"It's happening," Loretta Louise said quietly, horrified as she looked around the elaborate room.

Everything was shaking. Framed paintings of landscapes flew off walls. Blank-featured busts bounced off their foundations. Shelves rattled. Mirrors vibrated. The great lake that lay just outside the cracking bay window rolled and churned like a sea during a violent storm.

"Curious," Ashling mused as her veiled face took in the chaos around her. Despite her calm tone, her voice could easily be heard over the din of the rattling room. "It is not often the happenings of the world I can no longer reach are great enough to reach me."

"The room we are in is collapsing, isn't it?" the Lady asked despite knowing the answer. "Maybe the entire thing is collapsing. The Overseer is trying to bury us alive!"

Ashling regarded her from her position the bed, having moved not an inch since their interaction began. "His loss, our gain."

"No!" Lady Louise shouted, moving towards the bed, pointing an accusing figure towards the veiled woman. "You don't get to decide that! Not for me or my daughter."

"Perhaps not," Ashling relented with a slight tilt of her head. "But I am left with no choice. You will see, in a short time. I think you will thank me."

"Damn you!" the Witch of the Void snapped, reaching out and gripping hard onto Ashling's shoulder.

Ashling looked over to it but, of course, made no move to attempt to remove the trembling hand. "Will you try it now? The risks—"

"Damn you," the Lady said again behind gritted teeth. "If we are going to die anyway, then I will shoulder the risks."

There was a long pause from the woman. Then, her shoulders began to shake. A moment later, and a soft, airy chuckle escaped from somewhere beneath the blue fabric.

"I like this," she said as she angled her blank face up towards her fellow witch. "I like this a lot."

A long, aching creaking reached the women's ears. The room and its contents still rattled and broke apart, but the noise of their chaotic dance had for a while been dulled by Ashling's power so the Lady could talk. So, when the sound of the door to the room opening slowly, ever so slowly, resounded, it was like dead silence had been all that led up to it. The two witches looked back towards the door and both felt their bodies freeze.

Despite the groaning that stretched on for a second or two, the door was still only partially open. But it was enough for them to see the face peering in from the darkness. It was a long face; mostly made up of a snout with sharp, dripping teeth poking out from various places as its mouth hung open. Red and white fur covered most of it with long, pointed ears moving and twitching constantly. But Lady Louise found her focus almost entirely caught within its eyes. They were almost entirely white, and far too large for its abnormally large head. They remained fixed open, as if in their own state of shock, but the Lady could see—barely see the yellowed iris in the center that honed right back on her.

"Wha—" the Lady started, barely finding her breath, let alone her voice.

"Alex Foxy," Ashling greeted as if inviting in an old friend. "You've grown."

The creature did not make a sound. The door groaned one final time as it was thrown open fully. Only then did the Lady get a full idea of the creature's size. Even hunched over, it stood just over eight feet tall. It's body, coated in red and white fur, was in constant state of motion. Bits of wood and stone that seemed to have been lodged into its arms, legs and torso were being forced out with splashes of blood as it stepped inside. Its long, thin arms and legs twisted and knotted back together with each hobbled step it took, once the offending pieces removed themselves and clattered to the ground. The constant sound of bone snapping accompanied the shifting. In the end, even its torso twisted around a few times, realigning a spine that had been wrenched out of shape. It straightened its body as it did so, ending with its head cracking violently from one side and to the other before everything finally went still. Finally, its eyes shrunk down to better fit its skull and the yellowed iris slowly shifted color to a familiar, brilliant blue.

Throughout all of this, no one in the room made a vocal sound. Not Ashling, who watched it all behind her impassive veil. Not the beast who did not even let out an irritated groan as its body knitted back together. And not the Lady who could only watch with an open mouth, her mind struggling to keep up. When the creature finished, it stood in the center of the room, motionless. Long arms stretched out on either side, clawed hands tipped with pitch-black nails curled inwards. Powerful, clawed feet digging themselves into the polished ceramic floor. The enlarged, monstrous, but still vaguely vulpine face looked down on Lady Louise and Lady Louise alone.

