Features. Monsters.

"Must we be hunters and preys?" her question had innocence, the shadows from the flaring candle are hands that pluck at her cheeks like strings.

A woman sat on a chair, sated by the question. She looked into the girl's eyes and spoke, "We are both and we are neither, all I know is this is a game, a game of survival."

Across her laps lay a voliryak - an arched blade, common among the briars yet pointy enough to satiate the skill of cutting a nerve - and a yellowish cloth stained by years of usage is in the grasp of her hand.

She skillfully polishes the knife now held in between her fingers, flimsy against yet passable. she bows down. The golden hue of the candle merely shadowed her tan skin, and the light upon her tall nose created a shadow upon her lips; a wan smile fabricated.

The little girl merely watches on, merely settles on hearing the faint sound of cloth and the steely sharp sound against  it.

Now, the blade between her fingers is like solid prayers, ones that could either cut or mend - she had in her mind that she knew they were always answered. Never forgotten.

The wan smile seems to widen. Exhaustion and dread passing along the muscles of her face so that it weighed down the tensed muscles, stripped off the mask and patches that stuck on her face to conceal whatever pain there was.

The little girl blinks at her, and tilts her head to the side. She notices something odd about the woman, not anything strange, but odd in a way you are submerged in darkness you have never seen before, in a way something has become uncomfortable even though you have loved it all your life.

The girl notices now what it was.

The woman isn't breathing, isn't alive, isn't beating with passion. She's withering like the last leaves before winter, like the last breathe before death.

She envisioned her and the timeless world, she existed now and nothing more. And there was something seeping from her, sucking her of her energy.

Yet she continued polishing the blade, holding unto it as though a flimsy canopy against the whirlwind of  a storm, a hope in a wish of safety inside her heart as she burrows deeper under the canopy, under the ground to save herself.

"It's happening, isn't it?" the little girl's voice is thinning at the edges, knots of fear thudding against her notes as she spoke. Fear and carefulness. Afraid she'd break the atmosphere of calm blanketed upon them like ghosts.

Something pings inside the woman, as though something deep in her chest seemed to crack and split, barely audible as energy raced along her veins.

Destruction.

Now there is destruction in her veins, running along to inch and inch towards her heart so that it pierced the weakest part that lay in darkness inside.

She pushed the blade inside the pocket of her boots, sliding up to shimmy out the heavy thing that nestled upon her body and soul, weighing her down like an anchor.

She stood, shadows coming along behind her to trail; a mark unbidden of darkness and destruction.

There is something untamable in the darkness inside her heart, uneasily moving to her soul and heart with such distress. It wanted to be set free.

Without wasting any second, her lips start to quiver - not of cold but of prayer - and she feels something cold against her spine, moving in a fast rate up to the back of her head. Now she was chanting, words sounding like they tumble, yet she knew what they were, knew it from her birth, knew it from the day she existed.

Those were stories.

A siren wails in the distance, and a sudden quake under the ground, followed by the rumbling of the walls of the small inn they are in. Spider cracks span the ground from the door that shudders in front of them and run towards the floor under their feet, deepening and darkening as a boom rattles the inside and outside.

She lowers her lashes at the girl that sat wide-eyed with fear, who feels her gaze and looks up to meet hers.

This was what lay dormant inside her. Cosmic fury, wicked fire - and most importantly, rebel stories, those must never be forgotten as it stained her soul with utter destruction.

When there are helpless situations like this, there is always a great desire that spark flames - and the flame, it always burns.

The girl's eyes widen to the brim, and in between her glossy orbs, there was the reflection of the woman and perched upon her sagging shoulders is something much, much deadly.

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Swipe bitches, shit is 'bout to get real.