The Four Sisters - Chapter 11 Confrontation Pt. 2

The next moment, she was standing before me. I didn’t catch her movement, couldn’t see the steps she had taken.

She stood, one hand on her hip, raking her gaze over me as if she were staring at nothing more than an insect that had wondered into her home. As if she were looking at something that shouldn’t be there and was trying to find the best way to dispose of it.

She brought her other hand up and twirled her fingers around. The surrounding colors burst forth, swirling around her fingertips. Dancing around them.

I stumbled backwards, my body shaking. I was afraid.

In her eyes I saw hell. I saw sadism; acute hatred.

Her smile grew as her eyes fell to my feet. A chuckle escaped her lips.

Then, all at once, everything changed. The colors that surrounded us seemed to increase in speed, spinning around and around. They blended together until they could no longer be differentiated from each other. They formed a black wall around us. They felt sinister and yetentirely welcoming.

My eyes darted around me, watching as the black wall spun faster and faster. So fast; it seemed entirely still. Like a tidal wave frozen in time before it takes the beach.

I felt powerless as dizziness began to claim me. ButI couldn’t look away.

I felt a presence at my back. Felt it approach. But, still the wall would not allow me my eyes. I felt it grow closer. Felt the killing intent it radiated. Felt its hatred.

Then, as I realized the wall was slowly moving closer and closer, I felt a pressure at the middle of my back.

I lost my footing.

In slow motion, I saw the black wall grow closer. My eyes widened in shock and fear as I realized I couldn’t move. I fell, unable to stop myself from hitting the terrible blackness.

Then, everything was gone.

Nothing existed, not anymore.

The colors from before; not even a distant memory was left.

Existence was no more. I was no more. Color, light, shadow, nothingness. All was gone. All was lost.

Then, it was not.

I felt again.

My body awoke first. I felt cold. I felt a hard surface beneath me.

Slowly, my consciousness came back from that terrible limbo that it had both existed in and ceased to exist in before.

I understand that this part of the story may be rather difficult to understand. That is fine. I also do not understand it. After all, how can something both exist and not exist at the same time?

This is insanity. This is ludicrous. Madness. But it was real. I swear, it was real. I am only telling the events as I experienced them, forgive me for my own ignorance. Forgive me for not knowing everything about my own story.

I awoke to a cold mist all around me. I was outdoors. The ground beneath was hard and cold. The sky was dark with no moon or stars to light it. My body was sore. I felt as if someone had taken a hammer to my head repeatedly. A blinding headache caused nausea to fill my stomach.

I rolled over to vomit onto the ground. My senses had not returned to me yetbut that was not entirely right. It’s a difficult thing to explain.

It is a strange thing, moving without being able to feel yourself move. I knew I had rolled over, but my body did not feel as if it had moved. I could feel the ground beneath me, could feel the cold air around me, but my own bodyfelt foreign. It felt distant. As if I had control over myself, and yetalso did not.

I felt no relief after vomiting onto the ground below. Everything hurt. Everything feltwrong.

I do not know how long it took me to regain my senses. Do not know how long it was before I was able to look around me and take in my surroundings. Everything felt the same and different. Everything was distant, nothing was near. The ground below me, though I could feel it against my flesh, felt as if it were a thousand miles from me.

After a length of time that I will perhaps never know the exact amount of, I became aware of someone beside me.

A hand was resting on my back and a voice spoke softly next to my ear as I retched onto the ground.

Finally, I turned to see who it was that had found me.

Her hair was wild and unkempt. It seemed dirty, and with a closer look, I found that it in fact was filthy. I framed a face covered in dirt and grime, just like the rest of the woman. She was coated in dirt, mud, what looked to be blood, and sweat. But, her eyes were the worst of it. They were wild.

Immediately, a memory flashed in my mind at the sight of the woman.

My mother used to tell us stories when we were younger. Cautionary tales, as most fairy tales were. Meant to teach us of the dangers of the world in a way that made sense to our young minds.

One such story that was told and retold over and over again, was about the wild people. They were said to commit atrocities. Said to be one of the most dangerous things that anyone could come across in this world.

The tale my mother would tell us was about three children that were lost in the woods and came across the wild people.

If you’ve never heard it, it was a dreadful tale. One line that always gave me goose bumps was the song that my mother would sing in a low voice as she told the story.

They come from the forest, they come from the hills. What a treat! Some naughty boys and naughty girls. They bring their pots, they bring their stills. What a treat! Gobble all the boys and girls.

Of course, this tale was merely to keep us from wandering too far into the woods on our ownand was not in fact about a race of cannibalistic people that resided in the woods around us.

I admitmy mind was not the most stable, as I had completely convinced myself that this was in fact one of those wild people from the tales that my mother would tell me that had come to take me away and eat my flesh and wear my bones. Though, if that was true, I would have to say that the wild woman had come a bit late, as I was an adult at this point and the story EXPLICITLY said that they eat naughty boys and girls and flee from even the shadow of their parents and any well meaning adults.

I tried to scramble away and scream. Unfortunately, because my body did not want to cooperate, I ended up falling back with my arms and legs jerking every which way. My scream came as an unintelligible whimper and my eyes filled with the sting of tears, threatening to fall.

Seeing my reaction the woman spoke in a soft and soothing voice, trying to calm me.

Slowly, I began to understand the words she spoke. SlowlyI began to recognize the voice.