Encrypted (short vers.)

The room lost its candle light. “What?” I voiced my confusion. From what I remember of the grimoire, there were no elements of dark magic at play in this spell, nor did I chant the incantations for such a thing. Yet the room before me continued to deteriorate. Light, breathable air, the sense of comfort: all stolen.

The center cracked as a dark energy shot through it. Searing pain tore through my chest. It felt as though my heart were scorched by a very literal heartburn. I was forced down to a knee. Moments later, through a fissure of my pain I saw the forming of a small, pitch black hole. It dragged away the floor and bloomed outward at a sped up pace. I fell back on my rear in a failed attempt to distance myself. It was too quick. I plummeted before my brain could make sense of it.

Every corner of my body felt as though it were being poisoned by black nothingness. Whether I was still descending into the abyss or the darkness was slithering up towards me, I couldn’t tell anymore.

If only I were stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.

I closed my eyes and before I knew it my body was coiled in a strange ropey substance like a chair made of webs that spiraled around my limbs. I was strung above a stony crypt. The air was dusty and rustic as though whatever once lived here had perished long ago. All around, hovering in the soot, were floating glyphs like the ones on my magic circle, except 3D and asterisk-like. They were this room’s only source of light - a purple glow with much too little to show.

“You look so scared, so confused. ‘What happened? Where am I?’ I can practically hear your thoughts screaming up at me.” I whipped my eyes up to a voice much closer than I would have liked. A shiver and cringe rang true when I saw her.

A monster.

That was the easiest way to describe the woman before me. She wore an X-shaped black dress that draped in elegant bags over misty skin. Horns, larger than that of any creature I’ve heard of, protruded from her skull and crossed behind her head, twisting down, around, and curving back out in front as a sort of demonic headress. Her eyes too, were exes, slitted, and yellow, and deadly, and scary. Atop her head were long, wicked, shadowy, tangles of thread.

What was she? Her skin seemed like a clutter of clouds confined together in the frame of a human body. Maybe she was a ghost or an illusion. That thought was much more comforting than admitting I was staring at a demon.

I didn’t want to look at her for long. At the same time I didn’t trust her current inaction enough to look away.

With her arms folded neatly into each other, she looked down at me as if judging my soul.

“Did you know,” – I flinched at hearing her voice again – “when you call for magic, using your petty symbols and circles, you are opening a gate to another world and taking what you please… stealing, essentially.” Her eyes narrowed in a deathly manor. “I’m not judging though, every once in a while I like to steal from your world too.”

She’s going to kill me.

Simply being in her presence told me that. Her eyes, her tone, her oppressive pressure acted as a silent message of incoming doom. I ground my teeth.

“If only…” my voice cracked under her crushing demeanor.

The demon woman smiled. “If only.” she repeated.

Next, she streaked a hand through her frizzy hair, starting from her forehead, to the back of her crown and onward. Her arm passed narrowly between her cheek and the horns at her side as she tucked the gathered locks behind her pointed ears. In a faster sweep, she practically threw strands of her hair at me. The stroke she made turned her nappy hair into a straight and silky elegance.

As the ends brushed my face I breathed in the smell of ashes, and then I didn’t breathe at all. I was given an instant and brutal reassurance that her body was not an illusion.

Shortly after running her hand through her straightened hair, she drove it towards my neck, strangling away at my windpipes. The moment she did, all the strange tendrils that shackled me in place, disintegrated, but a far greater threat now trapped me.

I grabbed at her wrist and fingers to get her off, but she was ridiculously strong. Where my grasp shook, hers was firm and secured.

She mocked my efforts: “If only I had magic life would be easier. If only I had money, life would be easier. If only this enemy wasn’t in front of me, life would be easier. Oh, if only, if only, IF ONLY!”

With every shout she brandished, I felt weaker and she seemed bigger. Her previously average-sized nails stretched in length and dug into the back of my neck. I felt the blood trickle down and seep into my collar. Aside from her raising voice, there was a terrible high-pitched ringing in my head now.

She spat her next words: “All you humans say the exact same thing.” – The odd lights in the room began to pulse off and on. – “If only I could see! If only I could breathe!” – The hand I had wrapped around her wrist dwindled back. – “If only I could live my dreams! Life would be oh-so-much easier!”

She wasn’t getting bigger; I was infantizing.

“You people just take and take and even get, and yet, you’re never satisfied. When will you learn nothing you ransack from this place will help you? You could run to any realm you please and steal everything you think you need and still find the same answer. Life will never be easier.