Little Cup of Horror

The Bog

     There was an area out on the mainland outside my village where a large bog sat. It was well hidden by the tall grass and trees that were around it. So many unlucky few would fall prey to it when traveling and thinking that maybe it was a shortcut. It was believed to be where the gods would take their sacrifices or prayers. I had seen cats and dogs fall into the bog and never be saved. My mother would tell me never to go near it because if I ever did, I would never be able to come back.

     My name is or was Lilith. I would have to say that I now fit my name, a night monster or female demon. Let me tell you what happened to me. I think you deserve to know, so you know to stay away from this bog. You don't want to become what I became. 

    There was once an elderly woman who would walk into town, but when she did everyone had to run and lock their doors. The whole village feared her, but I never knew why. My mother would just tell me never to leave the house when that woman entered the village. There was even some cases where the villagers would leave a plate of food for her at the opening of town in hopes she would take it and then leave, but that never really worked. The woman would enter the village at least twice a month. No one would tell me why she would do that. The woman had a hunched back and baggy looking skin. When she walked past my shed she would have a smell following behind her. Something like rotten eggs or nasty water.

     However, there was one day where as I sat in my little shed with my mother and watched. I saw two boys running around outside near the old woman... as if dancing. I couldn't help but want to go outside towards her, but my mother's grip on me only tighten. I remember that same day a boy, no older than twelve, came running out and throw a rock at her.

     "Go away!" he yelled as he reached down and grabbed another rock.

     His mother began to scream in horror as we all watched the boy begin to look as if he was starving before our eyes. He was soon a weak pile of bones sitting on the ground gasping for air. I made eye contact with him and that's when I saw what looked like nasty bog water come crawling out of his mouth. My mother covered my eyes and held me close as we listened to the cries of anguish that was coming from the boy's mother. Soon the woman was gone. She had left caring a little toy bear in her skeleton like hands.

    The mother of the boy bolted out of her home and ran to her son. My mother slowly walked out to see the boy, but as she was walking over to the poor boy. I saw it first from my window. The boy's skin had become like a muddy bronze as if he had become preserved in the bog water that covered him. My skin crawled, but somehow I was amazed by this.

    "The woman," I thought, "she must be a witch!"

    As my mother and the other villagers were looking down at the poor boy, I had ran out of my shed and ran out of the village after the woman. I wanted to know how she had done that. As I ran off, I barely could hear my mother scream my name. I didn't listen to her. I just ran out of the village after the woman.

    As I left the village, the air around me become darker and colder. A fog was slowly surrounding me. I was spooked by it, but my want to know about the elderly woman drove me deeper into the dark and cold surrounding. Each step I took I noticed that the ground underneath me was becoming a little more mushy every step I took. At first I didn't know why until I slipped and landed in the bog water. I quickly jumped to my feet and looked down at what I had fallen in. At that moment, the foggy air that surrounded me began to lift and to my horror I saw a deep sheep in the water. A part of the sheep's back was sticking out of the water and it was all bones, but the part that was in the nasty smelling water was prettily preserved in the water like a brain in a jar.

   "Oh, my..." I whispered as I stared at the dead sheep.

     I could feel my legs turning into jelly. I was finally scared of what I had done. I regretted leaving the village, now. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be with my mother. I wanted to live in my safe little shed. I wanted home.

    "Oh, deary..." said a voice behind me, "What are you doing out here?"

    I turned around to see the elderly woman who was in the village earlier. She was the woman I was looking for. "Um," I began, "I came out here looking for you..." I answered honestly.

    "Why did you do that?" she asked.

  "I wanted to know how you knew magic..."

   "Oh, deary, I was born with the gift," she smiled, "I wouldn't be surprised if you had some magic too."

   I wasn't sure what to think with what she had said. "What do you mean...?" I finally asked.

  "You're hand, can I looked at it?" asked the woman as she held her skeleton like hand out to me.

    "Um, alright..." I answered. I placed my hand into hers, and as she looked at my hand, I looked up to her face getting a good look with how she really looked. I had heard my mother say once to my younger brother that the woman had a face as ugly that not even the devil wanted her. However, my mother was... wrong. The woman's face was quite pretty for her elderly age. "You look quite pretty." I said.

   "Oh, why thank you, deary." she smiled at me.

    Her teeth looked better than mine...

   "Oh, I need to stand straight," she said as she straighten her back. To my surprise the cloak that I had always seen wrapped around her dropped showing a beautiful and white cloak underneath it. The woman no longer looked like an elderly woman anymore... she looked young... like my mother.

   I was amazed by how the woman had changed her looks. "How did you do that?!" I cried.

   "Well, deary, I've always been young." she lied.

  "You have?"

   "Yes, it's just with how people treat me... I become ugly because that's how I end up seeing myself." she lied again.

  "I'm sorry," I stood up and walked up to the woman and hugged her, "You are a nice lady."

   "Why thank you, deary." the woman hugged me back.

   "Ouch, you are hugging me too tight,"

   "I'm sorry," said the woman as her arms got tighter around me.

    I could feel my chest beginning to hurt.

   "You have such a pretty face..." grinned the woman.

   I began to gasp for air.

   "Now, you'll belong to me..."

   Before I knew it the woman put all of her weight on me and we fell into the bog water. The nasty bog water rushed into my mouth and into my lungs. Within seconds I knew the pain, maybe something worse, of what that poor boy back at the village felt in his last moments.

   Everything became black, but when I opened my eyes I awoke into a different world than before. I was used by the woman as bait to draw in men and women to save me as half of me hanged out of the bog water crying out for help. However, once they got close to me my top have would turn into a skeleton and I would begin to scream in pain. Then grab them and pull them in trapping them in the same fate as me.

    I warn you to never some to this village or near this bog because you'll never return.