"She wore red to be seen... but now the red is all that's left."
Once, there was a girl who walked through the woods.
She wore a cloak of red so bright, it looked like fire stitched into fabric. She carried a basket of sweetbread and rosemary. And she hummed a tune passed down by grandmothers who no longer remembered the words.
The people called her "Red Riding Hood", though that was never her name.
She had one rule: stay on the path.*
But the woods do not care for rules.
And neither do wolves.
The First Lie
The story goes that a wolf tricked her, swallowed her grandmother, and wore her skin. That a brave huntsman arrived, blade in hand, to save Red from the beast.
That she lived, wiser, happier, ever after.
But stories lie.
What they never told you is this:
There was no huntsman.
There was no rescue.
And Red was never the prey.
The Path
The path twisted through the Blackroot Woods, where the trees leaned too close and the fog tasted of iron. The deeper you walked, the more the world folded in on itself.
Time shifted.
Voices echoed in reverse.
The birds stopped singing.
Red knew the danger, but she also knew the woods belonged to her.
Her grandmother had once said, "The path remembers you. So do not forget yourself."
But the day Red crossed the stream at dusk, something changed.
The path forgot her name.
And something else remembered.
The Wolf
It came not as a howl, but as a whisper between trees.
A voice like breath against bone:
"Why do you wear red, little girl?"
She turned, clutching her basket tighter. "To be seen," she replied.
"Do you want to be found?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
She didn't know.
The voice laughed... a low, rolling growl that slid beneath her skin like cold water.
She ran.
The trees shifted.
The path broke.
The Cabin
She found the cabin just before nightfall.
Her grandmother's home.
But the windows were dark.
The door hung open.
And the scent of rosemary had soured into rot.
Inside, the fire had gone out.
The bed was still made... but something writhed beneath the covers, a shape too thin and too tall.
Red stepped closer, heart pounding like drumbeats.
"Grandmother?"
The thing in the bed turned its head.
Too slowly.
Too wrong.
The face was hers.
The Mirror Skin
It wore her face.
It smiled with her teeth.
Its eyes gleamed gold, like candleflame reflected in blood.
She stepped back, but her feet tangled in shadow.
The creature rose from the bed, stretching limbs that cracked and snapped into place.
"This is what they see," it whispered. "A girl in red. Lost. Sweet. Soft. A lamb."
"But you are not soft."
"You are the howl."
"You are the fang."
And then it lunged.
The Transformation
They say Red died that night.
But it's not true.
Something else did.
Something broke in her when the creature's claws slashed across her chest... no blood, just fire. Her breath turned to smoke. Her scream echoed like thunder through the roots of the forest.
She rose not with fear, but fury.
Her cloak turned darker... red like fresh blood, not velvet.
Her eyes burned gold.
And her teeth... sharp.
So sharp.
The creature tried to run.
It did not make it far.
The Curse
Red walked out of the cabin wearing a wolfskin stitched to her shoulders. Her hood now bore ears. Her hands held claws. Her heartbeat synced with the forest's rhythm.
She had become the thing they feared.
But the woods bowed to her now.
The crows watched in silence.
The moon turned crimson every time she passed.
She no longer needed a path.
She was the storm in the trees.
The Villagers
When she returned, they didn't recognize her.
She smiled too wide.
Spoke too little.
She still carried a basket—but it no longer smelled of bread.
It dripped.
They asked where her grandmother was.
She said only: "Gone."
They whispered of curses. Of wolves in girl's skin. Of things that walk upright but howl at dusk.
Fathers clutched their children tighter.
The church rang its bells.
But nothing could unmake what the woods had claimed.
The Huntsman
Months later, a man came.
Broad-shouldered, axe on his back, stories behind his eyes.
He called himself a *hunter of beasts.*
He asked about the girl in red.
They pointed toward the woods, crosses clutched in shaking hands.
He entered the Blackroot alone.
He did not return.
At least, not as a man.
They found his axe at the forest's edge, its handle gnawed through.
And a red cloak hanging from a tree, fluttering without wind.
The Legend
Now they call her the "Red Hooded Curse."
Children are warned not to wear red.
Not to stray from the path.
Not to listen when the trees call your name.
But some do.
And sometimes, when the moon is full and the fog rolls thick, a figure appears at the forest's edge.
A girl, barefoot.
Cloaked in blood.
Eyes like embers.
She does not speak.
But she watches.
Waiting for those who would hunt her.
Waiting for those who still believe she needs saving.
The True Rhyme
"Red walked in and never out,
The woods were never tame.
They hunted her, they called her prey...
But now she owns the game.
Her cloak is stitched with silence,
Her basket carries fate.
If you should see her glowing eyes...
Then child, it's too late."
Next Chapter 8: The Bone Collector (The Fall of Humpty Dumpty)