London Witch

Devil's Soap

      For years, Peter Bennett was under the assumption that he was an abnormally short, ordinary young boy living on the fourth block of an ordinary London street in the ordinary year of 1897.
He was convinced that even though his mother left him at a young age, he was still adequately normal and equipped with all the normalcy that would come with attending school, picking up the paper for his papa in the mornings, and riding down the hills on his ordinary bike on his ordinary commute to his assigned educational facility.

   However, this was not the case.

   Peter was only now beginning to realize this truth as he screamed into the concrete.

   His lips chapped and slid across the rough texture of the sidewalk, blood oozing from his cuts and dripping onto his tongue. From there, the droplets stained the ground a waxy red color, diluted with his own saliva.

   Blood was pouring over his vision and through his nose and ears. He felt only pain and agony twisting its way through his body, through his core, dribbling down his chin and out of his eyes and ears and nostrils.

   It was as if the devil himself was wiping the insides of Peter's body clean, making room for something much darker than the deep red of blood, much more sinister than the humanistic tradition of requiring quarts of liquid surrounding his bones to survive.

   He screamed again, after gurgling and ridding himself of a bloody clot from his throat, slamming his fist down onto the sidewalk as one last pathetic attempt to get the blood to stop. He knew it would not succeed, but all he needed was for someone to hear him.. for someone to come to his aid and get him to a doctor.

   "Please!" His voice cracked with desperation as he called out into the dark, "P..please.. someone.. help me!"

   Peter was met only with the night's cold whispers of wind. He held his arms together and buried his face into the ground, choking and coughing, dreading the thought that no one might come to his rescue. Peter trembled, gripping tightly onto himself and pleading under his breath for a savior. He didn't want to die this way, without placing a bouquet on his mother's grave. He didn't want to pass away because he was too ashamed to tell his father where he was going this late at night.

   Peter was afraid of death. And this sudden phenomenon only further proved to him how utterly terrifying the idea of death truly was. He continued to shake and shiver and cry as the devil ran his fingers through his body, purging the uselessness through Peter's eyes and ears and nose. He knew this had to be some act of the supernatural, since it was so agonizing and terrible. Perhaps God was smiting him for being so weak and not telling his father where he was going. Perhaps this was for his bad grade in the Histories, or his bad habit of eating sweets before dinner was ready. Maybe he needed to ask for forgiveness.

"Please.. God.. forgive m-me.. I'm sorry.. I'm sorry.." Peter's screams subsided, replaced with breathy whispers pleading for grace.

"God's a mighty title for someone like me, hm?" A voice suddenly broke the silence.

Peter snapped his head up to look at the strange woman before him. Although it was dark, and a cloud of dirt and blood on his cornea was adamant in obscuring his vision, he made out her silhouette by the merciful light of the moon behind her.

"Help me.. please, help me.." He brought his hands together and begged her, wiping the liquid from his nose.

"You can't even control your own abilities. You really do need help, don't you.." She sighed, reaching a hand out to him. He was barely able to tell it was there.

"Alright. I'll help you. Come with me."