Author's Note: WOW it's been a while since I've written anything. I guess the new year brings new surprises (especially since those include new stories from a fanfiction author named Katadenza amazing right).
So I wrote this mainly for two reasons: One, to kick myself back into gear for continuing Aves (and it somehow ended up being longer than Aves in its current entirety WHOOPSIES). And two, in honor of that spiffy new album Mothy is releasing in February, titled Seven Crimes and Punishments. Mmmmm, I can feel my headcanons being disproven already. (Seriously though, this is the real reason: To get ALL my Eve headcanons out in the open before Mothy smashes them with the mighty canon-hammer before I could even propose them. Which is really sad.)
Edit (3/17/15): There is now, apparently, an Evillious Chronicles category. Here's an updated re-release to celebrate.
WARNINGS: Gore, Cannibalism, Murder (and basically all the pleasant things you'd usually find in the Evillious Chronicles)
SPOILER ALERTS: Contains spoilers for Original Sin Act 1 (as I'm setting this five years after moonlit bear) and the Sloth novel (just to be safe)
So this is pretty much the longest thing I've ever written so far. Whoa. However, quantity is not always equal to quality, dear readers, so please kindly send a review my way (please be nice). Especially if you're a Mothy fan. I'm always cool with meeting Mothy fans. Happy reading!
When Eve Moonlit finally became aware of her surroundings, she found herself surrounded by purple.
She was in the center of a circular lavender-tinted ballroom, a ring of candles surrounding her in the distance giving flickering purple light. There were windows on the walls, large ones almost five times her height, but they were all boarded shut. Noticing this, a sense of foreboding immediately entered Eve's mind. Before she could even get her bearings, she heard a voice behind her, like rumbling bass.
"Enjoying my home?"
Looking behind her, she saw a strange creature striding up to her. From the waist up, it was normal, with the torso, arms and head of a man. He had long luxurious hair and piercing eyes, all as violet as the ballroom around them. A smirk, one that the mage could have called seductive, was on his face. But below, Eve had to stop herself from gaping. His legs were not one of a regular human being, but the the bent ones of a goat, the kind she could never hope to see in Held's Forest.
At the thought of the forest, her mind finally processed the fact that she wasn't at home, she wasn't with Adam and the children, and she was in a strange place with an even stranger creature. With he being the only source of information, she opened her mouth to ask the burning questions desperate to be answered, but her mind was foggy and uncomprehending. "Who... where...?"
The creature only laughed. "It shouldn't matter to you anymore." He sidled up to her, capturing her in a hug and whispering in her ear. "You have me now, don't you?" He held a gossamer flower, delicate fuchsia petals grazing her chin teasingly. "Come now, look me in the eyes..."
An immediate sense of wrongness came over Eve. She wasn't supposed to be here, he shouldn't be doing this to her! An uncontrollable urge to shove him away filled her whole body, but for some reason she couldn't move, eyes transfixed on the flower. "Uh..."
The creature laughed. "Speechless, my darling?" Was it just her, or were his eyes glowing? His voice dropped low and husky, right at her ear. "Come dance with me, dear. You won't so upset then, I'll make sure of it."
He was too close. Eve finally found her limbs working again and used all her strength to shove away the inhuman lech. The force sent her stumbling, and she found herself against the wall facing the monster. "G-get away from me!" Immediately, she tried to cast the strongest barrier spell she knew, but her magic didn't seem to respond. To her alarm, it seemed to be missing entirely.
Again, he only laughed, strolling toward her almost casually. "It would be better for us if you would just relax. Just trust me."
Eve's eyes shifted rapidly from side to side, realizing she had nothing, not even magic to protect her. An escape, she needed an escape! And yet the ballroom was perfectly circular, offering no such thing. She nearly despaired, but suddenly, maybe when her eyes weren't looking, a dark hallway appeared to her right. Not questioning the source of her salvation, she bolted toward it without looking back, leaving the light of the ballroom behind.
She ran, not caring about the darkness that pressed against her like a thick blanket, only focusing on putting one foot in front of another, away away from the monster. Eventually her fear died down, accompanying the slowing pace of her flight and beating heart, and she finally processed the sheer blackness she was wandering in. There was a chill in the air, and she shivered. In spite of this she kept walking, certain that there was a way out of this darkness.
