Solo Ashes to Ashes

[Lenz]

The Drunken Fish Tavern
49th of Summer, 514 AV

If the truth could still be spoken from her cold lips, Lenz would possibly admit the decrease in her restful nights. Even before Ipisol died she would toss and turn and wrestle with the blankets until the bedroll won the battle and her mind did not.

They weren’t nightmares that kept her awake back then per se, but now frightening and gory images would haunt her and force her to wait out the night, leaving her to fall asleep in various placed of the city during the day time.

Tonight was one of those nights.

Visions had flashed behind her closed eyelids, causing her to jolt awake from her cat naps only to find herself in a small puddle of her own perspiration. It is this event that had her destination pin pointed.

She didn’t know why she wished to walk into the Drunken Fish Tavern, for there were bad memories of being in this building. It was drawing into the night; the moon had risen to take the place of the sun whom was now resting in quiet slumber below the horizon.

Why has your cloudy judgment of poor decision led you to choose such an unruly establishment?

“My judgment is logical, therefore I am genuinely feeling insulted by your insinuation of anything less. You should never question me with that tone again. I forbid you to do so.”

You shouldn’t feel anything less of disappointment. Look at what you have become. You’re cowering under your name. Humans; the definition of pathetic in a world of putrefaction. You clamber to their level, deign yourself to become what they are and smother your hopes by you emotions. Here you are, speaking to me about forbidding one to converse with you. How much longer shall you proceed with such insane perceptions my dear?

She managed to block out most of his words, shivering and glowering upon a few terms that always made her nerves quiver under the pressure of enragement.

“Thank you,” she replied sarcastically, adding a growl to the end of her sentence.

Don’t fool yourself, girl, came the response.

She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and allowed it to shield her eyebrows and the upper portion of her green-brown eyes. This made her look more sinister and intimidating, then creating a less sensitive and shy aura. To add to the mix, she appeared rather ominous as well and mysterious like a black shadow in the pitch of the darkness.

[Lenz]

She had picked the tavern for one reason and one reason only. She had found a letter, heavy calligraphy scrawled across the page, of which had been pinned to the ground beside her tent with a slender stake.

She had read what it had to say with intent of such severity she could have sworn her mind would have melted. Her eyes popped out had she not stopped reading when she had.

“A man of unidentified profession enters The Drunken Fish every night at approximately the twenty first bell. He sits near the back of this tavern alone. He orders two jugs of ale and drinks the first, yet he does not drink the second.

What has him appearing with more significance is the fact that he is always found wearing an amulet of silver round his neck. He has been said to wear this to please the gods although these specific gods of which he worships with moderate benevolence are unknown.

I have requested the denial for the continuation of his life upon the rumours that he abuses and rapes women. You are to meet him as a lady of passion and seduction. I encourage the feigning of drunkenness or other form of desperation or arrogance.

He appears smarter than he truly is, however must still be taken with minor precaution. He is aggressive, and his name is Tallin Felger.

-A”

Lenz read his request many times before her eyes grew watery from the strain. Some of those words would not shake themselves from the talons she held onto them with. Rape. Women. These words were not to be used in the same sentence.

This man was a manipulator and without questioning as to why she needed to do what she needed to do, she made a vow to herself that she would kill him with the last of her dying breath if that was a necessity.

She kept walking through the night, finding the need to cut corners and cower in the vast darkness of shadow. Her stealth remained unnoticed as she brought the hood of her over attire down upon her eyes.

They grew darker with aggression as she summersaulted forward, using her legs for momentum and legs for balance. The hem of her cloak flew up, creating a snapping sound as the wind slid through the thick fabric.

She came to a halt, unsheathing her body from her coat and standing up to drape it between her chest and arm. What was left to reveal was a white dress, the bottom ragged and worn from past events. She raised her eyebrows and feigned a smile that had been hiding behind her lips, readying itself for when it was to be called to attention.

