u/GothicVampyreQueen

What do you think of my horror story?
Molly
By Victoria Salter.
Molly Sanford, an outwardly creative and sweet nine year-old, was out playing in her family’s garden one sunny yet cool and windy late summer day. She had enjoyed herself by chatting with her dad, playing frisbee with both of her parents and laughing merrily as children of her age are wont to do.
“What shall I do next?” She pondered, as she made her way back up to the patio, where her parents were relaxing, her dad probably dozing as he lay back on a sun chair, sipping beer or wine and perhaps lost in thought, as her mother would be sipping a cocktail or a lemonade and reading some soppy grown-up book. She thought that she may ask Mum to read her a story, or she may see if Dad could make one up for her. However, there would be no need for a made-up story, as it were.
As Molly made her way up the gorgeously green, summer hill and past the washing line, a single black feather did fall from the great pine tree. Molly liked feathers. They were pretty and natural, and they were useful tickling tools for Mum or Dad, or for tickling oneself. This particular ebony specimen landed on her arm briefly, and she smiled at the loose plume upon the crack in her arm the other side of her elbow. Then, as if like magic, the feather naturally flew away with the wind.
Molly, a rather determined little girl, decided to try to find the feather. Scampering off in the direction that it had appeared to fly off in, she almost found herself face-planting directly into the pine tree from which this ebony companion had fallen. She gazed up at the branches of the dark green tree, but the feather was not to be found there. So she continued her search, looking all along the hedge that outlined her garden of wonders, brushing her hand along its leaves and carefully avoiding the thorns and brambles.
At last she did see her black feather, as it drifted down to the dead leaves that cluttered the ground beneath the hedge. She reached in to take hold of it gently.
Then, a rather large white spider appeared, gradually floating down its length of web. Molly was a little frightened of spiders, not to the point of running away screaming, but more just an uneasy feeling that made her ask Mum or Dad to remove them from the house should she encounter them indoors, or just gasp and back away should she see them outside. However, she had never seen a white spider, so she merely took a few steps back to just observe the spider.
“That which you seek to take,” the spider spoke softly.
“Should be left to do as it will, for your sake.”
Molly was speechless. She didn’t know whether to run and tell Mum or Dad, or whether to stay and talk with the spider. Surely she must be imagining this? Spiders couldn’t talk.
“I’m sorry, spider,” she said at last. “W-what do you mean? I want my feather, please.”
“That which you seek to take,” the spider repeated. “Should be left to do as it will, for your sake.”
Later that evening, Molly and her parents were sat around the tea table. Both of her parents had salmon; her mother had hers in a sandwich, with some baked beans on the side, while her father had his with peas and baked beans. Molly, on the other hand, had a fish finger sandwich with ketchup and chips. Dad had his usual wine and Mum had her usual orange juice, while Molly had her favourite pink lemonade.
“A spider spoke to me today,” she said to her parents. Her dad was too engrossed in the telly to even notice his daughter spoke, while her mum simply said, “No, darling, spiders don’t talk. You must’ve imagined it, dear.”
That night, as Molly looked out upon the night sky, as she often did after cleaning her teeth and getting changed, and after her dad had read her a story, she couldn’t quite make it out in the dark, but she at least thought she saw a feather, as a dark blur of something that could’ve been a feather, a moth or twig fell outside her window. She opened the window to try to grab it, but she just couldn’t quite find it. Perhaps it had floated down onto the roof, out of reach and potentially stuck in the rainwater on the roof.
She climbed into bed, a little disappointed at having failed to catch the ever-evading feather. She lay there with her eyes open, a tad restless despite the fact that her mother had previously commented that she had been yawning her head off when she had been downstairs playing.
Then, she felt a tickle on her forehead, as if a spider or some other bug had landed on her. Whatever it was spoke with the voice of the spider from earlier. “Tonight, sweet child of menace, you shall dream your future. Tonight, she dream of fire and fair murder…”
The little girl found herself in her school corridor, hanging her coat on her own hook as she did every school day. She then walked up to her classroom door. She was just in time for-
RING! The school fire alarm sounded its absolutely deafening row, sending a group of her classmates running and screaming out of the classroom, as a panicked Mrs Branslow shouted, “Quiet! Walk, don’t run!”
The rest of her class soon followed, walking obediently. Molly was a good little girl, so she walked obediently with them. She was a little slower than the others - it was just her natural pace. So she got left behind with all the hubbub. All of the other children were hurried out of the main school entrance.
The flame appeared at the entrance just seconds later, having already burned a hole in the wall between the corridor where the school entrance was and the staff room from which it had started, after a certain teacher had, just before class, broken the rules, as she was so inclined to do (she had never really cared for the children, seeing this job as a way to exercise her need for control and occasional yelling or even the infliction of pain against the guidelines than as a way of nurturing or any of that mushy stuff). As there had been no one else there when she came in to do her morning paperwork, she had tried to light a cigarette with her lighter and dropped it.
Molly stood there, too scared to move. By this time, within only a few seconds the flame had grown and was now consuming the school entrance.
Molly tried screaming, but no one came. She tried shouting out to Mrs Branslow, or anyone, to no avail. Trapped and burning, screaming in pain, she overheard voices. From the few words that the poor girl could hear, they seemed to be urging someone to stay and wait for the firefighters to rescue her instead of going in themselves. Thankfully, she heard the reassuring voice of Miss Whiteshaw, her favourite teacher, who bravely entered, stepping over the fire, and carried the crying and burned girl out of the school doors.
As she seemed to lull into another dream, she heard a voice, the spider’s voice, once more. “Wander to the next chapter, sweet vengeful one,” it whispered, as the dream supposedly drifted into the next day.
Molly met Mrs Branslow again at school. The firefighters had seemingly put out the fire and all was as normal. Only, she wasn’t in her classroom, but out in the school playing field, just beneath the tree. A few toys remained - this must have been after playtime now. One such plaything was a lengthy and sturdy skipping rope that lay by a ball and a pretend fire that some kids had obviously made.
