Anna managed to turn a horrid situation to her advantage. She stopped counting kills after the third one, and after she destroyed the skull of the woman she killed, and then put on her mask, she managed to blend in perfectly amongst the people who attacked her, and her beloved pet just moments ago.

This woman she killed had been the first that chased after her. The rest of her people had followed suit a whole minute later, and this, in turn, had given Anna plenty of time to fake her own death. She wore the big, spooky oval mask, and pretended that she was one of them.

She could barely see through the mask, as it only had two small eye slits she could look through, but this was enough. She could see what was in front of her, and from the looks of it, the attackers, her freshly new enemies, were buying her facade. They grunted at her, for a job well done, and she grunted back, not knowing if she said 'thanks' or cursed their entire bloodline.

Grunts were enough. She kept faking her identity, and it kept working.

She then helped her enemies drag the corpses towards their tribe. Their tribe was located across the river, close to the rocky mountain. The dip in the river freshened her up, it got her all perky, and helped her snap into razor sharp focus. She started channeling her rage towards strategy, as she tried to formulate the most mischievous plan she could think of.

'Bastards… I'm gonna rip your spines out.' She thought, "No one hurts my Bonita!'

Anna had a good look at the tribe around her, and tried to figure out the best way to wipe them out. She counted at least fifty people here, including men, women, and children, who called an opening in the mountainside their home.

It wasn't even a cave, just a wide opening, twenty meters, or sixty-five feet above the river. This wasn't a surprise, as there weren't many big predators who would bother them up here, or across the north lands in general. They were the masters of their own, limited world.

'I don't have much time,' Anna thought. 'If Bonita made it home, she's gonna be back here with Jimmy in less than an hour. I gotta move quick before these dumb bastards realize what's going on.'

While she thought of the best way to kill them, she noticed that the tribe's folk were starting a big fire. There were many kids around, and they got quite excited when they saw the fire, and in a way, their laughter softened her heart a little bit. She knew that she had to kill all of them, sooner or later, but she didn't know what she was supposed to do about these kids. She could kill them, yes, but would that be the right thing to do? They're innocent.

This issue ate up her time quite a bit, and when she looked back at the fire, she noticed that the men were tossing the fresh corpses into the fire. She figured that this was their tradition, a way for them to respect the bodies of the recently deceased.

But then, she saw that dead, maskless woman being tossed in the fire as well. The same woman that they considered to be Anna's dead body. This got her very confused, but it certainly grabbed her attention.

'Why would they bother getting rid of my body?' She asked herself. 'They can't be that respectful, can they?'

Anna's question was answered two minutes later. A man speared the sizzling, dead woman, and pushed her arm towards the edge of the fire. Afterwards, he sliced a bit of flesh off the very same arm, and took a bite.

After that, he gave a bigger chunk of meat to the kids, and they started sharing it among themselves. They were as happy as ever.

'Yup… they're cannibals.' She thought. 'Great, just great. As if these bastards weren't messed up already. They had to add cannibalism to their naughty list!'

A kid then came over. He was eight years old at most, and had blonde hair. Kids did not wear masks, so she got a really good look at his face. He graciously offered Anna a chunk of human flesh. It was raw, barely fried, but she accepted it, and pretended that she ate it behind the mask. She made some fake chewing noises so she'd sound more believable.

The kid stared at her, he seemed weirded out at first, but he did not care. He ran back to the fire, and played with the other kids.

Anna then tossed the chunk into the ground, and hoped that no one saw her. This was as close as she wanted to get to cannibalism.

Two minutes later, someone approached her. She had been trying to avoid conversations that didn't require simple grunts and gestures, but she couldn't do that forever. She was cornered, and so she held on to her spear tightly, waiting for things to go south.

After exchanging a couple of grunts with this cannibal, she noticed that he fell silent. He looked at Anna, and then he tilted his head to the left, along with his mask, curious.

A moment later, something happened that she would not have expected in a million years. She heard an odd whisper coming from the man. A whisper that easily escaped unnoticed amongst the bustling crowd.

"Can you understand me?" He asked.

Anna was stunned. She was lucky that there was a wooden mask covering her face, because otherwise she would not have been able to hide her surprise!

That aside, she didn't know how to react. This could be some sort of trap, one where she would give up on her fake identity, and possibly lose her life as a result. She was strong, but she could not kill an entire tribe on her own, not without a plan, at least, so she couldn't risk giving away her fake identity.

To be safe, she didn't speak at all. She was just pretending that this man sounded gibberish to her. So she tilted her head as well, acting confused.

This did not work, as the man still insisted, "Woman, I know you can understand me. You're from the grasslands, right? So am I. Do you know Jimmy? I'm Gaark, his brother."

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