She glided through the rest of the night before she met the tavern doors and walked through, pushing the wooden obstacle aside with the palm of her hand. With her other hand she raised it inconspicuously to the thin lapel of her dress and pulled it down. Then, she nonchalantly increased her gait and bounded toward the back of the bar, her held head high and her sprits held higher.

She was drying for some action; some adventure to suplend her ferocity for the need of adventure and bloodshed. She had been writhing alone, smothered in the painful effects of withdrawal.

She had been left to her own imagination, left secluded with her mind of adorning thoughts full of contemptible malice and sin.

And now was her time to perceive things in the light of the tangible activity and she made sure to grasp it with her blackened claws.

She lowered her voice, raised her eyebrows and bit her lip, taking on the inevitable appearance of a prostitute, yet one being portrayed in an undercover fashion. She brushed her hair behind her ears and acted on command.

Like the note had encouragingly mentioned, she would play the part to win the heart of which she would obliterate by her own aching hands of self-destruction.

“Why, sailor boy,” she cooed, sliding into the seat beside the man she was sent to destroy. “Why so lonesome?”

She needed to make herself known.

[Lenz]

She tried to recall what she had witnessed the day she had gone in search of her own pleasure. She had observed and copied a woman of vile taste. Straddling a young man and trailing her fingertips across his jaw line had proved progressive, that was until her memories betrayed her and her virtue decided against her with its moral standards reaching to a height past the area of the gods.

In the end, she was left deprived of money and with less respect for the whores of the world.

This hatred did not fall under the category of despise for those forcibly used for sex, however. Rape she had high expectations for. She wished to rule out all those guilty of the crime.

She could envision it in her mind right now. She could see her hands, without the attachment to her body, pulling out the criminals’ eyes and throwing them into a fire pit a few yards away. She would yank their hair out until they no longer were able to grow any new fibres.

She would skin them of their flesh and suspend herself in a cast of euphoria until she had been satisfied with the result. She would watch them burn, she would observe them drown, she would admire their flailing attempts at rescuing themselves and escaping her wrath with their life.

However, all of these attempts would be futile, for she was more experienced and held more power than those she deigned below her. She would watch them through the eyes of contempt, desiring to be bowed to and worshipped like the gods and goddesses above.

Her mind reverted back to reality then, dismissing any dreams of passion she had just recently conjured up. She was going to delete this unruly man her way. Her way seemed to pose more offensive and malevolent strategies than most, but at least she got the job done.

She had found someone who shared the same wishes as she. Lenz would right the world of all its wrong because the world required it. People needed to thrive under much better circumstances, and fear would no longer be their enemy.

Who knows? Perhaps all is said and done, the individuals whom she had saved would look up to her with glory and deem her worthy to be crowned as queen or ruler. Therefore, she would be given the reigns to denounce all those unworthy with the cock of her wrist.

That would be a dream to look forward to entirely.

The man didn’t speak for a few moments, but this didn’t pose quandary to the woman. She was agile and more efficient than this man. She sought more Intel.

Why was he here? Why were there two mugs of ale opposed to the more logical one? He didn’t seem like a criminal, however, she knew that many individuals shrouded themselves with cleverly crafted facades, something she loathed tragically.

Still, why was he who he was?

Finally he spoke and his voice was low, resembling much like horses’ hooves on gravel or like a mysterious howls of a wolf in a cavern without light, much less hope to guide the lost. He seemed devoid of all emotion as he murmured his reasoning to her inquiry.

“My love seems to have stood me up,” he said.

Lenz chuckled inwardly but her mouth remained in a straight and undivided line. She would act the part until there was no more part to act.

This man would not outwit her when it came to portraying different persons. She would apply a more vivacious mask than he and she would struggle to make sure of it.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she breathed, leaning forward in terms of exposing the tops of her breasts.

She was becoming without impediment in the arts of seducing men. She smiled at the thought, one of ominous origin and sinister display. She would lure this man in, but she would make sure to make him drunk enough to be taken advantage of.