"Alex?" Lady Louise felt herself asking, hardly hearing her own voice escape her lips.

"Ma..." the creature responded,its voice gurgled and harsh. It took a step towards her, cautious. It grumbled, as if searching for the words as it continued to stare and drool. "Mama."

Lady Louise's throat tightened. Her heart nearly gave out. She could not find the words in time to speak before Ashling spoke instead.

"Alex Foxy," she said again, her voice warm, inviting. "We were just—"

It happened in an instant. A blur of red, and then the bed was blown apart. The Lady fell away a moment later, finding her scream much easier that time as the beast now stood right beside her, a clawed arm already swung midway through the air as fragments of the bed, as well as bloody pieces of the Witch ofDreams, scattered everywhere.

Even before they had settled, Ashling appeared on the other side of the room, amidst broken pieces of artwork and furniture. Standing whole and in one piece, blue veil and nightgown and all, she hardly noticed when the still shaking wall behind her broke and scattered bits of itself on and around her.

"Please, Alex, your power is wasted here. Why not—"

Ashling was caught off again when the beast pounced on her. Using his teeth this time, he closed his jaws around her head and shook her savagely back and forth until the restof her body broke free, the force of the action sending it careening out one of the large windows.

As the glass shattered and fell apart, Ashling stood up on the other side, head back to where it was originally. However, this time, the veil was gone, allowing Lady Louise to see the witch looking back into the room with pale, furrowed brows.

"You cannot kill me here, Alex, as much as I might wish it. Do you think this is the first time someone has tried?"

In response, the beast roared at her. It was a strange roar, though. Something between a high-pitched whine and a guttural human cry of anger. Then, he was out the window; crashing into Ashling and knocking both of them out and into the churning lake with a great splash.

Lady Louise stared after them, struggling to retain her footing in the crumbling room.

"A change of scenery, perhaps," Ashling noted, suddenly right beside her.

A moment later, and their surroundings had changed. What once was the interior of Lady Louise's childhood bedroom was now an expansive and curious graveyard on the fringes ofa park. Beyond a nearby wrought iron fence the Lady could see the start of several buildings, but their framework was basic and faded in color and, beyond them, was just a sea of white nothingness. Few things remained from her earlier room. One was the tremors. The gravestones shook off moss and thin vines as they rattled in the ground. Trees that dotted the landscape shed leaves as they swayed. The ground split apart in several places, cracks large and small splitting out from the greater fissures. The Lady stepped away from them on unsteady feet, her gaze drifting up from them to the only other constant.

The red beast still was a ways away, but instead of wading in a great lake he now stood upon a small hill, nearly as tall as the tree that grew from the top of it. It looked around at its new degrading surroundings for a moment before both it and Lady Louise's gaze was drawn towards a new figure stepping up beside her. A boy with brown skin, a mop of shaggy brown hair, and wearing shoes that seemed a few sizes too big for him. He opened up his arms wide as he approached the base of the hill, his face void of all expression.

"Lady Louise was about to show me something wonderful," Mutt said in the voice of Ashling, "so if you insist on getting in the way of that—"

The beast howled and flew off the hill, crashing into the boy and shredding him apart with fangs and claws in a matter of seconds.

The scene changed. The graveyard and park were gone. Lady Louise was stumbling backwards from the previous carnage and found she was moving through water. Her feet splashed through a shallow pond that rippled and churned against the ground that shook beneath it.

A wide expanse of trees shrouded by a deep fog danced to and fro around the pond, making it difficult to see much beyond them, though the Lady knew there was nothing to be seen. The beast was raising from a body that was no longer there, water dripping down from the fur on its face and hands and looked towards another new form approaching them from the other side of the pond.

