The red moon was now high and heavy in the sky, and it cast a bloody glow over the entire village that made everything look like it was soaked in rust, but the silence that followed the bell was suddenly shattered by a sound that made my heart stop. From the deep, dark shadows of the forest, a howl erupted that was so mighty and so full of power that the ground beneath my feet seemed to shake, and it was followed by dozens of other howls that sounded like a chorus of thunder. The sound was not like a normal beast , but it was deep and vibrating, and it carried a hunger that made the air feel thick and hard to breathe. All at once, the "party" was over, for the villagers who had been dancing only minutes ago began to scream and run toward their huts, and the sound of children crying for their mothers filled the air as everyone scrambled to hide behind locked doors and silver-bolted windows.
"Gather now!" Elder Bram shouted, his voice cracking with a terror that he could no longer hide, and he waved his wooden cane at the thirty of us who stood in our white dresses. "The Beast Legion is at the walls, and the King is waiting for his tribute, so you must form a line and walk to the Edge right now, or they will come into the village and take what they want by force."
My mother tried to hold onto me one last time, but the village guards pushed her away, and I saw my little sister Mara being dragged into our house while she reached out for me with tiny, trembling hands. I felt a cold, sharp pain in my chest as I watched my family disappear behind a heavy wooden door, but I didn't have time to cry, for the elders were already pushing us toward the gate that led to the dark woods. We walked in a long, shivering line, and the only sound was the soft scuff of our slippers on the dirt and the distant, terrifying growls that seemed to be coming from every direction at once.
When we reached the Edge, the elders stopped at the very last row of houses and refused to go a single step further, for there was a line of white stones that marked the boundary between the world of men and the world of the beasts. "Go on," the Village Head whispered, his face as white as a ghost in the red moonlight, "walk into the tall grass and wait, and remember the rules if you wish to live through the night." We stepped over the stones and into the long, wild grass that felt like cold fingers brushing against our legs, and we stood there in a row, thirty girls in white dresses waiting to be taken by the shadows.
The snatching began without any warning at all, and it was so fast that it felt like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from. One second, a girl named Sarah was standing two feet away from me, and the next second, there was a sudden gust of wind and a blur of gray fur, and she was simply gone. There was no sound of footsteps and no sight of a face, but only a sharp, short scream that was cut off as she was pulled into the trees at a speed that no human eye could follow. Then it happened again, and again, as the beasts moved like lightning through the grass, snatching girls one by one and disappearing back into the dark before I could even blink.
I stood my ground, my hands clenching the silver pendant and the small blade hidden in my skirt, but my heart was drumming against my ribs like a trapped bird. The air was full of the scent of wet fur and old pine, and I could hear the terrified sobs of the girls remaining, but their voices were disappearing fast as the Legion claimed them. I watched as Mara's friend, a sweet girl who had been trembling all night, was suddenly lifted into the air by an invisible force and whisked away into the shadows, and soon, the long grass was empty of everyone but me. The silence that returned was even scarier than the screams, for it meant that I was the only one left, and I realized that the beasts had stopped their frantic, fast movements.
I looked around, my eyes wide and searching the tree line, but I didn't see a blur or a flash of fur this time. Instead, the bushes directly in front of me parted slowly, and a creature stepped out that was far larger and more terrifying than anything the elders had ever described in their stories. This beast did not move fast, and he did not snatch me like a piece of meat, but he walked toward me with a slow, heavy grace that made the very earth groan under his weight. He was taller than any man I had ever seen, and his body was covered in thick, midnight-black fur that seemed to swallow the red moonlight, but it was his eyes that truly paralyzed me. They were not just red, but they glowed like two burning coals in the dark, and they were fixed on my face with an intelligence that was cold and ancient.
This was not a common soldier of the Legion, but this was the King of the Beast in his most primal form, and as he stepped closer, I could feel the heat radiating off his massive body. He was so large that his shoulders reached the height of the lower tree branches, and his claws were like long, curved daggers made of obsidian that dug into the dirt with every step. I wanted to run, and I wanted to pull out my knife and fight, but my legs felt like they were made of stone, and my breath caught in my throat as he stopped just a few feet away from me. He lowered his massive head, his hot breath smelling of woodsmoke and wild things hitting my face, and he let out a low, vibrating growl that I could feel in my very bones. I was alone at the Edge, staring into the eyes of a monster that could crush me with a single paw, and for the first time in my life, my stubbornness was replaced by a pure, shivering fear that I was finally face-to-face with death itself.
