Childhood. Sweet, innocent, or at least that's how I remembered it. I had a brother, Kevin. He was always sick. A sister, I never knew her though. I sat at the dusty wooden windowsill looking out onto the landscape, the sunshine licked valley and the encompassing forest. Little bells chimed in the wind, they all hung from small red threads and where all either gold or silver, some had corroded stains swelling their surfaces while others where shiny, something out of a Christmas dream, these bells where all over the border of the forest. Kevin and I had been near the edge of that forest, but we never ventured on. We where in the hills of golden wheat up to out hips and I had just thrown a stick out for my dog, Zachariah to fetch. I could feel the summer sun baking me and the sweat through my clothes, as I tossed the stick out to Zach, Kevin jumped on me. Sinking down into the itchy wheat ocean I laughed naively as I fell. As Kevin was over me, I pushed him off "hey what was that for?" I asked playfully and he smiled at me and roared, "I'm a lion Mike!" And he pounced at me again, I was about to fight back when I heard Zach whimpering. I stopped messing with Kevin and stuck my head up through the grass, I saw someone -- no-- something near my dog. Zach was whimpering at it and had his tail in-between his legs, the beast near him had to be at least 6 feet tall.. It had eyes that looked boiled-over and rotten and a face that wasn't human, it looked deer like? Horse like? I couldn't tell. It had rotten flesh and a scrawny body, it was humanoid, I think I can say that.? It looked at my dog in a graceful manner, it seemed oddly calm and it gave me a sensation like no other. I creeped my head back down into the wheat before the beast could see me, I looked at Kevin wide eyed "Kevin.. Get home as quietly as possible." I said without trying to scare him. He looked at my confused and whispered to me "ok bro." And he crawled toward our house. The summer breeze rolled around once again and the bells in the trees chimed, the beast looked up to the sky and hissed before retreating into the woods, leaving behind some goop and blood. I retrieved Zach and his stick and took him home. The rest of the day went by quickly, the only thing on my mind being that beast. The next few weeks went by worse than usual, and the forest seemed to grow darker. My dreams where plagued with that awful beast, it's vacuous eyes staring at me with grotesque intent. Beast. One day, back in the field I was on a walk over to the neighbors when I noticed bones, no corpse just clean bones. White. They were broken. I brushed it off but soon more of those skeletons appeared, everywhere in pockets at times. I noticed the coppery sludge too, in the well, the sink. For fuck's sake I thought I saw my brother bathing in it! The water stained black
with red bubbles or coppery brown swirls. I thought I was crazy, and then Kevin's sickness started.
