The Unkowns

-Prologue-

Hidden by the towering mountains above, the tiny village of Thorn struggled to survive. Thin and weary men ceaselessly plowed their fields by day and hunted by night. Old and forlorn women tended to their minuscule gardens and mended torn and useless clothing. Scrawny children scrambled about, boys mucking stalls and girls scattering feed along the chicken coops.

At a glance, Thorn was a village like any other, although perhaps on the poorer side. However, this little town had a secret, a dark secret that haunted their youth and never left the elders quite the same.

You see, Thorn was founded long ago by a people of which the villagers call The Unknowns. The Unknowns acquired that name for their allusive air, rarely appearing in the small village of Thorn, save for once a year.

No one really knows the true intentions of The Unknowns or even why they founded the village in the first place. All they know is that each spring an Unknown arrives and rounds up all the eighteen-year-old girls in the village. Some return a week later, some a month, and some never at all. For the ones that do return, they refuse to speak of what had happened during their absence. Living a life of silent obedience, they dutifully marry and produce children, all signs of the beautiful girls they once were sucked out of their frail bodies. For those that do not return, well, no one knows of their fate.

One would think that the people of Thorn would question such an odd occurrence, however with such little resources and so much work to be done these people hardly had enough time to think of how their children would eat that day. If they did ever think of it no one spoke out loud, either out of fear for The Unknowns or simply out of exhaustion.

Perhaps The Unknowns planned it this way, providing the people of Thorn with little so that they might be starved and exhausted into obedience. Perhaps they wished for Thorn to remain rather poor and needy. It would make perfect sense, due to the random "gifts" of supplies Thorn received when poverty became too great. These "gifts" never provided them with enough supplies for the people to be considered wealthy or even well-off, yet they always appeared when they were most needed.

Perhaps The Unknowns are just as poor as the people of Thorn, and they kidnap women to use as slaves to grow food or to hunt for them.

Either way, the people of Thorn never spoke of it or even seemed to care until the day that Sasha was taken.