Scary Witch Story

[major_kerina]

Hopefully this is nicely scary.

Salass’s Garden

“Wake up…”

You hear a voice that slices through you and into the depths of your sleeping consciousness. It’s not pleasant but not harsh. It’s not warm but heat ripples through your body. The voice invokes a feeling of fear but also embrace.

As your eyes open, you see the speaker of the voice. She is tall with a sleek, black dress and long, dark stockings. Her hair seems to swallow all light around her head and neck. Her face draws you in with all the beauty of pristine wax, cold and perfect. Her eyes show only the dimmest light to you.

Her fingers, in tight black gloves, clench in front of her and aimed at you.

“You are mine now.”

You notice that you are outside, lying on gray brick. Behind the dark woman is a stone fountain decorated with female statues. Tall trees and bushes sit behind the fountain. The rush of the water overwhelms all other sound but the dark woman’s voice.

“But you may speak.”

With that, a tension you never realized in your throat releases. You gasp and immediately ask her what’s going on. She listens a little with a sullen, bored expression on her face. After a moment of your fumbling with words, she waves a hand and the tension returns. All words seize in your throat.

“You’re better silent. Like your beloved son.”

Your heart throbs in your cheeks and bangs in your ears. Your son. You saw him last night with a smile on his face, going out on a trip with his friends. He gave you a hug for the first time in years, probably because none of his friends could see. But he was safe.

The dark woman laughs, as though enjoying a private joke. She raises her hand and you feel yourself standing, drawn up by invisible strings. She beckons you forward and you step unwillingly towards her.

“I am Salass, the most beautiful woman of all worlds. And this is my home.”

She drags you around the stone statues spraying water. You see just a glimpse of them. Some are in sensual poses. All are female. Around one statue, you see the nude form of your son standing straight.

You urge your mouth to scream out for him. You want to tell him to run away but you can’t move outside of Salass’s will. She traces a hand around your son.

“He can’t hear you. He can’t see you. You will never talk to each other again. He is mine, along with your daughter and your wife.”

You feel sickening pain all through your body. You would give anything to leap at this horror of a woman. But you are at her mercy.

Salass clutches your son’s shoulders. “He is a fine boy. Tall, strong, and smart. Going away to college this fall. Going to become a scientist doing amazing things. Not anymore…”

As her lips curl up, her voice takes on the faint sound of a hiss. “Never going out with the blushing girl. Never going to classes. Never going to make new friends. Never going to write home. Never going to fall in love again. Never going to make a difference…”

A flash of energy flows from her hands to your son’s broad shoulders.

Your son twitches in surprise. He can move in place a little but not his feet. He gasps. You imagine he can see you. You hope but it is hopeless.

You watch in still, soul-tightening horror as your son changes before your eyes. His scruffy, short brown hair flows along his shoulders and past his back. His face loses everything you remember in him and gains nothing of his mother. His features become smooth and girlish and his eyes wide and scared. He whimpers in the highest little voice you can imagine with nothing of his deep bass remaining.

His whole body is smaller and smooth. His hands are so frail compared to what they once were. His muscles are gone. Above his full legs, his hips spread out further and further. With a high-voiced shudder, his behind arches out into a pronounced, feminine curve. His waist is so tiny.

You know what is happening long before his groin recedes within. You wince as his nipples push out into a form which would surely make your son bend forward, if this dark woman wasn’t holding him up. The chest is so full. Instead of your pride and joy, there stands some strange, voluptuous woman.

But, despite it all, you hold onto a faint hope. Your son may be transformed but he’s still alive inside that body. You can imagine Salass letting him go. You can imagine your son adjusting. You know he’s resourceful.

Salass raises a hand and your son floats onto an empty marble platform on the fountain around the other statues. She tightens her fingers and your son gasps and shudders. The figure moves her hands along her body. One hand settles at her groin and the other covers part of her left breasts. Then, she freezes in place, her eyes shut and her mouth opens in the surprise of new sensations.

Salass cackles as grayness spreads across your son’s body like a flow of colorless paint. In a matter of moments, your son is just another statue in a pose. A slow stream of water flows from her, like the rest.

You cry inside, unable to show it on your face. Salass steps around in front of you and says, “It is forever locked in a single sensation. The beginning of new feeling and first surprise. The beginning of a scream of loss never to end. It will never move. It will never be your son or your daughter, just my decoration. This is its fate now and forever.”

You scream words in your head. You want to know why she is doing this. What does she want?

Salass smiles and takes a deep breath, as though breathing in the flavors of the air of your son’s imprisonment and your horror. She says only, “Because I love it. Next, your daughter.”

You want to gasp. You know that your little girl can’t be part of this. She’s only seven. She’s innocent. She’s just playing at home. She never hurt anyone. She never wishes ill of anyone. You beg Salass. You plead with all you can. Please, just let them go. You can do anything you want with me. But not them.

Salass’s smiles widens. “Yes. Keep begging. And I will do anything I want with you…and with them…forever.”

She drags you through the trees in this garden till you find your daughter sitting on the ground with a doll. You tremble. If tears could flow, they’d be streaming down your eyes. You want to tell her to run. She doesn’t seem restrained. She could get away. You know you just have to scream loud enough. You tell yourself you can do it but nothing can get through the dark woman’s will.

Salass crouches beside your little girl. She gives her a smile and says, “Hello there.”

You don’t want to listen. You don’t want to see what she’ll do to her but you can’t turn away and you can’t keep from hearing. She won’t let you.