She allowed her eyes to waver over his neckline and just to her expectations, a silver amulet hung from a woven chain, bordering the circumference of his throat like a decomposing rope.

She wished to obliterate the last fine threads that held the utensil together, but she maintained her composure, feigning yet another falsified smile.

“What’s your name, handsome?” she cooed into his ear as she leant forward again, exposing her bosom as if she were to hand it on a silver platter like most things were in the city of corruption and vengeance.

[Lenz]

She needed to be certain that this stranger was truly the man of which needed to be ridden of. If he was not, and Lenz acted out on a whim of yearning fate, she could not only be crushed by her own self-conscious, which had been depleted immensely as of now.

No, she would also be punished by her superior, the one begin this plan. She couldn’t let him down. This is what drove her to fathoming the inconceivable.

She would make him proud and would do what is necessary to undermine those that are ghoulish.

Of course, she assumed he could possibly have an alias or a false name to go by whilst he occupied certain areas of the city. He could also have dropped his name since the last time ‘A’ had known of him. This seemed unlikely, however, for ‘A’ was experienced and was rarely every fallible.

The stranger turned in his chair and smirked with pleasantry. He was obviously taking Lenz’s beauty into consideration as his eyes hovered over her figure, lasting longer than should have been on her female companions.

“You, my lovely, may call me Tallin.”

She sneered inwardly at the triumph she had just received, but she only pursed her lips at his response during the real time she was witnessing.

He was indifferent about the situation, and that much she could easily suspect of him. She was susceptible now to examining those she did not trust, nor like. It had been bred into her over time and it was something that had come in handy to her when she was in need of it.

“An interesting name for an interesting man,” she whispered, fluttering her eyes and tilting her head to the side.

She had observed this action being depicted by a woman at the house of prostitutes she had curiously waded in. That night, she had picked up on a few traits, although all had been out of the corner of her eye. However, she was brave in insinuating her knowledge on the fundamentals. She knew enough to outplay simple scum such as this man.

With the side of her neck exposed, as if to appeal her prey towards her, she also lifted her left leg and crossed it over her right. This prohibited against any shrouds intending to cover her feminine flesh.

She was exposed now, her thigh clearly spotted by Tallin’s eyes. Another seductive technique she had inspected upon her night of pleasure. Prostitutes were so interesting, yet gullible at the same time.

She instinctively took a note to never become one, no matter how hard life became.

“I suppose it is,” he said, leaning forward in an attempt to show more compassion for the locket of attractiveness that bore serenity in front of him. “You ask of my name,” he continued. “I can only return the favour in asking about yours.”

The woman tilted her head the other way before stabilizing the axis her mind swung on. It was like a pendulum, a world without gravity. She stuck her feet into the sand and stood still, visualizing and plotting where the future was to travel.

Which route would she take? Would she lie and conjure up an alternative name? An alias? It seemed more reasonable, for this stranger was nothing more than another pesky human.

She groaned mentally, rubbing her neck with the back of her hand, the actions latent and only for her mind to witness, yet the aura of displeasure lingered in the midst of the couple.

“My name is Beatrice,” she told him.

An odd name, she obligingly agreed, yet a name all the same. It was the first to come to her mind and she would take it. There was no turning back once the letters dripped from her tongue.

“You may call me Beatrice now that we’re getting to know each other.”

[Lenz]

The man seemed to take this rather well, listening as the octaves left her breath in sharp and shallow syllables.

“A very pretty name for a very pretty lady,” he complimented, daring to bring his hand to pet Lenz’s cheek.

Lenz allowed him, although her stomach churned with the ubiquitous bile that had started to transform in the pit. She cringed, but only enough so that she was aware of the facial movements. She would maintain her bluffing, her falsified attraction towards this rapist.

She raised an eyebrow and returned his gesture with the tip of her figure. She let it lace over his cheek bone and travel up his nose to where it reached his eyebrow. Then, she allowed it to trace his jawline all the way back down to his chin, prohibiting herself from touching anywhere near his lips.

