World is Broken

Chapter IV

Juana walked to school slowly that morning, her eyes fixed on the forest, her knife at ready. The second it appeared, she'd be ready. 

She was more than one hour early. She'd told her parents that she had to do a proyect, and indeed she had to. A special proyect.

She didn't run away when she smelled blood and heard the noises. She ran towards the source of them, holding her breath.

What she did not expect was the creatures to surround her, their breathing heavy, fangs at ready. Wait, they had fangs too? She shivered.

She raised her knife, trying to look scary and to ease her fear.

"I will kill you all!" She screamed "Get back!"

What she definitely did not expect was to hear voices. Human voices.

"Go back..." The voices whispered all at once.

Her hands trembled. but she did not put her weapon down. Shivers ran down her spine.

"Who are you?" She asked, trying not to sound as scared as she felt "What do you want?"

"Go back... The village is safe... Go back..."

Her knife fell to the ground. The voices were somehow in her head, replaying in her brain. She fell to her knees and placed her hands in her ears trying to block the noise.

"What's on the other side?!" She screamed through the hurracaine of noise.

"Go back... There's nothing out there... Go back..."

"I won't!"

She blacked out and fell, the leaves rustling under her weight.

When she woke up, she held her head, in which a headache pounded. Her sight was blurry and it took a minute to clear. When it finally did, she looked around.

It was half an hour before school started. She was on the middle on the street, laying in the road. Wasn't she in the forest a minute ago? What had happened?

She shook her head, trying to ignore it, but that ominious choir of voices still echoes in the back of her brain.

***

When school was over, she grabbed a notebook and ran to the forest once more. Because the experience hadn't scared her, it had just made her curiosity burn brighter. 

She felt... rebel. Yeah, that was the word. She didn't tie her hair in a braid, and let it flow over her shoulders. She put on her espardilles and her favourite skirt, then she grabbed her bow and headed for the forest.

Whoever wanted to stop her clearly hadn't meet her. No, nothing would stop her now. She was determined.

The afternoon Sun shone bright, but the forest was cool. The leaved rustled and branches creaked from beneath her feet. She light that made its way between the tall trees was green and pure, and seemed to give her energy.

She was muttering a song to herself as she walked and walked, an arrow already in her bow. Uncounciously, she found herself in the same place as that morning. There was another dead body, a goat. She crouched beside it, reaching out her hand.

She realized that the animal was not dead, at least not yet. It thrembled in pain, growling and breathing heavily.

"What kind of monster would kill like this?" She asked herself out loud "Without the need of eating, just to kill?"

She took another look at the tiny animal, and confirmed what she had known all along. The wounds were fatal, there was no possible way of saving it.

Sighing, she pointed the arrow at it, aiming to the neck.

"I'm sorry, little one" She whispered "I can't do anything else, but I do can end your suffering. I promise that you'll go to a nice place, and God will take care of you"

With a shaky breath, she fired.

There was some kind of ringing in her ears as she pulled the arrow from it's neck and wiped it in the grass. She though about what she had said as she got deeper into the woods. Surely it was now in a better place. At least, one way or another, it got out of the village.

Somehow, with every passing day, the village seemed like a less lovely place. But the village was safe. It had to. And yet, what she had heard that morning...

She shuddered as she pushed the thought aside and kept going.

Once she was deeper than she had ever been, she climbed up a high tree and started writing in her notebook.

"It kills without a motive" She wrote, her pen dancing across the pages "Without a clear pattern. Messy, yet flawless. With nearly human inteligence."

She sound of leaved rustling made her jolt. She quickly placed an arrow in her bow and aimed for the spot under her feet, under the branch.

The low growling and the sparkle of eyes red as blood made a shiver travel down her spine. The wolves... It was one of them, for sure.

It behaved strangely, pacing in circles, ad if it was lost. Luckily, it hadn't seemed to notice her yet, so that was a point for her.

She had it so close. Why was she doubting now?

One eye closed, tip to the neck, she took a deep breath and let go of the air just as the arrow flew into the air.

The wolf's last cry of pain was barely a growl of shock as the arrow penetrated its cerebellum and it died within the second.

It was true, she had killer aim, she just didn't tend to use it for actual killing. However, desperate times called for desperate measures.

She climbed down the tree and took a better look at the wolf. It surely did not look like a normal one, but bigger, darker, more agressive. And its eyes... Even if they were now closed, she still felt the cold killer gaze.

Suddenly, she realized something, hidden in the thick fur. She reached it out and, when she felt something metallic, she pulled it out.

A small object came out, and she examined it closely. It was some king of needle, a syring, with purple liquid inside. It had a tiny speaker attached to it.

When she held it closer to her ear, she could even hear something.

"Go back... The village is safe... Go back..."

She quickly threw it to the floor, shuddering and holding her scream.

That was when she noticed a tiny red light beaping in the speaker. A tracker.

She kicked the speaker as hard as she could and then jumped on it. She hit it with a rock to make sure she destroyed it, and then got up, panting. She still had the syring in her hand. So she did what first came to her mind. She kept it in her pocket, picked up her bow and ran back as fast as jer legs could take her, fear giving her wings.

She wasn't so sure about the village being a safe place anymore...

***
"A dead one. Is it even possible?"

"Look, it's an arrow. It didn't die, it was killed"

"The camera filmed her. It was a girl."

"The daughter of the Castillos? That girl had always been too curious for her own good"

"What are we going to do now?"

"Isn't it obvious? The village is safe, and she's a threat"

"Poison?"

"Gun. Before it's too late"