Protective

The mist hung heavily over the bayou, clouding its’ secrets. Only the animals that lived there knew what was hidden within the depths, away from prying eyes. The birds flew to and from their sanctuaries in the early morn to return hours later, homes still shrouded, their young still concealed. The frogs, brightly colored, came to the patches of land to search for food, their main concern in the morning. The flies and mosquitoes, with their incessant buzzing, avoided the frogs and other animals that preyed upon them to the best of their abilities.
As the day wore on, the mist lifted not one bit, desiring all the more to keep the bayou’s secrets to itself as the sun tried to pry them from it.  The haze would not give an inch for anything – only it would know everything that ever happened in the bayou and all that ever will happen in the bayou. The sun, being the want-to-be know-it-all, tried day after day to move the haze from this specific haze. The haze guarding this bayou was bull-headed enough to only let the animals that lived there in on the secrets and the animals weren’t about to tell. Any animal that shared a secret with one that lived outside the bayou met certain death. This had been proven time and time again by the empty-headed and dense that divulged a bayou secret. The deaths were natural looking enough but the others knew better. The bayou had worked its’ magic so the one that divulged the secret and the one that was told were dead so the secret would go no farther. The animals knew not how it was done but it was done every time. They did not even know how the bayou found out about a secret being spread to others.
The unfortunate humans that made their way into the bayou met a swift end. Humans were forbidden beyond the borders of the bayou. The secrets were far too precious and too powerful for simple humans to know. The bayou took care of humans just like it did the animals but the bodies of the humans were hidden within the bayou, declared missing by civilization.