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“It was a dark and stormy night… OooOoOoh,” she wiggled her fingers dramatically, taking in her audience. The older kids all looked either bored from having listened to this story a thousand times, or they were sitting at the edges of their seats, eager to hear it again. The younger ones, in contrast, were all anxious, only having heard bits and pieces from the adults of what the older girl was talking about.
“Everyone was peacefully sleeping in their homes, until BAM!” She lurched forward, making one of the littles jump back in fright, “A fearsome beast stalked out of the Ebott Woods, dragging a dead child in its teeth,” she bared her teeth threateningly. Two of the younger girls clutched each other tightly, while an older one rolled her eyes at the storyteller’s theatrics.
“It flung the body onto a field of flowers and let out a mighty roar to wake the townsfolk. They all rushed outside and saw the horned beast bend down, to eat the child in front of them. Everyone quickly brandished their weapons, hoping to slay this monster that would harm one of their own. But despite fighting with all their might, not one of them could hurt it. The beast stared at them tauntingly, growling with white liquid dripping from its jaw. No matter how many objects were tossed, or bullets were fired, the beast wouldn’t go down. It smiled wickedly at their fear. Eventually, it seemed to grow tired of playing and dragged the child’s body back into the woods from whence it came to eat the corpse once it returned to its own territory,” she grinned wickedly, “They say that any other children who venture into these woods will meet the same fate.”
“So be careful, I’ve heard that it likes snack sized food the most! ARGH!” She snapped her jaws in the direction of the two hugging girls, who squealed in terror.
“Oh, shut up, Alleinna!” An older girl stood up, “Everyone know’s those stories aren’t real! There’s no such thing as monsters!”
Alleinna smirked, “Why don’t you tell that to your grandparents then, Rabethany?” It had been several decades since the tragedy, but the older folks still around, who were children when the beast came into the village, would tell you all about the fearsome creature.
Rabethany scowled, “Old people are making stuff up all the time, like Santa Claus,” many of the younger girls looked at each other in confusion, “If it were a real monster, then I think we’d have heard about other monsters by now. Obviously, it was made up by the adults to scare us.”
“Believe what you want,” Alleinna shrugged, “But just know that you’re denying video evidence.”
“It’s obviously AI,” Rabethany scoffed.
“Dude! This was back in 2019!” Alleinna pulled up an old YouTube video and showed it to everyone. The footage was grainy and it was difficult to see what the monster looked like, but once the people in the video started lighting torches, it was easy to tell that it was something inhuman. The littles stared wide-eyed, at the noises coming from its mouth and its unsettling appearance.
“Is it melting?” One of them whispered.
“That looks like the foamy raccoon we saw earlier!” said another.
The horned beast picked up something small and humanoid before walking out of the village, they all swore they could see it smiling. Creepy. Even Rabethany was unnerved.
Alleinna grinned smugly, “Well, now that everyone is sufficiently terrified, I will ease your fears. There’s no need to worry because it’s not like the horned beast is going to-“ she was cut off by something loud moving through the foliage nearby.
“What was that?!” Squeaked one of the littles.
“Uh,” Alleinna said eloquently. The rustling grew closer, it was clearly something big. And it was coming. Fast.
One of the older girls, Pegret, tried to calm everyone down, “I’m sure it’s noth-“
“You know what?” Alainna cut her off, “Maybe it’s best we all go somewhere safer! And, uh… closer to bright lights! Monsters can’t get you when it’s bright out! Who’s with me?!”
No one had time to make a verbal agreement because they were all too busy snatching their valuable belongings. Once the last of the girls had vanished from the scene, a lone buck, with some vines tangled in its horns jumped out of the undergrowth. Seeing no humans, but a bunch of food left behind by them, the buck decided it deserved a celebratory feast for releasing itself from that accursed viney tree with all those viney vines. It was horribly vineful. Luckily, the food was not.