It was a dark night, the black curtains of depressing air filled the air and every nook and cranny along the beaten-up street. The rain was coming down, each teardrop as sharp as a needle. The oil lamps flickered in their decrepit rotting poles as Alex looked up into the void. Under his breath he muttered, “Great, it’s raining out”. He quickly covered his head with his hand and ran for cover. As he ran he couldn’t help spotting an alley cat and smiled, at least he wasn’t the only poor soul caught in this storm. As the cold rain touched his skin he groaned inwardly; if only he hadn’t taken so long, he’d be home and dry by now. While deciding where to take cover he noticed that there was something moving out in the distance. The object was getting closer and closer while Alex just stood there watching at a loss of what to do. Out of the dark and sleeting rain appeared an Asian man who asked Alex if he wanted any shrimp fried rice or beef chow mein. Alex opened his mouth in surprise, he had never heard of such a thing before. Rice? What was that? He was from the abandoned part of town, living in an old abandoned mill for as long as he could remember and hadn’t seen a human being in months. Slowly he crept away, slippin’ into the nearby alley and creeping into one of the many hidden tunnels that stretched across the city.

     He sped along, making sure he didn’t drop anything along the way. He had found a wonderful prize tonight, so he would have a full belly at last. A creak crackled out from the darkness to his left, his weak side. He froze and turned his head slightly in the direction of the noise. Two glowing milky-white eyes shone out of the darkness meeting his. He slowly drew his saber and slipped into battle stance. The eyes moved towards him, the beast they belonged to emerging from the darkness. It was the infamous K’Tah.  A scream echoes out into the darkness and all goes dark.

     The next morning, as a local tramp trekked through the tunnel on his daily search for food, he came upon a bag of fresh fruit and dried ham sitting in a pool of dark liquid. As the tramp bent down to pick up the bag, thinking what a lucky day this was turning out to be, he noticed a metallic smell coming from the pool. Tentatively he let a drop fall from the bottom of the bag onto his finger and brought it to his mouth. As he raised his hand, a chance beam of light from a policeman's lantern shone onto the liquid, illuminating the dark crimson red color that was sleeping in the darkness. The tramp screamed and stumbled backward, dropping the bags as he went. It was blood, human blood. His scream had alerted the policeman who in turn called his fellow men to the scene. The area was closed off and destroyed. The reason for demolition, the city said, no matter how many times they cleaned the area, the next morning there was always a pool of blood resting there. Years later, long after the town had sunk into the ground and had been claimed by Mother Nature once again, a tree sprouts from the center of the pool of blood. This tree is called the Blood Tree, as it was born from and lives off of blood. Locals will say something horrible will happen to you if you even put one foot in the clearing the tree grows in. They even have a poem dedicated to the tale. The poem, although it has morphed over time, still retains the deadliness of the area:

                     The murder happened near the haunting tree

                      It happened on the blackest of all nights

                      The night when the evilest of spirits

                              Roamed the mortal world

                       It was Halloween

                               When creatures long banished into the darkness of the           underworld

                        Roved the land once more

                        The tree was from then on named the Blood Tree

                        As there was so much blood coating the bark

                                It had sunk into the tree

                                         And stained it evermore a dark, crimson red.

     There is also a tale that circulates the same lands of a young boy with nearly black dead eyes and wings of night who rides on the back of a nightmare and brings death to all those who walk the city lanes at night.