DESCENT

Special Chapter

. . .

"I kept you in a cage to preserve your beauty.

I kept you alone so I could only love you.

I starved you so that I would be the only thing you hungered.

I abused you so then you would worship me."

. . .

Everything in Winona had been screaming at her to keep going just keep running as far as you can! She wasn't stupid (far from it), she hadn't even planned to stop running for it until Lady Artemis finds her or any other help there is.

Don't stop.

Not now or ever... not until the dying screams of her sisters could no longer reach her ears, not until her screaming lungs finally forced her to stop.

Winona must have been running and traversing through the darkening shadows for what seemed to be like hours by this point, was what she thought, as she hunched over her trembling knees and finally gave in, gasping in sweet, sweet air like she was drowning, like she already knows any time soon, any of her carelessly taken breath might as well going to be her last.

And with a sinking feeling in her stomach, that thought seems to ring loud and true, uncomfortably lodging itself deep within her chest like an anchor rooting her on the spot because why bother fighting?

Why delay the inevitable?

She tries not to weep over the fact on how this was supposed to be a normal excursion with her new sisters.

Winona was just supposed to be an observer. She was supposed to watch over the three newly turned hunters of their Lady Artemis in order to judge if they did deserve this blessing, so that she may observe what type of talents they had to last in the field, that can be useful in the wilderness their goddess loved so much...

It wasn't supposed to end like this. They were supposed to go home laughing and smiling with the rest of their other sisters.

Everything had been going so well too... they located a rogue werewolf gone feral in the forest by an old, abandoned manor somewhere in England and together, in harmonious unity that would have made Lady Artemis proud. The youngsters had fought so seamlessly and have easily taken the mad dog out of its misery.

Winona had revealed herself there and then and congratulated her younger sisters, welcoming them with wide, open arms; she had been so sure they could leave at that point and call it a night.

But everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

They never stood a chance; she knows this now.

As soon as a resounding snap of the fingers, one so abrupt and seemed to come out of nowhere and everywhere, that they had no time to pinpoint where the sound exactly came from, the rogue werewolf who's stomach they just riddled with silver arrows suddenly lurched forward, as though rising back from the dead with a horrible howl.

And before they knew it, the hunter that had been standing closest to the corpse and the farthest from their group, was literally torn apart as the werewolf mauled her to death.

It happened so quick, they couldn't even do anything but stand in frozen, horrified shock as they watched the beast feast on their sister, her screams of pain and terror ringing on and on to the still night like a prayer help, help me, help me to their protector, to their goddess for what seemed to be like forever.

And Winona had wanted to cry there and then. That little girl had been the youngest in their groupno older than twelve years old. Sweet little Rosie had come to their custody when the hunters of Artemis found and saved the girl from the clutches of her abusive father in their cabin just a few months ago.