She abruptly leant back, hoping to stir some want in the man she had just teased. She hoped her novice skill in the arts of seducing men would pay off, and only when it did would she be able to proceed with her duties.

To her luck and fortune, everything worked as planned. The man smiled, licked his lips and turned to the counter to take a few large gulps from his mug of ale.

“Care for some, love?” he asked Lenz, looking her up and down with his cold, hard eyes of steel.

They were grey, like aluminium, sparking up tumult in the base of the woman’s soul. When he turned to drink from his mug again, she flared her nostrils and glared at his back.

Her head pounded, quicker than her heartbeat’s rhythm and louder than she could spare to listen. Her forehead started to bead sweat and her brow was fallibly procuring his job with the eloquence it was designed for. Her mouth became arid and devoid of any saliva necessary for speech. Her hands began to perspire and her stomach continued to churn violently.

She was whole heartedly promoting this decision to end this man’s life, but she was wary on killing someone whom might have tried to harm her.

Her mind reverted back to that day in this very bar. A man she had been trying to lure into buying drinks for her had taken her cue to his advantage and lead her and her drunken arse out the back door.

It was here where the vision becomes blurry, for she did not want to witness anything evolve before her eyes relevant to that treacherous night.

The man had gained higher ground and attempted to take her under him, in the most literal and obscene way possible. Lenz fought him, tried to release herself from his grimy hands and ended up remembering her dagger, stashed in the base of her boot.

After retrieving the viable weapon, she threatened him with it. It was an offer he shouldn’t have neglected to take, for she had stabbed him, literally stabbed him with the blade and tore into his flesh so that the blood dripped from the gaping wound and tainted the ground. It leaked from his body, the fluids essential for life as her anger got the better of her. It forced her to mutilate his lifeless corpse, to rip his body to shreds.

She killed him, murdered him with her own dagger, with her own physical and mental force, her emotional state dwindling down into nothingness. She was in denial soon after, running from the scene as if it had never occurred.

It wasn’t until now when she had reminisced it. It was an important part of her life, yet she repressed it and shunned it to the back of her mind where she barricaded the doors and tried her best to forget. It would never be mentioned to anyone, including herself.

Until now.

[Lenz]

The episode ceased. Her body functions returned to normal as her hands and face stopped formulating the foul and salty substance. Her heartbeat slowed and so did the aggravating thumping that had sounded in the brain.

“It depends on what you mean,” she stated, reenacting her previous state of affectionate sorcery and gullibility. “Are you referring to the drink or something… else?”

She leaned forward, attaining that sinister and explicit smirk again as she used her finger to trace the outlining of his lips. It took all the courage she could muster to deign this low, yet she had managed and this is something she would never wish to do again.

The next mission it is that I am assigned will be one of pure violence and revenge; devoid of this insolence and arrogant, seductive façade. I will not act of what I am not, and this is a vow of which shall be plastered in my mind and chiseled in my heart. I despise such contempt. I’d rather kill those I seek worthy of their demise, all when and where they stand instead of leading them on to a more resourceful destruction such as I am doing now.

The man mumbled something inaudible and again licked his lips. “I like where you are going with this, my lady,” he purred as he began to tangle his index finger in a curl of her scarlet hair.

Lenz held back the bile that was threatening to excrete itself through the slit between her lips. She swallowed the acid and almost gaged on the reaction, but all these reactions were silently displayed.

Nothing past through the curtain that shielded her true self.

“Why don’t you take another drink?” she asked him with a more playful tone.

She too licked her lips and permitted her finger to lace itself through her lips and over her tongue. She licked her nail and used that hand to pick up his mug and bring it to the stranger’s mouth.

She held the base of the mug and tipped it sideways so that the lip resided over his bottom lip. She watched as the liquid fell down his throat, stinging the walls of his esophagus and cascading down in droplets into his stomach.