"If you insist on getting in the way," Ashling repeated from the body of a larger boy draped in mud, blood, and twigs. "I will break you—"

The beast moved and swiped a claw toward the filth-encrusted figure, but it sunk into the water before contact could be made. It wasn't a natural movement, it was as if the water pulled him into depths that should not exist. As he vanished into the pond, the scene changed again.

They were back in a room, one with tall wooden walls and just a pair of high-backed chairs facing one another. Lady Louise's back hit a wall that rattled in place while the beast stumbled into one of the chairs and quickly smashed it apart with a fist in its rage.

Mr. Mallard stood behind the red beast as it huffed and puffed over the ruined chair. The old man leaned forward, nothing but rage on his face.

"—both physically—"

The beast swung towards the familiar, claws out, but swiped through dead air as both Mallard and the room disappeared. In their place, a larger room stretched out in different directions with marble flooring and giant windows that looked out to acres of trees that faded into blinding, white nothing.

A tall woman with wild hair and glowing green eyes stood just before the center window and reached out a hand towards the beast as it struggled to orient itself on the rumbling marble flooring.

"—and mentally."

The flooring beneath the beast's feet cracked apart as thick roots burst outwards and wrapped themselves around the creature's arms and legs. The beast howled its whimpering cry as the earthen tendrils wrapped tight and bore into its flesh all at once. Once they had a hold of him, the roots lifted his bulk up into the air, letting the blood from the fresh injuries spill down like rain.

"Ashling!" Lady Louise shouted as she made to move across the marble flooring. Despite the violent moving of the room, she was able to keep her stability relatively easy. She walked forward as if it had no effect on her at all. "Stop this!"

There was a ripping—a snapping as the roots around the beast cracked apart. With another whimpering yowl, the creature tore it's body free—shredding open vicious wounds in the process. When it charged Ashling, the scene did not change, but Miverva's body shrank, the elaborate gown she wore shifted, and a younger girl with similar striking features stood in her place wearing a dress stained with dirt and soot.

Hands still outstretched, plumes of fire erupted in the place of roots, sending the red beast sprawling to one side, whining and yelping all the way. "You have the real power here," Ashling spoke as Maple's cold eyes regarded her fellow witch. There was a hint of agitation in her voice that could still be heard clearly over the crumbling room and the yelping beast."If you wish to shoulder the risks, what is one more?"

The Lady opened her mouth to speak again, but caught herself when a rumbling growl echoed in the great, marble chamber. The red beast was approaching Ashling again, its flesh and fur fighting to regenerate as fire continued to eat away at its face and arms. It hardly seemed to register its own body being eaten alive as blue eyes glared and white teeth bared.

Lady Louise unconsciously found herself backing away from the horrid display, but Ashling only sighed. "A moment," she said to her fellow witch before taking a step towards the beast.

The next few seconds were accompanied by a dizzying change of sights and sounds. In one moment they were back in the woods. It was night, several trees had fallen, and Ashling approached the beast as a tall man in a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat. The beast lurched towards the man, but was blown backward by the shotgun he held in his hands.

Even as he stumbled backward, the scene changed again. They stood in a crowded street. People were screaming, covered in cuts and burns. Buildings were broken and on fire. Ashling appeared behind the beast in her most disturbing form yet. That of a giant praying mantis of pure white that did not hesitate when it slammed one of its scythe-like arms into the beast's back, pinning it to the ground with a splash of blood and a snap of bone.

"Stay down," Ashling suggested as the mantis' mandibles clacked.

The beast tried to push itself off the ground in response, sending the bladed arm deeper, and the scene changed again. Back to the woods. Surrounded by wolves that snarled and snapped with bloody mouths. Ashling still had him pinned to the ground, but it was now in the form of a hunched, black and grey wolf that did not look so different from the beast it had pressed into the ground with its clawed hands.

