To Save A Village

To whoever may find this letter,

this may very well be the last time anyone hears of me or of this village. I know now I was doomed ever since the old man and his abomination arrived. Oh, how I wish I could have foreseen what their cursed presence would bring to our peaceful hamlet! Had I known, I would have escaped while I still had time; but I was oblivious of the evil forces that would come to dominate my life, and so I stayed, unaware and unafraid. And now it's too late for me, and my only hope is that this letter reaches you, so you will know our fate.

Where should I start? The two men's arrival was not the beginning, sadly. It was merely the consequence of an Evil that had infested this town long before, hidden from us, yet attracting more evil and despair as though it were a magnet.

Just like the sun's movement in the sky, the curse that set upon us was slow and gradual, invisible to those who lived it every day. One doesn't notice how he's aged, until he looks back and realizes with horror that he cannot do things he was able to just yesterday; because yesterday was years ago, and in those years he has changed, not taking any notice of it. In the same fashion, we thought it natural that pestilence would start wiping away our cows, that mother's cries for their stillborn baby would fill the night, that the dog's howls would turn to whimpers and then vanish, because it happened slowly, over the course of years, gradually increasing.

It did not help that Beeswick is an isolated village. We have few foreginers and travelers here, so for the most time we lived isolated in our small microcosm, and no one passing through could notice that there was something awful hiding amongst us. The eventual traveler would come, but no one ever remained for more than two nights. We assumed it was in the nature of travel to always be on the move; we did not predict that these travelers were terrified of some unimaginable dark power that they could sense, although no one could ever put a finger on it nor articulate the peculiar and profound dread that spurned them on. I learned much later that this evil was isolating us even more to complete its deed without interference.

We'd grown used to pestilence and misery; indeed, we could not remember a time where our village was not cursed with the death of our cattle and the rot in our grain. Stillbirths were so common that more children died in the womb than in infancy, and few people grew old. The nights were eerily silent and cold, and the moon rarely shone through the thick layers of clouds that always hung in the sky.

It was during the seventeenth year of this evil plague that they arrived. There were two of them: a tall, slim old man (and yet, not entirely man, for he was somewhat different from my or your neighbour: his ears were too pointy, and his face had some inhuman features that I could not properly describe; yet I know they weren't human. The other one was smaller, and not yet even adult. But most importantly, he was an abomination. Born out of the sin of woman and devil, his skin was of dark red complexion, his skin somehow a mix between leather and human. I distinctly remember his dark hair barely covering his horns. He was clearly the man's apprentice: he kept in the background, and let the man do the talking. Indeed, the elder of the two approached us, and strangely every one of us felt compelled to gather around him, ready to listen to him.

"People of Beeswick!" he proclaimed, and his voice sounded much stronger than his corporature would suggest. "I have been told that evil lurks in this village, has made its way between you, and is conquering your community from within! I have come to liberate you before it's too late."

His words were met by questioning murmurs. Our village was not haunted, could not be. We would have noticed long ago if it were. He took notice of that, but it didn't deter him.

"How many of your cattle survive? How much of your grain can you salvage every year?" His questions were again unwelcome. What did this stranger care about our harvest and livestock? It had been average, just like last year and the years before.