“Take your revenge,” said a voice from the big tree, seemingly coming from the cobweb-covered lower branches by the trunk. “Your victim shall die in your name lest you become worm food…”
Then, it whispered to Molly, “Kill! Tie the rope! Your teacher shall hang by the neck until she goes to God for judgement. In other words, until she dies!”
Molly gulped. Killing a teacher was out of the question. It was just so not-nice and completely against the rules. Yet, Molly certainly didn’t wish to become worm food!
She didn’t know whether to run and tell a teacher or what to do! Would she be in trouble even for contemplating such a thing?
Then, she felt a stabbing pain in her neck. Next, a burning sensation as something small and white appeared to scurry up her leg. Then, she felt sick as a sharp pain panted in her left eye.
“Proceed, young one,” the voice said again. “Proceed, or you shall meet a fate far, far worse than being kept in, given extra homework, being shouted at and being grounded all rolled into one! Proceed, or you shall meet a death far worse than any that any man, woman or child has gone through before!”
Trembling and completely unsure of what to do, Molly felt like crying. She eyed the skipping rope and looked back at Mrs Branslow. She was no longer in pain, and she could see that her teacher was smiling, but she just didn’t want to risk anything like what had been described happening to her. In accordance with typical dream logic, which often makes no sense, Mrs Branslow just stayed stood there. Molly tied the rope into a loop, as guided by the spiders that appeared and began walking and jumping in the pattern of the loop on the skipping rope. Molly then proceeded to place her noose around the neck of her teacher and lifted her weightless form from the ground, tying her by the neck to one of the strongest branches on the tree…
Molly woke up screaming. She was panicking, sweating and trembling all over. Her mum and dad rushed into her room.
Her mum placed her hand upon her daughter’s back and asked her, “What’s wrong, darling?” sounding ever so anxious for her daughter.
“I had a bad dream! There was a fire at school! I killed Mrs Branslow!”
Her mum gasped as her dad sat down on the bed. “It’s okay, it was only a dream,” her dad reassured her.
Her parents stayed with their daughter until she fell back asleep.
The next day at school, Molly walked up the corridor of her school was she had done hundreds of times before, after her mum had said goodbye and left her. She hung her coat upon her own hanger before heading to her classroom. She headed for her classroom, just in time for-
RING!!!! The fire alarm sounded, just like in her dream! A frightened Molly screamed as her whole class left the classroom, some running and screaming whilst others walked sensibly. Molly decided to run and yell, as if to somehow change the course of events that her dream had predicted. Mrs Branslow came out and smiled sadistically. In this non-dream event, she actually still held her almost-finished cigarette that she had been trying to conceal behind her back.
Molly, being a little slow in real life as well, lagged behind the rest of her class. Just as in the dream, the rest of the class and Mrs Branslow had left via the school entrance by the time Molly caught up with them, and the flames had already engulfed the entrance. As if still trying to change the course of events, Molly paid no attention to flames as she attempted to run out of the entrance, screaming and panicking. On the way out, she got her leg burned. She cried in pain, but Mrs Branslow, the sadistic controller, just laughed and shrugged it off.
Mrs Whiteshaw, upon seeing such cruelty and apathy, shouted at Mrs Branslow, threatening to call the police on her. She then used her own phone to call the fire brigade first, and then an ambulance for Molly, the only pupil who had been injured in the school fire. With a wink, she assured Molly that Mrs Branslow would be reported and fired.
The paramedics expressed that they were relieved that only one child had been hurt and that her wound was only minor and that she would be able to still attend school the next day. “She’ll be fine,” one paramedic said to her distraught parents, whom Mrs Whiteshaw had also called.
Molly was taken straight home and put to bed, complete with bandages and ointments. Her mum stroked her hair and cuddled her for a while.
When she was alone again, a familiar white companion drifted down from the ceiling. “Take your revenge, and you will be grand, sweet one,” it said in its usual calm, whispery voice. “Take your revenge, lest you meet with pain as sharp as needles, illness as ominous as the plague and a death most foul…”
“But I can’t really kill Mrs Branslow! That’s not right!”
“Right for you, a just act to avoid a most painful plague upon the entire school! Do you wish for your friends to meet the same vile fate? Take this one life, and I shall leave you. Take this one life, and you shall be merry. Take this one life, and you shall marry your true love, sweet princess.”
The spider’s words rang through her mind constantly, keeping her awake with dread for most of the night.
“Sleep, my pretty,” it spoke again. “Listen to my story. Once, there was a pretty princess who glided through the sky upon a most mighty dragon who pulled a pirate ship, taking the princess to a far away land, one in which no bodies were buried and no ice cream ever spilt. The clouds whispered as they glided peacefully, singing the princess into a deeeeeeep… sleeeeeeep…
The sounds of the bells of Heaven… The sounds of the waves of that distant land… The sounds of a clock ticking… All drove this princess into the Land of Nod…”
When Molly finally awoke, after spending a night slaying bad guys and finding lost treasure, she got dressed as usual, brushed her teeth and then rushed downstairs to eat her breakfast. It was bananas on toast, her favourite! She also had a glass of water and her usual glass of milk. She loved milk, it was so creamy and sweet.
She arrived at school and put her coat on its hanger as usual. She met Mrs Branslow in her classroom. She was just in time for assembly. It was a Tuesday, so she had English first thing after assembly. She really liked English. It was Maths after English, and she hated Maths. After break, it would be time for music. She loved listening to music, but her music teacher was a little bit boring. She was eccentric and pleasant enough, though, unlike the evil Mrs Branslow. Then, it would be time for another assembly before home time.
After break time, she stayed on the field, anxious for what could come next. If anything should happen involving spiders or skipping rope nooses, should she actually go through with the killing or risk a most painful fate for herself and a plague upon her classmates. She had begun learning about the plague in history (in an age-appropriate way, of course). She thought it sounded most terrible.
