Far back in the woods there is a hut, ancient and deformed, with trees bent and gaping around it, bark twisted into horrific visages.
The air inside hangs thick with the odor of decay, commingled with the metallic tang of blood and an unholy sweetness that weighs like a dirge.
No fires burn here, long forgot; no song serenades these sterile walls. Even birds, sensitive to the horror, shun its roof. They remember. It is one of the three.
Not bears, not anymore. They may have, long ago, danced with the wild, donning fur and life, but the dark magic of the forest scraped against their souls.
It elongates their bodies, distorts their faces into grotesque grimaces, looming over thresholds, jaws agape, claws able to etch despair into flesh.
Their skins tell tales — trophies of those who ventured too close.
And they waited. Ever vigilant. For the next idiot to trespass.
She walked, barefoot, her eyes blazing with reckless desire. Her dress, a tattered remnant of satin, shrouded her in filth, with dried blood clinging to the hem like a grisly trophy. Her curls did not flow like silk, but yellowed, like past lives ripped from the earth.
She did not even knock.
She entered, claiming dominion over the shadows once again. The cabin creaked in protest as she came in, but fear did not breach her facade. Three bowls of porridge waited—steam rising like specters, defying the dust that covered this forgotten abode. She tasted each in succession, her tongue blackened, laughter exploding the silence like shattered glass.
Too hot. Too cold. Just right.
She contaminated each bowl with her saliva, marking them with her presence.
Her quest continued to the chairs. One denied her weight with its austerity, one embraced her, but one collapsed under her, a splinter driving deep into her thigh. Laughter erupted from her mouth as red flowed down her leg.
There was a finding of beds, her filth marking the covers as she dragged herself across them. She inhaled deeply, the scent of aged dreams combining with her rot. Then she crawled into the smallest bed, squeezing herself into the darkness like a scourge finding shelter.
And she waited.
They scented her before they spotted her.
A rank intrusion. An unwelcome incursion. An infection brewing in the depths of the woods.
The door groaned open, and they burst into the dark within. Father — a giant, lean and shrouded in a quiet stillness. Mother — hunched, engulfed in locks of black hair, her claws damp with the sap of the rot of the forest. And the youngest. once cherished as Baby, now a corrupted crone swathed in a child's dead husk, twitched and cackled like the devoured. They witnessed her destruction.
The food spoiled. The chairs dirtied. The beds fouled.
And above. she waited.
They discovered her grinning, teeth cracked and gleaming with an evil hunger — a madness darker than space.
"Welcome home," she sang with a reptilian voice.
Father roared, but she descended like a ghost, faster than any heartbeat. She skewered his eyes with a jagged spoon, giggling as black fluid streamed. Mother shrieked, but the girl was upon her, sinking teeth into soft skin like an animal unleashed, her jaw unhinging terribly.
But Baby. Baby was unearthly.
It scuttled along the walls like a hunter spider, chittering in the dancing shadows. She spun, face smeared with red, hair wreathed with threads and ill intent.
They stood opposite each other — child and a nightmare mirror image.
And they danced in a twisted ballet. It wasn't combat; it was ritual communion. Limbs were torn off, flesh torn asunder. Laughter and shrieks were intermingled like writhing vines. When the silence fell, only one crawled out — changing, transforming, becoming.
If you ever stroll those damned woods and spot a deformed cabin, run farther than your legs can carry you.
Within is a girl. Or what remains of one. Her ringlets damp with blood. Her teeth razor-sharp. Her arms impossibly long.
She'll present a bowl of porridge.
She'll say it's just right.
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Has your childhood been ruined yet?