Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji.
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Smoke surrounding me, polluting the air with its think choking scent. I tried to breath, but only the heavy smoke filled my lungs, making me cough and nearly black out. I always hated this part of a witch burning. The smoke was powerful this time, hateful and vindictive, as if angry to be awoken from the wood that burned brightly. Really we were at the cusp of a modern age and people still thought that burning a witch was the only way to kill her. Stupid idiots. The holy man shouted out, "Repent, she-devil! Repent and let your troubled soul be washed anew!" I rolled my eyes, like that would happen. Even a hedge witch, one who only dabbled in charms and harmless potions, knew that the holy man's promise was an empty one. A true witch had no soul, having given it to a demon in return for her power.
Still, to a poor innocent girl wrongly accused of being a witch, the promise was a good one. She still had a soul to depart, and an innocent one at that. She would still burn though, just in case. Once a girl, witch or innocent, was tied to the stake to be burned they weren't getting away. The last thing a girl would feel was the fire burning her skin, she would hear the blood curdling screams torn from her throat and the cheers of her once friends. She would see through smoke teared eyes the orange inferno blazing around her, taste the ash of wood and herself, and smell her own body burning. Such an awful stench was the smell of burned flesh. It must be an awful way to go.
I had witnessed seven witch burnings in my life, and each one had been engraved in my mind. Especially since I was the witch being burned.
Oh yes, I'm a witch, and a powerful one. So powerful that I have been able, over and over again, to survive burning at the stake. I do not escape, I die there on the stake, or at least the body I use does. I have no soul, but something leaves the burned body and escaped to a new one, possessing it, killing the previous owner, and fashioning the body to be my own. I blame the demon who I sold my soul to for my uncanny power. If not for that sick twisted little devil I would have died long ago. Immortality is a bitch when someone has lived as long as I have, always being called a witch sooner or later.
I looked through the hazy air and saw one of my students grinning as the fire went up, his eyes brightly reflecting the flames. I glared, he was one of the kids who never listened to me. When the city officials finally dragged me away most of the children had cried saying I was innocent, except for that little brat. He had just smiled as I was chained and forcibly removed from my school house. I wondered now, as the flames began licking painfully at my white ceremonial burning dress, if he was the one who ousted me. I had been careful not to use any of my magic this time, I had finally grown tired of my power. He must have wrongly accused me. Vile brat, I'd show him. Opening my mouth, everyone tensed. The holy man probably thought I was going to repent, the men hoped that I would scream, the women feared I would curse them. I granted the women's fear and chanted, "Black fire, bright fire. Burning high, high, high. Bring the trouble of unbreakable fever upon my betrayer nigh!" So it wasn't my best spell, but it would do in a pinch.
People screamed when the fire now lapping up my smoking dress turned black like a raven wing. The holy man dropped his holy book in the mud, then stooped quickly to pick it up, his craggy face stricken with surprise. The brat, I noticed gleefully, had a look of raw fear in his eyes. Then the black fire curled out and did the surprising thing. Instead of striking the brat, it coiled and shot in the opposite direction, burning right into the heart of who I thought was my best friend, Evie Green. So she was Judas. She crumbled when the black fire hit her and people shot away from her, afraid that the curse would land on them. Stupid pig-brained halfwits, that curse was meant solely for my betrayers. I wasn't some fledgling witch, whose spells leaked out into everyone. I had years and years of practice. But of course brainless humans didn't know that.
I raised my chin and let out a blood curdling scream, not just for show, as the fire now reached my bodice. My lower legs were nothing but charred stumps by now. Soon the fire would reach my heart and this body would die, just like the previous seven of them. I began searching for a replacement and my eyes landed on Evie's fevered form, she had ruined my plans to take over her body being that we were close in size and looked the same in age. It was hard to turn a body into a new one, so I preferred possessing those that were similar to my original body. I cursed under my breath, now I would have to steal a plumper woman's body and work to thin it down to suit me. Great. The fire inched just a little high and I screamed to the high heavens, my body convulsing. So this was it, I hadn't even made my choice yet and I was already dying. I could end up in a man if I died before I selected a replacement. It would take me years to form a mans body into a woman's; I had done it before and it was very difficult, even for me. My eyes landed on Veronica, a young widow who was close in age to me and just a tad fatter than me. Too bad she was half a head shorter than me, but I could make do with it...
That was when someone threw cold water on me.
^o^
Cliffhanger on the first chapter... that doesn't happen often. So? Should I continue? Or delete the story?
Flame me all you want, because I am Flame Friendly!