As she walked, the air only got colder and colder, digging into her bones mercilessly. Just as she thought that she would never get out, she saw a faint red light in the distance. Hope surging within her, she sprinted madly towards it, revealing itself to be another doorway to another unknown room.
The closer she got, the more hesitant she became. The air had mercifully gotten warmer, but it was a moist, humid kind of warm, with puffs emanating from the doorway as if a large sleeping dragon lay in wait within. Despite her apprehension, she forced herself to continue. Anything was better than this darkness.
And then, she was in the light, but that wasn't enough to comfort her. Eve found herself in an enormous crimson dining hall, grander than any place she saw in Divine Levianta. Directly in front of her was a long mahogany table, so lengthy that she couldn't see either end no matter how much she squinted. Disturbingly, she couldn't see the end of the hallway either. It seemed to extend infinitely in both directions, and she had no clue where to go next.
Eve looked to her left. She looked to her right. Both directions looked exactly the same, but Levia knows who or what was there on either side? Eve looked back, and saw that the doorway she had entered from was now a pitch black rectangle, almost threatening to swallow her up. She gulped.
Eventually, she decided to go left. If both ways really were identical it wouldn't matter which way she went anyway.
She walked on and on along the seemingly unending hallway for what seemed like hours. The walls remained crimson, uniform and featureless, with only lamps every fifteen paces to light her way. The same could be said for the table, with its smooth unyielding mahogany.
Eve was beginning to panic, considering breaking into a run when she first heard the noises. They were the sounds of loud, unrestrained consumption, wet and squelchy and (in Eve's opinion) disgusting. Next came the smell, a foul and pungent odor. The closest scent Eve could compare it too was when she had accidentally left a fish dinner out in the open overnight, and this was definitely worse than that. Then, she saw the plates.
They were sparse at first, random clusters of all shapes and sizes and materials (from silverware to ceramics) appearing every ten paces or so, but they eventually came to almost cover the table from one side to the other. They were stacked on top of each other, large stacks, some almost as tall as Eve herself. The unsettling thing Eve noticed about them, however, was that the plates obviously looked used, but still had very little trace of food.
Eve knew right then and there that she should be running as fast as she could back from where she came, but something kept her feet moving forward, towards the source of the noise and the smell and to where she now knew was the head of the table.
She could finally see the end, now. At the end of the hallway was a massive stack of plates and cutlery, all filled with strange foods (if Eve could even call them edible). The smell was now overwhelming, and she tried to hold her breath, covering her mouth and nose as her eyes watered.
At the head of the table was a large ebony chair with blood red cushions. Though Eve was too far to see the specific details of the occupant, she knew they were diving into the meals with great, noisy gusto. There were two others on both sides of the chair, both with oddly familiar blonde hair.
Wait…
Hansel…? Gretel…?
She was close enough now to see the mysterious occupant. It was a woman clothed in red, hungrily licking the plate she was just eating off of, hiding her face from Eve. Eventually, she stopped to look up.
When she looked up...
It had been five whole years, but she remembered that face. Eve froze. Her stomach churned. Her skin paled and her blood seemed to turn to ice. Forgetting the smell entirely, she gasped and screamed.
"YOU!"
The woman (I killed you I killed you you're dead it's my fault you're dead I took your children I killed you I killed) only smiled. "It's seems like we have a guest."
"I'm sorry!" Eve blurted out. She couldn't stop herself. "I'm sorry you died!" She was beginning to tear up. "I didn't know! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry-"
The woman only laughed heartily, dismissing her apologies with a wave of her hand "Eat with us. Maybe that would make you feel better!" She nodded to one of her blond servants (Hansel?) and immediately, he picked up a half-empty plate of meat, running up to Eve.
The teal-haired mage stepped back, shaking her head frantically. "I can't... No... I KILLED you! I... Hansel... Gretel... I can't-"
The woman laughed again. "Nonsense! Go on. Try some. These dishes were prepared by the finest chef in the land." Hansel (an older version of him, it seemed) kept offering the dish to Eve, a serene smile on his face.
Eve couldn't make herself take a single step anymore in either direction. She could only shake her head, her eyes wide.
