Mommy?
Can you tell me a story, mommy?
Yes sweetie, mommy will tell you a story.
Will it be scary, mommy?
You're a brave child, sweetie, you won't be scared.
Are you certain, mommy?
Yes sweetie, Mommy is certain. Tuck yourself into the warm covers, and listen.
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It was one year ago, in the winter, when a class left for their annual skiing trip. Each year, the class of children went up the the log cabin on the side of a mountain, and stayed there for a week, learning to ski, and enjoying the outdoors.
That sounds like fun, Mommy!
Yes it does, sweetie, be quiet and listen.
This year, fourteen children were traveling to the mountainside. They were accompanied by their teacher, a ski instructor, and a guide. It was exceptionally cold that winter, and all of the children were dressed in extra coats and gloves to keep them warm. Even with the extra protection, some of the children were shivering, the cold biting through their coats, piercing their gloves and mufflers. The snow was blowing into their face, and the children had to link hands to keep from loosing sight of each other. The guide was a distant figure, roped to the teacher and the ski instructor, and the children merely caught glimpses of him through the blowing snow as he lead them towards the cabin. Even though it was mid-afternoon, the sky was a mottled grey, sun entirely obscured. The faint grey light illuminating the world was the only sign that the sun was in the sky.
Even the teacher and ski instructor were shivering in this weather, but the guide appeared unaffected as he lead them onwards into the blizzard. The trail was obscured and lost, the markers they were following visible only to the guide. The teacher was concerned, and suggested that maybe they turn back and cancel it this year, but the ski instructor cheerfully assured the teacher that this happened often, and that it would warm up in a few days. The guide agreed, adding that winter storms came and went on the mountains, and it was nothing so unusual as that. Besides, he mentioned, the cabin would be nice and warm.
The guide lead them to the cabin, and indeed it was warm and cheerful and inviting. Inside, he started a fire, and soon everyone was relaxed. The children had a chance to call their parents for the first time in nearly a day, for cell phones didn't work on the mountainside. Speaking to their parents reassured the children, and soon they were happy and chatting and laughing. The apprehension and fear that everyone felt during the long hike seemed like a distant memory, and everyone was sure that it would be all right.
Was it all right?
No sweetie, for children should know better than to trust warm and friendly shells that hide the cold darkness.
That night, the children awoke to a horrible screaming. As one, they rushed to the edge of the stairwell. By the light of the dying fire, they saw a gruesome sight. Holly, one of their friends, someone they had known their entire life, was tearing into their teacher, her teeth tearing chunks out of the teacher's flesh, her hands somehow sinking into the teacher's body and leaving deep bloody tracks. The teacher's screams were dying as they watched.
The ski instructor rushed from his room, and taking in the scene in one instant, vaulted the railing on the second story, and landed on the wooden floor below. He seized a fireplace poker, and swung it into Holly's body.
Holly screamed, a horrible keening sound and staggered off the teacher's body. Her shirt was smoking where the hook on the poker had torn through into her side, and as the children watched, it began to change and warp. Holly transformed into a tall, spindly being, all teeth and claws and long spidery limbs. Her clothes were torn by spines and underneath them, the children could see her skin was a mottled greenish brown.
The ski instructor seemed taken aback, but only briefly. He attacked this monster, swinging the poker freely, and the monster fell back... but only briefly. The long spindly limbs could move quicker than the childrens' eyes could follow, and the claws tore nasty gashes in the instructor's arms.
Although the children could see obvious pain in inxtructor's eyes, and the floor was coated in droplets of red blood, he never retreated. The poker slammed into the creature again, hitting it in the eye, and it let loose another keening shriek. The sound tore into the childrens' ears like a thousand nails on a thousand blackboards, a discordant symphony of screeching pain. They flinched, and some closed their eyes. They were the lucky ones, for they didn't see when the monster lashed out with its arm, sending the ski instructor flying across the room. They didn't know what caused the meaty thump when he slammed into the wall. The ones who left their eyes open? They knew. They knew what caused it, watched his body fall loosely to the floor, saw the smear of blood it left against the wall as it slid down.
