The Beast's Fall

It was 1942, the middle of winter. It had been a pretty average year for most the folks in town. My parents had just had thier second child, Me.

One day, one of our nieghbors had a quater of thier flock of sheep stolen and anouther quaters killed, the pastures fence was broken and the remaining sheep were scared shitless. That was the first attack.

Every night someone would get attacked.

One night, eventualy, it was us. Apparently The Beast ignored our fields and our sheep, it ignored our grain silo and the animals put away in the barn. It broke into my room, destroyed the wall. My parents were awoken by the sound of wood spliting and came running to my room.

My mother always said that what she saw haunted her very soul to the day she died. The Beast was towering over me, it had pulled me out of my crib and was holding me with one of its arms while pointing at me with the other, like a parent would. My parents burst in to see this, My Mother screamed and my Father jumped at it with his knife, it flintched at my Mother screaming and it cut my face from my left ear to my left eye. It tried to get out, still cradling me but, my father grabbed me and it made the only noise anyone has ever heard it make, all before it ran like the wind. I became incredably sick after that, the doctors said that i probably wouldn't survive to mounth's end.

Enough was enough aparantly, The other farmers were pissed and so was my Dad. My Father gathered all his Friends and All the Nieghbors and they all decieded to kill this thing, before too long The City Hall agreed to supply them with weapons and so did a traveling stitches merchant, they were going to hunt down and kill the damned thing. 30 men went out.

3 days later 30 men came back, they were cold, hungry, tired and frustrated. They had been led on a wild goose chase. Turns out this thing was Smart. Dad didn't give up though.

Dad resolved to go back out to find and kill The Beast, his friends tried to stop him but they only strengthened his resolve. He spent 5 days designing and forging a weapon made specifically to kill things like The Beast. He Named it "Folly".

When the Spear was done my Father took some supplies and left. My Mother said that on the 5th day my Father had been away, I got better, instantly. One moment I was in the midsts of a fever, I had an infected wound, I had diareia the next? All of it, gone.

Two days later My father returned to the Village. He was covered in blood, his clothes were torn to shit, he only had Folly in his left hand, his eye was squeezed shut from some damage and his back had a nasty cut across it. He stumbed past the West gate and into town. Folk started to follow him, ask if he was alright and when he didn't respond, tried to drag him to a healer just for him to push them off. He had atracted quite a crowd by the time he reached the centre of The Hollow. He lay against the tree in the tree in the centre, head on its trunk and uttered

That Damned Beast is dead.

And he was no more. He died where he lay, under that trees canopy. Theres actualy a iron statue of him there, same position, holding the Spear in his hand, everything accurate to a fault. I visit it sometimes, its better than the graveyard in some ways.

At some point there was an argument about where the spear should go. City hall argued it should go with them and into its museum. Dad's friends argued it should be buried with him. Mum wanted to keep it. So, in order to shut them up she split the spear in 3. One part with Us, One part with The City and One part with Dad.