Suddenly an overpowering sensation of power blossomed in her chest. She could easily drown him in his own alcohol; choke him out by using the beverage as a stimulant. All she needed to do was continue her leverage as she was right now. However, she resisted.

The euphoric images condemned her mind and filled her with a romantic need for visual aid. Death was something she needed to witness again, but for now, she would prevail in the battle of her emotions.

She did not kill him where he sat, but instead continued her act by moving her thigh to display her lower middle.

Her dress only covered so much, and for the parts that weren’t shrouded by white material, where vividly depicted in a hint to sexuality. She wore underwear though, and justified was the greatness in that.

She couldn’t spare to elicit more hormones in this man. He was already appearing as though he wanted to jump onto the woman.

Her memory was becoming noxious. It was suspended in the fervent air, dwindling on the last thread of sanity and only usable through deep thought and concentration.

She was losing her sense of reality, hanging herself on the limb of a tree; thrown overboard by a shrewd individual; having been tossed from the edge of a cliff by such a treacherous being.

She wished she could abrogate the last few seasons and dismantle the images she saw from those detestable times. But she could not, for she was allowed none of this power to do such magician’s work.

She was a mere mortal lacking the importance of aspirations and divinations.

She repelled back from her close introspection. She would not linger on that horizon any longer. She would not string her patience out any longer. She needed to finish this job quickly, or else she was in danger of creating a spectacle in front of all those she did not wish to seek out her true identity.

When the man finally ceased his swallowing, Lenz retracted the mug and set it down on the table.

She opened her legs even farther and without temptation, exhibited a quiet moan. She lowered her gaze and let her eyelashes flutter open and closed multiple times as she cast her line and waited for the fish to bite.

[Lenz]

She had formulated a plan. It wasn’t dubious the strategy she had procured, but she was one for safety, the term lightly applied to various events and places.

She needed to make sure her prey bite the hook and latched on with all its might, therefore she would need to attempt to add a little magic to spice up her performance.

She felt the Djed swimming inside her, crawling through her veins like a living antibody.

It was without consciousness, devoid of mental understanding, and with these traits, it needed a master to control it. Lenz was its master; she was the leader of her own magic and therefore, she willed it to swim to the surface of her mind.

She was the master.

It was here that she forced it to her brain, her eyes locked onto the man in front of her. The Djed fled to the man’s mind as she chanted the following words: ‘You will follow me. You will follow me. You will follow me.’

Her hypnotic incantation helped drive the man to do what she wanted. She was growing in her strength to control someone’s mind by not only presenting mere words or images, but with a more formidable passion.

It was eloquent and elaborate and heightening every time she practiced. She was becoming better with her talent and with it she would continue to prosper.

‘You will follow me,’ she said to him again, their brain’s wave lengths meshed together.

Before she broke the connection, she touched his hand, allowing his emotions to be stemmed by the sensation.

“Will you follow me?” she asked, only this time aloud.

She ceased the presentation of her Djed, drawing the excess back into her body. She no longer felt tired or drained, for some of the essence had been restored.

“Yes,” the man responded expectantly.

“Wonderful,” she muttered from under her breath.

And so she stood up and grabbed the stranger’s hand. She then led him out the back door and into the night that was ever falling into the darkness of deeper evils.

All the while, the nerves in her brain were firing different responses to the current situation. A part of her wished to finish this man off after blowing her cover, but the other more intelligent side decided against it.

It was better to remain acting like something she wasn’t and continue to stay in the shadows. For all she knew, he was still as gullible as ever; he wasn’t onto her yet.

She hoped that the latter would persist until the very end.

[Lenz]

The air was cold, frigid as it wrapped itself around Lenz’s body and tried to suffocate her of all warmth she held.

A small prose started to lengthen in her mind. She whispered it to herself as she walked, strolling through the night without a whim in her mind. She had a designation and a plan that she willed to see through.

”My heart is frigid, rigid by the cold hands of despair
Succumbed to my evilest nightmares I have come to bear
Weakened by the desolate earth I stand upon
The void I wallow in, is where my demons seem to spawn.