Your little girl says hello too and asks her who she is. Salass gives her name. You can see a flash of fear in your daughter’s eyes as Salass puts her hand on her and asks, “Do you like trees?”

Your daughter nods. Salass asks her, “What do trees look like? Can you show me?”

Hesitantly, as though she seems to know something, she stretches her arms up like a tree. As soon as they go up, she freezes in place. You beg again. You beg her to stop this but your daughter’s skin and clothes have already turned brown.

Her fingers and hands burst out in narrow projections. Her face becomes a long, sturdy branch. From the ends of what’s left of her arms, broad leaves grow. A small sapling in place of your little girl stands rooted there.

Salass brushes a few of the leaves and you scream at her inside. You curse her. You imagine all the horrible things you’d do to her. She just smiles and says in her hissing voice, “The little one will never grow up to be anything but what it is. It will never paint any more pretty little pictures for you. It will never ever read any more books. It’ll never play any games or giggle ever again. It’ll never see another day of school. It’ll just be here forever in my forest of undying trees with little thoughts trapped in bark until, the same as my new statue, those thoughts fade to the background eternity of self-less limbo.”

You want to throw up. You want to wake up from this nightmare or at least feel the comforting release of death. But you know, in limp hopelessness, that she won’t let you.

Salass nods and says, “There’s still one more to go before I get to you…your wife.”

You hold onto the memories of happiness. You hold onto your wife’s calm face. You hold onto her laugh as she comes home, kicks off her shoes from work, and gives you a big, warm hug. You cling to every precious little memory in the hope of salvation. You know in your heart that such evil cannot stay. You know someone will rescue you. You know that this will all end and this witch will be punished.

You cling to this hope as she drags you back to the fountain. Before you, as nude as when you take her to bed, stands your wife. She’s trembling. Her eyes seem to meet yours. She seems eager to speak, to share one last word with you.

You beg your mouth to give her one last word of encouragement, one last moment of love. You can’t even seem to will your eyes to express anything to her. The witch is holding you back.

Your will tries to reach out for anything. But you can only watch as Salass wraps her hands around your wife and your wife tries to scream. In moments, your wife’s body turns green and dwindles away. Smaller and smaller, her body recedes in Salass’s grasp till she becomes a mucus-covered green frog with wide, emotionless eyes.

Your heart spasms, as she clutches your wife tightly. You can just imagine her flattened to death right before you as preparation for some twisted meal. But Salass turns and puts your wife in the water of the fountain.

She looks into the water and says, “There are other frogs here. Maybe this new one will mate with them. But it won’t ever give you another kiss. It won’t ever curl up next to you in your bed or make a special meal for you. It will just swim and do what all the other frogs do, indistinguishable from any other.”

You feel your hope slip away but Salass scoffs, “Come on now, you can’t give in that easily. I still have you left…”

She takes you inside her home. It is ornate with many large rooms but you don’t care. You can only think about your lost family. You’re alone. You’re nothing without them. You want to painlessly slip away and join them again, somehow. But you still have some fight. You know you can break her spell. You can do something. You can fight.

You struggle against the bonds of the spell around your body. A single finger moves. Your heart leaps. You press again and you can almost feel your whole hand moving. You imagine slipping your hand around her throat and clenching it as tight as you can. If only you can kill her then maybe the spell will break. Your family and all the people trapped here will be freed. You pray with all your heart for your hand to move a little more.

You can feel it. You press with all your will. You know you can do it…

Salass leans close and inhales. Her expression is almost orgasmic. She softly says, “Yesssss…that’s the spirit. You’ll make lovely cloth for my new dress. Without struggle, new dresses have no strength and luster.”

You scream to her. You refuse to become a dress. You refuse to become her thing. You refuse to give in for your family.

Salass leans her head back. “You are mine. You are my dress now and always. Fight. Struggle all you like. You’ve already lost.”

She guides your trembling hand to her neck. You will your fingers to tighten. You can feel yourself pressing against her neck. She pulls you closer. You can feel the heat and chill of her body. She feels like a living corpse, flawless and animated by some dark, hidden flame.

You struggle to press but it’s not enough. Your body goes. You can’t feel your legs anymore. They are gone. All you have past your waist is a dark, curling hem. Just as your hand seems ready to tighten around her, it unravels into a stump of hollow cloth. Your face sinks down and blends away. Your whole inside feels like it’s falling out.

You take one last breath and then you never take another. Yet you still live, a dress within her will.

She speaks again, “This new dress is mine and it is mine always. There’s no escape for it, only a dark closet and a rough hanger. It can dream of heroes great and small to stop the…evil witch but it must know…the closet is full of the moans and screams of all those heroes slipping away into oblivion.”

You feel that hard hanger slip around the interior of your body. You hear Salass’s laughs as your spirit screams that you’ll escape. You feel the darkness of the closet all around and you feel those fading, once noble spirits reduced to poor, unfortunate souls. You wonder how long it will take till there is nothing left of what you were but simple cloth. You wonder even more about your family. You feel your tears inside, the sadness rippling through the cloth.

Salass draws the fabric near to her and breaths in those tears. Then, she shuts the door to infinite blackness.

Trying your best to shut out the echoing sorrow of other spirits, you focus all you have left on the salvation of your family. You tell yourself, no matter, you will get them out of her. Somehow. You’ll escape.

But, even in your struggling hopes, you are consumed by Salass’s laughter.