The pain....
That is the thought currently
cycling through Ruby's mind as her life fades away in the little
cottage where she went so often to meet with her coven. This was
supposed to be a routine meeting of the women who practiced the dark
arts. Perhaps a little chanting, spell work for someone lusting over
another woman's husband. You know...routine witchcraft and then
back home before people got suspicious. A charge of witchcraft was
no small thing in this village so you had to be careful.
The evening started innocuous
enough. Ruby was the third one to arrive at the cottage. Samantha,
the young woman who had recruited each woman for this group, was in a
corner talking in hushed tones to a woman Ruby had never seen before.
She looked over at Ruby briefly and smiled. Her eyes were the
brightest blue that Ruby had ever seen. The woman looked away and
continued talking to Samantha. Ruby couldn't hear everything but
the conversation sounded a little odd. There was a lot of talk about
tonight being the night. Samantha was begging the woman to give her
one more night to let everyone know. Then they would fall silent
again. Well, Ruby thought to herself, I had better stop being nosy
and get the altar table set up and the candles lit. When she
finished blessing the altar cloth, she noticed the rest of the women
had arrived. It was time to get started
The women gathered around the
table to begin the opening chant. Before one word could be spoken,
the door flew open as if someone had shot a canon through it. In the
doorway stood a young woman named Prudence. She was notorious in the
village for accusing women of witchcraft. Ruby felt an ice like
chill shoot down her spine. There was no way this could end good for
anyone in the room.
"I knew it! Come quickly
Father Brennan", Prudence yelled out the door. "There is evil
afoot in this house!"
Ruby leapt to her feet
immediately, grabbed Prudence, slammed the door and then dropped
latched. This was not going to happen tonight. An accusation was a
sure death sentence and there was enough evidence in this room to
ensure that the hanging would be tonight. Ruby thought maybe, just
maybe she could calm Prudence down and get her to listen to reason.
She was very wrong.
A strange symphony of horror
began to fill the air. Prudence was screaming for the Father to
break the door down door, Ruby was begging Prudence to stop screaming
and just listen for ONE DAMN MINUTE, the Father was yelling from
outside to open the door in the name of the Holy Father. Ruby had
finally gotten Prudence to stop screaming when another voice rose
from the cacophony.
"Well I guess tonight is the
night after all isn't it ladies?"
It was the woman that Ruby had
seen earlier talking to Samantha. The smile on her face was
absolutely terrifying. And her eyes Ruby thought to herself...there
is something weird with her eyes. She didn't have a chance to give
it much more thought though. In a flash Samantha ran towards the
woman screaming "No don't...!" Before she was able to finish
her thought, her body was flung across the room, slamming head first
on to the stone fireplace hearth. Ruby barely had time to ponder how
that happened when the rest of the women in the room started
screaming and rushing for the door to get out. Ruby ran to
Samantha's side to see if she was okay. She knelt at her side,
rolled her to one side and saw that her head was bleeding profusely.
Ruby screamed Samantha's name, looked at the unknown woman and
yelled, "who the hell are you?" She grabbed the fire poker from
its holder, fully intending to attack the unknown woman who had
likely killed her friend. Ruby saw the poker fly out of her hand,
turn around and forcefully slam into her chest piercing her lung.
She screamed in pain and glanced at the unknown woman...she was
laughing maniacally while the other women were pinned to walls of the
house. It was then that Ruby realized...she was doing this
somehow. She was doing all of it and had not moved from the corner
of the room she had occupied since Ruby first saw her.
The pain...
As the room grew darker and
Ruby grasped the fact that she was going to die right on this floor,
she glanced at her coven leader again, bleeding out on the floor next
to her. She then looked at the unknown woman, who was still laughing
as she systematically slaughtered every person in the house. She
then looked down at Ruby, and smiled a rather sweet smile under the
circumstances and said, "Don't worry, I will be seeing you again
sweet girl. We have many plans for you."
As the
last bit of life drained from Ruby, she looked up to face her killer.
The last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was her
killer's eyes. Once a beautiful sky blue, they were now pitch
black.
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