Author's Note: edited as of June 28, 2008

Chapter One

"Natana, hand me the bag of food." Mother motioned to a huge bag behind me. I nodded and grabbed its handle. Its weight was heavy for me, being the small and thin girl I was, and I struggled to get it over to mother. She tapped her foot impatiently as I slowly brought her the heavy bag.

"Thank you Natana." She took it from my hands, and like it weighed nothing, simply tossed it over by the cellar door. She came back to me, where I was now sitting on an overturned bucket, and smiled down at me. I smiled nervously back. She sat down with her legs criss-crossed and put her hand on my shaking knee.

"What if they lie? What if they break the promise? What if they…" I blurted out my fears, unable to contain them any longer, but stopped as my mom continued to smile. "Aren't you even a little bit scared?" I asked her, squinting my eyes as if this would help me figure out what she was truly feeling inside. She sighed, not wanting to go over everything for the fifth time this evening. I knew by that exact sigh and the look on her face what she was going to say and rolled my eyes.

"Hunny, we have a deal. We give them the food, they don't harm us. It's been going on for generations. They've never broken the promise, and neither have we. They only come every 10 years, so we get the food ready in the beginning of each time period so we don't have to worry about it later. We've always been one-hundred percent prepared, every single time. Natana, everything is going to be fine. I just hand them the bag, and they leave. It'll only take a minute." She explained and patted my knee reassuringly. She made it seem so simple and easy, but Natana could not shake her negative feelings.

"But mother! They could easily kill us and eat us too! They'd have nothing to lose! Mother...they can break the promise and we won't be able to stop them." I began to shake even more, and my mother put her hands on her waist.

"I told you, they won't break the promise. This is going to be like every other time in that past. Natana, you've got to stop worrying." Mother scolded and stood up. With the cellar ceiling low, she bent over as she walked to keep from hitting her head. She climbed up by the door and sat waiting. Just waiting for the creatures to come... I grabbed my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth. Even with my mother's confidence that all was to go well, deep down, I still had that feeling that they were going to break their promise. But I didn't know why. Maybe mother was right. I had never actually seen them before. I was only 8, too young to be able to see their horrifying faces. Not that I wanted to. These creatures were terrifying beasts that would kill any human they saw. But when they reached our village, many years ago, our leader made a deal. Each house would give them a huge bag of food filled to the brim with fruit, vegetables, and meat every 10 years, and doing so the creatures would leave our village alone. Or so my mother said all of this.

My mixed thoughts were broken as a large thud came from the cellar door. Mother stood up firmly with the bag of food in her left hand, her right hand placed on the cellar's door handle.

"Natana, hide your eyes. These creatures are too much for an 8 year old to see. It'll all be over soon." Mother said, and with no disagreement what so ever, I turned my back to her. I placed my hands over my eyes and waited for her to say all clear. Then I heard the cellar door open and some muffles from the creatures. I could tell the bag had been given to them. The creatures just sniffed about in it. More whispers, all in another language. I waited for the cellar door to close, but it didn't, causing the sick feeling in my stomach to rise into my throat. Mother must have been waiting for them to leave, instead of closing the door in their face. I shifted around impatiently. The whispers stopped and I heard the bag fall to the ground and tumble off. Questions grew in my mind but I did not dare turn to look. Mother told me to not look, no matter what I heard. She warned me that just one look at these terrible creatures could bring you endless nightmares as a child.

All there was as silence. But a high itched scream broke it all. Mother! Her scream got louder and I took a deep breath. That’s when I made one of the biggest mistakes in my life. My hands fell from my eyes and I turned around. In front of me were two ugly creatures, standing tall with mother half way in their mouths. They were chopping her in half…blood pouring everywhere. Each one was fighting over her body parts. In the distance, I heard another creature scream louder than anything I'd ever heard. The two creatures stopped devouring their feast, grabbed up what was left of my mother, and flew off into the night. And they did it all without even catching a glance at me. The bag of food still lay on our cellar dirt floor, completely abandoned and unwanted.

I threw up, right then and there. After that, everything went black…