Revenge
An Original Fan Fiction Written by amyfan14
Based on M. Night Shyamalan's Film The Village
THE FIRST CHAPTER"Senses"
Ivy Walker stood numbly on the wooden porch of her quaint, innocent home. Her light blue-grey dress fluttered in the slight breeze, sending shivers up her spine. She pulled a green shawl she had draped about her elbows up and tightened it around her trembling shoulders. Her haphazard, almost-red hair blew untidily into her blind face as she stared in simple determination into the darkness before her, which was really a large stretch of grass that ended by the entrance into Covington Woods. A large but oddly flat rock sat by the wood's edge as well, and a fresh slab of livestock leg was sitting precariously on top of it. Ivy could smell its putrid aroma as if it was lying at her feet, for her other senses were much stronger than any others', to make-up for her lost eyesight.
A mud-encrusted hand drifted through the fair locks of Ivy's hair, straightening back from the wind. As she lowered her hand again, Ivy decided that she would return to Lucius' home to make sure the medicine she had retrieved from the towns was working. She groped blindly for a large, fat birch rod she had used in the woods after her own walking stick had broken in half. She found it and grabbed it.
As she began to turn to step off her porch, she stopped. Her already blind eyes became even more fixed in avid determination, and she cocked her head ever so slightly to the left, towards the rock where the rack of meat was lying. Ivy breathed hard, waiting….listening….
And then she heard it, a low rumbling growl emanating between the seventy-yard expanse between her home and the woods. The heart-wrenching scrape, scrape, scrape of all too familiar claws against the ragged stone, and a heavy, almost unearthly breathing sound. These were the only sounds that Ivy cared about. The rippling wind, the distant voices of villagers, none of that mattered.
Then, without warning, the sounds ceased. There was an eerie pause as Ivy stood, stock-still and full of tension, listening with all her might and not daring to move in any way. Suddenly, her sensitive ears picked up a slow schlesh, schlesh, schlesh, of the creature beginning to eat from the leg of flesh. How abnormal and perverse was the sound, Ivy thought. Nothing, nothing, made sounds of pure evil like that.
Ivy, beginning to cramp from standing still in the same position for nearly 5 minutes, began to slowly twist her body into a new position. She turned to the left, towards the eating sounds, as slowly as she possibly could, so as not to attract the attention of the one feasting. Listening hard with all her ear-power, she sighed lightly in relief as she neared her new bodily position.
Then, at the last second that she was turning around, her boot caught the outer edge of the old rocking chair that always sat in the same place on the porch. Already filled with dread from being heard, Ivy jumped at the surprise touch of the chair, not recognizing it for what it was. She gasped wildly, tripped, and fell forward, sending the chair rocketing back into the wall of the house. Her walking rod slipped from her hands and fell with a loud clatter onto the wooden porch. She reached out blindly as she fell, and caught one of the beams that held the home's roof up. Crying, she lifted herself up, clinging to the beam as though it might protect her from what was surely about to happen.
Confirming her worst fears, a harsh, cough-like sound made itself heard, coming from the area of the rock. Ivy closed her blind eyes and thought desperately It cannot be. Not again!
Then, as just moments before, there was complete and utter silence. Ivy could just hear the thing turning ever so quietly, facing her. All she could do was cling to the pole, hope that her legs would not give way, and pray.
After a few painfully agonizing moments, nothing happened. Silent tears were streaming down Ivy's pale, slightly freckled face from the searing pain in her legs. Listening for any sign that the creature was moving away, back into the woods, Ivy started involuntarily shaking.
No! she prayed desperately. Please, PLEASE do not let it see me! Do not let it see me! I cannot bear it! Send it away!
The wind picked up, blowing Ivy's dress about in a wild way. It will have seen my dress she gave up in utter despair. Straining to hear as the wind died down again, Ivy slowly heard the crunch of leaves. Her heart jolted in terror, and she concentrated harder. The leaves and grass crunched beneath heavy footfalls again….leading away from Ivy's house, back into Covington Woods!
Lifting her aching body back up as the footsteps died away completely, Ivy thanked her Lord and then quickly flung her hands out, feeling for the chair she had knocked into the wall as she had fallen. After finding it, she groped for a mud-stained, ragged yellow cloak and threw it onto her quivering body. Then she bent low and found her birch rod, rising again and steadying herself.
Ivy set off at a fast pace, uttering numbers under her breath as she went. She rounded her house on the left side and let the green shawl that had become loose as she had put on her cloak fall away from under it, onto the dirty ground.
I must reach Lucius' home quickly she thought desperately. If Those We Don't Speak Of are stirring in revenge, I must inform the Elders.