The red beast howled, whimpered, yelped, fought, but it was no use. More blood drained down from the wounds in its back. Its hands clawed into the dirt before falling still. One arm was stretched out wide, towards the Lady, and she found herself staring into the wide, blue eye of the beast.

The scene changed one final time as the Lady approached. The blood-stained grass changed to a plush, pink carpet. The sounds of snarling wolves changed to a rapid, disjointed whirring of a ceiling fan. This scene change seemed to have the most effect on the beast that any other had so far. Instead of fighting,it was trying to curl in on itself with clawed hands wrapped over and around its head. The whimpering cries sounded more human than animal to her now that she was close enough to hear them clearly. One of the beast's gnarled hands was still exposed enough to reach and the Lady only hesitated a moment before reaching down to grasp one of its taloned fingers.

The creature flinched. Eyes that were once shut tight in pain opened and looked up upon the Witch of the Void. She stared back into bright blue that she once thought familiar, but now could find nothing she recognized.

The beast's finger curled around her hand gently. When its mouth opened, it made another gurgled, choking sound.

"Ma...maa..."

"Ashling?" Lady Louise called, looking around the small room. The pink furniture. The dolls. An expansive closet nearly as large as the bedroom filled with dresses.But no sign of another person.

"Interesting," a dull voice mused. The voice sounded like it came from everywhere, like it spoke from the floral wallpaper or the boy band posters. "There is an antagonistic force tied to this place, but I cannot manifest it."

"Mmmma..." the beast grumbled, and the Lady could feel his whole body tremble as she continued to hold his finger.

"Release them," Lady Louise said, turning to face the walls. "Alex, Leaf, and my daughter. Do that and I will use my power on this place. I will show you one last wonderful thing before our end."

"How do I know this is not some trick?" Ashling asked "If I release them, I would be at their mercy. They could choose to save me from my destined fate."

"And if they do?" the Lady asked back, returning the beast's gentle squeeze before releasing his finger to step closer to the center of the room. "I am the only one who could potentially keep you from death. Even if they save you now, you will die eventually as long as you keep me trapped here. Keep them here and we all die anyways, but let them go and I will attempt to remove this dream world and you and I can suffer the consequences, whatever they might be."

A long sigh filtered through the room. "I already said I would no longer take any risks."

Lady Louise waited, hearing in the tone of her voice that she wasn't done speaking.

"I saw the end. I saw the face of Death. So, why—" Ashling cut herself off with a gasp, and then ashout. "No! St—!"

"MAMAAAA!"

Hot breath on the nape of her neck.The smell of blood and soil. Lady Louise half-turned and then felt her body go stiff as the red beast's jaws locked around her throat. She tried to take in a breath but only chocked back up blood.

Her body went limp and she was dropped to the ground. The lady was faintly aware of screams, both animal and human. Of someone crying. Someone saying 'mama' over and over and over.

Then, she was awake.

Her body was stiff again. She was lying face down on the dirt, sprawled partway through a simple doorway. Her upper body lay in a room of dirt nearly bare save for several beds with people lying in them. She recognized her daughter, the Quincy boy, and Ashling. The red beast was also there. Comically, his own body lay partially fallen out of a hole in the wall he seemed to have dug of his own accord. All of them in the room were asleep, but it had to be a deep sleep for none of them to stir despite the violent way the room shook and the large clumps of the walls and ceiling that had fallen and were continuing to fall. Several of the beds were already nearly overtaken by large, amassing piles of dirt. Rosetta herself was only half exposed, her arms and legs swallowed by clumps of soil and clay as more continued to fall around and on top of her.

Lady Louise tried to move, and asplitting pain answered her. It forced her to come to realize that her lower half was still partway in the hall behind her, a hall that had almost completely caved in. The pain on her lower legs from the weight of hundreds if not thousands of pounds pressed on top of them had been so great it had taken her brain precious seconds to recognize it. When it had, the Lady was overwhelmed. She howled out, but even as she did so a heaviness was falling over her mind.

