The Innocent and the Vicious
Wrote by Samantha
Drew by Hiram
Once a upon a time, in a small village mourning of poverty and no absolute order. A young innocent girl whose role was to pick strawberries, she wore tattered clothing and a glistening silver treaded necklace with an emerald orb which was past on generations down and was given by her deceased mother, the only family she had left and thought her to look up in the forsaken grim clouds that haunts the girl's life to see the small speck of the sun's brillant rays as hope before her downfall came from starvation with her being the only part of family she had left.
Many years later on another gloomy rainy day, a chairot with guardsmen on horses sorrounding it as a higher class woman stepped out feeling constantly nervous knowing that the place she placed foot on was an abandoned wasteland. She was the princess of the kingdom Orotopia miles from the village, and was named after the queen Dianna. A group of the small population of villagers came in with dull smiles, not a single jolly man in sight, and eyes of restless torment. The straw berry picker walked looking at the crowd's attention being in the end with a curious look on the princess' arrival. Dianna announced with shakes in her voice saying that the village was going to be provided with imports of a variey of food for an exchange of whatever the village had to offer, and as she reached the end of her sentence she spotted a spark from behind the gathering yelling out whoever possed the shining object. The girl came out with a basket of berries half-filled craddle in her arms, she raised an eyebrow as the princess pointed at her neckalace telling her to hand it over for the trade if she wants her village to survive. She refused to give it and Dianna became furious as it was the most beautiful jewelry she ever saw, with an exploding raised tone she asked the girl's name. She took back from being barked at answering her question,"Lilly." Dianna shook her head heading back into her chariot,"Lilly, you have given this city's last call of hope into oblivion." She left as the guardsmen accompanied back into the royal kingdom, leaving Lilly with wide eyes as the villagers glared at her with anger and sadness as the rain pour heavily on them. Running back into her home closing the door quickly knowing she will have her head on the gallow or get her head chopped off, her heart rapidly pounding with so much fear of what will happen thinking a way out of this mess. The only solution was to escape into the savage shaded woods filled with more chaos than this village. She prepared filling her basket with as much strawberries and a small rusted dagger for protection against any beast that tries to pounce on her and entered into the forests of stringing trees.
Miles away from the village, Lilly's clothes shred aginst the needlelike branches of bushes having scars on her fragile skin grunted in pain. A large thump on the ground with her knees fallen and head dragging looking at the black soil having no where else to go, until a faint clang of a bell was echoed through the grim pines and looked up barely able to stand up walking to where ever the sound was made. A few minutes passed, the girl sees a small bridge connecting to a broken wooden gate with high walls of stone hidding a large castle. Lilly ran to the fallen giant doors standing in a large lifeless courtyard but she did not care as long as this building had absolute protection from the chaos outside. She entered through a giant metal door then shuts it feeling a bit safe. She finds a chair resting on it rubbing her sides from all the scratches breathing in and out slowly as it ignited pain. Thunder illuminate from the grim skies shocking Lilly falling of her seat but a strange eerie shreik was made while her fall. She ran to the other side of the main room fearfully looking from every inch to find that yell. A small rubble was coming from the seat and her back was against the wall knowing there was no clear signs of any rats in this abandon castle. A small pool of saliva was under the legs of the chair and a long pink tongue was over the cushion and a mouth on the back. Lilly's eyes widened walking on her toes into the nearest room next her, before she entered the chair whispered a warning,"Beware of the vicious in this domain. It tears its prey to the marrow." Quickly she closed the door entering a small dusty bedroom hiding under the sheets placing her basket on the wooden floor shivering from the cold drops of rain. She wanted to get out of this castle, if the chair could talk and move then the other objects in this building could do the same and the lurking beast. Quick fortifications were made on the door incase anything comes to hunt her down and sleeps on the bed until the next morning with plans of leaving. A faint breath of warm air came underneath her thinking the bed was also living then tries to rest in a barbarous nightmare of the village.
The sky was bright in gray in the next day, endless howls of wolves kept Lilly awake through all the hellish dream. She got off the breathing bed eyes widened seeing that her fortified door was gone with a smooth unsettling breeze of air swirling around the girl as she walked out peeking from the sides of the doorway. The chair stood up at the same spot and the pool of saliva gone as well. Rubbing her hands on her sides she didn't feel any pain at all, she checked under her clothing seeing that her marks has disappered too. Walking slowly to the front door of the castle being cautious of every thing, a bloody howl came from behind Lilly and she hastly turned around. Nothing was there. She turned around again a slight gasp came from her mouth as it also vanished. There was no escaping or anywhere to hide as the building was against the girl wanting it to be another corpse for the beast. No windows as she walked at the halls of the abandoned fortress, statue after statue of knights and gargoyles, and faint whispers coming from each candle she walks pass. Lilly eventually found an empty room with the floor covered in blood and carcasses giving off a heavy putrid aroma seeing guts ripped off splattered on top of other bodies, skulls smashed into the scartched walls, and a bed made of various bones. Upon it a giant hideous wolf-like creature rests, the girl quivered in fear at the sight of the vicious monster she was warned. But a large window was behind it, the only way she could escape. Making a plan in her head she grabbed a skull throwing it somewhere in the hallway away from her hiding behind a bookcase outside of the slaughter room. A snarling growl and perked up ears the beast motioned standing up ten feet tall running quickly where the head landed not smelling the presence of the girl. A smile came on the girl getting out of covered but a book landed on her head softly, she looked down at it reading erased words of a curse plaqued on her village. Reading page after page she understood why the village suffered so much, the vicious is the reason why there are no livestock in the feilds or any other source of food, the fear it sends to the villagers. She was told as a child to always be near the village because of a monster grabbing her friends and siblings. Large foot steps were in haste into the room as the beast had fragments of bones on its claws shutting its eyes resting. Lilly had to find a way to stop the monster another book was dropped on top of her feet reading in foreign langangue, she opened it seeing pictures of a human transforming into the same creature in the room, a picture of some sort of relic inside a sanctaury underneath the castle. The girl slowly walked through the bizzare halls to find the basement entrance.
