Into the Badlands

My body shuts down and I'm not sure what to do. The world seems to close in on me and I'm stuck. If I stay, I'll die. Killing that wolf was out of pure luck, I don't think I'll be able to take on a whole group of Japanese ritualists. I can't sit all day and think, I open the closet door and crawl out, hoping they don't see me. There's a window to my left, I make my way towards it and lift it up slowly. A face pops up in front of me, it's the woman with the Japanese headdress. Her face is pale and her eyes are black. I quickly shut the window and jump back, but I'm surrounded and there's no way out. The house goes up in flames, I can feel the heat against my bare skin and now I'm wanting the snow, I'm wanting the cold surrounding me. I retreat back to the closet and sit there, thinking. My father had taught me how to survive, he showed me the way and opened my eyes to new things. If I die now, all his teachings will be for nothing. I turn towards the wall behind me and start kicking at the worn and moist wood. My boot eventually goes through the other side. I pull it back in and kick a hole just enough to get me out. I crawl out the hole and fall face first into the snow, my lips go numb and my face freezes instantly. I pull myself together and prepare for whatever war I'm about to get myself into. I load an arrow into my bow and round the corner. There's a tall man, his skin is a greenish color and his eyes are also black, almost demonic. I'm not sure who these people are...or what they are. He looks at me and in an instant he launches a fist at me and knocks me to the ground. I quickly grab my makeshift ax and drive it into his leg. It's like it doesn't phase him. He picks me up off the ground and holds me tight in his arms. The woman comes around, she doesn't look like she's walking, it's almost floating. She comes close to my face and reaches out her bony fingers, her nails scrape against my face. Her mouth opens and nothing comes out but then she smiles and the words flow from her mouth.

"Throw her into the fire" Her voice is demonic and her mouth is black, dark and empty.

The man squeezes me tighter and drags me away. I see a smile on her face. She's happy to see me being dragged away, she's happy to know I'm about to be tossed into a fire and sacrificed for god knows what. I look down at his around my chest, there's really only one thing I can do. I close my eyes, open my mouth and bite down on his fingers. He winces and drops me, letting me fall quickly to the ground. I run over to my weapons and grab them then head for another house, a stupid idea but it's all the ideas I have. I shut the door and step backwards, a floorboard squeaks underneath my boot. I see a small circle, like something to pull on to open a door. I frantically pull open the door and walk down into a musty room. I reach around in my bag and find the fluid, I dump a little on an arrow and light it, making a small but manageable torch. On a wall at the end of the room is a large door with a sign on top of it that says 'Exit'
I hear the front door upstairs open and dust from the floor falls with each step the man takes. I quickly make my way to the door and pull it open. It's extremely heavy and I'm not even sure where it leads to, I just know it gets me out of the grips of the Japanese renegade. There's a switch on the side, I flip it and a long row of lights come on one at a time. It's a long tunnel, it had to be used for some sort of emergencies. Along the walls are writings, some tell of the horrors of the small village. Something stands out to me, something that sends shivers down my bones.

"To anyone that finds this.
My name is Daniel and I'm from this small village in Greenland.
They came in and took my mother away. They put her into the fire and chanted.
My elders tell stories of an ancient Japanese Queen that was shipwrecked here and died. She feeds on the souls of the people.
I have always played this off as a pure myth. But now I'm hiding in this tunnel that my father had made.
This tunnel should lead out somewhere on the edge of the mountain.
I have always wondered why planes and hikers go missing here, but now I know.
They leave once the Queen's thirst is quenched. If you're reading this, kill her.
There's a book at the end of this tunnel that has been written in blood by my ancestors.
It tells how to stop the demon. Do not let her come back."

I gulp and follow the lights that hang from the ceiling. If all that is true, it wasn't turbine failure, it was this mountain. I see a faint light peeking in, it's the end of the tunnel. Once I get closer, I see the book. It's sitting on an old wooden podium and is open. I get closer and scan the page for any information. The page is covered in blood writing and there's a small drawing of the queen they call 'Arashi' which means Storm in Japanese. The drawing is definitely the woman outside. She feeds on souls to keep her alive, she causes freak snowstorms to trap people and send them to the village where she does a ritual and burns the body then sucks out their soul. To kill her, I'll need to cut off her head and destroy her minions. I take all of this in, why can't I just find my own way out of here and never look back. If I do that and another plane crashes here, I won't be able to live with myself. Cut her head off and the minions lose their extreme strength. I need to get to that blinking light where the tail end of the plane is, I have to know if there is someone else alive. I flip another page and see a wolf and under that, a bear. The animals in this area are her guardians and they'll stop at nothing to protect her. Why did I have to crash in some sort of hell forest. I close the book and stuff it into my bag then open the door at the end of the tunnel. It comes out on a slope, a slope that I will have to go to extreme lengths to climb. But my father raised a fighter and I'm not going to let this stop me.