Chapter 68: Crazy witch
~Ava's POV~
I can’t count the days or nights I’ve been stuck in this dark room, this endless void of darkness. The kind only I see. The same one Lara seems to delight in taunting me with whenever she comes in to check if her little pet has managed to escape.
The day I fell into her spell, I thought it would be something easily handled. I even believed Drakon could fix it if Maya couldn't. But I never truly acknowledged Lara’s meticulous planning. I had underestimated her.
After succumbing to the spell, I found myself in this room. Back then, it wasn’t so dark. A dim golden glow filled the space on the first day, shimmering from an array of candles, candles that I later realized were the reason for the summon. I can still recall the circle of candles and blood drawn with the circle.
And the butchered head of a child. A child forcibly taken from her mother, it seems because it has been a newborn babe not older than three months or so.
Another body lay inside the circle where I had been summoned, his eyes gouged out, his privates mutilated and taken out. They had spread him out for all to see.
If spirits could puke, I would have. The stench of blood and rotting flesh of another child three feet away was suffocating. To think Lara had gone so far as to kill five children just to bind me…Ah. I forgot to mention, I’m not under a spell. I’m under a curse.
This ritual circle, this room, is where I’m trapped. Lara called it a ‘Necromancer’s Curse’.
I haven’t been able to speak to Maya. My connection with her, with Drakon, is gone. I’ve tried and tried, but there’s nothing. And I finally realized, I’m alone again.
The dread of reliving the life I once survived poured into my mind, bringing nothing but fear and helplessness everyday.
The iron bars, infused with spells to lock my soul inside this dark cocoon, rattle… loud and grating. She does this every damn day when she is bored. She comes here, tapping a piece of iron against the bars just to torment me.
She’s doing it on purpose.
She wants me to beg or maybe she just loves seeing me fidget not that I can since my hands are shackled.
She told me my body won’t last much longer, that the spirits of the children are eating away at it. She promised this is how I will exist for eternity.
Not alive. Not dead. Just trapped in this endless pit of darkness.
Sometimes, my heart sinks at the horrors she whispers, the twisted things she plans to do. She intends to awaken my body and give it to the great elder of her clan, the one who performed this ritual. The one, that's already dead. Yes, she is dead.
What was her name again? Ah… Alasia.
That’s what Lara called her. She mentioned feeling dejected and powerless to help her friend—Laura? That was the name she used.
I’ve heard that name before, but I can’t remember where.This endless cycle of darkness and Lara’s pathetic need for conversation is getting on my nerves.
To make things worse, I can’t speak.
She used a spell to seal my mouth shut on the second day, after I pointed out the evil she had done. Well, when I could remember or even count days.
"Did you miss me?" she asks sweetly. Would you miss you? These days, I think she’s lost her mind. No sane person would behave like this. There again, no sane person would kill children for ritual and power gain.
"Why aren’t you saying anything?" She brings a magical light closer to my face. The room finally lights up.
"Oh, I forgot!" She squeals excitedly. " You can't speak. I shut your mouth."
Yes, crazy witch. You did, I want to shoot back.
"Do you want to know what’s happening out there?"
I just stare at her. I don’t nod. I don’t react the way she wants me to.That pisses her off.
Her face contorts into the monstrous form she’s recently created through her voodoo, another ritual fueled by human sacrifice.
Alasia has been instructing her, but when Lara hesitated to kill the child, Alasia stepped in and finished the ritual herself.
One thing I’ve noticed, they mostly take girls. Rarely boys.
Lara once said boys’ spirits are vengeful.The one they blinded to bind me is already roaming around my body, lurking to steal my eyes as well. Alasia seems to have bewitched him, made him believe I was the one who killed him, just like she did with the others.How do I know all this?
The banshee screaming in the corner over there, that won’t shut up told me.She wanted a reaction from me. Since she didn’t get it. Now, she’s shrieking at the top of her lungs.Well, suit yourself. Scream all you want. It's your voice not mine.
"How dare a guilty human ignore me?" she screeches, attempting to reach inside the room to yank at me.Lara can harm me, even in this form. That’s what I found out. Right now, she’s trying to do, grab me and cast another spell or maybe pull at my hair. Or maybe even do her favorite sport of scratching at me. I couldn't bleed but it hurts.
I’m always so glad Gwen isn’t like her.The little fool stretches her hand trying to bypass the bars, but the magic repels her, sending her crashing to the floor.
Again. And again. And again.She’s forgotten, the iron bars are spelled to keep me inside.
I smirk as she lands hard on her ass. Again. Look who fell into her own trap.
She still doesn’t get it. She keeps trying. Pathetic. Finally, she stops.The magical light she hung on the wall flickers. And I knew, without a doubt, that the wicked witch was here.These two remind me of my sisters. Annabelle is evil, but she mostly does whatever Helena whispers in her ear. Lara reminds me of Annabelle, a more unhinged version of her. Or maybe Annabelle would have been just as twisted if she had Lara’s power.
If Lara is Annabelle, then Alasia is Helena, calculating, manipulative, and sinister.
Alasia whispers to Lara, feeding her delusions. She tells her she could create a terrifying voodoo bat monster, promising her powers that would come from it she does. And when Lara, desperate for power, asks how, Alasia smiles, that knowing, wicked smile.
She tells her she can’t. Not yet. Lara begs and grovels. Then Alasia reveals the price, a toddler’s life.
Depending on how strong she wants the spell to be, she might need four or five children. Just to experiment.
Most times, the spell doesn’t even work.
Innocent lives lost for nothing.
I don’t know who to pity more, Lara or myself. But then… I’m the one in a complicated situation I didn't ask for.
Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I am lucky compared to them.
My gaze drifts to the souls of the children trapped in this room with me.
They tremble now, eyes wide, lips quivering.
I sigh. How do I free them?And myself? Worse still… more souls are coming.
What do I do now?
For someone living her second life, I’m disappointed in how I’m handling things.
If only I had listened to Raphael that day.
But then, if I had, these children’s souls would have been used for even darker things. That is something I will never allow.
I have to find a way to free them. To free myself. Alasia’s soul materializes, her underworldly beauty coming into full view.
For someone so breathtaking… She's utterly vile.
The children whimper, pressing themselves into the shadows. Their fear clings to the air like damp rot.
A melodic voice blared through the tension, smooth, commanding, deadly.
"Did you bring the boy I asked for?
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