Յյ 𝔇𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔬𝔣 ℌ𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 [𝔄 𝔗𝔚𝔖𝔗 𝔉𝔞𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔠]

𝟑 | 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐲 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫

ᵗʰᵉ ʷⁱᵗᶜʰⁱⁿᵍ ʰᵒᵘʳ

𝔖𝔬𝔫𝔤: 𝔇𝔬𝔲𝔟𝔩𝔢 𝔗𝔯𝔬𝔲𝔟𝔩𝔢 - 𝔍𝔬𝔥𝔫 𝔚𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔞𝔪𝔰

Warnings: animal body parts (for potions), minor mentions of blood

♥♠♣♦ ——　☠　—— ♥♠♣♦

The room was thick with the scent of decay. It seemed as though death clung to the very air, swirling about over the large iron cauldron that sat in the middle of the room, hovering over a burning fire that seemed to lick the bottom. The contents of the cauldron bubbled tantalisingly, despite the putrid smell that wafted from each bubble that popped. A thick and dense air swirled about, denying an easy breath for those inside the room, and forcing them to endure the humid feel of their clothes sticking to their skin. 

A young girl, no older than seventeen stood next to the cauldron, her face painted with red and black, her hair matted and slick with oil, and her eyes hollow and lifeless. She stared into the bubbling potion, as still as a statue, though her clothes fluttered about her body in a ghostly breeze. There were no windows to release the terrible stench, nor the sickening heat, and it seemed as though the fumes had wormed their way into the girl's brain, leeching her of her senses. 

"Double, double, toil and trouble," she said, her eyes glazed in the f/c glow blossoming from the cauldron. Slowly, she extended her hand above the pot. Her fingers were covered in an ebony substance, as thick as molasses, and as it fell into the pot, the potion started to spark, turning a deeper shade of f/c, so dark it was almost black. 

"Fire burn and cauldron bubble." She glanced up towards the wall in front of her. Hanging from the stone was an old scroll, worn and faded from the ages as they passed. A once-white piece of parchment had now been stained and yellowed, the ink bleeding in a few spots from a splotch of liquid tumbling onto the page. One edge was ripped as if it had been torn from a book. Which it had. The book that had fallen victim lay on the ground, open to the spot where the page had once sat, the edge now sticking up like the blade of a knife from the centre.

"Double, double, toil and trouble. Something... wicked," the girl's lips curled into a malicious smirk that curled just too much to send a shiver of electricity through the room, "this way comes." Her hand defended towards the surface of the sticky liquid, all her fingers folding into her palm save for her index finger, which slowly broke the surface of the potion. The bubbles flocked to the tip of her finger, slowly crawling up the skin, like a thing of nightmares that was determined to slowly consume her. A sharp burning pain erupted in the tip of her finger, and though she knew that she should have pulled away, she allowed her finger to remain within the slick, her eyes starting to widen with as inch after inch of her skin disappeared.

Y/N glanced up at the parchment, her eyes narrowing in on the knife holding it to the wall. There was nothing particularly special about it. Just a simple kitchen knife that Y/N had swiped from the kitchen before returning to the cavern beneath her house. She pulled her hand from the potion, ignoring the inky black liquid dripping from her finger as she crossed to a shelf on the side of the wall where a great many jars were sittings each filled with eyes, lungs, and too many other things to count. 

"Eye of newt and toe of frog..." Y/N grabbed the ingredients from the self. Instead of grabbing the jars, however, she uncorked the vials and reached in, pulling out the slimy ingredients that left a sickening odour on her fingers. 

"Wool of bat and tongue of dog..." As she pulled out the wool, she rubbed it between her fingers, smiling at the coarse texture. 

"Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting..." While retrieving the sting, she pricked her finger on the end. A single drop of blood beaded on the surface and she stared at it for a moment before lifting it to her lips and licking away the fluid.