Chapter 462 - : 462 : The Weight of the Curse!
Few Hours Ago...
The narrow alley reeked of damp stone, old piss, and rotting garbage. Blue moonlight spilled down between the tightly packed buildings, casting long, distorted shadows that twisted like reaching hands. The air was cold enough to bite through clothes, yet it did nothing to cool the storm raging inside the woman standing with her back to the world.
She faced the wall, one pale hand pressed flat against the cold brick. Her shoulders trembled. Every few seconds her fingers curled into a fist and struck the wall — not hard, just enough to feel something. A soft, broken sound escaped her lips, half sob, half bitter laugh.
*He kissed me.*
The thought circled like a vulture.
*He touched me... and he lived. Why? Why did it feel warm? Why did my chest hurt when he pulled away? I killed him. I felt his life leave. But he came back. He looked at me like I wasn’t a monster.*
Another weak strike against the wall. A tear slipped from beneath her long white bangs and traced down her porcelain cheek.
"I destroy everything," she whispered to the bricks. "Everyone I’ve ever cared about... gone. And now him. Why won’t the curse just take me too?"
She hit the wall again, softer this time. Her long white hair, tied into two neat buns atop her head with the rest cascading like liquid moonlight down her back, swayed with the motion. Her bangs completely hid her eyes, a silver curtain that kept the world from seeing whatever lay beneath.
Footsteps.
Loud. Drunken. Laughing.
Three men stumbled into the alley from the far end. The one in front carried something over his shoulder — a naked woman, limp as a broken doll. Purple bruises bloomed across her thighs, hips, and breasts like rotten flowers. Dark streaks of dried blood ran down the inside of her legs. Her head lolled with every step, mouth slightly open, eyes glassy and unfocused. She had been used hard and then discarded.
The man carrying her laughed and slapped her bare ass with a meaty hand.
"Stupid bitch finally shut up," he slurred. "Thought she’d scream all night. Dropped her like a sack once we were done. We’ll dump her here. Let the rats finish what we started."
The other two chuckled. One of them noticed the cloaked figure standing against the wall.
"Hey... what’s that?" he muttered, squinting. "Short little thing. Probably a girl hiding from the cold."
The first drunk who had spoken earlier swaggered closer, boots scraping on the cobblestones. The blue moonlight was just bright enough to make out shapes and faces.
"Hey, you!" he called out mockingly. "What the fuck are you doing out here so late, huh? Looking for trouble? Or maybe looking for some fun?"
The cloaked woman didn’t answer. She slowly turned her head, still keeping one hand on the wall. Under the hood, her face remained hidden.
The drunk grinned, showing yellow teeth.
"Silent type, eh? That’s fine. We like quiet ones." He jerked his thumb toward the naked woman. "We just had some fun with that one. She was loud at first. Then she got real quiet. Same thing’s gonna happen to you if you don’t start talking."
One of the other men licked his lips.
"Pull the hood off. Let’s see if she’s worth keeping. If she’s ugly we kill her anyway — she saw our faces. If she’s pretty..." He grinned. "We can have another round before we dump both of them."
The drunk closest to her reached out. His fingers grabbed the edge of her cloak and yanked the hood back.
By sheer luck, his hand only caught the fabric. It didn’t brush her hair or skin.
Long, silky white hair spilled out, styled with two neat buns on top and the rest flowing down like a river of moonlight. Her bangs fell straight across her face, completely hiding her eyes. Even in the dim blue light, her beauty was breathtaking — delicate features, full lips slightly parted, skin like fresh snow.
The three men froze.
"Fuck..." the one who had pulled the hood breathed. "You’re... you’re gorgeous. Way better than that used-up bitch on the ground."
The man who had been carrying the raped woman dropped her without a second thought.
The raped woman landed with a weak whimper, her bruised body curling slightly on instinct.
The Witch of Death looked down at the woman. Purple bruises covered almost every inch of visible skin. Bite marks on her breasts. Finger-shaped welts on her throat. Dried semen and blood between her thighs. Tears had carved clean tracks through the dirt on her face.
Something cold and heavy settled in the Witch’s chest.
The drunk who had removed her hood stepped closer, lust and alcohol making him bold. He reached out and grabbed her shoulder roughly.
"Come on, pretty thing. Let’s—"
The curse answered.
Black veins exploded across his hand the instant skin met skin. They raced up his arm like living cracks in glass. He screamed — a raw, animal sound — as the flesh on his fingers began to rot and split open from the inside. Dark blood poured from his pores. His eyes bulged, red veins bursting across the whites. He clawed at his own throat with his free hand as his tongue swelled and turned black. His knees buckled. He collapsed, thrashing violently on the ground while his skin bubbled and peeled away in wet strips. The smell of burning rot filled the alley.
