This is a 750 word story full of mirth and joy. Okay, maybe not. But it is 750 words.

Jan and Nyelta were precocious and inquisitive children. With their unfashionably long blond hair and delicate features, they looked as if they could have stepped out of a commercial for Ikea or Ricola. They were also evil little shits. Their disposition shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone: they came from a long line of evil shits.

The children’s father was still in prison. Rumor had it that the sentencing had to do with cannibalism. Their grandfather was a renowned hunter. That wouldn’t have been an issue if he hunted for food or skins; but no, he hunted the poor and lame from neighboring villages. He learned his skills from his own father and so on back through generations.

Hewing close to the Old Ways, the children had little use for traditional schooling, movies, and television. They did, however, love the internet. It supplemented and refined what they learned from their elders. Runes, appeals to the Eldritch Powers, and blood sacrifices were made more potent by sluicing off the sloppy mastication of hags[a][b] who sucked on the bones of tradition.

There was nothing that the twins hated more than being treated as if they were what they were, children. They grew keen of mind and bold of spirit and decided to upend the apple cart of precedent. The time for the elders was done while Jan and Nyelta’s time was at hand.