Day Two: Chapter Six

The new moon failed to illuminate Moniasili's woods, allowing darkness to cast a gray haze over the mess of shrubs and foliage. Moniasili's time was up, Etta could taste it in the air. She could smell the intense longing, mingled in with the smell of decay. She could hear the long, shallow breaths of the once-great guardian, wavering, wheezing as if under intense pressure. There was no breeze to disrupt her senses. The air was hot and still. The woods were hot and still. The world was hot and still, and she felt sharper than ever.

"She returns for I? Why is she not dead?" wheezed the familiar three voices of the ancient ferri. "Why does she hate I? Can I not just have peace?"

Etta knew her target was powerful, but she couldn't help but to be just a tad bit surprised that Moniasili had been able to detect her at such a considerable distance. There was no use in slinking around the outskirts of Moniasili's domain now; she may as well talk to her face to face. Etta emerged next to the wilting bougainvillea in an instant.

"I don't hate you, Moniasili. This isn't personal," Etta responded, sqautting at the base of the feris giant, charred head. "I just need your xhole."

The ferri glanced at the vampire with cold eyes, "Ah yes. Damned, is she. A damned witch with no life blood can not speak with the energy of the universe, so she drains life blood from the living like an aphid."

"That's unfortunately true."

Moniasili glowered into the darkness with seven iridescent eyes.

"She destroyed all I love for this reason?"

Etta said nothing, simply gazing on as Moniasili struggled to lift her primary and tertiary heads in order to look upon the vampiress. After considerable effort and the loss of several brittle limbs, the guardian was successful.

"Amongst feris, a wish made of a creatures last breaths is sacred. Even between enemies. I have heard that humans respect these wishes similarly," Moniasili uttered each word she spoke between thin gasps for breath. Her voices were crushed, as if from the wight of a thousand pounds, and each sound she made seemed pained. "She is not human any longer, but perhaps she will respect the wish of I. I plead..."

The tetiary head began to weep, gold tears pouring out of it's three eyes and trickling down its magenta face. The other heads continued without it, their voices failing to drown out the soft sobs.

" I have lived such loneliness. I did not sow the seeds of I, the plant born of I would inherit such powerful life blood as to attract the likes of she. I shooed the carriers of pollen. I burned the seeds carried in the wind in case the life blood of I could spill into them. I am the great mother flower, yet I halted many births, because I could not lose the family of I another time. Generations of ferri were snatched from I."

The ferri's voice was becoming more and more thin. Etta could sense Moniasili's life force slipping into the air, enlivening the spells written on her skin. The light of this spell escaped through gaps of her knitted sweater, emanating an ominous glow that bathed the lair in bloodstained crimson.

She continued,"This wish, the last breaths wish of I, is that she allow the life blood of I to be released into these woods. I wish to create many fairies upon death. That is all I desire," said Moniasili, with all three mouths.

Etta could already feel Moniasilis power spilling into her, and there surroundings. The guardian was literally moments from death. This was the moment she'd been waiting for for seven long years, there was no sob story, no amount of tears, virtually nothing that could make her change her mind now.

"No." Etta stated, firmly.

Red stained tears began to fall from all the ferris iridescent eyes, and the fairy collapsed into a heap of wilted foliage. Finally.

At once, Moniasili's immense power poured into Etta's body, like a waterfall into a tea cup, warm slimy power that pounded directly into her brain. She thought her skull might shatter!

Who fed she!? demanded the fairies three voices.

The slimy substance thrashed around in her memories as they played before Etta's eyes: her somber walk through the woods, her silent ride in the back of her Bentley, looking up at the moonless sky as she exited her mansion...

Who fed this monster? Who wanted a creature such as she to exist in this world?

... The scent of tangerine and black tea, sculpted cheek bones, nervous sweat on warm brown skin, compassionate garnet eyes, thick godly tresses that burst out of a loose ponytail at her crown...

The slime exited Etta's body through her nose and disappeared into the distance. One long, wriggling vine emerged from the pile of Moniasili's remains and whipped behind it, exiting Moniasili's black woods.

............................

Jada's sleep was dreamless and black: the deepest, most peaceful kind of sleep. She slept so hard that her loud snores didn't wake her, and the puddle slob that was forming against her pillow didn't disturb her.

Yet, she awoke with a jolt as the slimy substance poured into her open mouth and wriggled down her throat and up her nose, filling her entire being with a sticky, compelling, something.

What was this? Why couldn't she breathe?

Panicked, Jada swung her balled fists through the air pointlessly, struggling with all her might to strike the cause of the unusual sensation.

Don't resist, said three voices in unison.

Jada stretched her lungs to gasp but no sound escaped and no air came in, only a large, rough, cutting vine that felt as if it was tearing through her mouth and throat. She thought to grab it, but before she had a chance to move it had entered her entirely and she could no longer breath. Her pulse began pounding in her ears, her hands became weak and shaky, her chest burned and ached as she clawed for breathe.

If she didn't do something she was going to die.

She stuck her hand as far in her mouth as she could in a weak attempt to grab the foreign object an yank it out of her throat by force but her fingers only went far enough to force her to gag and drool all over her wrists.

Her pulse became louder and faster, louder and faster in her ears, faster than a drum roll as her body melded with the slime within her.

Don't resist, the voices repeated again, this time in a much gentler tone.

Her body began to feel light, her vision became blurred and her pulse became louder and faster until it became one long, deep, melancholy hum rattling her brain.

She blacked out.