Historical fiction Smack Down

Black Woods Village

Thank you for coming over in such short notice.

"I heard you were ill and I have always been a huge fan. You are the reason I became a writer."

That is why I asked for you specifically so you could write my truth.

It was more than sixty years ago when my father and I set out to trade with a mysterious village named Black Woods Village. Many Townspeople spoke of a village guarded by mountains in the north and a thick black forest to the south. It was said the people never traded with outsiders, but that didn't deter my father. With a surplus of animal furs and all the makes for a bitter cold winter,  he thought the villagers would have to give in and trade.

We started our journey the next day heading east toward the village with our furs. Arriving at the village at dusk, all of the villagers were outside standing around a large community fire. My father had me stay back as he approached the villagers. There were no children or adolescences in the crowd only middle-aged inhabitants; they all had the same  chin length, black hair, parted in the middle and the same pale skin.

Within an instant of approaching the crowd I heard a straining scream. I could not believe what I was watching they were biting his flesh off and hitting him with large, black, branches repeatedly. I screamed 'NO STOP' and that's when three men ran after me, it was quick, they had me before I could even think of running. By this time my father had stopped screaming and I knew he was gone. The men who caught me dragged me towards the fire and my fathers body.

"It's a girl, we can sacrifice her to the Black Wood God."

The villagers all gave a cry of jubilation and the man pulled me by my hair toward the tree line.

"Oh forest God, take this virgin as a sign of our servitude and endow us with a prosperous bounty."

To those words he forced me into the dark forest. I ran forward as fast as I could, the woods were completely dark and the trees were so close together.  I ran until there was a good distance between me and the village. Then I began to run west toward home.

My mother died when I was born so it has always been my father and me. When I got back without him I was lost. I told others he remarried, relocated and was happy somewhere else. It was the only way I could live out a normal day. Once the lie wasn't enough to make me want to live, I began writing stories where the hero always prevailed and no evil existed. But evil does exist and its name is Black Woods Village.