At some point, there was an unassuming village at the base of an unassuming mountain, filled with unassuming people. If it wasn't for what happened at the end, there would be nothing to remember.
The first important detail was at every Summer Solstice, when the sun was at its highest point, from the mountain would descend a woman, clad in black so as to not see a single defining feature. The second important detail is that this woman spoke in a voice much sweeter than words could hope to describe. Finally, she stood about nine feet tall.
When she would arrive, her words were always the same.
“Bring me your sick, your dying, and your unwanted. I will help them move onto the next step as peacefully and painlessly as possible.”
The village, both ill-equipped and uninformed, had obeyed her words as if she was a savior; even while others had known better than to trust something they could not understand. This had lasted for generations until one day, as inevitably as expected, the villagers could tolerate her no more. Through their own machinations and understanding of those who came before them, they had designed a trap for her made of strange ways and stranger methods. Before this betrayal, the woman would have never known no one believed her intentions to be pure, as her own self was too selfless to believe otherwise.
On the next Solstice, they would bind her by rope. “What is the meaning of this?” she would ask. “You have tormented us long enough with your lies and manipulation” they would say. “I do not understand.” she would reply.
But they would say nothing as they continued on with their plan.
When they bound her by rope, the villagers unveiled her, her face and body would reveal itself as hideous and deformed. They would have never understood this was simply a cruel act of nature, let alone being convinced she was anything less than a beast. Her wails, protests, and questions went unheard as they seared her flesh in hot chains and spoke in rhythms that cause her to hurt; in sounds that caused her to burn.
As if the sun itself could feel her pain, undeserved and unrelenting, it sent its own rage from up on high, bathing the village in an unforgiving light. There was no shade or hole that could escape this, as every villager who betrayed her was pulled into the core of her suffering, forced to mingle with the strange wonders they had put in place. All would take part in this.
There it now lays, in that place, nothing more than a mass of unending flesh and teeth. There it now burns beneath an unforgiving sun. There, this thing awaits forgiveness that will never come. This is the story of The Solstice Bride, and this is the worst story ever told.