Feeding the fear

Fuente

After trying all the businesses known to man, the black sheep, decided to create a new type of business, outside the national boundaries, this business: first it was to give solution to a problem that did not exist, therefore it was necessary to educate a sector of the population of Ciudad Peregrino, small community of about 125 people, of them five were children and 42 were women, to the south was the swampy and smelly area and to the north the clean sea, about six kilometers, In this part a well polished stone road reached the sea, on one side a forest of ancient trees and with little presence of shrubs and vines, in autumn the forest created an almost magical mattress of red-gray leaves, on the other side of the road the forest was dark and evil, or so it was believed, you could see the deliberate action of man, if you walked through the vegetation about three kilometers away was the old sawmill, now abandoned and cursed, in the past the Marquis owner of Peregrino, a prosperous and cruel man, came from the Salmo islands in the old continent in a small boat, he brought with him about six slaves, an old chest, an extremely large dog and a girl with green eyes and black shiny hair, then he marched with the chest and its guardians to this point where the sawmill is, from where he founded and proposed the Septrion Law, which would welcome in his whore city anyone who came forward, with a desire to work for him and in which all improper conduct according to the law would be punishable at best by death.
Death by two knives through the head from side to side.
Death by rope and water.
Death by tearing of the flesh.
Death by death.
Banishment to the swamps.
Forced labor in logging.
Death by tar.

When the young woman disappeared, or that no one ever saw her again at least outside the house, only her silhouette disrupted by the hazy light of the torches and in the frame of the second story window. Only in the darkest nights and it seemed that she was constantly rocking and that in the darkness of the orange trees, one could perceive a little lullaby. Then came the legends and fear, the lullaby was synonymous with death, whoever heard it was already dead meat walking, then one of the Finns who had just arrived, appeared with empty eye sockets, as if something was eating him from the inside out, slowly and painfully, and the scorched tongue, with a black and shiny color, sometimes reminiscent of the neat hair of the girl of the Marquis. But if the listener died, who told the story, the older ones say that the Marquis himself gave reins to the tradition of his country to keep the voyeurs away, he always said: in the right dose, the most powerful weapon is fear.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)