“Greetings, Child. Did you drop a wooden axe, an iron axe, or a golden axe?”

You can’t believe your eyes. The data Boss gave you was spot on, there’s something in this snowy mountain people would pay anything to get their hands on. Three axes float above the spring: wood, iron, and gold. Quickly declaring the iron axe as yours, all three of them fly to your side. You look around, making sure nobody noticed the supernatural phenomenon, and start to head back to the shack, though not before disposing the wooden axe by chopping it into splinters and disguising it as pieces of firewood. Making a mental map of where it was, you bury the golden axe beside the shack and knee the door open.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back! Just put the firewood and water next to the door.”

The sound of terrible singing accompanied by crackling fire greets you. Attending a pot of soup is a girl with a dusty black side tail, a wooden spoon in one hand and haphazardly cut vegetables in the other. Supposedly her name is Hoshimachi Suisei, your one and only companion in these snowy wastes. She admitted to having lost her way in these parts and was unable to find her way back. Lucky her she found this abandoned shack that allowing her to survive for several weeks.

“Please put less salt than usual, Miss Hoshimachi.” You head to your room, taking a  glance at the door. The handle is not quite perpendicular, just as you left it.

“Will do!”

You enter your room and check little bits of trap set up for unwelcome visitors. All clear, nobody entered when you’re away. Picking up the phone that was supposedly unable to receive a signal, you send a message to the boss, stating that you have found what you were looking for, and put the phone back inside a hollowed-out bird encyclopedia. Everything should be perfect, a helicopter should come for you in few weeks, secure the mythical spring for the foundation, and send you back to where you came from. There is just one problem; the girl stirring soup outside this room is going to kill you.

From the onset, it was bizarre that a lone girl survived so long in this raging winter. There’s a garden abundant with parsnips, lettuce, and turnips when you first came here. The number of vegetables started whittling down ever since, this girl clearly isn’t the original owner of this shack. The next question is where the original owner is now. Well, the first thing she served to warm you up when you’re here was pork soup. There are no boar or pig-like creatures around these parts, it was not pork. The faint stench of death assails your nose every time you get close to her room, which she insisted you to never enter, saying that girls have their secrets. You ate the soup anyway, worried that any hint of you knowing what is going on would set her off enough to use the hunting rifle she always had on her.

Suisei is a scarily efficient hunter. So efficient you couldn’t refuse when she proposed that she would handle the hunting around here, leaving chopping firewood and drawing water to you. Most of the time she would bring back squirrels or snow hares, but on the days she doesn’t bring back any, dinner would be ‘pork’, and today is one of those days. To be quite honest, you pretty sure you’re being kept around as livestock.

Sitting at the rickety table, you eat your soup in silence. It was overpeppered, oversalted, and the vegetables are cut unevenly. Suisei is not as good a cook as she is a hunter. She happily scarfs down her portion, however, her tongue already accustomed to this mess of cooking.

“How is it, Anon?” she asks between her bites. Looking down at your bowl, there is less ‘pork’ than usual, the supply must be running low. You need to choose your words carefully.

“Perfect. You should open a restaurant when we get out of here.” Trying to sound as unsarcastic as possible, you take another spoonful of soup and turnip slices, trying to leave the meat in the bowl to throw out later.

“Eeh, but I want to be an idol!”

Her voice is …unique. No, you’re pretty sure she can’t read minds so you could just say it to yourself. It is horrible, out of tune, and frankly, painful to hear. It is like singing, but isn’t. She would be lucky to find someone who wouldn’t go lock themselves in their room when she’s singing.

“You should do both then, a cooking idol should be a pretty memorable gimmick.”

***

It is the next day, Suisei asked you to draw more water before going hunting, saying that she will definitely catch something big today and need more water to clean it up. You secretly brought the golden axe you fished from the snow, intending to throw it in the mythical spring. It would probably turn into iron, golden, and diamond axe, only one way to find out. The spring is right in front of you when you notice Suisei drinking from it, no big game in sight. She waves at you as you frantically try to hide your golden axe, waving back awkwardly with one hand behind your back.

“Anon! A deer escaped just now and I was parched. Figured I could drink up here and rest for a while.”
You draw a bucket of water from the spring and sit beside her, axe hidden in her blind spot. She gazes at you dearly, as if looking at a long-lost lover.