Throw me in the room and turn off the light
Break our fathomed relations and cut me with the night
I fear those around me and am tortured by the sight
Dying on the table of the lacerations of true fright.

My heart is withering, splintering into pieces
The beating rhythm quiets until it finally ceases
Succumbed to this I have been, to a world of pain
My life has dissolved, for I have been slain.”

She shut her eyes for a few moments, adjusting to her surroundings as she inhaled the scents that swarmed freely around her.

She was their tyrant, battling for her privacy of all substances swirling around her. They were fractals of ice, careening off one another and fighting to the end.

She would be the winner; the triumph would be awarded to her.

“This way,” she whispered in a naughty fashion, staking out a nice location for the man’s demise.

She sauntered north, slinking through alleyways and dodging corners with mild speeds. She wanted this mission to speed by more quickly that it currently was.

The man giggled and in doing so elicited tingles of fear down the woman’s spine. It was an eerie chuckle, sinister and insidious at best. She felt petrified and had to force herself to continue moving forward.

[i]Almost done, she thought to herself, the sentence becoming a chant fairly soon. [/i]Almost there. Almost there. Almost done. Almost done.[/i]

It was all too soon, abrupt in the slightest. They had emerged from the wreckage of the city of anarchy only to be reacquainted with the aspects of the wilderness.

A few trees hung loosely in the earth, their branches sprawled out and only connected by the smallest shred of bark.

She noticed fair patches of moss littering the surface of the tree, dangling on specific portions by sheer amounts of whim. She also noticed the fair gale that breezed through her wispy tendrils.

She brushed down her locks with the back of her hand, the one that was free of the stranger that tailed her.

She continued to lure him into the depths of the forest, passing by the underbrush of the large and wooden plants on her sides.

Once she had made decent ground, she paused, cementing herself where she stood only to pivot on her heel to face the man of which she had been sent to massacre.

Her façade was obliterated, the slivers of the mask shattering into shards untraceable to any humane being. She frowned, pulling the corners of her mouth downwards as her eyebrows mimicked the motion.

“You know why I have come, do you not?” she growled, reaching upwards in terms of grabbing the hood to her cloak.

Sadly, there was no hood to pull over her eyes, for she had forgotten it in the tavern. How stupid could she be? Leaving traces of her existence was never an infallible plan. She would have to return to the tavern of which she wished not to do in order to rightfully claim that she had left.

The man shook his head, the scent of fear putrefying the air around his position. Lenz merely smirked with baleful intent.

“Then aren’t you in for a surprise.”

[Lenz]

The woman with red hair again resorted to calming the nerves that ran rampant through her heart.

She felt them quivering through the organ and into her soul, something she often thought of didn’t exist, yet was proven wrong otherwise.

She believed she had a soul, once, but never again. She had lost it when she lost the child she had come accustomed to loving dearly.

It was misplaced before being mutilated into smithereens by her own malicious hands. It was gone forever and no one with magical powers could unearth its ruins.

“I don’t understand,” the man whimpered, already starting to fidget with his footing. He was preparing to flee and this was easy to notice.

Lenz had grown wary of others’ movements. She watched their eyes most importantly, for the way they moved to certain regions of the head told many stories that even helped her predict as to their next motions.

This was one of those times.

He looked to his right corner and then quickly back up at the woman. He pivoted on his heel with the speed of a wild boar but before he managed to gain any ground, Lenz beat him to the spot.

She transmuted the energy she held deep within her living body and commanded it to spring into the palm of her hand in the form of res.

She witnessed the essence flowing, hovering and levitating above her palm, the sight so invigorating and euphoric.

She used her other hand to collect air, be it all around her. She applied the air to the ball, adding her own signature blow using her lips and her own breath. Soon the spherical object in her hand was a ball of chaotic wind, speeding in a circular pattern all within the grasped control of her will.

