TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of SA, Sexual violence, Blood, Gore, this is very dark and heavy. PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE THE WARNINGS MENTIONED PLEASE!
Marcus ran terrified through the forest. His lungs burned for air. His body ached. His vision blurred but he could not stop. If he stopped they would find him. If he stopped them would catch him. If he stopped— he could not think about what would happen to him if he stopped. The village beckoned him. He was so close, just a little further. Just a little-
He collapsed just outside the gates of the village. He found he was unable to make a sound. His body wouldn’t listen to him. He thanked the Gods it was the middle of the day and people were going about their normal duties.
“Oh my Gods what happened to you?” some one had spotted him. Soon many gathered around him.
He was shaking. His entire body vibrating with uncontrollable fear. So covered in blood the villagers couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Marcus! What happened man?”
“Someone fetch the healers quickly!”
Marcus refused to speak or rather seemed unable to.
Only when the healers arrived did Marcus finally make a sound. The sound he made would haunt the villagers for the rest of their days.
The healers were a pair of sisters. Athena, the eldest, a soft spoken gentle thing. Zara, the wild energetic younger sister. They lived in the forest just outside of the village, alone now that their mother and grandmother had both passed on.
Marcus, a strapping and large man of 8 and 40 years screamed at the sight of the two young women. Both sisters were covered in blood but to the villagers that was nothing out of the ordinary, as there was a war happening and they were the only ones in their tiny village with any healing knowledge. Battalions of soldiers often passed through the village now.
“Hello loose thread.” Zara slowly walked up to the stand over the trembling screeching man. Her smile was feral, her eyes alight with mirth. Athena silently moved to stand just to the right of her sister. Though both women were well above the average stature of any woman in the village thanks to their father; their personalities did not lean towards intimidation. Confusion bled into the onlookers faces as Marcus began stuttering. He desperately tried to warn the villagers of the sisters’ treachery. Of what he had barely managed to escape. The man was so overcome with terror when Athena also crouched down to stare him in the face, he soiled himself. Athena’s answering smile was filled with satisfaction.
“Them! It was them!” he finally managed to get out.
“What do you mean?” one villager asked.
“T-t they were the ones t-” Marcus’s voice cracked as Zara’s smile grew impossibly wider.
“T-th they.” Zara giggled at his stuttering. She crawled over his body forcing him to lay back heavily on his elbows. Ragged, wheezing breathes collapsed his chest rapidly. His heart felt as if it was in his throat as he coughed up more blood. Some flung from his lips to land on Zara’s face. Near her lips.
“They attacked me and my men!” his vision was starting to blur. He looked from the dark thunderous eyes of the sisters to the villagers that had surrounded them. Only confusion greeted him.
“They did this to you?” disbelief coloured the voices of everyone as they all looked to each other. The whispers grew louder in Marcus’s ears. They were starting to sound like the screams of his men. He was bleeding out on the ground right in front of them and they did not believe him.
“They did!” Marcus felt his throat begin to close up with hysterics.
“He’s right. We did attack him and his men.” Athena’s clear voice cut through the many voices.
There was a beat of silence as the villagers processed what she had said. Marcus held his breath hoping the nightmare was coming to an end. Finally a voice in the back called out.
“W-what did you do?”
“Yeah, Marcus. What did you do?” Zara’s voice dripped with sickly sweet honey as she taunted him. Her fingers slid over his body, never truly touching but scalding his feverish skin all the same.
“Tell them how you and your men were taking turns passing that young girl around when we found you.” the twinkle in Zara’s eyes reflected death to Marcus as panic set in tenfold. He couldn’t find his words once again. At the sound of Athena’s voice he whimpered.
“Tell them how my sister and I tore through your men like you all did that girl.”
“Tell them how your men screamed and begged for mercy as we gut them from crotch to throat.” Zara echoed her sister.
“Tell them how you ran. Abandoning your men.” Athena seethed.
“Tell them how we let you think you escaped us.” Zara cackled.
Faster than anyone could see Zara stabbed a dagger into his thigh dragging the blade down to his kneecap. The first scream rang out as she angled the blade tip under the kneecap then ripped it clean out.
Marcus fell unconscious. Chaos erupted around the sisters. Someone, a man, tried to reach for Zara as she continued to carve into the man sprawled on the floor. Athena was there before he could make contact. Grabbing the man’s wrist over the sleeve of his tunic she pushed him back with a strength no one had seen in a man let alone a woman. The man crashed into others falling them all.
“Unless you wish to join him in his karma, I suggest you all stay where you stand.” Athena’s voice carried to all that had gathered.
Marcus woke again as Zara gleefully carved a strip of his skin away from his face. To all who watched she looked mad. Overtaken with a sickness that seeped from her pores in waves. A woman lost to euphoria. Marcus’s screams the orchestra to her conduction of pain.
She forced the strip of skin into his mouth and worked his jaw with her hands to chew. Her giggles harmonizing with his moans of pain. Her sister stood ever vigilant. Someone had alerted the camping battalion of soldiers to the gruesome scene, and Athena sighed as she watched some 30 men arrive.
It was her birthday, this goofy, nerdy little girl who was currently obsessed with rocks in this era of her life. She collected them when she went on walks. She particularly loved the shiny ones and was on the hunt for a shiny one that resembled her birthstone. Sapphire. She knew she would never find one just lying in a field somewhere, but she loved the adventure of the search. She had no expectations for gifts on this day, though it should have been all about her. She is an eldest daughter, so it is hardly her place to want for herself. So, it came as a surprise to her when she received one gift this year. The year she entered high school. The gift was from her father, whom she had only known since her 13th birthday; she was now turning 15. As she accepted the gift, she looked at everyone’s faces as they waited to see her reaction, or in the case of her mother and younger brother, they waited to see what it was. It was sapphires. A whole set of jewelry of her birthstone. A necklace, earrings, a bracelet, a ring, and a watch. The girl had never been so happy to receive a gift like this. She should have known, though, that happiness would be taken like always. Her mother, who clearly had not been aware of her father’s plans to purchase the gift, was livid.