"Go on..." The woman kept encouraging her. Eve blinked, and she gasped.
Large chunks of flesh were now missing from the woman's arms and face, revealing white bone and leaving blood oozing out of the gaps left behind, dripping down onto the floor. To her horror, the dish Hansel offered was now full of the woman's flesh, stringy chunks of meat and fat in a puddle of blood, with a single eye staring up at her. Eve heaved, close to throwing up, but failing that, only managed to make a strangled choking sound.
The woman, now missing an eye, laughed once more, her laughter increasing in pitch until it began to sound like insane screeching. "EAT, YOU SILLY GIRL! IT WOULDN'T BE ANY DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU'VE DONE ALREADY!"
Eve was now white with fear, clutching at herself as Hansel (now wearing an insane grin to match his real mother's) practically began to shove the plate into her face. She still somehow forced herself to give a small shake of her head.
The woman seemed to calm down, yet she still smiled. "Hmm, is that so? Then I guess if you're not eating, you might as well be eaten."
At those words, both servants launched themselves at Eve, their faces contorted into psychotic grins. Taking one arm each, they began dragging her towards the bloodied woman.
Eve struggled frantically, but their grip on her arms was solid. She tried to dig her heels into the floor, but she only slid helplessly as the twins marched her forward. Words were spilling from her lips faster than she could process them, screaming for help that wasn't there, for Adam to save her, apologizing to the woman, begging the children to let her go, please let her go, she was so so sorry...
She was face to face with the woman now, the twins keeping her rooted to the spot holding her arms behind her as the woman smiled, showing her blood-stained teeth. Her thoughts became a grey blur, her heart seemed to be trying to escape out of her chest, and all she could hear was an incessant buzzing noise, a swarm of a million tiny insects that seemed to overload her senses.
The woman opened her mouth, and all Eve saw within was complete void. The mouth stretched open more than a normal human's would, the inky blackness growing to encompass everything, the woman, the children, the dining hall, Eve herself...
Eve could only scream.
"SILENCE!"
And suddenly she could feel herself kneeling (kneeling?) on some hard surface with her wrists still bound behind her back. Eve realized that she had been keeping her eyes squeezed shut the entire time. Her heart still racing, she slowly opened them.
She wasn't in the dining hall anymore.
Instead, she was in a magnificent golden throne room, with sunlight streaming through the elegantly crafted windows. The entire room seemed to glitter, and when Eve squinted, she realized that it was because every available surface, from the walls to the ceiling, was adorned in precious gems.
"PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MONARCH, YOU WORTHLESS PEASANT!"
Finally looking directly in front of her, Eve gaped. She saw a golden throne, even more heavily embedded with various jewels and precious metals. But what shocked her even more was the scowling blonde-haired girl currently on it, with a similarly extravagant yellow dress and a golden tiara on her head.
"G-Gretel?" she managed to choke out.
The girl's eyes flashed. "You have no RIGHT to call me that name! Address me as your queen, murderer!" she snapped.
Eve winced. "Listen, Gretel, I know what I did was wrong, but I-"
"SILENCE!"
The girl stood up, enraged, causing Eve to cringe back. "Did you just disobey me? Did you not just hear what I just said?" She glowered for a moment, before pointing at Eve and shouting "Bow your head in my presence!"
Eve, still stunned, stuttered "B-but... Gretel... I did..."
"ENOUGH!"
The girl stomped her foot, almost childishly. "A useless murderer, with no capacity to obey, AND with no respect for the crown... I've had enough of you."
She snapped her fingers, turning her back on Eve as she returned to her throne. "Off with her head."
From behind the throne, a blonde boy dressed in servant's garb emerged. Eve whimpered, her breathing beginning to speed up once again. "Hansel, please..."
The boy didn't seem to hear her, as he stoically dragged her across the floor. This time her entire body wasn't spared, being scraped by the various jewels as he took her to a distant corner of the room. Angling her head around, she saw a curious contraption waiting for her. It was a large wooden frame with a large metal blade suspended from the top with a rope. To Eve's dread, it was stained crimson, certainly with blood. At the bottom seemed to be two hinged wooden boards with a circular hole in the center. It finally hit her what exactly the device was for.
