Every 100 years, he came.
Every 100 years, he came to take.
Every 100 years, the monster beyond the forest demanded an offering.
Refusing him wasn't an option. It was the only way to appease his hunger.
This year was no different. His conditions were always the same:
Bring me a woman with jewel eyes.
The village was usually quiet, but not tonight. Tonight was the night of the offering—the night another life would be sacrificed.
"PLEASE! Please, don't do it. She's my daughter, Vernon... please. Please! Don't take her away from me!"
Yuelina watched as her mother marched with them, though at a distance. The villagers had made sure of that. They were desperate, all of them.
"Stay away, Lenore. I understand that she's your daughter, but you know we have no choice!" The mayor kept her mother at arm's length, his face reddened, his forehead wet with anxious sweat.
"What you did was treason. Treason! Don't think you'll get off lightly for this betrayal." He raised his chin toward two other villagers, then gestured towards the heart of the village. "Lock her up."
"No! Noooo!" Kicking and screaming ensued, though there was nothing Yuelina could do to help. They'd tied her wrists and ankles—loose enough for her to walk, tight enough to prevent her from running.
Her body shook with fear.
Fear for her mother. Fear of what was to come.
I should have never gotten curious. I should have never left the house.
For as long as she could remember, her mother had been fiercely protective of her. It was the reason she insisted Yuelina remain at home, never venturing beyond their secluded dwelling. All her life, she had been told they couldn't live in the village because she was ill, though she had never felt sick. A weak body, a fragile constitution—her mother had claimed that any contact with the villagers could put her life at risk.
But tonight, she'd learned the truth.
To the outside world, Lenore's daughter had died upon her birth. Only, she hadn't.
Yuelina was that daughter. She was the one with the jewel eyes.
Every 100 years, a girl among the villagers was born with them. Bright, jewel-like and with an unnatural color. Nobody knew why or how. But they were a dead giveaway as to who was to be the next offering. They were like a curse, a mark of death itself.
Of him. It. The monster that was master to the dark forest that enclosed the village.
"I truly believed Lenore had lost her mind with grief after her baby was declared dead. And she played the part flawlessly, had us all convinced. We were fools, every one of us. Who would have imagined that all this time, the food, the clothes—they weren't for some ghostly figment, but for a living child? Ha!"
She was pushed unkindly, nearly tripping over her own feet.
The mayor scoffed. "Move, you cursed thing. You have a duty to uphold."
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➊
The clearing that separated the village from the forest was eerily quiet as they waited. The light of the moon and the flicker of the villagers' torches were the only sources that illuminated the path ahead.
The village men peered into the darkness with bated breath, Yuelina at their center. Not to protect her, but to make sure that she remained right where she was.
Every single one of them was praying, hoping, for the same thing:
Die. Please, die in our stead.
It was obvious in the way they had looked at her earlier, in the tension that hung in the air now.
She looked down at the dress they'd forced on her. Black, solemn, suffocating. The kind you wear to a burial—though no one seemed to notice the corpse was still breathing. With a veil drawn over her head, she was blind to everything, her face and hair swallowed by the fabric like the rest of her will.
Perhaps it was better that way.
Yuelina wasn't ready to face it just yet—that every step she took brought her closer to the maw of something beyond mercy or reason. That she was nothing but bait for a creature with no name.
She shuddered, imagining what it might look like.
Was it tall? Had twigs for limbs? Was it a shadowy creature with dark eyes and giant jaws?
Would it rip into her slowly, or swallow her whole?
"There!" one of them whispered.
Every gaze turned sharply in that direction. None could glimpse the monster yet, but they all felt its looming presence.
He was here.
She sucked in a breath.
The mayor stepped forward. "W-we have her! Your offering is ready for you. We're upholding and honoring the deal!" He swallowed audibly. "You, bring her here."
Her arm was taken, and she was guided to stand next to the mayor. He bowed down to her level, whispering into her ear. "You will walk twenty steps ahead now. Let him have a look at you. He must approve of you." His voice dropped lower. "Think about your mother, how she's protected you all this time. If you don't, she might be next."
Vile bastard.
His breath was rancid; his terror palpable. The nerve of him to threaten her, even now.
But it worked—Yuelina gritted her teeth.
Her mind screamed to run, to fight, to refuse. But the whisper of her mother's safety anchored her feet in place. What shocked her most wasn't the danger or the fear. It was how easily they had made the decision.
No one argued. No one hesitated.
They all just quietly agreed that her life was the one to give. They told themselves it was for the greater good, that one person could be sacrificed to protect many. It was reasonable. Necessary. But it didn't make it fair, no. It just made it easier for them to live with the guilt. That reasoning only held when it wasn't their life on the line—when it wasn't them being led toward sacrifice. To them, she was a solution. A way out. And that was the most damning thing of all: that they were willing to let someone else pay the price for their safety.
"Now go."
Yuelina hesitated before she forced herself to step away.
Each movement felt heavy, weighted by the crushing silence around her. Her legs trembled, but she took the first step. Then another.
The fear deepened like a stone settling in her chest.
Her breath came shallow and uneven, the shadows pressing closer—as if the darkness itself were watching, waiting. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, unwilling to meet whatever eyes were meant to fall upon her.
Twenty steps. Just twenty. And then everything would change. Or end.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, counting silently with each step.
One... two... three...
The crowd's murmurs faded to a distant hum, replaced by the sound of her own heartbeat pounding loud enough to drown out everything else. She clutched her arms tightly, the cold air giving her goosebumps.
Seven... eight...
Her vision tunneled. The world narrowed to this slow, agonizing march toward an unknown horror, each step dragging her closer to whatever awaited.
Thirteen... fourteen...
A sickening chill slithered up her spine. The air grew heavier, colder, but she forced herself to keep moving, each step slower than the last, as if wading through unseen resistance.
The seconds stretched and stretched.
Her body stayed tense, caught between panic and reluctant acceptance. Every instinct begged her to flee, yet her feet refused to betray the silent promise she had made.
Then, she stopped.
Twenty.
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