“What is it, Miss Hoshimachi?”

“Nothing, it was just thinking that you’re such a wonderful person.” She flashes a smile; this girl is a natural born seductress.

“I didn’t do much. You’re the exceptional one for being such a good huntress.” Suisei is raining praises, but all you could feel was a wave of uneasiness washing over you. Your hand unconsciously reaches the axe at your side.

“You never tried to lay your hands on me all these weeks. You even respected my wish to not get in my room when I’m gone. You’re a good person, to say the least.”

“You’re exaggerating, Miss Hoshimachi. I was simply doing what any respectable person would do.”

“Just call me Suisei. Anyway, you said you’re sent to look for some kind of rare bird, right? What was it called again?”

Ah, you did say that. Can’t exactly tell her you’re working for an extra-secret foundation, you know?

“It’s Antioquia Brushfinch, mostly black and white with a red tint on its head. I could probably show you more if I have my encyclopedia with me.” A lie. There’s only about 20 of these left in the world and their habitat is nowhere near these snowy wastes, not that someone like her would know that much about birds.

“Is that so… Then I will make sure to find it in your stead. This spring will make for an easier clean-up.”

Huh?

Suisei quickly points her rifle at you and pulls the trigger. Seems like she decided that today is your turn to become dinner. Not enough time to dodge, a click is heard, but no bullet comes out, the rifle jams at the right moment. You swing your axe at her, a little bit too slow since it comes from your left. She ducks, catches your hand, and launches an elbow strike at your arm, causing you to drop the axe in pain. Letting go of the useless rifle, she reaches for the axe and prepares to take a two-handed swing. You barely avoid a fatal blow, leaving a bloody gash on your arm. Before she can recover from the momentum, you kicked her hip, sending her crashing right into the spring.

You scrambled around looking for the axe that is not there. She never let go of it, even when falling into the water. Picking up the jammed rifle, you attempt to fix it to no avail and opted to grab it by the barrel as a makeshift bludgeon. The water splashes around, causing you to tighten your grip despite the nasty wound on your arm, here she comes.

A spectral voice from the spring entered your mind, but not the ear.

“Greetings, Child. Did you drop this Suisei, this Suisei, or this one?”

No way. No. Fucking. Way.

It works on human beings too?

Three seemingly identical girls are suspended above the spring. The only differences are their hair, and the metal their axes are made of. The leftmost Suisei has white hair, looks absolutely furious, and is holding an iron axe in her right hand. The middle one is the original Suisei, with dusty black hair and the golden axe she held on when falling. The rightmost sports beautiful blue hair, an axe made of diamond, and the gentlest expression of them all.
There was no precedent for this, the information they gave you had neither the records nor procedures for a human being falling into the spring, but the answer was clear. You could barely handle one of them, let alone three at once. Declaring that you dropped the original Suisei would be suicide and the leftmost one looked fiercer than the original, so you choose the third one by elimination.

“I dropped that one.” You point at the Suisei with blue hair. The other two get dragged into the spring, ghastly scream following them as the one you picked walks to your side. You take a swing at her, the stock of your rifle meeting the blade of her axe. The rifle hasn’t even hit the ground when she hit you square in the jaw, knocking you out cold with one swift blow.

Shit. Should’ve chosen the one with an iron axe.

***

You wake up to the smell of meat and the sweet humming of a girl. It is the same old shack you wake up in several weeks ago. That would mean… Suisei is here. Jumping from your bed, you scanned your surroundings and find a girl with a shining blue pigtail attending a pot of stew next to the fireplace, she waves at you with a smile, her hunting rifle on her back as always.  

“Anon, you’re awake! Sorry for what I did before, guess the cold was messing with my head.”
There is no hostility in her voice. It is simply a genuine apology. You drop your fighting stance, not that you have a chance against her in the first place. You notice that the wound on your arm is neatly dressed and bandaged. The smell of meat permeating through the room raises the suspicion considering what she tried to do before.

“Suisei, what meat is that?”

“It’s venison! I caught one on the way back. Ah, don’t worry about the water, I’ve brought enough to last us a few days. Just focus on letting your arm heal.”

