Blood and Bones

It's only at this point that you realize that you never should've put lizard eyelashes in the witch’s tea. Her shoulder digs into your gut as she bobs up and down, carrying you through her forest.

She plops you down in the dirt, removing the ropes and the blindfold. Foolishly, you bolt. You almost make it past an even thicker path of trees before the roots bend around your ankles, tripping you.

The night wind carries the witch’s laugh on its back. Hyperventilating, you dig and scratch and peel the vines away, but they regrow and rewrap themselves around you.

The witch is upon you now. She cackles harshly, directly in your ear, and it fills you with ice. You know what she’s capable of. You've seen her wrath inflicted upon those two little kids. Imagine what she’ll do to you.

She carries you backwards. You can't even scream, since she stole your vocal cords a long way back. But now that you can see, your heart leaps out of your throat.

You know this path. You helped her dig the hole, though you didn't know what it was for. All you knew was that it was impossibly deep and she made you do all the work. What she filled it with was anyone’s guess.

With one maddening laugh, she nudges you over the edge. You fall, and she watches as you hit the bottom, then disappears into the night. Now, only wispy clouds and glittering stars take up the dark circle above you.

Once you overcome your initial shock, you find yourself tumbling right into another one. It’s the smell of gore that hits you first. Your nose burns; your gut gurgles. The witch’s beetle pasta threatens to make a third appearance. The second time, the witch had forced it back down your throat.

Falling on your behind doesn’t stop the turning in your stomach. This time, when you fall, you notice an odd shift in weight under your hands. Your fingers burrow deeply into something moist and clumpy. You’re lying within a pit of bones and gore.

This time, the hot bile meets no resistance in you. It violently escapes your body as the rain comes. It's a heavy rain; one that presses firm on your back, gives you pause when you try once again to stand. You slip on the wet bones.

You can't stay here. Looking up, you find that the rain is washing away any foothold that could possibly secure your ascent out of this place. You try anyway, but get nowhere. Earth clogging your fingernails and your clenched fist, you slide back down again and again and again. It’s no use.

The rain makes it hard to breathe when you look up. The moon teases you, peeking out just at the corner of the pit hole. You can't stay in this muck. You'll lose your mind down here.

Fear rises in you, even heavier than the rain. You scrape at the earthen wall, making more of a mess than anything. In fact, your feet never leave the bony floor. And this time, there’s a jiggling beneath you, making standing even more difficult than before.

The more the moon shows her face, the more intensely the bones beneath you tremble. You know the witch has completely left you; nothing will bring her back, but her cackle haunts you. You hear it echoing to the jingle of the bones. You howl a horrible scream into the full-faced moon that now shines above you completely.

The bones seem to respond to your despair; they leap, surrounding you and sucking out the last dregs of air you had left in your lungs. All around the burn of your airless lungs, you can feel your own bones begin to shake.

As the minutes slowly tick by, your eyes start to swell and your face starts to itch. You feel your bones bulge through your skin, pushing until they pierce clean through. Piece by piece, layer by layer; your skin, your muscles, your tendons all peel back, falling to the bony ground.

The worst of it is, the witch has cursed you with an undying conscience. You feel it all. You're aware of it all. Now you’re nothing but bone, indistinguishable from the hundreds of others dancing under the wet moon with you.

As the moon disappears past the other side of the ditch, the jiggling begins to subside. You, and every other bone around you, lay in conscious rest until the moon returns again. At least you'll never be alone?