She cocked her hand and stretched the essence out so that it made a curtain-like figure. She extended her air and pressurized her attack, forcing the curtain to move around the man before he decided to take off and flood the scene with his fearsome sobs.

The air compacted into an initial blow, preventing him from breaching the wall of air she had created. It blew him backwards, as he flailed into a heap on the ground right at the base of her awaiting feet.

“Either you bow and see what powers I possess or you stand and still yourself whilst in my presence,” she commanded, her words seething from in between her teeth as if she were biting into a large slab of meat.

The man whimpered and croaked out incomprehensible words as he stood hastily. The woman was still very wary of his emotional state, but she saw no further need for her reimancing attributes.

The remaining res, after having diluted it of the air, succumbed back into the djed form, swimming back into her body and regenerating the tiredness she was beginning to feel. She absorbed the substance as if it were a necessity, which to her, it was. Greatly.

“Now,” she said coldly. “I have been sent for one reason and one reason alone.”

She waited, letting the suspense linger in the air and corrupt any and all ideas of mercy.

There would be none.

Not when Lenz was standing close to her prey. She would not give any of her prey mercy of any sort. Not until she keeled over and withered away into the very nothingness she had become.

“I have been sent to end your existence,” she spat, earning yet another whimper.

“There are two ways of which I can proceed in finishing the deed I have been assigned,” she continued, taking her index finger and twirling it through a lock of scarlet hair.

“I can either end you pleasantly and quick or allow for your suffering to draw out in vast lengths, aiding me in bliss. It is your choice, however, you quim of insolence.”

She waited as the man blurted out the former.

She took a moment to dwell on his decision and eventually played the tyrant of the couple.

“I see. I will accept your decision and proceed in making your demise long and unfathomable. Your misery will be harmonious tunes to my aching ears.”

The man screamed out in rejection, somber heftiness presented on his face by the shadows that cornered him on all sides. He was crying for help, wishing for an alternative way, yet he did not revolt and turn to run.

He stayed locked in his position, fear grappling him to the earth. She was expanding her intimidating experience and this she did not loath in the slightest.

“I will see you in the afterlife,” she announced before preparing for a show.

[Lenz]

She watched him writhe, crumpled over and drop to the ground on his hands and knees.

Tears were spewing from his eyes and saliva was drooling down his chin. Mucus accompanied this substance in thick waves as it dribbled down his upper lip and into his open, screeching mouth.

She couldn’t hear his pleas, his praying banter to the gods of which he believe in and worshipped.

She could care less.

She was apathetic and remained so as she rubbed her hands together in a maniacal fashion.

“Let us begin,” she grumbled earnestly.

She was about to start, a way glance or two having been directed towards the man anonymously posing as her own preventative task

It was a game, what she was about to do. The sordid tales in her mind did not alleviate themselves of their constricting presence.

Instead, they spun, entangling themselves in a morbid fantasy on the brink of hallucinated martyrdom. Euphoria continued to blast into her body, filling her entirety until she was bloated past the limits of content.

“You know, I met a man such as yourself once,” she began, wringing her hands together before folding them in front of her abdomen.

“He was cynical and destructive, self-inducing himself with the toxins of lust and empowerment. He was insidious and craved the affection from women and children alike. He was undeserving to like you see.”

She started pacing now.

“I met this man of anguish and bitter addiction in a tavern. The exact same as the one we just emerged out from-“ she pointed to the establishment many yards away. Although it wasn’t breached by the shroud of shrubbery and vegetation, whether it was not clearly seen, it was all the more there in existence.

“I used him for my own sake. I controlled him, pressuring him into purchasing a beverage so that I did not have to part with the small income I possess each and every season,” she continued, speaking her story and remembering the facts and contemplating the memories as if they had just occurred to her not moments ago.

“Once upon a time,” she muttered satanically.

She threaded her fingers together and began to bounce them on her lower abdomen as she continued to pace, trekking closer to her victim as she did.

“Once upon a time,” she seethed, beginning her horrific tale.