1 The Beginning

Words: Entitlement, School, Oak, Quotation, and Peanut

Story:

John stood in front of the graves of his wife, and daughter, lifelessly. The steam coming out of his mouth as he breathed the cold morning air being the only thing separating him from a statue. This was like a morning ritual he had been following ever since their death. As a well-renowned scholar with a bloodline of scholars, John had inherited a lot of knowledge that had been collected in the library of his mansion but unlike most other scholars who would let only a select few access their knowledge because they thought that the knowledge they had accumulated was far too complex for average people(peasants) to comprehend, John had made his library accessible to everyone. He used to be a charismatic guy with an optimistic personality and treated all people fairly despite their social status so he was well-liked and respected by most people. But the charismatic guy had already died with his family, the only thing that remained was a hollow shell who hadn't smiled in years.

As John returned from the graveyard, he could see people in front of his mansion's gates. They were waiting for him to return so they could access the library as usual but something different happened that day. John rather than letting them enter instead stopped them and said, "Sorry, but the library will be closed for a couple of days." The people asked him why that was but John didn't reply and just simply entered his mansion and closed his doors shut.

John didn't leave his mansion for a couple of days. This made some of the townsfolk worried so they went to check on him but he always replied, "I just need some time alone." Weird rumors also started to spread that he had been pouring sacks of peanuts that he had been hoarding for a while, around the oak tree in his backyard. The oak tree was something he and his wife planted to signify that their relationship would last for hundreds of years like the oak tree but while the oak tree had only grown 4 meters tall, their relationship had already ended.

While most people were worried about John, there were some who saw this as an opportunity to obtain the "hidden knowledge". Some scholars didn't like that he was giving away his knowledge to common folks so they would try to persuade him,

"Are you really okay with just handing out all of this knowledge your ancestors worked hard to gather? These people are not going to be able to understand its true value "

"Maybe they won't be able to but their children might understand it, and that would benefit everyone."

" So you are going to give away everything. Is there really nothing that you keep as an heirloom that you want to pass on? There must be something special that you would only share with your family."

"... There is, but it's not like there is someone left to pass it on to."

"So what do you plan to do with it? "

"Take it to my grave. "

"That's it."

"Yeah. You people are right about one thing, not every knowledge should be shared."

After hearing about the hidden knowledge, lots of people tried to obtain it by trying to get close to John, they tried to give him money, rare materials, historical texts, even their daughter's hand in marriage but he rejected them all. Some scholars didn't give up and had been spying on him for quite some time. They had managed to sneak into John's mansion at night and found him working on something in his laboratory at the dead of the night. They were certain that the reason he had closed the library and wouldn't let anyone in, was because he was using the hidden knowledge to do something and he didn't want anyone to know about it.

So the scholars gathered some people and made a plan to sneak into his mansion again, but this time rather than just observe they would get their hands on the hidden knowledge any way possible, even if it meant using force.

On that day the sky was covered by dark clouds, it was going to snow, or at least that's what everyone thought but instead, it started to rain. It rained the entire day and didn't stop even after it got dark. The scholars sneaked into the mansion, the rain made it easier for them to sneak in without being detected by any passerby. They entered the mansion through an open window and started to look around the mansion in search of John. After even searching through the entire mansion but they could not find him. He wasn't in the library, his bedroom, the laboratory, or one of the hundreds of rooms in the mansion.

Then one of them found something, a hidden passage in one of the rooms. The passage led to a basement dimly lit by a single lantern that was laying on the floor. The scholars were excited, they had found the hidden knowledge but their excitement didn't last very long. As the lanterns they had brought with them started to lit the basement properly, they could finally see what was before covered by darkness. Strange markings on the floor and the walls made from chalk, something they had never seen before. The books there were written in a language none of the scholars knew about, but one thing everyone could tell after taking a single glance, they were not normal research books but rather ritual books. The closest compression would be satanic books that could be found in cults.

Panic began to spread among the scholars. While none of them believe in the supernatural they began to doubt themselves. John's family had been traveling around the world and gathering knowledge for centuries, it would not have been surprising if they had found the evidence of the supernatural. Without any care for how much noise they were making, all of them started to run around the mansion in search of John but like before, he was still missing.

