What lurks in the woods? A question many ask and one with many answers.
I live near the woods and ask this question often, well not out loud anymore. The chief of my people has banned us from going into the woods or even talking about the woods, except on one day of the year. My people call it The Day of Sacrifice, I call it The Day of Lies.
One day a year we bring a child deep into the woods and leave them their. One day a year we murder a child as a sacrifice to a creature that lurks in the woods. A creature we have never seen. People refuse to give the creature that lurks in the woods a name because they don't want to acknowledge that we murder a child ever year for something that might not even exist.
The child is chosen by their birthday, whoever was born closer to The Day of Lies is sacrificed. It was created this way so infants would be taken away instead of what the elders consider valuable people of our town.
It hasn't exactly worked out this way. Women have stopped barring children because they don't want them to be taken away from them. So, older children have started to be taken away, like me.
I am next. I will be sacrificed like many innocent children before me. I will meet the creature that lurks in the woods and it will end me with it's own bare hands.
Today is the day I die. I know I’m going to die unlike many others who leave this world suddenly without a chance to say goodbye. The funny thing is, I don’t need to say goodbye because I don’t have anyone to say goodbye to. My mother died during childbirth and my father died months before I was born, he disappeared one night before I was born and was never heard from again. Today I join my father’s fait, lost in the vast wild of the forest.
I am stalling my inevitable fate, writing in this journal which will probably never be read. I need to know that future generations have a chance of hearing my story and the cruelties of the elders. I can only hope this journal will help lead my people away from the true monsters. The monsters in the woods aren't in the woods, they’re right next door.
I march to the forest. I march to my death. I march to my father. I march to my freedom. I march away from the true monsters and into the forest.
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