Erie Islands

On a section of the world secluded from modern society there laid a cluster of islands that were surrounded by treacherous waters. On every night there would be a strange occurance taking place that the natural inhabitants of these islands knew all too well but had failed to prepare enough for it. During the night there are huge ferocious creatures that viciously prey on villagers that had the misfortune of being part of a long line of isolated native Erie Islands dwellers. The Erie Islands got the name once they became cursed by a witch named Jihenna long ago that died of thirst and starvation after Shiru, a leader of pirates at the time chased her deep within the woods of one of the largest of the Erie Islands. She had been taken captive when Shiru found out about her magic abilities but after utter abuse and neglect Jihenna was fed up, as well as at her limit on the brink of death since Shiru never bothered to properly feed nor tend to his captives. Once bodies started piling up in the ship barracks, Shiru ordered the crew to dump the bodies.

This is when Jihenna fought back and reanimated the corpses around her to kill nearly the entire pirate crew of Shiru's ship. Once the remaining crew members finally slaughtered and retook the now undead lives of the reanimated corpses that Shiru had imprisoned they realized the ship had autonomously steered into a nearby landmass causing a shipwreck. See, Shiru was cunning and bloodthirsty but not necessarily intellegent nor invincible, Jihenna was already aware of this. She not only casted a spell to bring about a zombie problem on the ship, but also had poisoned the entire drinking supply on the ship from the water to the wine on board. This caused even the crew that did not fight the zombified prisoners to drop dead like flies including the helmsman. All the barrels of drink got dumped from the ship and Jihenna made her escape to sprint as far away from Shiru and his pirates. Shiru and his severely diminished crew searched far and wide but could not track down Jihenna completely unaware that the witch had already calapsed due to complete fatigue and died with her face in the mud. Once Shiru had given up looking for Jihenna and returned to the ship it was surrounded with mutated creatures from the water that had been infected by the poisoned drink dumped from the ship.

Shiru tried to fight them off when the creatures attacked but was torn limb from limb with his arms, head and even legs pulled from his body and eaten like home cooked chicken. The crew looked on in shock as their captain was peeled apart like string cheese while screaming in absolute agony before frantically running for their own lives. Needless to say they did not get far, before they knew it ravinous beasts from the watery deep with razor sharp teeth were moving on land much faster than any person had even thought possible to devour them. Chewed pieces of pirate littered the beach with mangled bits strewn across the sand. This night that Shiru's ship crashed ashore changed the lives of the people living on the islands forever. The savage creatures from the waters travelled so far into the islands that the first villagers that were unaware of Jihenna and Shiru's fued had come in contact with them.

There wasn't anything anyone could do but panic. A massacre ensued regardless. One survivor, named Halbert, made it through the night by climbing a tree and witnessed the creatures retreat back to the beach to return to the waters once the sun began to rise in the morning. He had no time to mourn, instead this was his chance to warn the nearest villagers to spread the word to the surrounding islands. This is what led to everyone there to now know the area as Erie Islands. No one ever figured out how to kill these ferocious creatures from the water that roamed the land at night looking to feast on humans. Nor did anyone know how to stop them from coming, let alone what caused this to happen since everyone from the ship including both Shiru and Jihenna had perished before coming into contact with any native inhabitant of the islands. What had once only plagued one of the islands, the largest one in fact, actually grew into a much bigger problem.

Even when people resorted to living in trees, going so far as building houses and bridges in them, the water became just as much as a threat as the creatures rising from them. The poison Jihenna concocted became more potent by the day, spreading to rivers and streams which eventually started killing off the entire populace of the Erie Islands. It had gotten so bad that poisonous rain destroyed much of the vegetation. People died by poison during the day and vicious creatures at night. One man's greed and one woman's spite led to the devastation of an entire populace that was unaware of the two ever existing. Not even Halbert could escape the plight.