You look out the window and see a deer carcass hung outside. She is not lying; you brush off the change of attitude to the spring’s magical properties. Tens of minutes later, you sat down at the table, enjoying the perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned meal.

Your only complaint was that the girl sitting in front of you feels somewhat …inhuman.

The rest of the days continues mostly in peace.

Most of the menu change into meat-based dishes as the supply of winter vegetables run dry. There is no shortage of meat, however, as your partner becomes ever more skilful than before. Her voice too grows more pleasant to listen to, rivaling even the best singer you’ve known. Her mannerisms, however, rub you the wrong way. Not that she is rude or unpleasant, it feels that she’s mimicking what an ideal human would act like. The uncanny valley terrifies you in ways you couldn’t quite comprehend.

Also, what happened to the original Suisei? is she dead, or was her soul –if those even exist-- simply transferred into this new, more amicable host you’re currently living with? The foundation does often deal with some shady businesses, but you never thought you would have to actually kill someone, even if they were trying to kill you.

You’re pondering over this when the door Suisei swings open the door, humming happily with two snow hares slung over her shoulder. She skips to her room to pick up a knife and hits a stray nail sticking out of the wall without even realizing it.

It tore through her winter clothes and into her flesh, the owner still oblivious. You can see the gaping wound on her shoulder, yet there is no blood; dark, viscous liquid oozing through her skin in its place. You bolt to your room, dialling the contact foundation gave you demanding to be picked up as soon as possible. The cold, machine-like voice on the other side keeps repeating the same unreassuring answer that they are doing their best for the foundation’s sake. Like hell they are, low-class personnel like you are easily disposable. At least send one of those fancy high-speed aircraft, damn it!

You come back to the main room to the usual hare stew, perfectly cooked and seasoned. You can’t taste much, however. The fear numbs your tastebuds as you glance at her shoulder and see that the gash has completely healed up, leaving an unpatched hole on her winter jacket. You almost wish that the murderous Suisei with her grating voice was here in her stead.

The morning the helicopter picks you two up is the closest you come to your breaking point. You couldn’t sleep the night before, sounds of metal hitting wood assailing your ears all night long. You triple-check the little bits of traps you set for unwanted visitors every day and one or two of them are never in the correct place, even on the days you’re not leaving the room at all. When you open the door, you see tens of slashes on it, which Suisei denies any connection to.

The helicopter eventually comes and you take the seat farthest away from her. Your colleagues quickly become chummy with what would later be dubbed The-Mythical-Spring-A. The helicopter leaves after dropping the clearance squad for the spring and you couldn’t be gladder to leave this hellish frozen wasteland.

***

You quit last week.

The foundation gave you a lot of compensation and a rise in class for taking up the solo mission to uncover the mythical spring of Aesop, enough to let you live comfortably for the rest of your life, provided you play your cards right. You decided that the extra money and reputation from continuing the work isn’t worth the damage to your mental health. Of course, you made sure that it was actually fine for you to leave and no one was going to put a bullet in your head the second you stepped out from the door. You currently work at an easy, barely minimum-wage job that is just fulfilling enough to wake up to every day.

You heard that Suisei got the job of being a virtual idol-streamer for a pretty big corporation. It was no surprise since she does have all the qualities of an idol; minus for those uncanny, almost inhuman feeling you get from being near her. You didn’t want to have anything to do with her, but you remembered your senior’s advice to always keep an eye on your enemies. You cut ties as soon as you parted ways from that icy wasteland without so much as exchanging contact.

You boot up a stream from yesterday just to make sure what she’s up to. It was a talking stream and someone asked what she missed the most from her pre-streaming days.

“I remembered having this very interesting friend I lived with! It has been a while since I saw their reactions to the pranks I pulled on them. In fact, I would probably pay them a visit tomorrow. Hope you’re okay with a short singing stream in the morning!”

You hear a knock on your door.

Knocks turned to bangs, then into sounds of metal hacking into the iron door. You reach for your sidearm and make sure the camera facing the door was on.

The foundation would be thankful that you quit before it happens, as a large sum of consolation money would need to be paid to the family in cases of high-class personnel dying to an anomaly.

The incident later would be immortalized as Log-TMS-A1, which would be the basis of not allowing any human being to enter into the mythical spring.