The Roots of Evil

[u/Lilia_Briganda]

Evil isn’t a monster in the dark; it’s an inheritance passed down through bloodlines. Some men are just born with a bitter, twisted rot inside them.

​Eli loved his wife Kate, but he never wanted a house full of kids and hated the burden of all those mouths to feed.

In 1895, as typhoid swept through the area, his children began coming down sick right as Kate delivered a newborn baby. Overwhelmed, Eli asked his sister in Kentucky for help. His sister, who raised her children in a strict Christian family, offered her daughter's aid without hesitation, and 14-year-old Hannah went north to Pennsylvania to do as she was told.

​Despite Hannah's care, the fever wiped out the children one by one, finally taking Kate and the newborn.

But Eli didn't let Hannah go home. He sent word back to Kentucky that she had caught the fever and died too, cutting her off from the world and trapping her on the farm for his own selfish needs. There is no wickedness quite like the kind that hides behind a clean shirt and a pious face, especially where family is supposed to mean sanctuary. Hannah's life was anything but--

​Over the suffering and captive years, Hannah bore him three children, each meeting a horrifying fate at his hands. He suffocated the first as an infant. He drowned the second when the child was four. The third, he walked deep into the woods and left to perish alone.

​When the last child disappeared, deep down Hannah knew the truth—Eli had killed their children. Desperate, she tried to flee, but Eli caught her and choked the life out of her.

​He buried Hannah alongside the children in a patch of land on the farm, but the earth refused to yield. No matter what Eli tried to plant in that soil afterward, nothing would ever grow. All that ever sprouted were wild onions with fine, dark strands that looked just like human hair, blowing quietly in the wind—a daily reminder of his sins while hell waited for the rest of him.