She began to struggle, again, with exactly the same results. Now she was begging Gretel for mercy, begging Hansel to let her go. But Hansel kept going, and as she looked, she saw Gretel simply unamused by her antics, idly waving a fan as she sat on her throne, almost bored.
They finally reached the device, with Eve still futilely begging. Hansel roughly shoved her forward and closed the stocks over her neck with practiced motions, trapping her in the device. It didn't stop Eve from trying to get away from the blade directly above her, but her hands were still tied her back and her head trapped by the wooden stocks. Her voice was now hoarse, and her throat ached, and she could only groan weakly as Hansel set upon untying the rope that kept the blade from falling.
As she heard the heavy metal blade come down, Eve could only close her eyes and wait for the end.
However...
At what should have been the point of impact Eve felt herself falling, falling onto what felt like grass and dirt and her hands were finally freed and she felt the sun on her back and she somehow wasn't dead and Eve felt hopelessly confused as she opened her eyes again. She was lying in an endless meadow as far as the eye could see, with rolling hills and green grass and a clear, almost cloudless sky. The land was dotted with random clusters of trees, while the grass itself was sprinkled with patches of flowers. Eve sat up as she looked around, trying to take everything in.
"Ah, it looks wonderful, doesn't it?"
An oddly familiar voice suddenly spoke behind her, jolting Eve to her senses. She scrambled to her feet, turning to face the stranger.
It was like looking in a mirror. The stranger was as tall as her and had the same face as her, complete with an exact copy of her eyes and hair. The doppelganger was dressed in all white, wistfully looking at the surrounding landscape.
"W-who..." Eve gulped. "Who are you?"
The girl laughed softly, and spoke (in her same voice), "I'm you, of course."
And before Eve could respond, she continued, "It doesn't have to be this way, you know?"
"What... do you mean...?" Eve didn't dare move, still suspicious of her double.
"You know, worrying all the time, being weighed down by your troubles and regrets," she sighed wistfully, placing her hands on Eve's shoulders in a friendly gesture. "If you stay here, you can forget about all of that. Let everything go, and just… sleep. Everything's perfect here."
Eve found herself nodding to the girl's words, her eyelids beginning to feel heavy. A cool wind blew through the air, tousling her hair. The grass began to look soft and inviting.
"So I can stay here?"
"Forever," The girl smiled. "And ever. Nothing will ever bother you again."
Forever... The word jostled at something in her mind, something small but important, what was it...? Her eyes wandered, finding a small patch of flowers nearby, the buds waving in the breeze with their sapphire-colored petals. The color reminded her of something, no, someone...
"What about Adam?" she found herself asking. "What about the children? What happens to them?"
Her double cocked her head in confusion. "Why would you care about them? Aren't they the cause of your troubles? They wouldn't be welcome here."
Eve was shocked at the question, then was immediately going to give a very indignant response when she suddenly stopped to think. Why DID she care about them? Her double did have a point.
She found her reason, and she spoke, starting off slowly. "Because... they're family. My family. And I can't just leave them because I love them, and..." She paused. "I owe it to the children not to abandon them, not after what I did. They deserve so much better than that."
Eve stood up straighter, her sleepiness falling away. "I'm sorry, I can't stay here. I have to go home."
Silence. Her double simply looked at her in abject confusion. Then suddenly she was grabbing Eve's wrist in a painful grip and snarling. Her form had suddenly changed, her once white dress became blood-stained, her hair came loose from the twintails she shared with Eve and became similarly stained with blood, to the extent that it looked almost pink. She grew taller, more intimidating, and stronger.
"Have you even bothered to look around you, Eve?" her no-longer-double growled. "Have you ever seen your precious family worry as you do? Or lose sleep as you do?" Her grip tightened, stopping Eve from running away. "Your so-called children play with the carefree happiness that you will never have. Your husband will never know what it's like to have blood on his hands. How does that make you feel?"
"L-Let me go!" Eve cried, this time throwing her whole weight into trying to get her to release her wrist.