Mrs Branslow trudged up onto the field, looking for her late student. She found her, sitting in her own thoughts on the grass. “Young lady, what, may I ask, are you doing here? Come with me, immediately!”
“Kill!” The spider’s voice spoke again, and Molly saw a white spider crawling on the grass. She decided to follow it to the tree. Sure enough, the skipping rope was there, in amongst some balls that hadn’t been cleared away yet.
The spider walked over the skipping rope. “Kill!” It repeated. “Kill! Lest you meet a most agonising fate, worse than needles and fire! Kill, lest your classmates meet with a terrible plague! Kill, my sweet, kill!”
“How?” asked a terrified Molly. “She’ll get away!”
“Worry not, my sweet thing, for I shall paralyse. I shall paralyse, for you to kill…”
Before Molly could think of anything, the spider scampered over to Mrs Branslow and bit her. Mrs Branslow became unconscious and fell over. Molly was about to yell, but as if the spider read her mind, it spoke again.
“Hush, my sweet emerald. Tie the knot now, lest a terrible fate meet you and yours. If you do not do this deed, your family shall die, along with you and your classmates.”
So Molly tied the knot in the skipping rope, gulped and, with a tear in her eye, placed the skipping rope around Mrs Branslow’s neck and heaved as she lifted her teacher up and somehow managed to hold her as she tied the rope to a low branch. Within minutes, Mrs Branslow was dead…
“Now,” the spider spoke again. “You must be bury your kill, lest the school find out.”
“B-but I stopped something worse from happening!”
“They do not know of fate’s will. So, my darling, you must bury your kill!”
So Molly gulped and began to dig with her hand. Before lunch break, she had dug a hole just big enough to fit the body. Crying still, and traumatised, she pulled Mrs Branslow down and placed her corpse in its resting place and covered it with soil and plucked grass.
After lunch, the students all crowded around Molly and asked if she had seen Mrs Branslow. Frightened, she told them that she hadn’t. The teachers rushed around looking for her, but all they found was a hanging slipping rope from the branches of the big tree on the playing field.
Molly decided to sit under the tree, right by Mrs Branslow’s resting place. There, she was approached by Mrs Whiteshaw.
“Molly,” she spoke calmly. “You can tell me anything. Do you know what happened to Mrs Bradslow?” She put a reassuring arm around Molly.
“I killed her,” Molly whispered.
Miss Whiteshaw gasped. She didn’t know whether to believe her or not.
“Molly, that is a very serious crime. That is murder. We need to tell the police. Why would you do that?”
“The spider told me to! PLEASE don’t tell the police!”
“A spider told you to? Molly, I think I know of someone I’d like you to meet. Don’t worry about your afternoon classes! Follow me!”
Molly followed as Mrs Whiteshaw walked back towards the main school building.
They entered via the lunch hall’s glass door and then went out via the wooden, windowed door into the corridor, where Mrs Whiteshaw instructed Molly to sit on the first aid bench.
“Why do I need to sit here?” Molly asked. “My burns are getting better!”
“It’s not about your burns, dear,” Miss Whiteshaw told her. “I think, darling, that you may have a poorly mind, dear.”
Wondering what she meant, Molly sat down on the bench obediently. Before she got chance to ask Miss Whiteshaw anything else, the teacher had left.
Within a few moments, she came back with an unfamiliar face. This man had dark skin and wore a dark blue suit and a serious and shocked expression.
“Molly, this is Dr Aldwin. He’s what you call a psychiatrist. That’s a doctor of the mind. He works with children. He wants to talk to you. He wants to ask you some questions. Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.”
“Hello, Molly,” he began.
“H-hello?” Molly replied.
“Miss Whiteshaw said that you told her YOU killed Mrs Branslow because of what a spider said to you, is that right?”
Molly nodded.
“What did the spider say?”
“He said that if I didn’t, there’d be a plague on my classmates and that I’d die a very, very, very, very painful death.”
“Uh-huh.” Dr Aldwin nodded. “I see. Do you think it’s okay to murder people?”
“No, not unless it stops you from being killed or your classmates from getting sick.”
“And how do you know that that would’ve actually happened if you hadn’t killed Mrs Branslow?”
“The spider told me it would!”
“Hmm, you do realise that spiders don’t talk, don’t you, Molly?” He asked, writing down some notes.
“I would never have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself!”
“Do you hear other voices, from other animals or other people that aren’t really there?”
“No. I have had imaginary friends before, but not now. They moved away.”
“Okay, so the spider is the only animal that talks to you now?”
“Yes, and he told me a bedtime story as well. About a princess riding a dragon that was pulling a pirate ship through the sky!”
“Uh-huh. Was the story scary?”
“Not really. But I was scared about having to kill Mrs Branslow. I didn’t want to get into trouble, and I didn’t think it was nice, even though she used to hit me and I think she was the one that started the fire.”
“She used to hit you?” He asked.
“Yes. And other children,” Molly told him.
“Molly, this is serious. If she weren’t already dead, I’d have to call the police on her.”
“Miss Whiteshaw was going to call the police on her before I did it.”
“And what makes you think she started the fire?”
“She always smokes in class, and I guess she must’ve dropped her light-up thing or something.”
Dr Aldwin nodded. “There’s nothing we can do about that now that she’s dead. Now, back to this spider, where is he? Can you show me him?”
Molly nodded. “He’s probably outside by the tree.” She got up and walked back through the lunch hall, out onto the playground and onto the field, with Dr Aldwin following her.
They stood underneath the tree and a black feather fell solemnly out of it, landing on Dr Aldwin. Molly looked up to see a majestic raven sitting on one of the branches.
“Young one, young one,” the raven cawed. “The spider’s curse shall unwind throughout your life. The spider brings terror whilst I bring advice. It is written upon my feathers and soul, the spider must die, lest the curse live with it.”
Dr Aldwin looked absolutely stunned and shocked. He couldn’t believe his ears! After all this time as a psychiatrist, was he schizophrenic?
“How do we find the spider?” Molly asked.
