Marked For the Kill (On Hold)

Chapter 1

Marked For the Kill

Chapter 1

In the woods, there are seven villages, ringed in a circle, each spread miles apart over mountainous terrain. In the middle of the circle stretches a vast, dense area of forest that is darkened by the shadows cast off of the mountains.

But the mountains are not the only reason for the forest's fathomless darkness. Along the cursed land, evil and elusive creatures lurk within in its depths. They strike fear into all of the villages.

In the old days, it was not uncommon to find a person or two dead in one week. They were always the ones who got too close to the woods, too close for their own good and too close for the creature's liking.

We would find them days later, the bodies, or what they could find of it, an unspeakable horror within themselves, surrounds by a bone-chilling and stomach-wrenching stench of decay. The creature destroyed the person so much that they were only identifiable by their charm.

Charms are some what of an odd thing with us. We pick some thing so important to us that it will serve to represent the person beyond a doubt no matter what unspeakable thing may happen.

Now days, with the offerings, attacks are virtually nonexistent. In fact, the only murder that had happen since the offerings were started was six years ago to my own father. My mother had done a pretty good job of raising me and my sister, but the bond between dad and daughter is not replicateable.  He was my first best friend, and I still get teary at the thought of him.

The offerings have provided much peace-of-mind for most people. That is the ones too old to be an offering and those who don't have children or siblings to worry about.  Everyone else, on the other hand, is scared out of their wits that they will be Marked.

Marking happens to one boy and one girl each year from each of the seven villages.  They are chosen to be sent to the creatures. The creatures who turn from man to wolf. Werewolves, I had once heard them called.

A hundred years ago, the killings of the creatures had become monumental. They were even venturing into our homes to satisfy their need for blood.

Then in the horror of it all came hope in the form of the beautiful tigress for which I was names. At first people were terrified that a new creature had come to end us all, but the animal turn instead on the wolves.

She and her sisters protected our villages for eighty-four years from the creatures. The sisters died off slowly until only our tigress was left. She was old but still protected us from a new wave of wolves on the night that I was born.

In the end of the battle, the tigress had survived and saved us once again. In joy and celebration, my parents named me Tigress in her honor.

But that joy was very short lived as everyone rose the next morning and saw what had happened. In the center on the village, the tigress was hung up by her neck with a pure silver arrow through her throat.

Mothers gasped in horror and shoved their children behind their backs. Men yell for hunt, for vengeance for the lost protector.

That night the creatures returned, entering as wolves but turn to human forms. The leader of the creatures demanded to meet with our leader.

They met in private, and when it was done we had the answer as to what we were to do.

Twelve children in exchange for the villages's safety, a trade the leader of the creatures devised himself.