The Dark Arts

"Where do you think you're going?"

I turned around and stared on in horror. My heart stopped dead and my throat choked. In one instinctive move, I took a step back.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere from here, sweetheart, except straight to your grave," she snickered with malice. My heart was pounding, the sweat cooling me as it evaporated.

It became a struggle to rouse my reflexes. Though abruptly, hurtling through the empty channels of my senses, came the realisation that being afraid was useless at this point in the battle. A battle I had to conquer for my family and friends --for the people I love.

My first sensation of blind thankfulness was that my brain was going to withstand the trial.

I stood up slowly from the rubble I'd been lying in, smirking at her as her facial features transformed from a devilish grin to a scowl disguising her immense shock. With rising confidence and my bond strengthening with death alongside each passing minute, I felt the last of my fears recede to the back of my mind.

"This may be my last, but I will take you to the grave along with me." I announced decisively, now at my complete height.

"You think I'm afraid?" I raised an eyebrow, chuckling slightly right after.

All traces of amusement left me a moment later as I connected my gaze with her with a new found determination, watching the angst and flickering doubt gnaw at her.

"That's where you're wrong," I whispered, a hot tear trailing down my cheek. "I've got you right under my skin..."

She was the light in the darkness. She was the good in the evil. The calm in the catastrophe. She was all those, but she was still human.

She was still imperfect.

And unaware.

She had been doing perfectly well in life. Until evil gave a knock on her door, and became her undoing.