“Young one, look to every patch of grass beneath this tree and you shall not find him, but look the way the raven flies, and the spider you seek shall be revealed to you.”
With that, the raven flew off of the tree and turned towards the dirt underneath which Mrs Branslow lay.
Molly looked at Dr Aldwin, and then to the bird. No words were spoken, they just somehow knew that they needed to dig. So they dug with their hands, just as Molly had done when digging the hole.
Eventually, a worm appeared in the dirt, followed by another, and another, and then about twelve more, and each of them appeared to have flesh or blood on their mouthes. They had been gnawing at a corpse!
They dug for about an hour before the raven spoke again.
“The one you seek lies upon the surface! The bringer of misfortune lies directly above the corpse’s face for he watches with grim delight the feast of the worms upon evil!”
Sure enough, when they looked upon the area where Mrs Branslow’s face lay buried, there was the large white spider! They looked at him, unsure of what to do.
“Do we have to kill him, even though he read me a bedtime story?”
For an answer, the raven simply approached the white spider from behind, took hold of him in his beak and swallowed him!
As the years passed, Molly became a teenager in jail. This was a young offender’s institution, and the raven would still often come to see her, as would her parents, Miss Whiteshaw and Dr Aldwin. She was sitting in her jail cell one day, accompanied only by the raven, who had just landed on her cell’s barred window. She reached out to pet him, and he allowed her to do so.
“Molly,” yelled one of the prison staff as he walked past. “Your parents are here to see you.”
Sure enough, her parents followed on behind. Her mum looked sad as usual, whilst her dad tried to comfort her. She was, after all, still their baby…
Another prison staff member let them in and her mum put her arm around her and looked her in the eyes. “You did what you thought was right, lovely. You weren’t to know.”
“You’re still our Molly, our baby girl,” her dad told her.
“Thanks,” she said hugging them both.
Leaving her there was always the hardest thing her parents would ever have to do, and it didn’t really get that much easier. But they said their goodbyes and goodnight, and kissed and hugged each other.
That night, for some strange reason, Molly couldn’t sleep. She felt some strange uneasiness.
She looked up from bed towards the ceiling of her cell. There, making their way down to her, were several white spiders, all with blood drops on them…

Ashes, Lizards and    Leadership
By Victoria Salter
In the Ancient Time, a millennia (as estimated by Man) before the Arrival of the First Man, there existed Nothing in this universe, not even black nor matter, and not even emptiness itself. Outside of the universe, in the Realm of the Unreachables, however, there existed the Creator, Exuas, the one who would become the Lord of All Things Natural and Supernatural.
He was dissatisfied with what he saw on our empty patch. So dissatisfied was he, in fact, that he summoned his energy to form an orb of energy, to create the foundation for what would become Earth. He created all the lands we know and love, but one particular land was his favourite. That was the land Quanland, dedicated as a home for the supernatural.
First of all the beings, came the many creatures of the animal realm. The fox, the wolf, the badger, the wildcat, the bear, the lynx, the deer and the rabbit would roam the forests and breed, along with the crow, the rook, the raven, the robin, the pigeon, the wigeon, the owl and the hawk. Of course, along with the hawk came his friends, the eagle, the harrier, the buzzard and the kite. Along with the newly formed rivers, brooks, lakes and seas came the fish, the whale, the dolphin, the shark and let’s not forget the crabs and the lobsters. Along with the stretched out savannahs, further east of Quanland, came the lion, the giraffe, the zebra, the baboon, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the cheetah, the antelope and the buffalo. Further east yet again, in the depths of the Asian rainforests and temperate forests, came the forest elephant, the tiger, the forest leopard, the jungle deer, the monkey and the apes.
To the west side of Quanland came the okapi, the jaguar, the toucan, the tapir and vampire bat. Speaking of which, the many bats were spread across the entire Earth, in fact!

In the frigid regions of the tundra up north, there came the polar bear, who would come to be revered in time to come by the Inuit, along with the penguins, reindeer and arctic hare, while the orca, beluga and narwhal would inhabit the frigid waters of the iced lands.
To the south of Quanland, in Antarctica, there came the penguins and the leopard seal, along with the Children of the Fish. Survival would certainly be tough in these parts, but the creatures therein would be equipped to survive in their beautiful world of bleakness and ice.
Exuas saved the best until last. When he turned back to Quanland, he decided that some of the spirits of the deceased would continue to roam and learn before coming to the afterlife. They would be the first Animal Ghosts. He then decided to create the vicious and predatory demons, as well as some herbivorous demons, but they were called by a name which is so godly that I cannot write it here. It is in the unintelligible language, a name that cannot be written in any Man or other Earthly language, but only by Exuas himself. These beings were only called demons after Man came onto the scene. In order to keep order in this world, Exuas also created the demon-slayer, a female supernatural resembling a young girl, armed with a stake and the ability to run at the speed of lightning, along with supernatural strength.
He also created some animals which sadly no longer exist in this mortal plane. From energy, he morphed the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhino, the thylacine and the short-faced bear. He also formed the warrah, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the heath hen and the bluebuck.
He also created the reptiles, the lizards and serpents, the tortoise and the dragons. Along with these came the amphibians, the frog, the salamander and newt. Some of them would dwell in the water, whilst others would dwell upon the land. Others still would dwell in the trees, and in amongst the creepers, as they crawled, slithered or walked, and as the serpent would coil herself around the foliage and hunt for another of Exuas’s creations; the rodents, the squirrels, the rats and the mice, along with many a shrew and vole.
Even the invertebrates, the ants, the lacewings, the moths, the butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, stinkbugs, beetles and devil’s coach-horses, along with the snails, slugs, worms and those terrestrial crustaceans that would come to be known in time as woodlice were created from orbs of energy by Exuas’s mighty hand.
Next, he created the Man. This was an ape, similar to a demon-slayer but with no special powers.
Next, came the vampires, predators with an appetite for blood, to hunt and control both Man and all the beasts. Some vampires, however, would opt for human blood, choosing the more intelligent and able prey, whilst others preyed on the more innocent beings, the animals.