"You will never be able to forget, Eve Zvezda," the pink-haired woman, sneering at her efforts. "You are bound by your crime forever, while they live free. They might even leave you behind, have you ever thought about that? No one wants to be around a silly delusional girl who mistakes babies for apples and kills their mother in cold blood-"
"T-They would never do that! And that's Eve Moonlit to you! Now LET ME GO!" Eve started using her other hand to try to remove the grip on her wrist.
"Oh dear," the woman giggled. "Looks like you're trapped. Would you like me to free you?" From her dress, she drew a sharp pair of scissors, as blood-stained as the rest of her. "I'd be happy to."
"W-what? N-No!" Eve screamed, but soon she found herself face down on the ground, hands once again restrained behind her back as the woman pinned her down.
"Such lovely hands, too bad they belong to a murderer," the woman sighed, as Eve felt her stroking them in a sick twisted version of a caress. "I wish I could have them instead. I assume you won't be needing them anymore, Eve?"
Suddenly Eve could feel cold metal at her wrists, and she struggled even harder. "It wouldn't hurt so much if you would just hold still, well, it's going to hurt anyway so..." The woman laughed. "Here goes!"
Eve screamed yet again, squeezing her eyes shut.
And the whole world seemed to dissolve.
When she found her bearings again, she found herself sitting in the center of a... courtroom? Yes, a Leviantan courtroom, just as she saw in the newspapers she used to read.
Her wrists were still bound behind her, still feeling the cold sensation of metal, but instead of sharp scissors, there were only solid manacles. She squirmed, and found that her feet were also bound, with chains restraining her to the seat. This was the defendant's seat, she realized, with a tinge of horror.
Before she could reflect on anything further, a familiar voice, one Eve was simultaneously overjoyed and terrified to hear, spoke above her. "Ladies and gentlemen, we are here for the trial of the People versus Eve Zvezda. All rise."
Eve made herself look up, and found exactly who she expected to see. Her heart sank. "Adam...?"
Her beloved husband was now clothed in long flowing judge's robes, with a wooden gavel in his hand as he called for order. His piercing gaze finally met with hers, but instead of seeing love in his eyes as she usually did, she only found pure hate.
"What are the charges against the defendant?" he spoke, as if he didn't notice her at all.
"It was her!" A familiar female voice shouted to her right. She turned, and her heart sank as she saw Hansel and Gretel on the Prosecutor's side. "She's the one who killed our mother!" Gasps could be heard from the nameless, faceless crowd watching the proceedings.
Hansel nodded. "It's true!" he shouted. "That witch stole us from our mother, then she KILLED her!" More gasps. Even though Eve couldn't see their faces, she knew that she was being given more than a few glares from the audience.
Adam shook his head in disapproval. "These are very grave charges. What does the defendant have to say for herself?"
Eve jumped at the chance to defend herself. "I didn't mean to kill her! I didn't know- oh, Adam! You were there! You know that I didn't-" Adam suddenly stopped her with a raise of his hand.
"As judge, I am not a viable witness, Ms. Zvezda." Zvezda? "I recommend you speak clearly on what happened that night five years ago, or I will hold you in contempt of court."
"I-I-I... I..." she gulped. "I thought they were apples. The children." She could already hear the gasps and guffaws of the audience. "I-I w-wasn't thinking clearly at the time! I don't know why I thought that! I thought that if I took them home..." She tried to catch his eyes again, but he avoided it. "... it would make you happy. B-but I thought there was a bear after me and it was so close and I knew bears have killed people before and... I... I HAD to defend myself! It was self-defense! I thought I didn't have a-"
"So you admit," Adam interrupted her. "That you killed her?"
The twins began to scream at this, howling for blood. "SHE DID IT!"
"SHE ADMITS IT!"
"THIEF!"
"MURDERER!"
The crowd was also beginning to become unsettled, murmurs and shouts of derision beginning to fill the air.
Eve choked on her own words. "I didn't know she was human!"
Adam shook his head. "The fact remains that you killed. And that is enough for this court." He began to raise his gavel into the air.
Eve threw herself forward, the chains rattling as they snapped her back almost immediately. "Then I plead insanity! You can do that right? Adam, please!"
There was no sympathy in Adam's gaze when he said, "Even if I choose to accept that plea, it would only reduce your sentence. And I don't think I would even accept your story as it is, and I'm sure the crowd would agree."
