Short Story: The Story Of Mother-Hive

Part 2 of "In The Depths Of Hell"

Warning: This contains mentions of disturbing fictional horror

The year was 1824.
It's been over a decade since this tragedy took place and still nobody knows what really happened.

My name is Father Andrei Mihai Ionescu.
I work at the local church in our small village.
On the weekends I give food out to people struggling, one of these people happened to be a young girl.
Her name was Lidia Albu, she lived with her sick grandmother in a mostly dilapidated house.
She was the poorest of the poor. Running around without shoes, her dress torn and hanging loosely on her little frail body.
Her nails were always long and sharp as she never had a way to trim them.
Her hair was unruly and dirty, even with the running streams of water through the village.
I always took them food, tried to help them out in any way possible.
I knew one day the grandmother would pass, and I was fully prepared to take the girl in as my own.
But it seemed the grandmother still had work here to be done.
The little girl grew, her body still frail despite my help.
I believe she gave most of the food to her grandmother in fear of her succumbing to her unknown illness.
I tried praying for them, but my words fell on deaf ears.
The girl was ignorant to the prayers I tried to wish her, so I left her be.

When she was in her early twenties, her grandmother’s body had started to fail.
She took care of her, every day and night to try to keep her alive for longer.
Eventually, even with all her help she passed away in her sleep.
Leaving the young woman alone.
Most people in the village didn’t care for her, they only pointed out her youthful beauty.
But they refused to strike a deal to marry their sons due to her poverty.
But she was strong through it all, and she took pride in her beauty.
She wanted to preserve it for as long as she could.
She was obsessed with it, never wanting a single wrinkle or grey hair to ever show.
I remember her telling me about it once, it was the first time she ever asked for a prayer.
It was to keep her young and beautiful.
I told her I would try, but aging is what we’re designed for.
She fell flat that day and started searching for a better answer.

After that, it was like she had gone insane.
She started rummaging through the forest on the outskirts of our village, digging in the soil, ripping the bark off trees.
The locals saw her and started to treat her as less of a young, beautiful woman. And more of a crazy monster.
This broke her more.
It made her more crazy.
I caught up with her in the forest once, the moon was barely visible as the trees cast shadows onto everything.
I was planning on talking to her.
But I saw her in an opening, the trees were chopped down and the stumps were taken out of the earth.
She had completely cleared out a circle deep in the dense forest.
And she was prancing around it, singing a doina in old Romanian, the language was much before her time so I assumed her grandmother had taught her the lyrics when she was still alive.
I could only make out a few of the words she sung in an almost ritualistic, opera tune.
“Let the earth grant what age steals. Let the roots scream for the blood it craves.”
But what bothered me most about the scene was the salt she was spreading.
She was creating a ring where the circle was, using enough to kill the grass and plants on top.
But it didn’t look like it was enough to kill the tree roots that were likely buried deep in the soil.
It looked to be mixed with the ash from the burnt trees that were discarded on the side of the circle.
I started to think she was doing a satanic ritual in rebelliance to me not helping her.
But this wasn’t like a ritual or a summoning I had ever seen before.
The ground looked as if it was starting to pulsate under her as she spread the salt and ash under her feet.
I was too scared to speak that day, I just slowly backed up and fled the forest.

A few days later she went missing.
I had seen her after that incident, but then she was gone.
I searched the entire forest, the village, everywhere I could.
But it was as if she had vanished.
The only thing that changed was when I visited that circle again.
The ground was cracked and it looked like the roots were trying to come up from the ground, and the centre felt oddly hollow.
But nothing else came of it, there were no traces to what happened to her.

Maybe if I had told her I could help with her beauty she would still be here.
Maybe if I had approached her during her ritual she would have opened up to me.

But after all these years, people have started to say the forest is cursed.
The new generation, ones who don’t know of the young woman have been venturing into the woods and finding the circle.
They’ve been saying they could feel claws scratching them.
They could swear there were shadows creeping around them and that the roots were seeping up from the ground and tangling around their ankles.
I thought it was nonsense, a story the kids were telling each other.
I believed they were trying to start an urban legend, one to scare people away from the forest just for the fun of it.
That was until I went into the forest again.
Years had passed as I refused to go back.
But when I did, I saw the shadows.
They didn’t line up with the trees or the moon, they covered the ground in their haze.
It took awhile but I eventually found the opening again.
And they were right.
The roots were coming up as you walked over them on the ever growing hole beneath the soil.
They did try to wrap around your ankles.
But I never felt the claws they said scratched you.
I felt uneasy but I never felt in danger like they said they did.
I saw a figure that they never said they saw.
Her honey brown eyes stared at me with sadness, her beauty preserved even if she was covered in gashes and blood.
But the shadows took her as the moon emerged from behind the clouds.
She was there, but it wasn’t really her.
I couldn’t explain it, but it was as if her body had vanished and all that was left was a spirit as her soul wandered the woods alone.

I left shortly after, I had searched the area for a moment just to confirm my suspicions.
And I never went back again.
The stories still kept coming, but they started to die down as the years passed by.
Until they came back in full swing, this time the entire village heard of it.
People knew of a girl who had gone missing in the woods a few years ago, not long after my final visit.
But what sparked the commotion was that she had returned, looking the exact same as when she had left. With no memory of what happened.
People in the church said it was a test that was bound to be repeated throughout history for a reason unreachable by humans.
But that was from a small group of people who all claimed to have spoken to a higher power in their dreams, something I faced with scepticism.
But nonetheless, this wasn’t the only case of children going missing in that forest.
This was just the first one to come out of it alive.
I remember meeting the girl, she looked an awful lot familiar.
She held a youthful beauty that reminded me of the young woman.
It may not have been the same girl, but she looked almost identical to when she was a child.
All the other children however, didn’t return.
A few adults also went missing, but they were less likely to not come home that day.

Even now, over a decade later.
The stories keep coming, the incidents keep happening.
They mainly involve children whose appearance is youthful.
There’s never been a repeat of one coming home after they were missing.
But I did tell my new wife of the young woman.
She spread the word and it ran through the village like wild fire.
Everyone now believes that she was a crazy woman who had done a satanic ritual in the forest.
They believe she had sacrificed herself for beauty and became a monster who lurks in the forest, eating children to steal their youthfulness.
They think she made a deal with the devil, something that was always burning in the back of my mind.
But I knew her, I know she wouldn’t do that.
Would she?

Either way, I didn’t mean for this to happen. And I’m sure my wife didn’t either.
The locals are starting to forbid their children from going into the forest, they’re planning on building a wall around the main entrance points or even burning it down. All of which have yet to be done after more critical thinking came into play.
They’ve even written a nursery rhyme about her to try to scare their children away, something they’re planning to pass down in their family bloodline.

I’ve been thinking of taking another trip into the forest to try and speak to her spirit. But even if she spared me the first time, I don’t know what’s come of her now.
I don’t know how many injuries her soul’s collected, how much of her actually remains.
How much she actually remembers. How violent and dangerous she may be now.
But something has to be done.
I can’t allow these children to keep disappearing, even if they’re not being devoured by her, something is happening.
And this might be the first step to stopping it all.
So I’ll leave you with the nursery rhyme.
And if you never read another journal entry from me, just know that I tried to stop her.

“Roots that seep, whispers scream.
Shadows dance and bring you in.

Fear her name, for here she comes.
Devour shame, lucifugous.

Blood is rich, her favourite treat.
Youthful hearts that always beat.

Prance the circle, beat the drums.
Say goodbye, to those you love.”