Was her body trying to slip back away to unconsciousness? A way to deal with the exorbitant pain? She fought the darkness away as she gritted her teeth and dug her hands into freshly fallen earth. She shut her eyes tight as another scream escaped her lips.

"No!"

A vision. In the darkness behind her eyelids the Lady was seeing another scene play out before her. The red, lupine beast was fighting again. Smashing walls.Breaking trees. Yowling out its strange cry of rage. Lady Louis could not see what it was trying to get to, but she could hear her. Ashling screaming inside her mind.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

Her eyelids were relaxing. The Lady shook herself out of it, recognizing what it was now. It was like those late spring days spent in a classroom where she would occasionally catch herself dozing. Every now and then she could physically feel herself falling into a dream until the cold of the desk or the sharp pinch of her teacher snapped her out of it.

"You won't trap me again," Lady Louise hissed. With trembling hands, she reached back towards the parts of her legs that were still within reach. The fallen debris had crushed her from about the knees down. She would need to be fast.

It was a simple process to remove the parts of her legs she no longer needed. It would be difficult to then remove the concept of her no longer having those parts of her legs, but given enough time she believed she could do it. But it was times she did not currently have.

The room was collapsing. Piles of dirt formed as walls crumbled and the ceiling cracked. Another clouded vision of Ashling's battle with the red beast played across her mind's eye as her own vision darkened. Lady Louise bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, fighting off the wave of sleep as she began to crawl across the trembling floor.

The red beast was twitching in its sleep. Long white fangs bared as it growled and whined. Leaf Quincy was so still the Lady at first thought that he had passed. However, as she crawled passed his bed she was able to note the slight rise and fall of his chest, as well as a curious growth of what appeared to be twigs growing out from his ears. Even as she watched, they seemed to be growing larger, stretched down onto the bed and out into the dusty air.

Lady Louise turned away from him. Even if she had wanted to help, there wasn't any time. Her own daughter, Rosetta, lay in the bed across from him and she was nearly completely buried in the dirt that continued to rain down on all of them. Had the Overseer lied about her condition on top of everything else leading to this betrayal? She could see nothing of her daughter save for an arm and part of her sleeping face. Was she risking her own life for nothing? Was there no one left of hers to save?

Another wave. The Lady's head lowered as her eyes drooped.

The red beast had its jaws around sling. Its mouth had been large enough to close down from her shoulder until nearly her waist. Her blue silken nightgown—the same one the Lady could see her wearing in the waking world—was torn and stained with growing pools of blood. One of her arms was pinned to her body by the pointed teeth of the beast, but the other had worked its way up and around to gently stroke the red fur of the beast's head.

"Very well," Ashling said in a soft, gurgled voice. "You've earned your freedom."

The Lady tried to shake off the vision again, but it was only becoming clearer. She tried moving, digging her hands into the earth and dragging her way forward, but her hands were falling and flailing through empty, white space.

She could still faintly see it. The bed at the far end of the room in the world she could hardly reach. The pale figure like a porcelain doll or a body ready for burial. Hands crossed over her chest. Face staring upwards with hardly an expression as mounds of earth fell around and on her.

It was the same expression the Ashlingin her dream wore as she looked down upon the beast that had her in its jaws. A piercing cry reached the Lady's ears as the beast vanished from her dream. Leaving her and the Witch of Dreams floating in a void of endless white.

"You had a chance to see her," Ashling said, turning to face the Lady across the vast distance. In the short motion, the rips and tears of her clothing and flesh healed instantly and she regarded her fellow witch without a hint of pain or exhaustion. "What do you think? Are you still willing to take the risk?"

"Are they free of you?" LadyLouise asked back. She found herself standing, her legs reformed, but could find no proper purchase in the white void. Her arms and legs waved out as if she were underwater while Ashling stood and even began to walk towards her.

