Marina's Descent

Marina's Descent: Chapter 1

The end of the beginning

The story begins in a small town called Ganavia. With a small girl sitting in the middle of a crowd of guards and other adults, she could not be older than 5. She is sitting on a cutdown log, sobbing. The adults scream questions at her one after the other without letting her answer.

An old man with a cane approaches the crowd and asks everyone to calm down, let the girl breathe, and explain what the commotion is about. The adults turn to the old man and start yapping all at the same time. The old man again asks them to calm down and points to one of the adults, asking him to explain.

The adult starts explaining about a boy venturing into the forest around the village due to the little girl teasing him. He explains that the boy has been gone for hours. Upon hearing this the old man swings his cane at the adult's head and yells at everyone for not starting the search any sooner instead of yelling at the poor girl.

The adults look at each other with surprised eyes and run around, spreading around the houses and asking for people to join the search for the little boy. The old man approaches the small girl and kneels down. He then moves his hand and caresses the little girl's cheek, telling her everything will be ok, the boy will be found.

The search party has most adults in the village out in the forest. The children are sent to the assembly building where they are taken care of by the elderly while the rest are out searching. They tell stories to the kids, sing songs and play with them. The night falls and the children go to sleep. That night, the little girl had a nightmare, the boy was angry at her and wanted payback.

The sun barely came out, and the search party could be heard coming back, rushing. The boy was found but he was weak. He spent the entire day in a cave, bit by snakes. The boy was taken to the doctor's house and everyone was sent back to their own home.

The boy was recovering slowly but surely. Every day people from the village would visit the boy, while his family sleeps next to him. The little girl, however, would not visit because she was afraid. She kept having nightmares, seeing the little boy every night, telling her how he hates her and will never forgive her.

Days passed until one night, something new happened. This time, in the nightmare, there was a horrible smell resembling rotten meat. She opened her eyes to find something horrific. Her mother's face, so close she could feel and smell her breath, except there was something else. Her eyes were wide as if lacking eyelids, her mouth was smiling from ear to ear so wide you could see her gums, clenching her cavity ridden teeth.

She called for the little girl, apologizing for waking her. She then stood up, pointed to the door and asked her to go outside in the most polite manner. Fearful, the little girl obeyed her mother without saying anything. She walked through the dark room, towards the front room, where she found another terrifying smile waiting for her. The man, smiling just like her mother, was staring at her while pointing towards the entrance door which was open.

The little girl walked through the room towards the exit, where she met with many of the villagers formed on the side of the door, forming a wall on both sides leading to a small boy sitting on the floor. Now terrified, she starts to slowly walk towards the small boy. Too slow for those surrounding her unfortunately, as their smiles turn to frowns they can be heard whispering "Faster".

The little girl speeds up a little but her terror is holding her back. The frowns now turn into angry faces, and in one loud voice they all yell "FASTER!". The little girl now bursts out crying and starts running towards the boy. She covers her ears and eyes as they all yell in sync the same thing over and over again "Faster! Faster! Faster!".