The Sane Witch

Kyubey appeared before me one night. A white, cat-rabbit-like thing, with floating gold rings around its long ears and beady red eyes. A dead ringer for a magical girl mascot character. It was my sixteenth birthday. It told me it would grant me one wish and as payment, I would become a magical girl and fight witches. It wasn't telling me the whole truth I could tell. My mother drilled into me never to accept a deal without working out the details first. She worked in the film business and had to deal with a lot of cotracts. So I puzzled out the secrets from the cat-rabbit-thing.

"Yes, magical girls turn into witches," it said when I questioned it. To become a witch is to drown in my own despair and lose my sanity, an existence worse than death, yet I made my wish anyways, and I became a witch. A witch in a magical gir's body.

What was my wish? Well, it was simple, really. I wished to become a different person. A girl named Lynn. She was my ideal, she was all of my hope, and all of my despair tied into one. She was a figment of my imagination. But with Kyubey, I could make he4r real, I could become her. So, I made my wish knowing I would become a witch and yet retaining all my hope. I became a witch. A witch who kept her sanity.

When I became a sane witch, my body turned a tan colour and my hair turned snow white. My eyes grew a deeper green than they already were, and my pupils turned to slits like a cat. My ears changed to cat ears on top of my head. My hearing increased so much, I could hear the peopole in the apartment above mine talkng. Looking at myself in the mirror I realized I could not go outside looking like this, but Kyubey interrupted my thoughts.

"Interesting I can sense that you have become a witch and yet you remain barely changed. Tell me how do you feel?" It asked. I felt powerful, I felt amazing, I felt hungry as the scents of what I can only describe as hope given smell assaulted my nose. It made me want to crush that hope, tear it apart and devour it until there was nothing left.

So, I told it, "I'm hungry." It was a given, witches are beings who spread despair and feed on the hope and despair of others. I suppose, I should have felt revolted at the thought of feeding on someone. But I guess my sanity wasn't kept fully in check and, just like my body, changed in a way I can only describe as freeing.

So hungry was I that I didn't realize that I had left my room and was walking into the kitchen. My mother was there making evening tea for herself, she had recently had a big-name producer pick up her script and was positively brimming with hope. It smelt so good I wanted to crush it. I reached out slowly, about to sink my claws into the skin of her neck when she turned around.

"Ah! Lynn don't scare me like that, you almost made me spill my tea." That snapped me out of it and I was mortified at what I had almost done. Though you are probably wondering why she recognized me as Lynn. That's because I added an addendum to my wish that everyone's memories be changed so as to think I was always Lynn.

"Sorry mom, I didn't mean to scare you." I meant to eat you.

"That's okay sweetie, did you need something?" She asked

"Yeah, I was going to go for a walk, but first, do you notice anuthing strange about me?"

"Strange? There's nothing strange about you."

"My ears, they're cat ears!"

"Your ears are the same as ever."

"But they're cat ears!"

"If you say so." She thought I was being silly. I was questioning my sanity, so I left as quich as I could. A short see you later, and I was gone.

The sights and sounds of city life, I thought I was used to them. But the new me with my cat like senses, and a sense of smell that coul pick apart all the different scents of hope and despair. It was intoxicating and I was starving for somthing to devour. So, I followed the strogest smelling scent of despair, a smell that was oh, so, wonderful and sickly sweet. Kyubey followed me of course and hopped on my shoulders. I was an unnatural being in it's carefully planned plans. I was unique, unusual, irregular. A sane witch.

It asked me, "Where are you going?"

And I replied, "Hunting."

"Hunting what? Humans?" it was confused I could tell as it studied me with those beady red eyes.

"Nope." I replied. I enjoyed it confusion, took pleasure in it.

"If not humans then perhaps a witch. Yes, yes, a witch, I cana sense the trail you're following. But why would you hunt a witch when you are one youself?" I didn't answer, only continued on following that wonderful smell until I arrived at a wall. A dead end in the back of an alley.

I raised my right hand to my neck where a collar with a diamonded shaped black metal buckle rested, and the alley was filled with a dim glow. The glow came from a large human sized rune on the wall. The symbol on the rune showed a fractured snow globe, broken apart into several pieces. I pulled my hand away from my collar and came away with a long tanto sword, that materialized on my command. Instinct guiding my action. I took one last long look at the rune before jumping through. What I saw next was like nothing I could have possibly imagined in my wildest dreams.

The world around me was like a winter wonderland. I was on top of a snow covered hill though the snow felt fake. Though, given that I was in what was a giant broken snow globe with frosted glass going all around the labrynth, and giant shards of it laying speared into the ground all around. I imagined this was infact what the snow in a snowglobe felt like. All around me was a forest with pathways leading this way and that. It would probably be a confusing labrynth to those unable to sense the mass of despair at the center of it all.

So I took a stroll down the path I could sense led to the witch. All around me I could sense smaller signatures of despair, probably familiars if what Kyubey told me was true, which it most likely was. At one point in time I saw a giant gingerbread man, like the one from that Shrek movie, holding a giant candy cane walk past me, causing the ground to shake with each lumbering step. It was at that point that I realized how glad I was to be a witch and not have to fight against these familiars for my first battle. Though thinking on it the witch is probably much stronger if these are the kinds of familiars it has.

As I neared the center of the labrynth, I sensed the familiars gathering around me. I prepared myself for battle, but it never came. They just looked at me through the trees, or over, in the case of the giant gingerbread men. They stayed close around me as I came upon a clearing with a giant gingerbread house at the center. Lettering I've never seen before but was able to understand was above the door. It read, Gretel. I was certain the witch was in there. I knocked on the large door and waited, after a moment, it opened.

I walked inside, with my guard up, sword at the ready, when the scragly voice of a crone reached my ears. Like the language above the door it was unfamiliar but still I understood it.

"Who comes? Why comes? My home! No visitors! Who visitor? Who comes? Why comes? My home! No visitors! Who visitor!" and so on and so forth. It grated on my ears, so I spoke up in the same language that flowed more naturally from my lips than english ever did.

"I came looking for food. I just hatched and need sustenance." I replied as formaly and clearly as I could.

"No food! Weak witch! Young witch! Leave! Get own food! Leave!" The cauldren that was before me bubbled and shook with such intensity, that the liquid inside spewed out in giesers, landing and eroding the floor around it. I realized that the cauldren was the witch. I wasn't ready to face a witch like this. My instincts told me that this was an old and powerful witch.

Suddenly I felt it. A signal of hope so bright it blinded my senses.

"Intruder! Leave young hatchling. Find own food!"

"You felt it did you not? A magical girl has entered the labrynth. If you do not wish to be caught I recommend leaving." Kyubey said from my shoulders, reminding me that it was still with me. I wasn't sure how I could escape without being caught.

"Kill eggling," the witch, Gretel, screeched at her familiars. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like any cornered animal I let my instincts take over. Quickly I found the labyrinth around me fade away, as I felt myself fall onto a very soft bed. I felt very sleepy and quickly succumbed to that feeling.

|Authors Note|

I'm working on several different stories atm, this one has been put on the back burner for now. It will be updated at some point though.