"SphinxLand"

My home was a small village that was surrounded by the famous Crooked Forest in Western Poland. The forest contains about 400 pine trees that grow with a 90 degree bend at the base of their trunks. I was carrying wood when I heard my mom calling me. "Aniela, sweetie, can you please come to the kitchen?" I dropped the wood and went to her side. She was waiting for me by our cabin's door. "What do you need, Mom?"

"I am baking a couple of pies and I ran out of berries. Can you please pick some for me?"

"Okay, Mom, I will bring as many berries as I can hold in my bag."

I was walking as fast as I could to come back before dark when I saw a big wall forming ahead of me. I knew the woods very well and I definitely didn't see that wall before. When I reached the wall I saw an old man standing by a double wood door. He opened it and I was able to have a peek at some incredible inhabitants.

I am a fourteen-year old Polish girl with an incredible story to tell.

"Nereid of the Forest"

I am 'Eunice' daughter of one of 'Nereus' and 'Doris' fifty Nereid daughters named 'Galatea'. She never disclosed who my father was to anyone. My mother, her sisters and offspring are known as Nereid's or 'Sea Nymphs'. Most of them live in the ocean but, some like my mother and a few others chose to live in the forest. Every fifty years my Nereid family has to sacrifice a princess to "Lamia' the child eating demon. However, the princess has to be nineteen-years old at the time of her sacrifice. No one knows why Lamia wants a teenager if she only eats small children.

The way the princess is chosen is by electing the girl who is going to be the right age one or two months before the first day of winter. My family made such horrible pact with Lamia many centuries ago to stop her from eating their children. When time comes for the sacrifice, the chosen Nereid is taken inside a cave named 'Hells Mouth'!