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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 — 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⋆☆⋆ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Look what you did."
A voice—her voice—said. But her lips weren't moving, she wasn't the one talking. A second later, hands of mist and shadow gripped her shoulders harshly and turned her around. To meet the consequences of her actions.
The darkness around her and the disembodied voice thinned out, revealing the sight of a small wooden platform. Twigs and branches were piled up there. A balefire.
She faced the female waiting for her death, her hood sagging over her head. She was going to—she was going to perish at the stake.
Invisible hands yanked the hood off. She knew that cocoa brown skin, knew that curly hair. The owner of the disembodied voice shoved Nathalie down the ground on her knees as the heretic screamed and trashed. "You are the reason for her death." That feminine voice whispered in her ear, almost inaudible over her screams.
The platform erupted in purple fire, the sea of the fiery tongues of mauve and violet and raisin engulfing, devouring Sheila Bennett.
The heretic finally managed to free herself and ran towards the platform, towards the heart of the flames. But the fire burned her— didn't let her past. She tried to control it, tried to sooth it, tried to do something, but her body didn't respond to her screams and pleas.
"You did this." Nathalie turned around only to meet her sister's hollow, angry eyes. "YOU DID THIS!" Bonnie yelled at her. "You could have saved her, you could have helped her, but you were weak. Your control slipped like it always does."
Her sister laughed, and shook her head. The anger turned into wicked amusement. "I guess she was right about you—you are just a lying, selfish coward."
The world erupted in fire.
And she was drowning in it.
Her head, her throat, her whole body was on fire. Her world was on fire. She had tried to extinguish the purple flames, devouring her, her house, her friends, her sister and ended up drowning in them.
She trashed and scratched, seeking a surface, a bottom, an edge she could take hold of as the fire forced its way in her throat, burning her lungs, grasping her beating heart as she screamed noiselessly. The purple fire surged through her, coursed through her veins, melting her apart, piece by piece, bit by bit for all her sins—
"NATHALIE!" A voice roared. Hands were shaking her shoulders, someone was shaking her by her shoulders and she thrashed against them, screaming and screaming and screaming.