But Man, however, was dissatisfied with his lack of supernatural power. Egged on by the lying Unseen, beneath the Earth, in the darkness that remained, he began to rebel. Although he had started out only taking what he needed, he started killing for sport. He became so egotistical that he even hunted some demons to extinction, viewing them as a menace to his existence.
As time went on, the relationship between Man and Exuas became like a war of jealousy and ego (on the side of Man) and anger and disappointment (on the side of Exuas). So, in order to get back at Man, Exuas created yet another supernatural. This was a creature with the positive aspects that Man originally had, of coexistence with nature and the supernatural, of harmony and loyalty and of humility without greed, but they actually did have unique supernatural abilities and even shared genetics with Man. He called the first of this species the Mutant.
Then, Exuas spoke. “These creatures come in peace! You are to treat them with respect!”
But Man did not listen. Instead, he saw that a certain group of these mutants had developed a peculiar power, the ability to smell the mutant gene and distinguish mutants from humans, as well as immunity to all other mutant powers. Although they had the supernatural abilities that Man still lacked, Man had, by now, developed weapons and the use of intelligence for oppression and saw opportunity with these particular mutants, who would come to be known as the colleagues.

As the dawn chorus broke upon the wide Quanish moor, the first of the morning’s birds flew from her nest. But the morning was strangely quiet and bleak. There was mist and also wafts of danger in the air. These wafts of danger entered the morning’s vibe, and did not go unnoticed by the young mutant as he plucked his autumn apples off of the tree. Eventually, his attention was caught by some faint sound. There it was! The sound of the Call to Hunt from Man’s horn filled the air, along with the uproar of the meeting of the colleagues.
He made the quick decision to run and be on the alert. He made a dash to the forest thicket, hoping to lie low and remain undetected, as if by some miracle. He knew he had no chance of fighting back.
As the sound of horse hoofbeats thundered across the moor and drew closer, the young mutant swiftly decided to change direction and attempt to confuse the colleagues by running all over the place, leaving the footprints from his animal hide boots all over the place in the mud, before discreetly tucking himself into an abandoned wolf den.
Inside the den, the young mutant discovered that the place was incredibly large for a wolf den and appeared unoccupied. He lay down in the dirt and decided to lie low.
Sure enough, the birds of the thicket soon took flight at the sound of the hustle from the mutant-hunter upon his horse, as followed by the colleagues. Most of the colleagues passed by the den, appearing to miss the scent of the mutant gene therein. Some, however, did not. Following the first colleague to notice, a small band from within the main band entered the den. Therein, the young mutant attempted to fight them off, to no avail. He took a turn and left the den and ran in the opposing direction, utilising his supernatural speed. Alas, as he came upon the moor, he released that even his supernatural speed was not enough to have the colleagues panting in the distance. So, upon seeing the train tracks that ran across the moor, he decided to chance his luck. After all, it was either get stabbed to death to by the colleagues or chance an escape at the mercy of any nearby train.
As ill luck would have it, however, there was a large train approaching. While Man stayed back on his horse, he watched with shock, horror and ire as several of his beloved slaves fell victim to the oncoming train, as the mutant escaped. The mutant-hunter did, however, follow the colleagues and the mutant to the riverbanks underneath.
Several water birds paused their morning breakfast of fish only briefly as the water they relied upon became red with blood, with some taking sips of the now crimson water. They were only disturbed into flight as the cries of both colleague and mutant filled the morning air, but only returned once the morning air returned to its eerie silence.
The sky was still red as the morning sunlight, young in the day, shone upon the moor. The few lizards that dwelled under the bush had finished their morning meal of crickets and left to find the sun.
Birds flew overhead, passing a mutant camp beneath as they chatted and chirped, before one of their number landed and began digging at a most fertile spot in the land. This area of soil beneath the grass was filled with worms. As soon as the other birds realised that one of their number had discovered a bountiful feast of earthy invertebrates, they all swooped down and began a chorus of excited chirping and calling.
It was this very calling that awakened young Sunlight, just one of a whole team of mutants, as the child of just five years of age lay in her tent, by the side of her adoptive mother, Echo. Echo was the leader of the team. She was a noble and just leader, and had willingly taken the young outcast Sunlight into her loving embrace just this same season. She always allowed Sunlight to eat first at team feasts. Young Sunlight would accompany the team when they went foraging for fruit and had even began practicing the use of her power; to blind people temporarily, harnessing the power of the sun.
Sometimes, Sunlight had to be awakened by Echo, as her young body rested and her young mind meandered through the fields of the Dreamland whilst her eyes were closed. Today, however, Sunlight had awakened before Echo. The young mutant nudged and badgered her adoptive mother so relentlessly that the pale-haired mutant awakened and could no longer dream or shrug her adoptive daughter away.
Not even four seasons ago, Sunlight, born as a mutant to her human family, had discovered her power by accidentally blinding her uncle for a brief few moments. The young and innocent child had informed her family, as her uncle tried to make sense of what had happened and explain everything to his brother’s family and their parents. A few scorned looks would’ve told an older mutant all they would’ve needed to know. The family, devastated over the state of being that their own child had found herself in, had talked in private. They did not want their other child, a baby boy of just six months, nor his cousins, a boy and girl of just eight and ten, respectively, to grow up around a dangerous child like that. Their daughter would have to go. So, devastated, they took the young mutant out and callously abandoned their own child on the moor. There was just no way they could’ve kept her, and nor could they’ve put the other children at any adoption agency in such peril, with all the hysteria about such dangerous supernaturals that was floating around.
There, the young Everlyn had wandered and cried. She was all alone, with no one except the wild animals for company. So she had first befriended a crested geraffe, a game bird highly desired for Man’s insatiable greed for meat. Unsurprisingly, their friendship was doomed; precisely one day later, a bang had taken the poor bird from the sky.
Her next friend was a bear cub. They had played together until the mother bear had came, her cub’s playful bleats having caught her attention. The fearsome growls had frightened the child so much that she had ran and she never got to see the bear cub again.
