There once was a world where a man lived with his daughter in eternal bliss until his daughter was stolen from him by an evil monster. This monster was there in their town one day and one day alone and then he was gone with a few children from the town, all of the female children, actually. The father was the prime minister of the town and started a search to try and find all of the children right away but after 10 years, he gave up hope when a child's body appeared in the river upstream from the town. The rest of the townspeople assumed that all of the other children who had disappeared had been killed as well so no one was willing to try and find the young girls any longer. It has now been 15 years since the young girls have disappeared and it is time for their return to their homes.
"Daddy?" "Papa!"
Shouts like this were heard in the forest from the voices of the young girls, now young women, on the day of their return.
"Do you hear that?" shouted a father who had gone insane with worry for his daughters' lives. "It's the girls! They've returned at last! I'm not crazy, I promise you! I actually do hear them right now! You hear them too, don't you, Prime Minister?"
"Quiet you, you senile fool," scolded one of the nurses.
"No, I think he speaks the truth, I do hear something… Maybe the girls truly are alive…" The prime minister mumbled. "Bah. It's probably just the smell of the medication in this God-forsaken hospital making me loose my head right now… I'm going to take a breath of fresh air outside to clear my head. Please excuse me."
With that, the prime minister stumbled outside, thinking, 'Perhaps the girls are alive… Is it that bad to hope that they are? But if they are alive then it must be them that I can hear right now!' with mounting excitement until he burst into a run like he was being chased for his life. In honesty, he was chasing for a life, just not his own; he was chasing for the life of his daughter who had been kidnapped fifteen years ago. He was chasing for the life of his 22-year old daughter.
"Daddy? are you still here?" a voice shouted through the forest, to the left of the prime minister's path.
"Oliviana? Is that you?" the prime minister shouted in response.
At that time a girl came bursting through the trees into the path of the prime minister. Blood was coming from her eyes in the form of tears and her mouth was sewn shut. Another girl came hobbling through the forest, this one missing a leg and both hands. Both of these girls bore no resemblance to the innocent, young girls they had been when they were kidnapped, but that didn't change the chill of horror the prime minister felt scamper down his spinal cord at the sight of him. Although the sight of the two girls that had found him first were horrifying for the prime minister, the sight of the final girl dragging herself into the miniscule clearing by her hands brought him to his knees as he was plunged into the coldest bath of fear, shock, disgust, and relief that he had ever felt and ever would feel in his entire life. The final girl to enter the clearing was balanced on stumps for hands. Her legs had been chopped off from the hip-bone. Her eyes were taped closed and her nose was sewn shut. Even with all of these mutilations, the resemblance was un-mistakable; the final and most mutilated young girl to enter the clearing was the prime minister's daughter.
"Oliviana!!" the prime minister exclaimed, taking the bloodied and bruised stump of a girl into his arms. "I thought you were dead, my dear daughter!"
"Oh, Daddy! I never thought that I would see you again!" was heard from the sobbing girl named Oliviana. "Please, help us get back to the town, we need to get there or else The Hounds will catch up with us and kill us all! Please, we have to go!"
While she was talking, she extracted herself from her father's embrace and stumbled over to her friends who were stumbling and trying to walk out of the woods.
"Girls, come on. We have to go, now." She instructed. "My father is here and he will guide us out of here. Just follow his voice and we will all be safe and at home with our fathers!"
The girls assembled in front of Oliviana in perfect rows, and turned their heads in the direction of the prime minister as though he had spoken, even though he hadn't.
"This way out of the forest, girls," he commanded, falling into prime minister-mode. "Follow me and you will all be safe and at home soon."
The prime minister picked up his daughter and led the girls out of the forest at a leisurely pace until, all of a sudden, they heard what sounded dogs barking and howling in the distance.
"It's The Hounds!" the girls screamed in fear. "Hurry, we have to get out of here, now!"
The girls started to run or crawl as fast as they could go in order to get away from the haunting barking and howls emanating from the forest, dragging the prime minister along with them in their haste.
"Augh!" screamed one of the girls from the back of the group as a monstrous dog jumped on her from behind and started to bite her neck in an attempt to kill the young girl.
The prime minister started to head back to the young girl but his daughter stopped him.
"Dad, no. We can't go and help her or else we will be eaten too. We have to get out of here as fast as we can and mourn the loss of her life later instead of attempting to save here and mourn the loss of our own lives as well." Oliviana stated, tugging at her father's shirt with her lone hand. "I will tell you everything when we get across the bridge. We will be safe once we cross the bridge so we must hurry."
"RUN!!!" screamed the girl who had been attacked. "I'll distract them. They'll take me and then become distracted. JUST RUN!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
With renewed tears streaming down all the girls faces, the group took off once again, this time truly for their lives from a known enemy instead of from the unknown.
What in the world is going on here? the prime minister thought. I finally have my daughter back and I might loose her again? Why, God? Why must this happen?
Finally, when they all seemed to loose the chase, they reached the bridge leading to the town. With a final burst of speed, three of the girls, the prime minister, and the prime minister's daughter burst across the bridge and collapsed to the ground.
"Did we make it? Did we really make it alive?" one of the girls asked after she had caught her breath. "Tell me, Oliviana-sama, did we make it across alive or is this just a sick trick that we made it out alive and we are actually dead or still in our cells?"
"'Tis not a trick, child, so calm yourself," Oliviana said in reassurance. "If it were a trick, he would have called us back by now. If we were being tricked right now, we would have been pulled back into our true consciousnesses and we would be tortured for having dreams like this in such detail."
"Girls, tell me," the prime minister pleaded, "What is going on here? What were those creatures that looked like dogs that were chasing us? You must tell me all that you can as soon as we get back to the matron's home."
"Oh, Father, I wish we could tell you," his daughter exclaimed. "If we were to tell you, however, I fear that the curse placed upon us would kill us for speaking of us. If the curse doesn't kill us, however, we would be plagued with nightmares for longer than we should be with the memories of what happened to us these past years. Please, Daddy, just get us home and safe!"
With that, the prime minister submitted and took his daughter into his arms again and lead the tired and fearful group back to the village where they would, hopefully, be safe…
Soooo? How was it? Lemme know watcha think of this story. It's a really weird idea that I got in school a while ago… review!!!