Netta's mind was besieged by images, impressions that could not have been real. 

Her Sisters were walking towards her, their arms opened in a warm, understanding embrace. It choked Netta as their arms closed around her, a veritable sea of warm bodies. 

Only one was weeping - Beryl's small frame pressed to Netta as she clutched her older sister to her. Netta clutched the woman who had always been more comfortable as a girl to her, was comforted by the shared experience of their mutual fear and sorrow.

This was not a place where Netta could stay and knew it. Still, she could not find the will to let go. At some point, their grip on each other, slowly, laxed, and they stopped weeping. The lone, endless room around them seemed to bear down on them in oppressive silence.

How much time had passed there? An hour, a minute, a day, a lifetime?

At some point, Netta opened her mouth, wanting to tell her sister what she had never had a chance to. Netta wanted to tell her little sister that she loved her, had never blamed her for her cruelty. That now she knew that it had been the side effect of something darker that had infected her. 

Netta ducked her head, brushing her lips over her sister's hairline, the askew, faint-colored hair. She felt the warmth between them, so hot and sweet. 

In the next instant, Netta felt as the warmth, the relief of that place was ripped away from her. Somewhere, Hera's voice called out, "Ashwood, pick that up and put it on the altar."

Netta could vaguely feel the massive arms as they clutched her, took her from the ground. She was lowered onto a higher, but equally cold, surface.

Hera's voice called out once more, emotionless as though she embodied the will of a killing cyclone. "Eat her."

Netta felt the pressure of his face as it pressed to the wound in her chest. For a moment in her delirium, she thought that it was a lover's brush, as though Ash meant to kiss her ruined chest.

She screamed, overcome with agonizing, terrible pain, and then could feel nothing.

Here she experienced it, feeling her life draining from her in an almost removed manner. If she looked down, she knew she would see Ash lowered to the role of carrion beast. Netta could not bear the thought of watching him, desperate in the throes of his own kind of death, his whole form violently shaking as he tore, consumed.

Netta choked, felt blood spurt, wetting her lips like a grotesque parody of lipstick. And then, somehow, heat from her chest lost the barbaric, painful cruelty of the act and had gained, instead, a brightness that seemed to usher in a sense of calm.

The tears that she wept were no longer caused by pain, but rather by how overwhelming the rapture of the moment became. She felt as Ash ingested her flesh, her life's energy. Even though it was caused by so disturbing a means, with each piece of her he swallowed, she surely became more of one with her King.

Netta must have closed her eyes, for when she was aware of looking once more, she found that she was no longer laying on the altar. Rather, Netta found that she was looking down, watching as the will-less once-King devoured his tragic bride. He chewed freely through clothes as he did through flesh and bone, an ogre.

Netta shuddered, closed her eyes. That sound, the terrible snapping of one of the bones of her rib cage as her lover tore through it with powerful jaws, seemed to resonate down Netta's spine. She was clutching at her face, as though her fingers could provide an extra layer to her eyelids in keeping out the terrible sight beneath her.

Ashwood's entire upper body was coated red in gore and viscera, the bright red of her blood providing a deep contrast to the heavy gold of his skin. Her blood had baptized her King, stained him with the remnants of her mortality.

When Netta gazed at her body - how could she not - she was transfixed by the still quality of her face. Her skin had paled, the golden quality that she had borrowed from her lover tainted with blood and death.

Her red eyes, a deeper color than the blood that streaked across her cheeks, her chin, were dark, dull. They seemed to gaze at her, accusing as they had fallen open one last time. 

She could feel it, the moment he bore into her heart. Netta felt her life seeming to rip like a string, loose from its physical moorings. She looked down at Ashwood, devouring her as he lost himself to misery, the madness he had succumbed to. She could not blame the poor man, whose drives and nature had been used against him to fall into a frenzy, his mind all but gone. 

His grief seemed to radiate off of him in waves as shock gave way to it, moment by horrible moment.

Netta felt herself moving to him, her hand extended towards Ash's shaking shoulder as though she meant to comfort him. The portion of his mind that lay, imprisoned, as he rended the body of the woman he loved.

