Everyone with any sense is afraid of creatures who stalk their prey in the night.

Even the strongest of us shivers at the thought of a beast who would soundlessly spirit the innocent from their beds in the darkness. 

Just recently, a small village isolated high in the mountains seemed to be experiencing such a problem. The supposed beast had not yet murdered or abducted anyone, but it had begun killing livestock and disturbing valuable crops. The occurences were escalating, and something unfortunate would surely happen soon.

In the village however there lived at least one woman who was not afraid of such a creature.

Indeed, she often secretly wished for the beast to through her window, slaughtering her as she slept and ending her suffering, because for her, life had become an unbearable horror. 

Sold into an advantageous marriage by parents who had always loved money more than their own childen, she had lived many years with a man who was in most ways no better than a beast. No creature she had ever heard of could match head to head with him in selfish and thoughtless cruelty.

One chilly night, in the blackest hours before dawn and just before the first snow of the season, she got her wish, but it was not as she had so often imagined. Indeed the beast, much larger than she had ever dreamed, crept silently through her open window and approached her bed. Resembling a l