"Paulie, slow up! I'm stuck!" Julia called from the back, one of her thick and seemingly brand new hiking boots getting stuck in a thick patch of mud.
"Did you gals hear something? Like a really annoying whining sound? I think it came from waaaaay back there." The older girl, presumably Paulie, said, pointing vaguely in Julia's direction.
The tall girl pale girl next to her chuckled halfheartedly, awkwardly caught in the crossfire of this sibling feud and trying her best to remain neutral. "Seriously Paulie, maybe we should slow our roll a little. These boots aren't made for walking." She said, pointing to her thick soled, black leather punk boots, which were clearly never intended to serve as hiking boots.
"First of all, don't call me that." Paulie said, shooting her friend an annoyed side eye.
"Whatever you say, Peanut." The tall girl answered, smirking.
"Or that!" Not Paulie and not Peanut snapped, jabbing a stern finger into the side of her tall friend's arm.
"Hey!" Dianne said, swatting at not Paulie and not Peanut's hand, though the tall girl she had her arm wrapped around didn't seem to mind the poke one bit. If anything, she seemed to enjoy knowing that her teasing was getting to her friend.
"Whatever. So what's third of all, PAULETTE?" The tall punk asked, being sure to enunciate her friend's name as slowly and pretentiously as possible.
"SECOND of-" Paulette stopped, realizing that her friend was counting the demand not to be called Peanut as the second command. She let out a puff of air, deciding that it wasn't worth her time to argue that point. "Third of all, Carly, we've still got four more miles to go until we reach the campsite, and I want to get our tents set up before midnight so we're not all groggy and cranky tomorrow morning when we wake up for the hike up the mountain." She said. Seeing Carly's mouth open with a smile on its lips, and expecting her to joke about not knowing that Paulette could be anything other than cranky, the shorter athletic girl cut her off with "Come on, I'll race you there! Beat me there, and I'll clean all the dishes this trip!"
Carly's eyes lit up. "You're on, sister! I'm gonna RUIN those goddamn dishes, just for you! Melted cheese, canned beans, gonna pick every mushroom I see and saute th- HEY!" She said, watching as Paulette quickly ran off down the path ahead of her, leaving the punk in the dust within seconds. "Hey no fair, you didn't say go!" She called, shrugging out of Dianne's embrace and desperately sprinting off after Paulette.
"Guys! Don't... split... up." Dianne shouted to no avail. "Oh... crap." She said, looking around the woods nervously. She knew that witch attacks were rare, but they did happen and they happened to happen more often to lone wanderers and very rarely to groups.
"Wow, that was a really stupid thing to do." Julia said, summing up Dianne's thoughts perfectly as she hobbled up beside her, one boot caked in mud and splatting with every step.
"Yeah... well... Carly has a way of not thinking everything through." Dianne said, patting Julia on the shoulder. "Come on, sweetie, let's stick together. I'm sure they'll tire themselves out soon enough, we'll catch up." She said, walking at a slightly slower pace than she had been before to give Julia a more comfortable walk.
The Collector, having seen all of this, quickly made her way through the woods in an attempt to cut Paulette off. Despite knowing all the shortcuts and alternate routes of this path like the back of her hand, she still found it extremely difficult to keep up with the athletic young woman without causing too much noise and giving herself away. Paulette had to be on the track team at her college or something, her speed and stamina were absolutely astounding. What's more, her face had barely broken a sweat throughout her run, her tanned cheeks gaining only the most superficial of blushes as she barely exerted herself. The way her tight ponytail fluttered behind her as she ran, the way her lips pursed as she sucked in air, the way her eyes stared straight ahead with burning intensity as she raced, it convinced The Collector that this was the one. She was stealing Paulette's head. And she knew just how to do it.
Skipping a bend in the path, The Collector managed to put herself four or five minutes ahead of Paulette, giving her just enough time to set a trap. While she wasn't "witch" as these girls had so rudely accused, over the years The Collector had learned a few additional ways of removing heads rather than simply yanking them off. While that was the only way she could do it at birth, and it was her most common method of removal, she had other ways. For instance, if she rubbed inorganic metal compounds on her body's neck stump for long periods of time, she could literally "rub off" some of her powers on the object. While the conferred power was only temporary, and wore off after only a couple of uses, it still provided her with a rather useful asset.
Pulling out a large coil of steel wire, which flickered and sparkled with dark blue energy every once in a while, The Collector got to work. Tying one end of the wire around a thick tree at the height of Paulette's neck (she'd gotten VERY good at judging people's neck height at a glance over the years), The Collector ran to the other side of the path and tied the wire around another thick tree, creating a neck high garrote trap.
Within seconds of her finishing, she saw Paulette zoom around the corner of the bend, a minute ahead of schedule. The Collector quickly ducked behind her tree to avoid being spotted. Paulette really was fast! Too fast, in fact, as while Paulette saw the wire a second before she hit it and had enough time to gasp in shock, she didn't actually have enough time to stop her momentum. The wire caught her neck just below the chin, severing her head and sending it tumbling into the dirt. The Collector had planned to lay down some leaves to cushion her fall, but Paulette great speed didn't give her enough time.
"AH!" Paulette yelped, her head rolling to a stop in a ditch by the side of the path. She landed facing her body, and saw it...
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