Ophelia looked up once more, twisted to her side as she was, watching as the fearsome, wretched Monster tore into Her body. The body - the now empty vessel - of her hero. 

She did not know why, but the warm words, the ones that stood out from the speech that Lucia Kienna had once told the pre-teen twin girls who stood, huddled at her door way so long ago, could not seem to stop ringing in her ears.

Perhaps it was the horror of the situation, the sure closeness of her own demise, but Ophelia felt her mind retreating to memories.

There is no burden so great that her Sisters cannot bear it alongside her.

She felt warmed by a hearth fire, the rain outside of the little home softly dying down to an almost friendly patter. It was as though the storm that the twins had traveled through was tamed by the kindly, but iron-strong, will of Miss Kienna.

And what a relief it had been to Ophelia, to find that what she had lead her gentle-hearted sister to, was not as she had begun to greatly fear would be a trap. 

Around the time that their powers had begun to manifest, they began to experience the vivid dreams. The ones that called to them, to run away from home before their Human parents discovered what the girls had inherited from the dormant power of one of their female ancestors. 

Ophelia knew the danger of her parents, believed without question the tale her sister had told her, of an overheard conversation from her parents. An incident at school had caused Ophelia to come home with a note from a teacher. A note that Ophelia had quickly disposed of, only to learn that its contents had already been shared with their father when the teacher had called him.

Why did Ophelia have such a hard time controlling her temper? And why did those wretched little boys have to shove her? She had shoved them - all of them back - but it was from a blast that she had exuded, sending them flying backward a good ten feet from her.

The freak twins.

The dreams seemed to come when Ophelia most needed to believe in their siren call of a true home. A place where she could simply be the older sister to Anais, not the girl's weak protector.

Still, as they had continued on their journey, running away from home, it occurred to Ophelia on more than one occasion that this was something that she may have once read out of a book of fairy tales. Was she simply following a blatant trail left for her that she traveled unerringly, as though it had been left by the type of horrible creature that hunted children?

Still, except in her most hopeful dreams, Ophelia had not dared to think that what she would find at the end of their journey would be - home.

The Witches had been waiting for the arrival, it seemed that they had impatiently expected them the moment that the sisters had expressed the accursed magic ability.

The girls had been gently changed out of their wet clothes and given supper in front of the fire. Neither could take their gaze away from the woman in front of them. Her power was so obvious to them and her voice was so soft but undeniably compelling that if Miss Kienna had made a move to push either of them into the fire place, all they would surely be able to do was continue to stare at her.

Neither had felt anything before like the elder Witch. And the story she told, of their heritage, how the Coven and the girls had been compelled to each other the moment their power began to express itself, rang true on a deeply instinctive level.

That night, given the same bed, blessedly, to sleep in, both sisters wound their bodies close to each other in a shivering, innocent embrace. There, in bed, Ophelia had promised her sister that she would never let anything bad happen to either of them, ever again. After all, Lucia Kienna would protect them, and they would flower into Witches during the most peaceful, if deathly still, period in all of magic.

It was Winnie's voice that pulled Ophelia out of the bittersweet memories of every woman she had once called kin. "Pelly? Turn slightly. I think - I can work your bindings loose."

Ophelia felt herself freeze, flinched. As she realized what the older Witch had said, she forced her mind to focus on the immediate moment, in spite of her confusing, distraught emotions. As she opened her eyes, she caught the unfortunate sight of the Monster King as he further ruined Netta's body.

She slammed her eyes closed, waited until her heartbeat overpowered the horrific sounds of Neith being eaten.

Slowly, she moved, thrusting her tied hands back towards Winnie.

She did not know what the older Witch hoped that she could possibly do, yet she stilled as she felt as though the other woman was working with her own bound hands. Winnie's fingers kept awkwardly fumbling against hers, and in spite of everything, for a moment Ophelia thought that she would start to laugh.

How could any of this be real? Witches that wanted a Monster to devour one of their own, and them, with no way to do anything about it - 

The feel of her hands as they were freed of the rope shook her back into the moment. She looked over to the two Witches who stood, transfixed by the terrible sight on the altar. 

She saw the artificially pretty one that had put her hands on Ophelia's body, had pressed her awful mouth on Ophelia's neck. She saw the way that the Witch seemed to have shrunk in horror, her hand pressed over her mouth. 