He stayed conscious long enough to understand what was happening. Long enough to look up at her with pure, animal terror.
The Witch didn’t say sorry.
She simply watched.
The other two men stumbled backward, knives flashing into their hands.
"What the fuck is she?!" one screamed.
"Monster! She’s a fucking monster!"
(Author: These drunks are the bigger monsters here. Fuck them up...)
One of them lunged forward in blind panic, eyes squeezed shut, and drove his knife straight into her forehead with all his strength. The blade sank deep with a wet crunch.
He laughed — a high, hysterical sound.
"I got her! I fucking got her!"
He opened his eyes.
The Witch was still standing. Slowly, she raised one hand, wrapped her fingers around the knife handle, and pulled it out of her own skull. Blood ran down her face in thick lines... then reversed, flowing back into the wound as the flesh knitted itself together in seconds. The knife clattered to the ground, clean.
Both men screamed.
They turned and ran.
They didn’t make it five steps.
Something fast and sharp sliced through the air.
Both men’s legs were severed cleanly at the shins. They collapsed hard, blood spraying in hot arcs across the cobblestones. Their screams turned into high, broken wails as they grabbed at the stumps where their feet used to be.
"My legs! My fucking legs!"
Another flash.
Both of their hands were sliced off at the wrists. The severed hands hit the ground with wet thuds. More blood sprayed. They rolled onto their backs, staring in horror at the stumps.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate. Calm.
A second cloaked figure stepped out of the deeper shadows at the end of the alley. The moonlight caught the edge of her hood as she approached. She was female — the curve of her body and the way she moved made that clear even before she spoke.
The two men turned their heads, eyes wide with terror.
The second woman stopped a few feet away. She looked down at the raped woman still lying unconscious on the ground, then at the two pathetic, bleeding men begging in front of her.
Her voice was low, seductive in its natural tone... but currently ice-cold and dripping with hatred.
"Did she beg?"
The men whimpered.
The woman tilted her head slightly.
"When you were raping her... did she beg you to stop? Did you listen?"
One of the men tried to crawl backward using his bleeding stumps. "P-please... we’re sorry... we won’t do it again—"
The second cloaked woman moved.
Her blade flashed downward.
Both men’s genitals were sliced clean off in one brutal cut. Blood poured between their legs in heavy, pulsing waves. Their screams became something inhuman.
She crouched in front of them, knife dripping.
"You made her beg, didn’t you?" she asked softly. "You laughed while she cried. You kept going even when she went quiet."
She grabbed one man by the hair and forced him to look at the unconscious woman.
"Apologize to her."
He sobbed, blood bubbling from his mouth. "I’m sorry... I’m so sorry..."
She slammed his face into the ground.
"Not good enough."
For the next several minutes she made them suffer.
She carved shallow, burning lines across their chests and stomachs, avoiding anything that would kill them quickly. She stepped on their bleeding leg stumps and ground her boot down while they shrieked. She forced them to keep their eyes open and watch as she slowly cut away more pieces of them. Every time one tried to pass out from pain, she slapped him awake.
The Witch of Death had moved during the torture. She now knelt a careful distance from the raped woman, hands resting on her own thighs so there was no risk of accidental touch. She stared at the bruised, broken body in front of her, silent tears slipping from beneath her bangs.
The raped woman’s eyelids fluttered.
She opened her eyes.
For a few seconds she looked at the Witch’s face — the white hair in buns, the long flowing strands, the bangs hiding everything. Then her gaze shifted past her to the two men being slowly dismantled by the second cloaked woman. She saw the grotesque corpse of the first drunk still twitching faintly in a pool of black rot.
A faint, broken smile touched the raped woman’s lips.
It was small. Tired. But it was real.
Then her eyes rolled back and she slipped into unconsciousness again.
The second cloaked woman finally grew tired of the men’s screams.
She slit their throats — not deep enough to end it quickly. She let them choke on their own blood while she watched with cold satisfaction. Only when their movements turned weak and spasmodic did she finish the job with two clean, final cuts.
Silence fell over the alley.
Only the dripping of blood and the distant sound of the town remained.
The Witch of Death stayed kneeling beside the unconscious woman. She didn’t touch her. She simply stayed there, head bowed, long white hair falling forward like a curtain.
The second cloaked woman wiped her blade on one of the corpses and looked toward the Witch.
Neither spoke.
The blue moonlight continued to shine down on the alley, turning blood into black mirrors and shadows into graves.
Somewhere far away, in a much brighter part of the town, Aiden Nightshade was walking home with gifts for his family.
He had no idea that in a forgotten alley, two women stood over the bodies of monsters — one born from a curse, one born from cold hatred — and the night had only just begun to show its teeth.
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END OF Chapter : 462 : THE WEIGHT OF THE CURSE!
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