"Alex Foxy forced me to release him, so I no longer see the point in keeping them as well. As you said, despite their efforts, I will still die eventually as long as you are trapped here."

"And where is here?" the Lady asked as she watched Ashling approach her. Stroking forward with her arms or legs sent her nowhere. She could do nothing but hover in the nothing.

"The more people I entrap in memories the less control I have. Only when it is myself and another dreamer am I able to make use of this place. Considering I have seen all of you, I think it is only fair that you see all of me."

Lady Louise looked around. Her expression shifted from confusion, to understanding, to horror. "This..."

"I was either born in the state you saw me or it happened when I was too young to form any lasting impressions on the world I can no longer reach," Ashling explained, halting her approach until she was a little over within arm's reach of the Lady. "Either way, I posses no memories of my own. No safe spaces to hide in, no traumas to run from. It is a place void of everything and seems to affect even the one who possesses the void itself."

"So, this is it then?" Lady Louise met the cold, blue eyes of Ashling and waited.

"It might be," she returned with a nod. "But I would be lying if I said your earlier offer did not intrigue me. Even in meeting the face of Death, it seems I myself am not void of my curiosity. What lies beyond life—the true complete absence of feeling and thought—would be a relief to me. But still your words nag into my mind. What would be left of me if you removed this dream world, if only temporarily? Where would I go? What would I become?"

"You might wake up," the Lady suggested. "Return to that world you couldn't reach before."

Ashling smiled. "Ah, now that would truly be a waking nightmare."

"Maybe," Lady Louise returned with her own smile and a shrug. "I won't take everything you say at face value, but if my Rosetta is suffering she could use someone who knows what she is going through. She's never had a real friend before. Never had that 'normal' experience that children should. I know you feel alone, but it seemed you enjoyed talking with her. If what I think might happen happens, it doesn't have to end."

"You are mistaken," Ashling returned, her smile falling back into a flat line, "what you interpret as companionship was merely pity. Like seeing a crippled animal forced to continue beyond its allotted time. My goal with your daughter was not for friendship, but to put an end to her suffering."

The Lady folded her arms and studied Ashling for a moment, her dark brows knitted together and forehead creased. Finally, with a disappointed sigh and a shake of her head she turned her focus away from the witch and into the white void.

The following few seconds of silence were finally broken by Ashling.

"What?"

The Lady allowed herself a hint of a smile as she noted the slight irritation in the witch's voice. "Oh, nothing," she said turning back to look at the confused expression on Ashling's face, "I just think you are more human than you wish to let on. You call it pity, but what I see is compassion for someone you see yourself in. You call it curiosity, but I see a desire for life—a better life than the one that was forced upon you. You believe seeing my life, my daughter's life, and the memories of all those you brought here as a substitute for yours, but the truth is they would never be. Your chance at life has been unjustly stolen from you but I am here now to provide you with a chance to get that back. That's what intrigues you, whatever you might try to say otherwise."

Ashling stared at her long and hard without a twitch or a crease in her smooth, white skin. Finally, she turned away and began to walk back the way she had come. Lady Louise watched her go without a word until she was hardly a spec in the distance.

But, when Ashling spoke, her words remained as if she were still standing there in front of the Witch of the Void.

"You truly are a witch worthy of their reputation, great in both power and delusion. You would have the freedom to control the lives of all those within your reach and call it a kindness. If you believe I possess compassion then you will understand if I choose to watch and wait for our mutual oblivion."

Lady Louise let out a breath again. Doing her best to tuck in her legs beneath her, the witch sat as comfortably as she could while her body slowly spun in place. She took one last look around the endless nothing before closing her eyes.

It would only be a matter of time. Ashling would like to believe she had her trapped, but she was really no different than any other human being. Soon enough her desires will override logic. She will long to see the world through other's eyes. And, when that happens, Loretta would strike.

 The only thing that gave her pause was how long did she have to wait?