Eye of the Coven: Season 1

Season 1, Episode 10: I Curse Thee

EPHRAIM

Ephraim opens his eyes when he feels an itch scarring both of his wrists. Blinking, he finds himself dangling above a stage belonging to other hanging Ephraims. They all look exactly the same, all of them with plastered wooden faces and loud features that are too exaggerated to belong to a human.

"What the fuck?" Ephraim mumbles, flailing his legs back and forth to find them attached to ropes as well. The ropes lead upward above him into a sky of darkness, like he's a puppet. He flails his limbs some more in attempt to get these ropes to be cut loose, for them to come undone from whatever piece they're wrapped around. "Help!" He calls, his voice echoing off the stage.

A bellow of laughter comes from the audience, each seat filled by strangers with no faces, only mouths. Their laughing mouths take up more than half of their face, bright with rows of white teeth and red lips. It's like their laughter is on a loop, never ending and growing more and more annoying by the second.

"Let me out!" Ephraim fidgets just before his left arm is yanked up by the strings. The puppets that match his face dance around him, all of their own arms and legs swinging this way and that by whoever is controlling them from above. Ephraim rolls with the movements, feeling his legs glide across the stage as the star of whatever twisted show this is. The no-faced people are laughing, pointing at the stage to ask if their date sees his dance moves. His horrifying dance moves.

"Stop laughing!" Ephraim commands but their laughter only grows louder. "Somebody help me, get me out of this thing!" He pleas again but no one moves. There's a little girl with pigtails in the front row, chowing down on a huge bowl of popcorn as if she's been waiting for this show her entire short-lived life. She, too, doesn't own a face. How can any of them even see without any eyes?

"What, aren't you having fun?" A deep voice booms from overhead.

Ephraim looks up, watching a set of hands wrap around the two wooden pieces to force the puppets to dance. How is he controlling all of them with only two hands? Ephraim doesn't have a clue. The man's face is disguised in the dark until he leans closer to the stage. His features come into view and Ephraim feels like he's about to be sick. He's twirling around and around on the stage, bumping shoulders and legs with other puppets, some crazy carnival music bouncing off the walls.

"Smile, son. You're the star."

Ephraim stares up into the eyes of his warlock father. His grin is just as evil as the people in the audience. His expression looms over him, leaving a sour taste in Ephraim's mouth. This can't be happening, this can't be happening. And if it is, then where the hell is he because his father is supposed to be teaming up with a team of warlocks or some shit.

"Smile, son." The puppets stop dancing and they no longer own Ephraim's morphed face. They own his father's. "You're the star."

Suddenly, Bones comes charging onto the stage, swinging a blade around to cut Ephraim from the strings his limbs are attached to. He swings this way and that, slashing the thread, like he's a white horse in the middle of a black night. A savior.

"Bones?" Ephraim blinks in bewilderment, his arms falling back down at his sides.

"Hurry, run!" Bones grabs Ephraim by the back of the shirt, shoving him forward so they can leap off the stage.

The faceless people in the audience are clapping, their smiles widening so much that their top lips are migrating up to their hairlines. Ephraim ducks his head, the cheers and chanting escalating, contained in the theater to the point it hurts his ears, forcing a ringing deep in his head. He follows Bones up the aisle, the double doors at the end, a sliver of light cutting right between them.