As if on cue, they were beginning to shout: "SHE'S A MENACE!" "LOCK HER UP!" "CRAZY MURDERER!" "EVIL WITCH!" "THIEF!" "LIAR!"
He tsked. "Hmmph. I don't think anyone, even anyone as insane as you claim to be, could mistake living human beings for pieces of fruit. Did you really think I would believe something like that?" He slammed his gavel. "I declare the defendant, Eve Zvezda, guilty of all charges."
Eve, stunned at his betrayal, could only say weakly, "I thought... I was Eve Moonlit..."
"Not anymore," he growled harshly. He slammed his gavel yet again. "The defendant is hereby sentenced to death."
Before she could even make a sound, a cry already halfway to her lips, the floor beneath her seemed to collapse and give way and Eve was falling again, falling into the endless void, watching the light of the courtroom shrink as she tumbled down.
The next thing she knew she landed on some hard surface, feeling the chair she was in shatter and hearing the pieces clattering away. Despite that, her hands were still bound behind her back, and her feet were still tied together. Around her, there was only total darkness as she tried to sit up.
And suddenly, there was light.
A bright spotlight suddenly shone down on her, illuminating her and a small circular area around her while leaving the rest in the dark. She blinked several times, as the light had momentarily blinded her. She could see nothing but shadows beyond the lit circle, the ground flat and featureless beneath her.
A feminine voice, deep and mocking and right behind her, broke the silence.
"Here she is... the best mage in the country, and yet she couldn't control a single spell."
Eve couldn't turn fast enough. Emerging from the void was a tall hooded figure, towering over her as Eve tried to shift to the edge of the circle trying to put more distance between them. The figure laughed. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you. But by all means, go ahead."
Just as the figure said that, Eve felt her left hand hit air where the ground should have been. To her horror, she realized that she seemed to be on the edge of a cliff.
"Changed your mind, didn't you? Pity. I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way."
Eve suddenly felt herself being lifted by the collar, the figure holding her at arm's length over the abyss. Now Eve was able to see her tormenter face to face. The figure wore an ivory mask, her eyes a pure pearly white, with emerald-green hair draping the sides of her face. The masked woman smirked. "I think we can all see just how pathetic you are right now, do we all agree?"
More figures came forward behind them, and Eve recognized them all. The lecherous man, still twirling a flower between his fingers. The woman she had wronged, blood staining her lips and dripping down her chin. Her daughter, Gretel, still clad in jewels and waving a silk fan in front of her face. Her own double, still serene, and her scissors-wielding counterpart still wearing her blood-stained dress. Last was Adam still in judge's robes, completing their ranks. They all leered at her, standing in a semi-circle enclosing the two, with Gretel and Adam especially looking at her with contempt.
"Why...?" Eve managed to choke out.
The masked woman didn't answer right away, only stepping forward to carry Eve even further over the edge, the others watching silently.
"Eve Zvezda," she declared. "Nothing you could say or do will ever cleanse the evil you have committed. You will be permanently marked for your sin, no matter how much you try to repent. You will pay for what you've done, and you will be paying for it beyond the day you die."
Eve suddenly felt a rush of heat beneath her, and made the mistake of looking down. Below the cliff was a pit of flames, bright tongues of blue and orange tall enough to almost seem to lick her feet. She looked back up, but before she could start begging for mercy the masked woman drew her close, her mouth whispering into Eve's ear.
"Now, suffer."
And Eve was flung into the pit.
She was falling again, but even the endless void itself would be preferred to the thick smoke in her lungs and the blinding light in her eyes and the heat the sheer heat and she saw herself ignite like a falling star and everything was burning and her skin her hair her nerves her eyes were all melting away and the pain was too much and it didn't stop it wasn't ever going to stop and it was too much too much toomuchAdamsaveherMotherhelpherpleasepleaseohgodplease-
"Eve..."
"Eve...?!"
"Eve!"
A hand, two hands, were gripping her shoulders and shaking her frantically. And Eve finally awoke, dazed in a mess of tangled bedsheets with her heart still pounding away, staring into a pair of worried sapphire eyes.
But the nightmare wasn't over.
