Antoine de Saint-Exupery's
Le Petit Prince reënvisioned as horror fiction, with the titular Little Prince as a malign, capricious trickster, not unlike the elves or fairies of mythology:
He keeps me drawing with the promise of water. He must have water with him, he must know where water is, because the heat does not seem to bother him and his hands have grown smoother and more childlike every afternoon. He laughs when I lunge after him and dances out of the shade into the sun, where he knows I will not follow him. He hides under the sun.
You look very thirsty, he says. Perhaps tomorrow if you draw me a boa constrictor I will share my tea with you.
The plane is beyond repair. If he has water, surely he will tell me. He has no other companions, no one else to draw for him. What would he gain in watching me die?