Helene Amenda's Penance

Greetings. My name is Helene Amenda, and I wish to share with you a tale of revenge and horror, if for no other reason than as penance.

It was the Martober of 159. I had resigned myself to a cabin just outside Prosperville. My friend, May, had shared this place's existence with me three years prior. In its walls was a small library filled with novels from many decades past. Every year we would each take one or two home, in the hopes that whoever owned that place would not notice. When I learned that the owner was long dead and that noone made claim to the lot, I decided that I would spend a week, or several, reading to my heart's content.

That was, however, not to be, as a group of hunters had made their way into the forest behind the house.

These particular hunters, garbed in un-forest-like camouflage, were hardly moderate. Every other second, they would ramble in some horridly mutilated English or laugh at what can only loosely be called a joke. When they weren't babbling they were hunting, and every single shot fired missed, followed by further laughter as well as mockery of the shooter.

Their "speech" and "hunting" clouded my mind. I couldn't focus on my reading, the whole reason I came there. I couldn't let them know I was there. So, I remained in my THE cabin, waiting for silence, waiting for the ability to THINK!

This went on for days, and each one felt longer than the last. My only moments of clarity came at night, and by then I was far too exhausted. I was so sick of it. So sick of not reading as I had planned, of not having privacy, not having silence.

On the fifth night, I had met my limit. Only hate existed. I became one with the shadows, and slipped outside to end the hunters' game.

The next day the forest was dead silent, save for the hunters, who spent the first half being their usual selves. When they realized the lack of game, they made their leave.

As I reflect, I realize that I should have been the one to leave.

The hunters, after all, would have gutted the animals first.