The cake guards

He woke up suddenly from his sleep. Something had woken him, he was aware of it seconds after he woke up, only he couldn't say what it was, a sound maybe a feeling? He couldn't tell. Riven remained motionless for a full minute before he swung his feet from his straw bed and in the same movement slipped out of his shoes before he got up. With lightly shuffling steps he went to the little one, in the middle of the room there was a table over which there was a white porcelain bowl with water. When he had splashed two hands of the water on his face and had taken a strong drink of water when he heard children laughing outside the hut. With a slightly questioning look he looked over at the door. He couldn't imagine children here in the forest. The laughter was repeated again and a little louder and this mall he was quite sure that children can do it.A slightly queasy feeling in the stomach area, which he could not explain, he went over to the door, opened it and wire outside.
At first he saw absolutely nothing because the sun shining through the treetops was too dazzling. He blinked a few times to make the dancing points of light disappear from his eyes. When he could see again and had looked around the small clearing in front of the hut, he could neither discover children nor any traces or clues or fixations. With a furrowed brow, he turned back to the hut when the child's laughter rang out again. As if struck by lightning, he drove around again but even this mall he could not see a single child. "Now it's enough, show yourselves wherever you are hiding," he said with a slightly raised voice. But nothing stirs, only the leaves in the trees moved slightly in the wind. But when he called into a forest again, the bushes on the other side of the clearing began to part, but contrary to what was expected, no child can emerge but a shadowy creature with bright yellow eyes.Riven was so frightened that he screamed hurriedly backwards, overlooking the doorstep of the hut and landing lengthways on the ground. Becoming all of this, he never let the shadowy figure out of sight for a second, which now seemed to come with shuffling steps towards him.
With a horrified cry, Riven jumped to his feet and rushed back into the hut, slamming the door behind him. But who was so quick with a mall at the hut that he can't even do it. With a single swipe of his paw, it smashed the door and carried Riven further into the hut. This flew straight to the small table to which under the force of the impact broke into a thousand pieces and buried Riven under itself.
When Riven had recovered somewhat, he picked himself up slightly and said to the door. Shaking slightly, he reached for the best possible object he could get hold of.
Unfortunately it wasn't as he had hoped for his sword but an old pan.But since he didn't have time to look for his sword, he simply gripped the pan tightly with both hands and got back to his feet. Whose had come in between within three meters and now straightened up to his full size but still he could not see what it really was.
With a targeted blow he struck the pan at whoever it was, but it evaded with an elegance that one would not have expected him to be and in the same movement he knocked the pan out of Riven's hand, which flew away in a high arc.
He cried out in horror and threw himself to the side with a single leap to avoid another swipe of the being's paw, jumped out again in the same movement and rushed back to the door. But the monster was faster and dealt him a huge blow in the back that propelled him back to the ground, where he remained for a few seconds, slightly dazed.When he came to again and turned on his back, he only saw how the creature jumped down on him with a single leap and the huge paws rushed down directly onto his throat.

When he opened his eyes again, the creature had disappeared and in his place were now children who were not older than seven or at most nine years old in front of him. Completely confused, he straightened up in a half-sitting position. "How what?" Stammering softly, he looked around, he was, as he only now noticed, no longer in the hut, but was lying outside in the clearing in the middle of the grass and the children were standing around him. “What happened to them?” He asked in a lower voice that had a slight hint of fear.
"It's not difficult to explain, you died, that's all," one of the children spoke up. It was a girl with long hair, emerald green eyes that glowed from within, and skin as white as porcelain."II died what ... G-died ??" the children nodded "yes, but don't worry, you may have lost your life but gained something better" said the red-haired girl with a slight smile on the loved ones. Riven straightened up at these words and looked at the children around him more closely. As he only now noticed, they all wore the same white clothes and without exception had no shoes on. "I shouldn't worry," he gasped slightly, "I just died like you just said and shouldn't worry and what kind of profit should that be?" He nodded the girl again and stretched it in your dainty hand to "trust and easy".
Riven hesitated a tiny moment in which he looked at the little girl's face before he carefully grabbed her hand, it felt like you were stroking warm china, at least it felt like that for the first second.Before a kind of soothing warmth and security flowed through him, "Who are you?" he asked in a firm voice, before he got to his feet, he was no longer afraid of one mall, it seemed as if all fear and suspicion had vanished from him the second he took the girl's hand. Only now did he notice that he was wearing exactly the same thing as the children, namely a plain white robe without shoes. "We are the guardians of the dead," answered another child with a little delay to his last question. "And we're here to pick you up," said the red-haired girl again, turning around and slowly walking towards a point between the trees. Riven followed her automatically because he was still holding the girl's hand and all the other children also joined them. “You are the death watchers?” He asked carefully. "Yes, and you belong to us from now on," said a slightly older, blond-haired boy. "We have waited so long for you" were the last words before the small group disappeared between the trees and only a lonely little hut remained in the clearing.END