How evil began.

Papa Jack and Nana were already rich from the hauls of treasure that he had hunted for, and found for them as a younger man. But it was never enough for them. The more they had, the more they wanted. Papa Jack would eavesdrop the conversations of sailors and drunks in the local Pubs, wild tales of treasures and myths. Once he had the rough location of the haul he would go hunting, sometimes alone, and other times with Nana.

As the years passed, they both knew it had to come to an end, it was very taxing on the body, clambering around on their hands and knees inside dark, damp, smelly caves and underground tunnels.

But this was life before the 'well' and once he and Nana drank the water from it, their normal lives were over.

One day, whilst searching a location that Papa Jack had sourced from one of his usual haunts, they found three caves opposite the most beautiful waterfall that they had ever seen. They stood and watched in awe as the water seemed to bubble and froth while cascading down the jagged, grey, rocky, cliff face, and plunge into a big pool that was full to the brim, but never overflowing. When they looked into the pool, the water was greenest of green colour that their minds could have possibly imagined.

Unfortunately, they were here on business, so they began to search the dark caves with their lanterns, for anything of any worth.

All they found in the first two caves were wet feet, from dirty, stagnant puddles of water, and cobwebs from the spiders that lived happily in the environment. Maybe they found the sound of the waterfall calming?

Whilst hunting cave three with their lanterns that dimly lit this dark, wet, smelly cave, as the orange and red flames flickered their shadows on the damp, cave walls they could see that the cave seemed to go deeper in, and so did they. Slowly, the sound of the waterfall began to fade out, but instead of a nice quiet sound Papa Jack and Nana's ears were greeted by scary, raspy, shrieking voices, and screams of laughter.

They had to know who it was, so they crept along, following the voices.

The closer that they got the more hideous the voices became, screeching, rasping and evil cackling started to deafen them. And then they saw two figures.

They looked like little old men, but their heads were slightly to large for their bodies. their ears were pointed,  but stuck outwards at the tip, their skin was pine green in colour, they had thin bony arms and hands with long talon like fingers and skinny legs. Their disgusting, twisted faces had a long, thin nose that hooked down at the end. This showed off their sharp, beady, evil eyes and a long slit mouth that went from ear to ear, full of razor sharp, piranha type teeth which hid a horrible long, thin, black tongue that forked at the end.

They were eating the body of something or someone. Tearing through the flesh like it was a thin piece of ham before crunching through the bones and laughing, only stopping to turn and pull evil, twisted faces at one another, which made them laugh more.

Suddenly they stopped, and began sniffing the damp air with their hooked noses. Papa Jack and Nana knew they needed to leave, and fast.

But they were too slow.

The little men were in front of them before they could turn, they are very fast.

Papa Jack and Nana begged for their lives as these evil, pine green coloured 'things' pinned them to the cold, damp, hard cave floor and started to sniff them before pulling their evil, twisted faces at them and laughing.

Luckily, they had just eaten.

Nana told them that they were only looking for treasures, nothing else. They had meant these little men no harm.

After some whispering and cackling between the two of them, the evil, twisted faced little men made them a deal.

One produced a small, glass bottle of clear liquid in his long, pine green, talon like fingers, he let them both have a very small sip each.

Whatever was in there made them feel incredible, after just a tiny sip 'imagine how you would feel after the whole bottle' Papa Jack thought to himself.

The evil faced little men told them that they would be given as much as they needed, and all it would cost them in return was one human baby each year, but it had to be under the age of two.

If they found and killed an elusive 'Beast' for them, well, they could then pass through this cave freely, and not only fill their own bottles from the 'well' that the liquid came from but explore the land that it situates in.

There was not even a pause before Papa Jack and Nana agreed the terms.

So they began to find and be-friend families with young babies, but they couldn't just snatch them, it would be too obvious.

Instead, they would kill the parents.

And give the babies away.

So their reward would continue.

But they wanted more, they wanted to see the 'well' and the land that it belonged to.

So they hunted the 'Beast' in their spare time, and one day, they would find and kill it.

After all, killing was second nature to them now.

Well it would be, because this has been going on for years and years...........and years!

But if they can go to explore this place, doesn't it stand to reason that it would work both ways?

You can find out in

The Uglies Part One of The Land of The Legends


Thanks for reading,

Gary