every step he takes is wrong...
His tale repeats, forever long."
The rhyme now ends with a sigh.
A soft, empty breath carried on a road no longer walked.
But if you ever find a black coin near a willow tree...
Don't pick it up.
Or the shadow will find you.
And the mile will begin.
Next - Chapter 6: The Clock Strikes Thirteen