McKenzie Reddy, age 10, Co. Antrim
Inspired by the author, Alice Hemming
From the Fantastic Fictions project 2020
This dark tale started on a cold Halloween night, and this death stallion didn’t have a name, for he was wild, a killer. He hated every living thing, and he would make you suffer every last minute of your life that he left you. He would disguise himself as a majestic creature, so you would come close. Then he would change to his true form, and his black mane would grab you by the mid-section, his red stony gaze looking straight into your eyes and then he would place an evil curse on you. It gave you intense pain all over, you would vomit every last bit of food in you so you were weak. Then he would call his evil spirit legion with his shrieking whistle and kill you.
Don’t worry, this unicorn was not all bad, he would bury you and pray for you at your grave. He would summon your spirit and add you to his legion. After you had done your job for him he would escort you to heaven if you did your job well. He did this to satisfy his rage and need to kill, but, as you know, rewarded the people who sacrificed their lives. He was tremendously hateful because when he was born, his sire and dam thought him ugly, and left him to be eaten by wolves.
He survived on his own, but ever since then he has hated everything and everyone. As he kills, he hopes to find his mighty sire and dam, so he can murder them.
No one who saw him ever lived to tell the tale, except one special person…
This person was very special, and her name was Emma Brown, and this is how she stopped this evil force. The unicorn did as he always did, his deceiving transformations. This girl, Emma, knew something was not right, she was not deceived. She could feel the evil in the air and stood still. The unicorn eventually became tired of waiting and transformed to his true form.
Emma was a rancher, and always had some spare rope with her. She used the rope to grab the unicorn by the neck, and the unicorn called his legion, but Emma, still clutching the rope, understood this calling. For she had partly the same majestic blood as this mighty unicorn. She kneeled and prayed, which protected her against the unicorn’s powerful legion and warded them off. The unicorn, who despised this, reared and spooked Emma out of her prayer. She stood up, and, seeing the unicorn was panicked, walked up and spoke softly to the unicorn, and rubbed his nose. The unicorn calmed down, and the unicorn was hers.
Emma gave the unicorn peace and won his heart. The unicorn no longer had a legion, for he took them to heaven, and was no longer evil. He was loyal to Emma, and they were best friends.