And then they remembered the rumor about the oak tree and headed towards the backyard. The backdoor hadn't been locked, suggesting that maybe John was outside. As the scholars started to head towards the oak tree while fighting the rain, they could see a humanoid figure at the oak tree. It was midnight now and combined with the heavy rain, they had very low visibility so they couldn't tell if the figure really belonged to John. They had to go closer.

As they got closer, they started to notice something strange. The person under the oak tree was moving in a strange way, he was squatting down, scooping with his hands and eating what he had just scooped as if he was an animal that was feasting on some fresh meat it had just caught, but as the scholars could tell there was not meat under the tree, there were only peanuts. The scholars were getting scared, they started to hope that the man was just some random beggar that had climbed over the wall to eat the peanuts because he was hungry. They called out to him, "Hey, who are you?". The man froze as soon as he heard it, then he slowly got up halfway, hunched over with bent knees like someone who was about to make a sprint or preparing for a lunge. As the man turned around the scholars' eyes popped out in horror. They had found John but he was not his usual self. His mouth had torn open allowing one to see his teeth through his cheeks, his jaw had also dislocated. He looked as if the devil had possessed him. Before the scholars could collect themselves together and react to what they were seeing, John, opened his mouth wide open as much as a snake could and screamed at the top of his lungs like an animal as he leaped towards the scholars. The scholars also screamed in terror as they started to run away from him but it was all in vain. None of their screams were heard by the townfolks because of the rain.

Everyone in the town was asleep, but loud bangs woke people up. As they got out to check all the ruckus was all about and what they saw was beyond their wildest dreams. Buildings were collapsing as some unknown objects were raining down on them, it was as if someone had just shot thousands of cannons at the town. The people could not see clearly but they could tell that the whole sky was filled with the 'cannonballs' that were heading their way but as one of those 'cannon shots' lands near them, they notice something, the things flying towards them were not cannonballs but rather fishes, huge 2 meter long fishes. What shocked them, even more, was that the fish was not being catapulted as after recovering from its crash landing, it started flapping its fins and started to fly. The fish then flew straight at a person and chomped his head right off as he flew past him. People screamed in horror at the sight but soon hundreds of other fishes started raining on them as well. The fishes nose-dived straight into the buildings, wrecking everything on their path. They were hunting for people, and if they found one they would start to eat them alive. In less than an hour, the entire town was destroyed and everyone was devoured by the fishes. All except for one. John was still alive.

John, no longer possessed by the devil, would wake up the next morning at the outskirts of the town. There was a smile on his face because lying beside him were his wife, and daughter, sleeping soundly. But the smile would not last very long as he looked at the crumbling town. John started to question his actions, he had performed a ritual that he had found in one of the books that had been passed down to him by his ancestors. The ritual allowed one to bring back the dead but the ritual never mentioned the need for live sacrifices, it only mentioned one had to offer peanuts to the devil.

There was also a note near him, the note read:

"Why would you trust the devil?" - Devil

John thought to himself, "I should have known better. Who would bring back the dead in exchange for some peanuts? Obviously, the devil fooled me so that he could feast on people." But John didn't have much time to be regrating his decisions as his wife, and daughter had started to wake up. The devil had at least fulfilled his promise to bring them back to life. He carried them in the horse carriage with all of his stuff that he had prepared the previous day before performing the ritual to escape the town in case the ritual had succeeded that was conveniently placed near him by the devil.

John rode the carriage away from the town before his wife, and daughter could wake up. Once they woke up John acted like nothing had happened and told them that they were moving to a different city. His daughter told him that she had a bad dream where mommy had died, and soon after that she died as well, his wife also mentions having a similar dream. John assures them both that they were just having a bad dream.

John then starts a new life with his wife, and his daughter who were brought back to life. The news of the town being destroyed in a single night because of some unknown reasons spreads around the country but before anyone could suspect John for being the only survivor, he had already moved to a different country. John would live a happy life after that and take the secret about that incident to his grave. But while John was no longer involved with the devil, several centuries later the devil would offer another deal with one of Johns' descendants so that the devil could finally release hell upon the mortal realm. But that would be a story for another time.