From beyond the distant horizon and with no warning, grey and dark clouds enveloped the blue sky, completely denying the sun's warm touch. It was almost like a big shadow laid over the isolated village.
B was coming back with a bag of vegetables consisting of leeks, mushrooms, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. She's also gotten some surprisingly expensive meat. It was three hours of labor work she needed to do for the seller in order to get it.
"The few coins I've given to you are not enough to buy the meat, you will have to do as told to bring some," were Anta's instructions for B before she left to get food.
"Labor work my ass, gran! What's wrong with this place? I lost so much time mopping around, moving heavy bags, and sorting potatoes out just to get about a kilogram of meat," whispered the girl to herself looking down to the wet and filled with puddles path ahead of her.
"Not to mention that the meat looks a bit weird. I could've simply gone out to hunt something, but it's not safe enough." B didn't know what kind of dangers to expect once outside the gates or whether she could survive it or not. She decided to find out by chasing the next group of people that will go out with the next sacrifice.
The girl came out of the shower with her hair soaking wet and wearing a white ragged short dress marked by the passage of time. She didn't get the chance to put her usual clothes on as she was called by Anta as soon as she got out.
"Why are there no dogs, pigs, chickens, cats, or any sort of animals in this village, gran?" B asked curiously while washing Anta's old, wrinkled and swollen feet with a wet rag.
She was standing in a squad frog-like position in front of gran's chair. A position that revealed her feminine and slightly muscular inside thighs which rapidly caught Paul's eyes who was sitting in a wheelchair at the table. The woman was cutting vegetables planning to use them as a side dish for meat. It was dinner time.
"There aren't any. We only have crows in this village." The woman replied not willing to take the discussion any further.
Once seated at the table, B saw the old man sighing.
"Again meat, baba? I told you I don't want any." Paul said frustrated.
"Let's not do this now in front of the girl!" Anta cut him short.
After a few minutes of silence with everyone eating, which seemed rather awkward to B, she decided to ask as curiosity was killing her.
"Why are his hands so big you want to ask?" gran said before she had the chance to ask as if she saw the future. "He is suffering from a very common sickness spreading among the older men in the village. There is no cure as we have nothing here in the middle of nowhere, nor we can go exploring looking for medicinal herbs or for other people that may or may not be alive."
Once she cleared her throat, Anta continued.
"This used to be a quiet and prosperous place ten years ago, then we suddenly got attacked by monstrosities and forced to barricade ourselves in the village. From that point forward anyone who tried to leave the village most likely died. Their limbs and organless bodies are always brought back by these evil creatures, then thrown into the river surrounding the settlement. This is why when it's windy outside, the smell of death can be felt all over the place. "
"We know for sure our people are dead because they are given back to us, which also shows that the creatures have an intellect of their own. They feed on our organs and then offer the bodies to us as an invitation to eat our own kind to survive. They torture us through fear."
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The old woman coughed a few times, wiped her sweat off her forehead using a handkerchief, then went back to her story.
"They probably eat animals as well. We haven't spotted one in years. As you can see, there are no dogs in a mountain village which is extremely rare. This takes me to the next thing you wanted to ask... YES, THE MEAT WE ARE EATING RIGHT NOW IS HUMAN MEAT!" Anta finished in a high tone and a creepy smile that was almost reaching her ears.
The storm outside intensified, slamming the window to the kitchen shut as if pulled by a ghost. B rushed her hand to her mouth trying to stop herself from spilling out everything she's just eaten. She was coughing. The disgust she felt at that moment was making it hard for her stomach not to push all the food back up to her throat. With shock and a clear unease in her eyes, she continued to listen to gran.
Anta coughed and retook her serious tone "The place is dying and I don't think there is anything that can be done to save it. A dead woman is offered as a sacrifice and brought to the table outside the village every Monday at midnight which we think keeps the monsters from coming into the village. They seem to have a preference for females. Having a different kind of seed, they use them to multiply their own kind despite the women being dead. That’s the only explanation that comes to my mind. Once, we gave them a man but then we found two people dead the next morning with their heads hanging by the main gate. How that happened without anyone noticing anything? We don't know."
A thunder made B shiver as she was absorbed by gran's words.
"Due to the fact that we need women so badly, men are encouraged to have sex with girls and leave their seeds inside them anytime they feel the urge to do so. People are swimming in fear and lust and are even throwing themselves into cannibalism. It does not come as a surprise to find out that some women are eaten alive during the act of copulation. A thing that ends with the death penalty for the man caught. Although it doesn't look like it, even this village has some rules."
A heavy knock on the door stopped Anta from revealing any more about the settlement.
"Come in!"
A young man, wet head to toe in his late twenties opened the door and bent his head slightly before he spoke.
"We'll hold a gathering tonight to discuss a possible assembly of young strong men willing to go out hunting and gathering for resources next week. It will be the first time in the last five years.”
He looked surprised at B for a second, then turned back to Anta.
“Maybe we can even go beyond and find out more about these monsters. Some villagers are raging and urging us to go out, defeat the monsters and put an end to all this. I think it's time for us to rise unless we want riots, protests, and unnecessary killing among ourselves. People are getting more and more impatient with every passing day." The seriousness and the gravity of the situation could be understood from his voice alone.
The man was wearing long brown boots reaching up to his knees, dirty white long pants, and a dark green open vest that revealed his well-developed muscles around the shoulders, arms, chest, and abdominals. He had brown hair and a carefully arranged mustache.
"Tell everyone to meet outside the stable at ten tonight. We'll make a big fireplace." The old woman responded calmly.
B was simply standing there in shock with her green eyes wide open, not wanting to believe a single word of the whole story she has just heard. The reality she woke up to one day ago was brutal and merciless. The worst part was that she knew this was not everything as many things still made no sense to her.
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