It was easy to gather the rest of the demanded "volunteers." There were plenty of worse criminals within the cells of the local stockade, murders, rapists, thieves, the dregs of the world. The worst of the worst were gathered, and chained tightly to the pillar acting like the calendar. Like clockwork the entity returned, and retrieved the other twenty prisoners, and the city breathed a great sigh of relief believing that now that the creature got what it wanted, it would leave.

WRONG!!!

Two days later the entity returned, and made the same demand for another twenty five able bodied men by the end of the week. To contend with the entity, a platoon of veteran city guards, led by the captain of the guard and an accomplished mage. The results were not pretty, with out a motion the guardsmen were again turned into paste, and the entity took great joy in pressing his staff into the mage until he popped like a tomato.

A valent effort.

Again murders, rapists, and thieves were conscripted to fill the quota. For weeks this happened, until the stockade turned empty. Then, petty theft was now just called theft, and man slaughter, was now murder. Citizens were no longer allowed to defend them selves from both the criminal, and the guards, and civil disobedience was soon called sedition, all to feed the grinder.

Five months ago....

The death of the reasonable constable, captain of the guard, and the most senior of the guardsmen left a powerful emptiness in the peace of the town, and the bad people took notice. Even though the punishment for even small crimes were beyond draconian, crime went up. Thieves ran rampant taking from those they could, and people were murdered, or were taken to dark parts of the town for unspeakable things. Soon people that disappeared in back allies found them selves chained to the pillar, and that's when people began leaving.

First the most wealthy types left, then the shop owners gathered their resources, and disappeared as well leaving the poorest to take the brunt of the newest abuses, or to take advantage of every hole opened up by the people who left.

Four months ago...

The "conscription" of the twenty five a week continued, as did the exodus, causing a deficit in the cities taxes to start showing. The pruned shrubs surrounding the city square fell into disrepair, and weeds began growing in the once manicured lawns. More citizen "criminals" were taken to maintain the city works, maintain the greenery, and ensure that the carriages ran on time on pain of being chained to the pillar.

Outside the city rumors began running about strange creatures on the edge of civilization; travelers, and families participating in the exodus disappearing, and the predators of the area becoming more aggressive. Farms were raided, and the fields were left fallow allowing weeds to grow tall, and less food found its way into the city proper...

People began to get hungry.

Three months ago...

In spite of the enforced servitude the city weeds began to grow tall, and the greenery began to turn brown. Lamps weren't maintained, and the city grew darker at night, and creatures of the night began to roam and prey on the vox populai in the dark, but the quota still needed to be filled, and most of the city was too afraid to fight the entity again, the rest were becoming too hungry. To make sure their bellies were full, the government made sure to collect all resources of the city, and redistribute them fairly to the citizens, with some citizens being more fair than others.

City buildings were abandoned, and fell into disrepair, windows were broken, doors kicked in, and taken over by squatters, fires were started inside for people to keep warm, got out of control, one building caught on fire, followed by the next, and the next until an entire section of the city was destroyed. Hungry, homeless people became sick, hungry homeless people, and were now fodder for the guards, criminals, and creatures of the night.

Two months ago....

The sick, hunger, and preyed upon gave ample opportunity for a plague to take hold, and spread through the city. This then gave the remains of the government to order its citizenry to shelter in place, or be put into the stockade. Everyone by this time knew just exactly what that really meant, it meant it would be easier to round up men, and women for the entity's quota.

Outside of town the neighboring cities, and other settlements began to notice that there was less, and less trade coming from the city, and thus less, and less trade went into the city causing everyone to get all that much more hungry.

Somewhere along the line the criminals became the guards, or the guards became the criminals, either way the only distinction between the two was the guards wielded spears, and the criminal element used clubs, or daggers.

To keep the people from form any kind of resistance against both the guards, and the entity the guards began fostering distrust between everyone by encouraging, and rewarding the act of snitching on ones neighbors.

Last month...

The once bustling city with where men, and women would gather in public spaces, that were covered in green shrubs, and beautiful greenery, where crime might have been a thing, but never more than what a reasonable authority figure could de-escalate, whos red brick building would house commerce, was now a depopulated, sick, crime ridden cesspool governed by corrupt officials, and lawless guards, which buildings are burned out husks, its parks are where people go to die, and were never green, with morer than enough blood, and other fluid stains on the once white stones of the parks.

The lord of the city, had long ago fallen to despair, and taken his own life, and no one ever noticed.

The worst, the absolute worst was that the citizens stopped caring! They weren't afraid of the entity anymore, they accepted their hunger, the didn't fight the corruption, and they let crime sweep the city. They were dead inside, and so was their home.