The Last Soul — Short Story
Blythewood is a quiet, peaceful village located near the Hettlec Canal. The whole village is surrounded by a forest, except for the river front, that has a bridge connecting it to the rest of the world. The place seems to be untouched by time, the village looks medieval. The houses are small wood cottages linked by a dirt path, the earth is plowed by hand, the fish caught with rods and the trees chopped by manual saws. Almost all the villagers love the place just as it is, all but the younger generation. They dream of going to a big city, and to drive cars, instead of the carts and horses, just like they heard in the stories told by merchants. Blythewood looks almost as identical as to when the fabled King David ordered its construction to explore the resources that The Lost Souls Grove offered to his kingdom. Of course, it wasn’t called that back in the day. The legend says that the woodworker’s rode into the forest to get the precious trees for their king, ignoring the mystical whispers that could be heard at night. When they rode into the forest in the early morning to collect the wood, they didn’t comeback with it at the end of the day. Instead, they came back looking like empty husks of themselves and attacked the village. King David’s knights, handpicked by David himself, charged in the next day and slaughtered the woodworkers, stopping them on their feet, leaving the village almost deserted. King David ordered the forest to be burned, but the knights were too afraid to enter it, so they just closed it down, hoping no one would be foolish enough to enter it again. The remaining people stayed there and vowed to never let anyone enter that place again, sharing the story with every generation that came afterwards.
Through the passage of time, the story became a legend and people began to doubt its authenticity. One day, an historian named Richard Spoon, rode into the village, and stayed at its inn. He had heard the legend from someone in the city of Aalok and was curious to hear it firsthand from the villagers that lived there. He listened very carefully to it, and afterwards volunteered to prove to them, that their fabled legend was wrong. They grew furious at Richard, but with the fear of the rumors being true, they were set to change his mind. Richard wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that pass him by, so, against the warnings of the villagers, he rode into the forest in the dim light of an early morning. He never returned, and the villagers rushed to the gate that was sealing the entrance to the grove and waited for him, nervously. After a few minutes, they heard him screaming and begging for his life, and rapidily they decided to close the gate again, terrified of the husks from the legend. They heard his screaming for 3 days in a row, and then, when it finally stopped, the whispers started again. The villagers cursed Richard, and blamed him for reawakening the forests hunger for mortal souls. They vowed to never let anyone enter the forest, ever again, just like their ancestors did.
