53

*

*

* * Megan * *

*

* * Present day * *

*

*

*

We returned without incident, but little did we know the mess we were returning to. When we got to the village everything seemed to be a mess and out of sorts. There was still blood staining the streets and on some of the houses. There was no greeting party for our return. Instead one man came to the leader and asked him to follow and the leader brought us with him. The man took us to a hut that looked like it had recently been built and was a ways away from the village. The hut smelled horrible, it reacted of death and decay even though we hadn't entered it yet.

"What happened?" Coreys father asked very strictly.

"There was a lion attack. Three lions attacked the village. They killed 10 dogs, 15 women, 5 children, and 13 men. It attacked on the quiet side of the village where more of the elders live, one women was found dead from returning to the river and lions must of chosen her as easy pray and then heard noises and the elders and children live closest to the river and were the first to be attacked. Luckily we were able to get lost of the children out and caught onto the attack early in and saved many of the people who lived over there...."The man said.

"When did this accrue and Why were we informed?!?" His father cut the other man off.

"The lion attack happened at night about 4 days after you all had left for the wedding and we tried to inform you sir. We sent a party of 5 to get the message to you the next morning and they encountered a heard of wild Buffalo which they seemed to of spooked. Which caused a stampede, only one of the five men sent survived and came back and is in critical condition and will likely die before the migration." The man said.

"Bring us to the man who survived I would like to hear what he has to say." Coreys father said.

"I'm sorry sir, but he hasn't woken in the past 3 days. When he returned he informed us of the stampede and that they must of frightened the animals. We asked if anyone else was around in fear that it was a set up but he informed us that nobody had seen any sign of another person before the stampede or at least not that they informed him of that is and he didn't see anyone. It was an unlucky accident. They should of known better than to get close to the buffalos but he said the buffalos were blocking the fasted route so they thought they would be fine to ride close to them." The man explained.

"They should of know better and it's an unfortunate accident then. We have no proof to go off anything else since I'm sure by now if any other tribe was involved in setting it up they have already erased all evidence." Coreys father said.

"What would you like to do with the bodies sir?"The man asked.

"We will burn them all in this hut tonight to make it so we don't attract more predators. Set everything up for tonight." He said. The man nodded and left the hut.

"Megan it must be quite good fortune for you, as your competitor for my sons hand in marriage was that girl over there." Coreys father said and pointed to one of the dead girls laying in the hut. She had bites and claw marks covering her body and was missing a few limbs and her stomach was torn out.

"Are you trying to imply something father?" Liz asked.

"Father you should watch what you have to say next as your talking to the women who will carry my children." Corey said.

"It's just convent is all." His father said.

"I don't mean to disrespect you in any way sire, but I was with you the entire time and I didn't even know I had competition as Corey kept that from me. You had only mentioned that I would need to fight any other competitors and how would I know who the competitors would be since there are many young women in the village and I don't live within the village so it's not even as if I would know anything without being told by one of your children or you as they are the only ones who I know here. On top of that they were animal attacks, I can't control animals even with my magic I can't control or manipulate beasts to do anything. On top of that I can only do things with magic that are close range we were 4 days ride away so there no way I could of done anything like this even if my magic was able to control animals." I said.

"I meant no harm by what I said. You are also correct, I haven't heard of any type of magic that compels animals." He said.

"It was simply bad luck, she was obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time and that women should of know better than to be out by herself at night father. If she was that foolish then she deserved what she got and it was simply natural selection." Sam said.

"You may be right, and I hope for all of our sakes that you are correct and this wasn't planed." He said. "But now we must go, we need to show strength to remind our people we are strong and bring there attention back to the migration that way we can survive."

We all nodded and followed him out of the hut. I looked back at the bodies and I couldn't help but feel horrible as most of them looked torn apart or were missing pieces of there bodies in some way. The odd this is none of them were actually eaten except the girl which was believed to be the first kill. Maybe it was because the tribe realized it and started a fight so the lions never got a chance to eat there pray, but I also hadn't heard of a predator attack in the clan the entire time I had been here. What would drive these animals that normally avoid us to come into the tribe all of a sudden and attack people. Coreys father was right it did seem to be a weird coincidence that she was killed while we were away and then so was the party sent to inform us both killed by animals. People getting injured by Buffalo is common when they are out hunting or tracking so I guess that isn't to weird, but the fact that the party didn't go around the Buffalo is what seems weird to me. All of us know better than to go toward a heard as it could spook them or make them attack you so what were they thinking, or was what they were told not the complete truth and the man might of been silenced before he could tell the full story. Since now he's in a coma state and not able to tell anyone anything before he dies. It does seem a bit to convenient. I hope my clan had nothing to do with this, but I can't ask them out right without seeming as if I am accusing them of it. Even if I bring it up if they were the cause I don't think they would tell me and it probably would of been a small group that did it so most of them really wouldn't know anything about it. I can't change what happened either way now though so if I ask and they do tell me they did it then I'm finding out something I don't want to know which will put me at odds with Coreys father because I'm not sure I will be able to lie to him about it. I also will have to live with the blame of knowing if I had just stayed away none of this would of happened to those people and I don't want that all on me, so this is one of the things I think I'm better leaving be and not knowing the truth about.