The Night of Massacre | ✔️

D A W N

THE WHISPERS ELUCIDATED in the air, penetrating through his mind, the voices rustling around him as they engulfed his surroundings piercing like pins in his body and soul. The fire torches hanging in different parts of the room, illuminated the basement.

Cries of pain and anguish of men, their screeching infiltrated his ears, and Nehan shrieked with terror. His hands entrapped the necklace, the amber glinted dangerously slicing through his skin. And he held them to his ears, in efforts to block the roar of torment absorbing through the air.

His body ached and bled as he held himself together, instead of the broken bones. The dense fog surrounding him educed and as the murmurs let up, he breathed out a ragged breath. He flitted his eyes open, the light of the torches slicing through his sight. A large fire was ignited in the hearth across the room.

There were shelves consisting of jars filled with different parts of body, like eyes and limbs and fingers, as if being preserved in liquid. Some held artefacts like inquisitor, the dead watch or the dark glass, particularly involved in black magic rituals. And some held effigies with pins inserted in them or placed rather plainly.

His eyes wandered around the room and goose bumps stood tall on his skin as chills crept up his spine. And then they found the one person involved behind the havoc occurring around him. Sitting behind the same table which held the book of dark arts, with poise and confidence.

Delilah stared at him intently as her lips lifted into a sinister smirk. Nehan gripped the necklace firmly in his palm, and it burnt into the flesh of his hands.

"Nehan, how was your escapade?" She cackled. And Nehan only glared at her, his lips murmuring prayers under his breath. "Well, let me tell you about myself. The truth this time." Delilah leaned back in her seat, looking at him.

"Once upon a time, in the lands where wicked and malicious people resided, there lived a family." She weaved her fingers and clasped them together. "The kind hearted and affectionate. But none appreciated their generosity as the vile creatures blamed them of witchcraft."

Nehan closed his eyes and exhaled an exhausted sigh. "In those days, witch trials had been occurring frequently, where the people accused of witchcraft were prosecuted, and the guilty were executed by hanging."

"What are you trying to say, Delilah?" Nehan inquired tiredly.

"Shh, do not interrupt." She held her finger pointing it in his direction. "The family was executed just like the others, falsely accused." She snickered.

"But those monsters didn't realise that they had left one member of the family behind, unknowingly. A young little girl hiding in a wooden barrel, her mother asked her to." Her eyes stared into the sparkling fire of the torches hanging around the basement.

"She stayed there for days, suppressing her cries as she heard the clatter from her surroundings. Till the day, a man came to rescue her. Her saviour." Delilah exhaled a sigh, and her face morphed the vulnerability on it. "The Satan himself disguised as her saviour."

"He taught her to survive. And the only way of survival was to practice witchcraft, Nehan." Their gazes caught for single fleeting moment and she moved forward, placing her hands on the table in front of her, where the book was placed.

Nehan stood rooted on his place. "I served him before the Devil, and he died a death on my hands as he had been the first sacrifice I presented the Devil with. Since then, every decade I sacrifice a man to him and in return he provides me with the power I have in my possession." She pushed the chair back with a screech and stood tall in her place.

The young Delilah, he met was standing in front of him, gazing at him earnestly with the same twinkle in her eyes. "What do you want from me, Delilah?" He asked her through clenched teeth and she laughed loudly.

"What do you think, Nehan?" She placed her palms on the edge of the wooden table, and her eyes sparkled a shade of red. "Tonight marks the decade when I have to present a soul to the Devil. And you are my bait for the night, for the promising decade of power and youth. And I hope your flesh and blood taste delicious, Nehan dear."

Within the blink of eye, he found her standing in front of him without an arms distance between them. "Hand me back my necklace please, it is very precious to me." She placed her palm in front of his asking about her the amber necklace.

Nehan took in the beautiful woman standing in front of him. 'The Satan disguised as the Saviour.'

His lips started murmuring the prayers more audibly. And with an unbeknownst strength, he could mutter, his hands jerked on their own as he pushed her aside and yelled a cry. Being caught off guard, Delilah lost her footing, and fell on the floor.

"Playing hard to get, Nehan dear." She screeched throwing Nehan across the room near the hearth. "Hand me back my necklace, so we can start with the ritual." She trotted around the basement menacingly towards where his body was sprawled on the floor, but he refused to let his touch loose on the necklace. The very necklace, that revealed her identity and she was adamant of having it back. She wasn't wrong when she said, it was her precious possession.

Aches flitted through every part of his body and he dry heaved on the floor. Her feet came into his sight, and she clutched him by his collar, holding him in front of him. "I wouldn't let you succeed, Delilah. It will be your end tonight." Nehan spoke in a promising manner and he threw the necklace in the burning fire.

A loud bawl infiltrated through the silence of the night, for Delilah lunged forward towards the hearth, throwing him towards the shelf of artefacts. Shadows erupted from the fire and clouded the room, the whispers whirring around them. Another fire flared up in the manuscript on the table.

She cried in anguish, her hands trying to reach for the necklace, instead the shadows consumed her, burning her creaked body into flames, consuming her flesh and bones until nothing was left of her but 'Ashes'.

The darkness consumed the whispers, leaving a ragged and broken existence of creation bathed in crimson, with the release of the spirits of the sacrificial men that had been doomed for a fate at her hand.

With thoses ashes, the fall of a century old witch was declared. And a new dawn arose as Nehan stood up from the floor, his feet taking him up the stairs and towards the main entrance as he crippled to the new start of a day.

The body of dead Buraq rested in eternal peace in those stables, whereas Nehan trekked away from the very villa that provided him with protection against the storm outside, instead havocking another storm in his life in a single night.

He was destined to set the end of Delilah, the witch, burning her existence into mere ashes indicating a new dawn. And he knew it was fate as he walked away from the sinister place, wincing with every move because of the injuries his body faced.

Unbeknownst to anyone, back at the villa, amongst the ashes and buried in between darkness, in the basement, the amber talisman glistened unscathed, declaring its existence.