A hunter, in full camouflage, had also seen the young mutant. He looked down at her and smiled. He was only there for rabbits. Besides, the child could’ve easily been human. She was probably just there on some day trip or picnic with her family and would soon find her way back to her people.
However, he was taken aback when this child asked for food. He knew better than to indulge a child’s dangerous request for food from a stranger, so he kindly refused.
“Please…”
“Sorry, little girl, no.”
“Pleeeeaaaase! Pretty please!”
“Sorry, child, no. Go back to your parents!”
“I can’t!”
“Why ever not? Are you lost? Where are your parents?”
“Th-they’re not here!”
Sunlight’s real parents had strictly forbade her from ever telling anyone of her situation, under the threat of a Man with eyes on all mutants, who loves nothing better than to kill and destroy her kind. The terrified child had cried and turned her back on them after that.
“Where are they?”
“I think they died.”
Sunlight was generally a good girl, but, like all children, she could be naughty and lie sometimes. It is in a child’s nature, after all.
The man was shocked. “Well, I’ll have to tell the police.”
“Please don’t”
After that, the hunter had caved in and given this child a sandwich and a yogurt. He did, of course, call the police.
Sure enough, the Quanish coppers did come and search for the missing orphan. However, on their search, they encountered no one, except for a few colleagues, who were dragging the slain remains of some mutant child. They saw that the corpse matched the brief description of the reported child. Angry at the supposed mistake, they called the hunter and informed him that the child he had seen had quite possibly been a mutant and was now deceased. They said not to worry; they wouldn’t fine him for wasting their time for this easy mistake. After all, how was he to know that this child had been a mutant?
He, of course, was most upset and cried at the supposed loss of this innocent child. He sipped his tea, still in tears and hoped and prayed that this had merely been a case of mistaken identity and that this was not the same child, but he knew that there was nothing that could be done legally to punish any mutant hunter or his colleagues for the legal hunting and killing of a mutant. Also, why would he want to punish slaves for carrying out their master’s orders?
Meanwhile and elsewhere, the colleagues and their masters sat around their camp, as their horses browsed the hay nets that were tied to posts. They had been in training that day were tired out. Their dummy, a fake child that had been used to replicate the real quarry they would soon once again pursue, lay slightly tattered and scratched, yet still very similar in description to the child that had been described previously.
This very child was still in hiding. She had slept that night in the bushes, after drinking rainwater from a puddle, only to be awoken by the mutant team as they browsed the woods the next morning. They had startled here and she had accidentally blinded one such mutant with her power.
There was a sudden startled reaction; the mutant in question was a guy named Tarak, with a keen sense of smell and matching beast-like strength, and he had all but fallen back in shock. When he had gotten over his brief shock, he had notified Echo and she had called a Team Meeting.
At the team meeting, Echo had stepped regally in front of the team at the camp and spoken.
“This here child is to be taken into the team. Any proper objections shall be proposed at this minute or not at all!”
Everyone was silent. Instead of speaking, the team had all smiled at this child.
“And what might your name be, dear child?” Echo had asked.
“I-I can’t say! When Mummy and Daddy left me here, they said a Man would kill me if I told anyone my name or told anyone about them.”
Echo smiled down at her lovingly. Poor child, she had thought, growing all the more maternal by the moment. She crouched and hugged the child, smiling at her and caressing her hair. “Very well, my dear. You shall be called Sunlight, after your impressive power. And at such a young age, too! And you shall be mine! Mine to me, my dearest!”
On this very day, Sunlight, unusually, was the first one to leave the tent of deer hide. She began and amble around the camp, hollering at the top of her voice, calling “Wakey wakey!”
The whole team, disgruntled at having been woken up, eventually came out and found themselves standing before Echo. Luckily, there was no need for foraging this morning, as there were still some leftover apples, a few harvested mushrooms and some berries leftover, enough to feed everyone for the morning. They had also utilised three of their clay water jars to bring back and boil some lake water, of which some had already been drunk during the night, but there was still enough for breakfast.

Ashes, Lizards and    Leadership
By Victoria Salter
In the Ancient Time, a millennia (as estimated by Man) before the Arrival of the First Man, there existed Nothing in this universe, not even black nor matter, and not even emptiness itself. Outside of the universe, in the Realm of the Unreachables, however, there existed the Creator, Exuas, the one who would become the Lord of All Things Natural and Supernatural.
He was dissatisfied with what he saw on our empty patch. So dissatisfied was he, in fact, that he summoned his energy to form an orb of energy, to create the foundation for what would become Earth. He created all the lands we know and love, but one particular land was his favourite. That was the land Quanland, dedicated as a home for the supernatural.
First of all the beings, came the many creatures of the animal realm. The fox, the wolf, the badger, the wildcat, the bear, the lynx, the deer and the rabbit would roam the forests and breed, along with the crow, the rook, the raven, the robin, the pigeon, the wigeon, the owl and the hawk. Of course, along with the hawk came his friends, the eagle, the harrier, the buzzard and the kite. Along with the newly formed rivers, brooks, lakes and seas came the fish, the whale, the dolphin, the shark and let’s not forget the crabs and the lobsters. Along with the stretched out savannahs, further east of Quanland, came the lion, the giraffe, the zebra, the baboon, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the cheetah, the antelope and the buffalo. Further east yet again, in the depths of the Asian rainforests and temperate forests, came the forest elephant, the tiger, the forest leopard, the jungle deer, the monkey and the apes.
To the west side of Quanland came the okapi, the jaguar, the toucan, the tapir and vampire bat. Speaking of which, the many bats were spread across the entire Earth, in fact!

In the frigid regions of the tundra up north, there came the polar bear, who would come to be revered in time to come by the Inuit, along with the penguins, reindeer and arctic hare, while the orca, beluga and narwhal would inhabit the frigid waters of the iced lands.
