[She is laying on a hard wooden floor, surrounded by flickering light.]
[The air is smoky-- all is hazy unless she looks at it directly. But details leap out in weird, brief sharpness as she rolls her head. Red paint and candlewax on the floor. Strange symbols, spiraling. Black hair spread out under her head. A white nightgown, reaching her ankles-- the only cover she has. Shadows moving just out of the light, circling like hyenas.]
[Her chest is hitching and her face is wet-- she is crying, and has no idea why. She stares upwards for answers, as the figures looming in the corners of her vision are too frightening to look at for long, lest their hazy features come close enough to see in detail. Images flash in the void of darkness above, where a ceiling should be-- old yellowed pages of books, flipping by themselves. Crude diagrams of nude figures, of a woman with something dark and curled in on itself etched where her stomach should be, the lines darker and scratchier than the others on the page. More symbols, circular ones that spin on the paper like pinwheels. Lists of ingredients, instructions laid out in some alien language... the last step: a single triangle, drawn in red.]
[Voices, a woman's whispered mutterings tangled up in each other like strings of spider-silk blown loose in the wind, echo as the pages turn, carrying tones everywhere from calculating to excited. They grow louder and louder as they go on, a humming buzz distorting them as though through a fan. Or a faulty radio]
Why didn't I see this before? There's no reason to wait...
--lend me just a teeny bit of your power...
If the plan succeeds, we'll have no need of her powers as we've used them thus far. Imagine...
To think, I could have done it myself all this time...
One night is all it will take... Come, we must make haste. I'll take care of the girl...
Herein lies the mother's womb... containing the power to create life.
[The humming stops.]
[Suddenly, right before her, there is a woman. Her skin is weathered and papery. Wiry, ash-colored hair spills from the lacy veil over her head. Her eyes, deep-set in their sockets and a gleaming electric-blue, are somehow more real than anything else in this terrible space, and when she smiles, nothing about them changes. Not even a little.]
Alessa, my dearest.
[There is no more distortion. No more humming to distract or cushion the voice-- which is a saccharine, syrupy croon.]
[She reaches out a hand-- a bony, frighteningly long hand-- and caresses Lust's face.]
[It is much bigger than Lust's face.]
You know what you need to do to make Mommy happy.
And you will do it, won't you?
[The nightgown is gone. There was no chance to hang onto it-- it was simply there one moment, and now it isn't. Lust's limbs-- gangly and thin, pale and bruised and so, so small-- draw in close. The terror felt at the looming shadows is nothing compared to what that sickly-sweet voice inspires. The woman's smile grows. Her teeth are yellow with nicotine stains.]
You don't want to make Mommy angry.
And Alessa, she will be angry...
[The hand ceases its caressing and simply grabs, turning black and then red hot like the burner on a stove. The humming returns and reaches a fever pitch within seconds, turning into a harsh scream of white noise as the flesh under those fingers sizzles and peels away.]
[When Lust awakens, the visions mercifully fall away... but for a moment or two, the sensation of bony fingers clutching one side of her face remains.]
trick or tree ;)
[The air is smoky-- all is hazy unless she looks at it directly. But details leap out in weird, brief sharpness as she rolls her head. Red paint and candlewax on the floor. Strange symbols, spiraling. Black hair spread out under her head. A white nightgown, reaching her ankles-- the only cover she has. Shadows moving just out of the light, circling like hyenas.]
[Her chest is hitching and her face is wet-- she is crying, and has no idea why. She stares upwards for answers, as the figures looming in the corners of her vision are too frightening to look at for long, lest their hazy features come close enough to see in detail. Images flash in the void of darkness above, where a ceiling should be-- old yellowed pages of books, flipping by themselves. Crude diagrams of nude figures, of a woman with something dark and curled in on itself etched where her stomach should be, the lines darker and scratchier than the others on the page. More symbols, circular ones that spin on the paper like pinwheels. Lists of ingredients, instructions laid out in some alien language... the last step: a single triangle, drawn in red.]
[Voices, a woman's whispered mutterings tangled up in each other like strings of spider-silk blown loose in the wind, echo as the pages turn, carrying tones everywhere from calculating to excited. They grow louder and louder as they go on, a humming buzz distorting them as though through a fan. Or a faulty radio]
Why didn't I see this before? There's no reason to wait...
If the plan succeeds, we'll have no need of her powers as we've used them thus far. Imagine...
One night is all it will take... Come, we must make haste. I'll take care of the girl...
[The humming stops.]
[Suddenly, right before her, there is a woman. Her skin is weathered and papery. Wiry, ash-colored hair spills from the lacy veil over her head. Her eyes, deep-set in their sockets and a gleaming electric-blue, are somehow more real than anything else in this terrible space, and when she smiles, nothing about them changes. Not even a little.]
Alessa, my dearest.
[There is no more distortion. No more humming to distract or cushion the voice-- which is a saccharine, syrupy croon.]
[She reaches out a hand-- a bony, frighteningly long hand-- and caresses Lust's face.]
[It is much bigger than Lust's face.]
You know what you need to do to make Mommy happy.
And you will do it, won't you?
[The nightgown is gone. There was no chance to hang onto it-- it was simply there one moment, and now it isn't. Lust's limbs-- gangly and thin, pale and bruised and so, so small-- draw in close. The terror felt at the looming shadows is nothing compared to what that sickly-sweet voice inspires. The woman's smile grows. Her teeth are yellow with nicotine stains.]
You don't want to make Mommy angry.
And Alessa, she will be angry...
[The hand ceases its caressing and simply grabs, turning black and then red hot like the burner on a stove. The humming returns and reaches a fever pitch within seconds, turning into a harsh scream of white noise as the flesh under those fingers sizzles and peels away.]
[When Lust awakens, the visions mercifully fall away... but for a moment or two, the sensation of bony fingers clutching one side of her face remains.]