They were in the center of a maelstrom, a tornado of assorted flying objects. Books, lamps, and even furniture were all surrounded in a sickly green magical aura tinged with purple, giving a terrifying light to the bedroom as they whirled around at almost the speed of thought. They smashed against the walls and ceiling, and threatened to collide with their owners as well.
Eve was sitting up, staring aghast at the chaos as she was still trying to process everything that was happening when she suddenly found herself tackled to the bed, as a sidetable hurled itself at the area where she and Adam's heads used to be. She felt herself being pulled upright again, Adam trying to say something to her but the racket forcing him to shout over the noise. "MAKE THEM STOP!"
The realization finally hit that it was her magic that was causing this. She nodded quickly and immediately shut her eyes, trying to halt the flow of magic she didn't even realize she was casting.
It should have been easy, even elementary for such a skilled mage such as her. Much to her shock, however, she found that her magic continued to flow from her body uninhibited, as if nothing happened. On the contrary, the more she tried to rein it in, the more she tried to simply force the magic to stop, it resisted her as if it were a disobedient child, pushing back even stronger against her own will.
Adam had his arms around his wife the whole time, trying his best to shield her from the runaway debris. "What's happening?!" he asked. "Why aren't they stopping?!"
"I don't know!" she yelled back. "My magic's not listening to me!" It sounded ridiculous out loud, but how else could she describe the feeling of her own magic rebelling against her after years and years of constant practice? She looked up at Adam, his eyes darting across the room as the wind tousled his hair, looking out for anything that could potentially shatter all the bones in their bodies.
And a voice spoke, slithering its way into her thoughts.
He's not worth saving.
What?
You can end this now. Just let yourself go.
She didn't understand-
kiLL HIM break his head CRUSH HIS SKULL snAp HIS BONes SPilL HIS bLoOD
And suddenly it wasn't just one compelling voice, but an entire multitude. A chorus of bloodlust was now howling at her to direct everything in the room towards her husband. To make matters worse, more objects seemed to be breaking out of their orbit around the room to fling themselves at Adam, grazing him by mere inches.
Horrified, at herself more than anything, Eve clenched her fists to her chest and gritted her teeth, desperately commanding her magic with all the willpower she had to terminate the spell, to end this madness, to stop...
And just like that, the magical aura surrounding everything faded away. For a single breathless second, they hung suspended in midair before gravity finally took over and pulled everything to the floor with a massive CRASH.
Then it was just the two of them on the bed, breathing heavily as they surveyed the carnage around them. Their eyes met, and Adam saw the unspoken question in his wife's eyes.
"You started crying out in your sleep," he began, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I was trying to wake you up, but then you started thrashing around really badly, and then things started lifting off the tables-"
He was interrupted by the bedroom door suddenly opening, and Eve's chest tightened when she saw two blond heads peek in. Their two children entered the room, gaping at the damage.
"We heard a big noise-" Gretel began, the less sleepy looking of the two.
"-And we thought a monster was in Mama and Papa's room..." Hansel continued, wiping his eyes.
"So we came to help fight the monster!" Gretel finished. "Wow. It made a big mess. Where is it?"
Eve forced herself to smile reassuringly at the twins. "There is no monster, Gretel. Mama just... had a bad dream."
Hansel nodded. "So the monster ran away."
"It's the monster under your bed, Mama!" Gretel yelled, pointing underneath the bed. "It made you have a bad dream-"
"-made a mess-" Hansel continued.
"-and ran away!" Gretel finished, putting her hands on her hips triumphantly. "And now we have to look for it!"
Adam laughed softly. "The monster is long gone by now. Now why don't you two go to bed?"
Hansel stared blankly at them. "But we're not tired."
"Yeah!" Gretel complained. "We want to go look for the monster!"
As Adam tried to negotiate with the twins, Eve couldn't help but smile at their children's antics. But then a tiny voice spoke in the back of her mind.
Little devils, aren't they?
She couldn't help but agree.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way for them to sleep, forever?
What?!
