Writing Prompts I wrote for school

(10-14-20) The Daily Life of a Cryptid

It's so hard being a cryptid. People like to say "oH wOuLdN't It Be So CoOl To JuSt LiVe In ThE wOoDs AnD bE a CrYpTid?!" No! It's not cool! I spend so much time creating little bone piles and shrines and eating lost travelers and people don't even think I exist! People always ask "What's a Wendigo?" but they never ask "How's the Wendigo?" like it's not hurtful. I spend so much time eating souls and protecting my forest and these humans just pretend I don't exist like my work means nothing. Mothman has a whole statue (with an unreasonably large ass?????) and I'm just left here to keep collecting bones and turning people into cannibals. I just want some respect is all.

I was out this evening creating bone shrines and crying and--I swear to god--these stupid kids were breaking off my branches and burning them like they just owned these woods. What the heck, man? These branches aren't yours to burn! Why do these humans just think they can just come into the woods and just take things? They just go around destroying the ecosystem! For what? Fun? Why is it fun for humans to just destroy stuff? Then they say that I'M evil for trying to protect the forest.

Not only were they just walking around, breaking off branches and burning them, but they were also swimming around in the lake like there aren't fish trying to live their lives. CLEARLY they don't care about the fish because they were hecking taking them out of the water with metal hooks that they stabbed in their mouths. They tricked these poor fish into thinking they were gonna eat just to bring them to the brink of death. They weren't even eating them! They just traumatized my fish and threw them back! Why do they do that?

You know, I can live with a fire. Maybe they were just really cold. I know that they weren't, but whatever. I can suspend my disbelief for a second. I don't like it but I can live with it. I can even live with the fishing. It's cruel and it's terrible and they are terrible people for hurting my poor fish, but I'm not about to kill them over it. But what I CANNOT put up with is killing my animals. They came into MY WOODS and murdered MY ANIMALS with these weird death stick things! I think they called them rifles? I wasn't really listening to much past the MURDER. They just killed a dear! This big buck! They didn't care that that Buck had kids! They didn't care that these dear are what feed my wolves! They weren't even starving. They had plenty of food. They just killed my dear for the heck of it!

Clearly they don't respect the forest life, so why should I respect theirs? Empathy? Mercy? Those are leisures that only a human can afford. I cannot just have humans coming into my woods and destroying it. They stuck needles in the mouths of my fish, so I dragged them to my den with their own knives through their tongues. They broke off my beautiful branches, so I broke their bones. They skinned my poor dear and took his head, so I took their skin. I fed their meat to the wolves who were meant to feast on the dear. I burned their bones to keep the rabbits warm. The fish drank their blood since they'll never escape the taste from being "fished". Of course, just taking some random humans won't keep them away, but maybe if I hung their heads on my beautiful trees the others will be warned.

I don't know why they couldn't just respect my forest to begin with, but maybe the rest of them will learn. Maybe now I can get some respect around here! I don't need a big statue like Mothman (even if I am much cooler than him and my ass is FAR superior), but hopefully now I'll at least have some peace and quiet.