The other one stood, looking almost like a stone next to her shaking, shuddering daughter. She was almost utterly still, save for the contented smile that grew on her face.

They were both transfixed on the terrible sight atop the altar.

Ophelia took hold of Winnie's tied wrists, worked quickly. She did not fear being caught, knew that the two Witches were busy gazing at the terrible sight of the ritual. Still, her hands shook, and she had to concentrate in the near dark of the chamber as the flames in the sconce on the ceiling shuddered as though it were about to blow out.

When Ophelia had managed to pull off the rope entwining Winnie's wrists, she whipped around, unsure what she would do if she found that one of the Witches had caught her, but certain that she would fight to the death.

When she turned around and found that the two Witches were still staring at the spectacle on the altar, Ophelia felt rage boil inside of her. She was free, free and she would hurt these two, take sadistic pleasure in their deaths -

Winnie's voice hissed in her ear, stopping Ophelia's train of thought. "We must flee, now, we'll never get another chance to."

Ophelia did not listen, could not. Fleeing and thinking of the consequences had been the thought processes that a girl who had not lost everyone she cared about, had not been raped.

She stood, the rope that their wrists had been tied with, clenched in her hands. They had been tied up with plain fucking rope, in an almost ostentatious show of lacking the care to even think that either of them would possibly ever be able to get out of their bindings. 

The sound of the Monster King as he continued his depraved, forced feast filled her ears like the buzzing of wasps, beating their bodies, time and again into one another. The only thing to consider was which one she would strangle while the other watched, helpless.

Ophelia strode behind Sia, a length of the rope clenched between her hands. She brought the rope past the Witch's lowered head, then pulled as hard as she could, feeling as it smashed against the Witch's wind pipe. 

She felt the taller woman give a startled jerk, then sank back against her. She tightened the rope in her hands, trembling with the barely repressed desire to pull, to crush the woman's wind pipe with the rope, to jerk her against the rope, again and again.

Hera's voice froze Ophelia, stilling her motions as though she spoke with the voice of the Goddess herself. "Now, there's no need for the dramatics, surely we're passed this point, hmm?"

Ophelia looked over at the Witch. Hera stood, not even bothering to look at her flailing, wailing oldest daughter, or the black girl who had a length of rope drawn taut over her neck. 

It infuriated Ophelia.

The teenager drew the rope tight, taking horrible pleasure in the unfeminine, pitiful way the Witch jerked, screeched. Only when the woman calmed down, gasping to catch her breath, did Ophelia speak to Hera. "Fuck you."

"Oh my," Hera said, her soft voice barely perceptible over the sound of crunching bone, the wet sound of flesh being torn. "Your Coven let you learn that sort of foul language, did they? And I suppose they'd tolerate this barbaric behavior from you."

Ophelia trembled with rage, drew the rope right against the Witch's throat without realizing it, until she felt Sia begin to frantically kick. Ophelia hated herself then for her blunt, fiery reaction. She knew that Netta wouldn't have let this woman's words get to her, would've known what to do, how to react, instead of letting her emotions run rough shod over her. 

Ophelia struggled for a moment, forcing calm into her voice before she spoke again. "Do not speak of the dead that way. They were good women, not like us."

"Us?" Hera laughed, shook her head, her voice condescending. "Do you think you're anything like me, you stupid, reactive little girl? You're sheep, prey."

The shaking in Ophelia's hands had grown, the trembling becoming like seismic shakes that resonated through her whole body. "You've got that wrong, I don't know what I am now, but I'm going to - I'm gonna -"

Hera grunted and Ophelia stopped talking, turning in time to realize that someone's pale arm was crossed over the Witch's neck. 

It took her a stupidly long time to realize who it was, clenching Hera to her. For a moment, Ophelia could only stare at Winnie. The look on the woman's face was one that she had never seen before on her. Winnie grinned, a rictus stretch, as tears poured down her face.

For a moment, Ophelia was taken aback, by the overwhelming feeling of admiration that she felt for the once-meek wallflower.

This is my last Sister. She is one that I am proud to call the last of my kin.