The monster let out a triumphant bellow, it's unnattural echoes terrifying each child who heard it, and leapt forward to consume the instructor's body. Most of the children shut their eyes then, so only two saw what happened. They saw the creature as it flew through the air, towards the instructor, landing on his body. They saw the poker rise at the last second, catching it in the chest. They saw the cold iron tear through the creature's body, driven by the force of the creature's leap, and come out the other side. They saw the poker dripping with greenish-grey blood, saw the creature weakly scream and flop to the side, loosely grasping at the poker, trying to dislodge it. They saw the ski instructor fall back, triumph in his eyes.
And they saw his legs, barely attached after the creature's claws dug into them, the deep wound in his chest the claws left when they landed, the blood spilling out in slow, rhythmic spurts, slowly pumping out of his body to stain the floor.
The guide entered the room then, from outside the cabin. As the children watched, he changed and twisted, growing in height. Horns tore loose of his scalp, and he seemed to loom over the children, even from below. He looked down at the dead instructor, and the dead monster, and somehow the children sensed that he approved of what he saw.
“Little children,” he said, “little children in my forest, intruding where you don't belong.”
He snarled, and his face twisted as he growled, and the children could sense a great, untamed rage in those words. “Little children must earn their place here. To be in the domain of the lord of the hunt, they must show themselves worthy hunters.”
“There are some of you who have already failed, already fallen on the way to this cabin. My servants, my fairies, my monsters are already amongst you. During the day, you must hunt them, for at night?”
“At night children, they hunt you.” He laughed then, a booming echo filling the room. “Hunt! Hunt and hide and pray for the sunlight. Show me who is worthy, or let none leave this mountainside alive.”
The sun rose the next morning, and reluctantly the children were forced to go downstairs. They had to move the bodies, the instructor's and the teacher's first, but eventually they worked up the courage to touch the thing that had looked like Holly, had fooled them all. They thought how she had laughed and smiled when they got to the cabin, how she had joked with them, and they realized it was all a lie, all the trick of something that had hollowed out body, and hidden within her skin, moving her body like a puppet.
The electric lights no longer glowed and even the fireplace seemed reluctant to light, wooden logs resentfully spitting out dull flames that seemed to taunt the children, the meager warmth barely lessening the biting cold that had slid inside the cabin during the night. The dull grey light from the sky sliding through the windows was their major source of illumination, as they prepared breakfast. The food they prepared wouldn't warm, no matter how long they left it on the stove, and finally they had to eat it. The cold, soggy oatmeal seeming to grip the inside of their throats as they forced it down.
The thirteen looked at each other. Which one of them was a monster? Which one of them was a killer? Which one of them was going to change in the middle of the night, going to rip their throat out and leave pieces of them scattered all over the hall? Or were they all the same? Would their death be worse than the teacher's, the instructor's? Would their fate seem a kind mercy by the time it was over?
And would any survive to leave the mountain?
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I'm scared, mommy
Don't be honey, this happened a long time ago.
But the children mommy? Were they all right?
You'll find out later, sweetie. Now mommy is tired, and its time for little children to be sleeping.
Will they get me, mommy? Will they get me in the middle of the night?
Only if you're a bad child, sweetie. They come for bad children, children who go where they're not supposed to and do things they shouldn't. Are you a good child?
Yes mommy.
Then you'll be safe, honey. Unless you're lying of course.
Sleep well, sweetie!
========================================
Vi, Wise Teacher,
Vanilla Townie
and Game Reviewer, killed in the pre-game.
Herodotus, Brave Instructor,
Town Elite Bodyguard
and Game Reviewer, killed in the pre-game.
Hoopla, Shapeshifting Fairy,
Mafia Goon
and Game Reviewer, killed in the pre-game.
GreyICE, Cernunnos, Lord of the Hunt,
Neutral Lord and Moderator
lives, watches, and waits.