To the south of Quanland, in Antarctica, there came the penguins and the leopard seal, along with the Children of the Fish. Survival would certainly be tough in these parts, but the creatures therein would be equipped to survive in their beautiful world of bleakness and ice.
Exuas saved the best until last. When he turned back to Quanland, he decided that some of the spirits of the deceased would continue to roam and learn before coming to the afterlife. They would be the first Animal Ghosts. He then decided to create the vicious and predatory demons, as well as some herbivorous demons, but they were called by a name which is so godly that I cannot write it here. It is in the unintelligible language, a name that cannot be written in any Man or other Earthly language, but only by Exuas himself. These beings were only called demons after Man came onto the scene. In order to keep order in this world, Exuas also created the demon-slayer, a female supernatural resembling a young girl, armed with a stake and the ability to run at the speed of lightning, along with supernatural strength.
He also created some animals which sadly no longer exist in this mortal plane. From energy, he morphed the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhino, the thylacine and the short-faced bear. He also formed the warrah, the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the heath hen and the bluebuck.
He also created the reptiles, the lizards and serpents, the tortoise and the dragons. Along with these came the amphibians, the frog, the salamander and newt. Some of them would dwell in the water, whilst others would dwell upon the land. Others still would dwell in the trees, and in amongst the creepers, as they crawled, slithered or walked, and as the serpent would coil herself around the foliage and hunt for another of Exuas’s creations; the rodents, the squirrels, the rats and the mice, along with many a shrew and vole.
Even the invertebrates, the ants, the lacewings, the moths, the butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, stinkbugs, beetles and devil’s coach-horses, along with the snails, slugs, worms and those terrestrial crustaceans that would come to be known in time as woodlice were created from orbs of energy by Exuas’s mighty hand.
Next, he created the Man. This was an ape, similar to a demon-slayer but with no special powers.
Next, came the vampires, predators with an appetite for blood, to hunt and control both Man and all the beasts. Some vampires, however, would opt for human blood, choosing the more intelligent and able prey, whilst others preyed on the more innocent beings, the animals.
But Man, however, was dissatisfied with his lack of supernatural power. Egged on by the lying Unseen, beneath the Earth, in the darkness that remained, he began to rebel. Although he had started out only taking what he needed, he started killing for sport. He became so egotistical that he even hunted some demons to extinction, viewing them as a menace to his existence.
As time went on, the relationship between Man and Exuas became like a war of jealousy and ego (on the side of Man) and anger and disappointment (on the side of Exuas). So, in order to get back at Man, Exuas created yet another supernatural. This was a creature with the positive aspects that Man originally had, of coexistence with nature and the supernatural, of harmony and loyalty and of humility without greed, but they actually did have unique supernatural abilities and even shared genetics with Man. He called the first of this species the Mutant.
Then, Exuas spoke. “These creatures come in peace! You are to treat them with respect!”
But Man did not listen. Instead, he saw that a certain group of these mutants had developed a peculiar power, the ability to smell the mutant gene and distinguish mutants from humans, as well as immunity to all other mutant powers. Although they had the supernatural abilities that Man still lacked, Man had, by now, developed weapons and the use of intelligence for oppression and saw opportunity with these particular mutants, who would come to be known as the colleagues.

As the dawn chorus broke upon the wide Quanish moor, the first of the morning’s birds flew from her nest. But the morning was strangely quiet and bleak. There was mist and also wafts of danger in the air. These wafts of danger entered the morning’s vibe, and did not go unnoticed by the young mutant as he plucked his autumn apples off of the tree. Eventually, his attention was caught by some faint sound. There it was! The sound of the Call to Hunt from Man’s horn filled the air, along with the uproar of the meeting of the colleagues.
He made the quick decision to run and be on the alert. He made a dash to the forest thicket, hoping to lie low and remain undetected, as if by some miracle. He knew he had no chance of fighting back.
As the sound of horse hoofbeats thundered across the moor and drew closer, the young mutant swiftly decided to change direction and attempt to confuse the colleagues by running all over the place, leaving the footprints from his animal hide boots all over the place in the mud, before discreetly tucking himself into an abandoned wolf den.
Inside the den, the young mutant discovered that the place was incredibly large for a wolf den and appeared unoccupied. He lay down in the dirt and decided to lie low.
Sure enough, the birds of the thicket soon took flight at the sound of the hustle from the mutant-hunter upon his horse, as followed by the colleagues. Most of the colleagues passed by the den, appearing to miss the scent of the mutant gene therein. Some, however, did not. Following the first colleague to notice, a small band from within the main band entered the den. Therein, the young mutant attempted to fight them off, to no avail. He took a turn and left the den and ran in the opposing direction, utilising his supernatural speed. Alas, as he came upon the moor, he released that even his supernatural speed was not enough to have the colleagues panting in the distance. So, upon seeing the train tracks that ran across the moor, he decided to chance his luck. After all, it was either get stabbed to death to by the colleagues or chance an escape at the mercy of any nearby train.
As ill luck would have it, however, there was a large train approaching. While Man stayed back on his horse, he watched with shock, horror and ire as several of his beloved slaves fell victim to the oncoming train, as the mutant escaped. The mutant-hunter did, however, follow the colleagues and the mutant to the riverbanks underneath.
Several water birds paused their morning breakfast of fish only briefly as the water they relied upon became red with blood, with some taking sips of the now crimson water. They were only disturbed into flight as the cries of both colleague and mutant filled the morning air, but only returned once the morning air returned to its eerie silence.
The sky was still red as the morning sunlight, young in the day, shone upon the moor. The few lizards that dwelled under the bush had finished their morning meal of crickets and left to find the sun.
Birds flew overhead, passing a mutant camp beneath as they chatted and chirped, before one of their number landed and began digging at a most fertile spot in the land. This area of soil beneath the grass was filled with worms. As soon as the other birds realised that one of their number had discovered a bountiful feast of earthy invertebrates, they all swooped down and began a chorus of excited chirping and calling.