Shocked that her mind could even produce such thoughts (that she was beginning to doubt were her own), Eve shoved them down as hard as she possibly could in the hope that she would never think like that again. But just like her magic minutes earlier, they seemed to rebound with twice the force and depravity.
you can throW THEM in the riveR SMOther them WIth THEir own PIllows LACE their fooD WITH rAT pOison StaB THEM in THE baCK jUST KILL THEM KILL THEM thEY aRe the causE OF YOUR NIGHTMARES theY ARE YOUR SIN yOU WILL NEVER HAVE THEIR PEACE striP THE FLESH from tHEIR BonES AND CONSUME THEM thAT'S WHAT YOU WANT so SO BAdly you HAVE THE rIghT TO DO THIS and NoBODY CAN HopE TO sTop YOU kill them KILL THEM and LEt THEM BE wiTH THEIR REAL MoTHER
It couldn't seem to stop, this horrific train of thought in her mind making her sick to her stomach and terrified of herself. It was then she noticed a shard of glass off to the side with a sharp jagged edge lifted several inches off the floor, surrounded with that green and purple magical aura. Neither the children nor Adam seemed to notice it. The point was aimed directly at Gretel's heart.
NO!
Eve frantically grappled with herself, trying to seize control own magic before it killed the child who deserved so much better than having her as a mother.
"And look, Papa! Mama's still scared of the monster!" She heard Hansel say, drawing the attention of the room back to the mage.
Thankfully, mercifully, the shard of glass fell tinkling to the floor, escaping their notice. "Ah... Um... Er..." Eve could only stutter. Did she really look that scared?
Gretel looked serious, approaching the bed and placing a tiny hand on Eve's arm. "Mama shouldn't be scared, because Mama told me that bad dreams aren't real." The little girl smiled proudly for remembering.
Eve put on the biggest smile she could muster, petting her daughter on the head. (They aren't safe in this room they HAVE to leave this room) "Mama's glad you remember, Gretel. Now why don't you and Hansel go to bed?"
Realizing that he now had support, Adam jumped in, "See? It would be nice for all of us if we all went back to sleep. It's hard to find monsters at night, but maybe we can try in the morning."
Knowing they were beaten, the twins left the bedroom, whining and complaining all the way. Adam leaned back on his hands and sighed. "Eve?" he said.
"Hmm? What?"
Adam smiled. "They wouldn't be asleep for long anyway, because look over there," he pointed out their window. "It's almost sunrise." Sure enough, the full moon had already set hours ago, the clouds were beginning to turn orange in anticipation of the dawn. Somehow, this did not make Eve feel any better.
"Good thing their window doesn't face east, then," she tried to be cheerful, but Adam could hear the lack of it in her voice.
"Do you want to talk about it? The nightmare, I mean," Adam said, moving closer to her. "Because it looked really..." he paused, not trusting himself to say it.
Eve couldn't bring himself to look at him. "Adam?" she asked in a shaky voice, ignoring his offer. "I... I think you should leave."
"Eve?!" Adam grabbed her shoulder, making her face him. "What are you talking abou-"
Eve wouldn't let him finish. "T-take the children with you, and get as f-far away from me as possible. To the next country, if you have to." She kept her head down, not daring to look him in the eyes.
"Eve, why?" Even though she couldn't see his face, she could hear the trembling in his voice. It was almost unbearable.
"Look, Adam!" she shook away from him, pointing to the floor of their bedroom. "I did that. We both could have died because of me. My magic is... I can't explain it. But something is wrong now, and now it's almost out of my control. And," she shuddered, remembering the nightmare Adam who had showed her no mercy. "You all deserve something better than living with a dangerous witch."
A moment of silence, and Eve was afraid to look up, fearing that she would see the nightmare Adam's unforgiving gaze, but suddenly she was enveloped in his arms, her face pressed up against his chest.
"Years ago, before even we lived in this forest, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't abandon you," she heard Adam say, feeling his grip around her tighten. "I'm not about to break that promise." He drew back so he could face her. "I won't let you go through this alone, Eve. We'll find a way somehow, I swear."
Despite the fear and sense of foreboding in her heart, Eve couldn't help but tear up. She leaped into Adam's arms, hugging him tightly.
And yet, a voice still spoke in the back of her mind, deep and mocking.
He is a fool, and so are you.
She ignored it.
As the sun rose in Held's Forest, Eve nuzzled against Adam's chest, trying to make herself believe that everything was going to be alright.
fin.