Sandra threw down her gun in disgust. She had to do something about those Gryphons! They were eating her out of house and home! Literally, the bank was going to foreclose on her farm if she couldn't make the payments. And those nasty creatures had just stolen the calf she planned to sell.
Sandra picked up the gun and walked back into the house. After calling the sheriff, he assured her that they would send someone out. But Sandra knew no one was coming. Even though she had video evidence, people had a hard time believing that Gryphons were stealing her cattle. Most of the townspeople thought she was crazy, even the other ranchers who lost a few cattle. They blamed it on coyotes or other wildlife and just wrote it off. But they would afford to lose a few cattle. To Sandra, each loss was another nail in her coffin.
Entering the house, Sandra saw the picture of her precious daughter Amy and felt a little sad. She had gone missing several months ago. The police thought she was simply got lost in the vast woods and died of starvation, her remains devoured by some animal. But Sandra had other ideas. She was sure that the Gryphons had taken her and ..... Well, she didn't like to think what they had done to her.
A sudden caw attracted her attention. She ran to the yard with her gun, hoping to get another chance with the Gryphons. But instead it was just some crows, hovering around her corn. They seemed agitated, as if something had disturbed them. She fired a shot to scare them away. That was all she needed, to lose her crops, too.
But inspecting the crops she once again found that the crows weren't the problem. Something else was destroying her crop. It looked like tiny hands had pried the kernels off the cob, almost as if little elves were destroying them. At first, they just took the fruits and berries from her garden. But now that the garden was bare, her corn was beginning to suffer. The video surveillance showed nothing. But once a child had seen the video and squealed with glee, proclaiming that the two fairies were adorable.
Sandra sighed. Amy loved fairies, and all things magical and mystical. She would have loved the idea of fairies raiding their garden. Sandra returned to those house, and went to Amy's room to tidy up. After making her bed, she found a strange box under her bed. A box of vials. Curious, she began to look through the vials. They had pictures of animals and the corresponding name of the animal.
Sandra chuckled. It was just like Amy to play with strange things like this. She wondered what game Amy used it for, and what she had put inside them. Some of the animals were domestic animals, like what she kept on the farm.
These aren't urine or something nasty like that, I hope, thought Sandra.
She decided it might be a good idea to get rid of them. She took them downstairs and prepared to flush them down the kitchen sink. In the kitchen, she randomly opened one of the vials and took a whiff. It didn't smell bad. In fact, it seemed to have no odor at all. She poured the contents into a glass to get a better look. Carefully holding the glass up to the light, she saw that liquid was clear, just like water.
Probably is just water, thought Sandra.
The glass slipped from her hand and hit the floor, shattering and sending a shard of glass into her foot. The contents of the vial pooled at her feet, mixing with her blood and the open wound on her foot. Sandra cursed, and pulled the glass shard out of her foot. She wrapped her foot, and grabbed a towel to wipe up the solution. The towel was soaked, drenching her hands in the liquid, when she once again sliced her hand on a sharp piece of chipped glass. She turned on the water in the kitchen faucet, trying to rinse the solution out of the wound. But it was too late. It had already been absorbed.
Shit, thought Sandra. I really hope that wasn't something toxic. I can't afford to go to the hospital.
She stared at her hand as it began to swell and change shape. She had unknowingly absorbed a significant amount of the vial labeled .......