It was this very calling that awakened young Sunlight, just one of a whole team of mutants, as the child of just five years of age lay in her tent, by the side of her adoptive mother, Echo. Echo was the leader of the team. She was a noble and just leader, and had willingly taken the young outcast Sunlight into her loving embrace just this same season. She always allowed Sunlight to eat first at team feasts. Young Sunlight would accompany the team when they went foraging for fruit and had even began practicing the use of her power; to blind people temporarily, harnessing the power of the sun.
Sometimes, Sunlight had to be awakened by Echo, as her young body rested and her young mind meandered through the fields of the Dreamland whilst her eyes were closed. Today, however, Sunlight had awakened before Echo. The young mutant nudged and badgered her adoptive mother so relentlessly that the pale-haired mutant awakened and could no longer dream or shrug her adoptive daughter away.
Not even four seasons ago, Sunlight, born as a mutant to her human family, had discovered her power by accidentally blinding her uncle for a brief few moments. The young and innocent child had informed her family, as her uncle tried to make sense of what had happened and explain everything to his brother’s family and their parents. A few scorned looks would’ve told an older mutant all they would’ve needed to know. The family, devastated over the state of being that their own child had found herself in, had talked in private. They did not want their other child, a baby boy of just six months, nor his cousins, a boy and girl of just eight and ten, respectively, to grow up around a dangerous child like that. Their daughter would have to go. So, devastated, they took the young mutant out and callously abandoned their own child on the moor. There was just no way they could’ve kept her, and nor could they’ve put the other children at any adoption agency in such peril, with all the hysteria about such dangerous supernaturals that was floating around.
There, the young Everlyn had wandered and cried. She was all alone, with no one except the wild animals for company. So she had first befriended a crested geraffe, a game bird highly desired for Man’s insatiable greed for meat. Unsurprisingly, their friendship was doomed; precisely one day later, a bang had taken the poor bird from the sky.
Her next friend was a bear cub. They had played together until the mother bear had came, her cub’s playful bleats having caught her attention. The fearsome growls had frightened the child so much that she had ran and she never got to see the bear cub again.
A hunter, in full camouflage, had also seen the young mutant. He looked down at her and smiled. He was only there for rabbits. Besides, the child could’ve easily been human. She was probably just there on some day trip or picnic with her family and would soon find her way back to her people.
However, he was taken aback when this child asked for food. He knew better than to indulge a child’s dangerous request for food from a stranger, so he kindly refused.
“Please…”
“Sorry, little girl, no.”
“Pleeeeaaaase! Pretty please!”
“Sorry, child, no. Go back to your parents!”
“I can’t!”
“Why ever not? Are you lost? Where are your parents?”
“Th-they’re not here!”
Sunlight’s real parents had strictly forbade her from ever telling anyone of her situation, under the threat of a Man with eyes on all mutants, who loves nothing better than to kill and destroy her kind. The terrified child had cried and turned her back on them after that.
“Where are they?”
“I think they died.”
Sunlight was generally a good girl, but, like all children, she could be naughty and lie sometimes. It is in a child’s nature, after all.
The man was shocked. “Well, I’ll have to tell the police.”
“Please don’t”
After that, the hunter had caved in and given this child a sandwich and a yogurt. He did, of course, call the police.
Sure enough, the Quanish coppers did come and search for the missing orphan. However, on their search, they encountered no one, except for a few colleagues, who were dragging the slain remains of some mutant child. They saw that the corpse matched the brief description of the reported child. Angry at the supposed mistake, they called the hunter and informed him that the child he had seen had quite possibly been a mutant and was now deceased. They said not to worry; they wouldn’t fine him for wasting their time for this easy mistake. After all, how was he to know that this child had been a mutant?
He, of course, was most upset and cried at the supposed loss of this innocent child. He sipped his tea, still in tears and hoped and prayed that this had merely been a case of mistaken identity and that this was not the same child, but he knew that there was nothing that could be done legally to punish any mutant hunter or his colleagues for the legal hunting and killing of a mutant. Also, why would he want to punish slaves for carrying out their master’s orders?
Meanwhile and elsewhere, the colleagues and their masters sat around their camp, as their horses browsed the hay nets that were tied to posts. They had been in training that day were tired out. Their dummy, a fake child that had been used to replicate the real quarry they would soon once again pursue, lay slightly tattered and scratched, yet still very similar in description to the child that had been described previously.
This very child was still in hiding. She had slept that night in the bushes, after drinking rainwater from a puddle, only to be awoken by the mutant team as they browsed the woods the next morning. They had startled here and she had accidentally blinded one such mutant with her power.
There was a sudden startled reaction; the mutant in question was a guy named Tarak, with a keen sense of smell and matching beast-like strength, and he had all but fallen back in shock. When he had gotten over his brief shock, he had notified Echo and she had called a Team Meeting.
At the team meeting, Echo had stepped regally in front of the team at the camp and spoken.
“This here child is to be taken into the team. Any proper objections shall be proposed at this minute or not at all!”
Everyone was silent. Instead of speaking, the team had all smiled at this child.
“And what might your name be, dear child?” Echo had asked.
“I-I can’t say! When Mummy and Daddy left me here, they said a Man would kill me if I told anyone my name or told anyone about them.”
Echo smiled down at her lovingly. Poor child, she had thought, growing all the more maternal by the moment. She crouched and hugged the child, smiling at her and caressing her hair. “Very well, my dear. You shall be called Sunlight, after your impressive power. And at such a young age, too! And you shall be mine! Mine to me, my dearest!”
On this very day, Sunlight, unusually, was the first one to leave the tent of deer hide. She began and amble around the camp, hollering at the top of her voice, calling “Wakey wakey!”
The whole team, disgruntled at having been woken up, eventually came out and found themselves standing before Echo. Luckily, there was no need for foraging this morning, as there were still some leftover apples, a few harvested mushrooms and some berries leftover, enough to feed everyone for the morning. They had also utilised three of their clay water jars to bring back and boil some lake water, of which some had already been drunk during the night, but there was still enough for breakfast.