And lo, from our vantage points on the fertile fields close to the Great Desert, did we see them—a wandering host of upright beings, moving among the grass and the trees.

  Storms, and a land that killed in ways no devil could conjure, had taken their toll on us. We had no powder to meet them rightly. But by the grace of God and Joseph, none was necessary.

  They behaved as drunkards. They ate fruits and berries, and ceased when none were at hand. They spoke, but to our ears it was a slow sulk—a muttering, thick and dull. No cadence, no grammar, no tongue fit for the civilized.

  Their form, visage, and demeanour was abhorrent. As if the Gedessian Plague had struck them in the womb, or they had been sired by simple beasts. Horns, hooves, eyes bright and far too large. Most were small, round, and poorly shaped—unfit for labor, unfit for war.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  We shooed them off as cattle. And thus it became clear: the light of God did not shine upon them.

  When we searched their meagre grounds for clues of their being, we found a pitiful sight.

  Thirteen young—one worse than the next—dead or dying. Bones barely held in by skin, breaths shallow and infrequent.

  Life did not fit these souls.

  From a memorandum compiled by Father-Scribe Ernwald, attached to the First Missionary Outpost of the Sacred Soul Company, Year 156 After the Revelation