The Nightmares Within

Salutations! My name is Madison Stites and I am 17 years of age. Writing has always been a bridge between the impractical and the reality for me, a way to reach for the impossible. I hope to one day ... [+]

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It's been 23 years since they buried Vix alive, hoping that would be enough to kill her. They were right. She felt like a corpse, rotting and worthless. So when she broke out, she only had one thing goal left on her mind.

Just a few more seconds- Vix felt her prison weaken for just a moment. It was all she needed. Her power surged, the wooden coffin shattered into a million pieces as she broke through the ground.

The sunlight was a curse as it touched her skin. Too bright for a world full of traitors and liars. She ignored the crowd gathering to see the spectacle, to see her. ignoring them, she opened a portal of black and red, like an oblivion that was void of any light.

Vix stepped into the portal, heading for the only person who would likely know where her imprisoners were lurking.

She speared through the world like a icy shadow, she was everywhere and nowhere. So small was she compared to the world- this world so filled with life and hope- a black stain on this world is what she had become. Is what they made her.

Overestimating her powers new depth, unable to stop herself in time, she found herself being flung across the room and into a wall. Distantly hearing Orion screaming as she crumpled to the ground, the books falling onto me. She cursed herself for trying her magic so soon after freedom.

“Evanor?” Whispered a voice, she looked up to find herself eye to eye with an old friend. She wasn’t sure what to be more surprised by, the fact he recognized her- a rotting corpse waiting for death to claim its victim- or that he was so much older.

Teenagers. They were teenagers 23 years ago. Now.. he was a man, a mortal man whose brown eyes were sparkling with the wisdom of three decades. Now she was a girl who could only be described as what time had forgotten.

Vix didn’t give him time to ask, to demand where in Hel’s name she had been for the past decades, she didn’t even acknowledge her name. Mostly because she wasn’t sure if she could call herself that name again, for it belonged to a girl that had not been betrayed by her sisters and left to die.

So she, ignoring the tears and heartbreak in Orions eyes, only whispered, with a voice she wasn’t entirely sure she recognized “Where is are the sisters? Where is my coven?”

Orion only gaped, before Vix could say another word, another person entered from behind them. Breaking their deadlock stare, both turned to see a bright women walking in.

It was heartbreak now in Vix’s eyes as her gaze settled upon the wedding ring around her finger, it was the matching one on Orion's left hand, naturally. Married. Orion had married a witch.

It was not that she, as Vix all those years ago, had any romantic interest in her friend. It was that he had moved on. Left her, buried in the cold and dark, for 23 years and just forgot her. Moved on and left her in her past. The rage, built up over years of pain and fear of fear, consumed her at last. And when the woman, witch, reached down to help the breaking girl on the floor, Vix screamed. Screamed until the very walls rattled with smoke, and through the glimpses of her tears she could see her powers- so new to her that she knew nothing of her own capabilities- she saw the life being sucked from the world.

Aine grabbed the screaming girls wrist, and despite her warm magic attempting to sooth the young witchling, Vix collapsed into her arms. Unbeknownst to the Witch that the young girl had slipped back into her hell, caused by the ones she called sisters.

----

Vix thought of her best friend Orion as she frantically began to inscribe counter spells into the air in front of her. She thought of her mother, of her father, to remind herself why she could not just die here. So that her parents, so that Orion, would never feel abandoned with no answer as to why.

So Vix scribbled. At least what she could with her hands bound tightly to the basalt beside her head. She created a forcefield around her body. The eight witches surrounding her continued to chant in unison. “Aditi! Chain this soul to your domain. Break the heart. Change the brain. Break the clock so time may reign.”

Vix had never heard this spell before but she could feel it.

Around her their power charged like flames devouring the oxygen. Searching a way to Break through Vix's shield. Blinded by tears as Vix furiously continued to scribble into the air. She used her family over and over and over in motivation. It wasn’t enough. My shield caved inward.

Vix screamed but none of them cared. Betrayed and terrified she could do little but scream as her very blood burned and turned black with power.

Darkness consumed Vix.

The sound of dirt and leaves crunching made her stir.

“How did things go so bad?” Snapped Savannah “She didn’t even stop breathing.”

Pain crushing her very soul, all Vix could do was listen.

“It must have been the counter spells, we didn’t factor that in.” Vinnie growled

Frustrated, Harper kicked dirt, sending rubble and leaves onto her body “It doesn’t matter, we need to get rid of her..” Together, her sisters, dragged the girl- no more a witchling training to be a true witch- into the unmarked grave and coffin inside.

Sunlight woke Vix from the nightmare. Around her Vix found she was surrounded by Orion and his wife, both beside the bed they had laid her in.

Vix did not need to say a word as she stirred, the people in the room were here for her, they said. And the truth unraveled, and Aine explained what had happened while time stopped for Vix and the world moved on. Vixs coven was quickly discovered to have been involved in Vix’s disappearance, and soon after revealed that they had delved in experiments that... were not certain if the victim were to survive, in an attempt to break time itself. Vix had merely been the next witchling in training that they turned on, to test their theory that they could indeed break time. When they questioned about Vix, what they had done to her, they would not speak, as if it was this one act that the gods would shoot down. So they were locked away and stripped of their powers. It was assumed Vix was dead. No matter how long Orion searched for her. Even decades later, he led the search along with his wife, believing his friend would not have left the Earth- no matter the spell cast- without saying goodbye.

Perhaps it was for the last reason, that Vix stayed with her old friend as months moved past. But it did not stop, the pain in her heart as the nightmares of returning to the box, of her clan sisters coming after her in the dead of night. No, those still woke her in the dead of night, screaming and crying until Orion could come to remind her she was out, she was safe.

It was one such night, when Vix found herself at the edge of the roof. Wondering if the fall would be enough to end her miserable existence. Orion, cursing himself for not locking the door, said in a small voice.

“Vix? Don’t. Please”

She did not move from the edge, did not look back as she felt nothing inside. So Orion continued. “It gets easier you know.” He whispered.

“How?” Vix whispered “They... they broke me. How can you fix that?”

“I can’t” He answered, his voice hoarse “You can. It takes courage you know. To live in this world. It is courage that you have lived through this hell and came back. By yourself. I’m sorry, so, so truly sorry I was not able to save you, but you did that yourself Vix. That was you that found the strength to come back. Thats why they couldn’t kill you that night. Don’t let them win now. Please.”

Perhaps it was her friends words, perhaps it was the stars above that seemed to be glinting, as if even the old gods were nodding in agreement. But Vix reached out her hand, stepped off the ledge. Looking back only once before leaving the roof; and the box that her gaze had been locked onto, in the past that she would never forget, but have the courage to fight through the nightmares, to grasp the sunlight waiting patiently on the other side.
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