The scream shattered her insides. Her heart clenched and unclenched until she couldn't breathe anymore. Eve cried out in protest but no one came to help them. Her mother's life was fast draining out of her as the red-haired woman kept sucking at the puncture wound on her neck.
"Please!" The little girl begged, tears streaming down her eyes as she knelt in front of the strangers. "Stop it! You will kill her!"
The woman ignored her, cutting through her mother's tattered dress with her talons before sliding her pale hands inside. Meredith's screams slowly turned into grunts that didn't take long to phase out into raspy moans. As she watched, her mother squirmed against the woman's hands that were circling and prodding the place beneath her naval.
The very next moment, Julian appeared behind Meredith, his eyes crazed with an emotion that Eve dared not comprehend. With a swift move of his hands, he ripped Meredith's gown from behind, exposing her pale skin to the dim light of the moon. Soon, the man's screams of pleasure joined that of her mother as he pushed back and forth from behind her as the woman cradled her from the front.
As she watched, Meredith turned towards her- a lazy smile on her bloodless lips. Extending a hand towards her, her mother called out, "Come, Eve, join us."
Eve shook her head, stepping back from the trio in horror. What was happening? No. This was not how it was. It was not. The strange woman turned to her, retracting her canines from her mother's chest. Eve looked away in embarrassment.
The woman hadn't spared her Meredith much to call modesty. Apart from a narrow stretch of cloth running between her pale breasts, there was not much covering her chest. There were puncture marks all over her skin- reminders of where the stranger's teeth had grazed. The woman smiled, baring her fangs at her.
"Why are you hesitating, young one?" She whispered in a sickeningly sweet tone. "I know you crave this."
Eve shook her head, denying the accusation that was thrown at her. Her little steps suddenly became longer as she was whisked into a body that was much more familiar to her present self. A gasp escaped her chest as the woman laughed, pushing her mother aside as she vanished from beside her.
Eve didn't think twice before turning towards the door. Panic gripped her heart. She knew what exactly was about to follow. But she wanted to escape it at least once. She had to escape the maddening lust that took hold of her insides when the woman caught her every time. She had to survive it if she wanted to live.
But just like always, the woman beat her to it. Eve cursed under her breath as she slammed into the creature's arms at full speed.
'Help!' She screamed, her voice refusing to come out of her. As the woman's arms wound around her waist, her body went limp, pulling her into the horror that was to unfold.
"Stop resisting." The woman whispered, inhaling her scent as she rubbed her nose against the side of her neck. "Allow me to pleasure you, Eve."
'Please! Someone, help!' Eve cried out in her head, tears streaming down her face.
Suddenly, a wolf's howl pierced the air, tearing through the fabric of the cloudy sky. Her heart dropped as she was pulled into herself, escaping the clutches of the monster as she was dragged through layers and layers of darkness. She felt sick as the insides of her stomach churned from the movement.
In the next moment, her eyes flew open- wide with a mixture of fright and shock. Long cresses of wavy brown hair cascaded down her shoulders like silk, covering her pale skin that her torn chemise exposed in places. The early rays of the morning sun gently caressed the panting young woman, whose chest rose and fell in rushed rhythm.
The light made the green in her eyes appear much like the moss that grew on the sides of rushing rivers, struggling to speed past rocks and bends like her mind at the moment. Her pale pink lips were slightly apart, as she breathed in the cool air of dawn, calming her mind with every passing second.
Eve looked around the familiar surroundings of what she was forced to call her room. The stench of cow dung and the buzz of flies right outside the makeshift partition did not bother her as much as it used to twelve years ago.
After her mother disappeared, and the parish priest declared her dead, her father immediately remarried. The whole village celebrated the union as she had tirelessly walked back and forth between the village and the forest in search of Meredith's body, that for some reason, was never found.
The villagers showed no sympathy. There was no funeral conducted, no mourning carried out. And before she knew it, she was an outsider in her own house. The moment her stepmother became pregnant with her father's first child, she was robbed of the attic that she had called her room for as long as she could remember.
Ever since then, she'd been living in the barn with Rosie, the only companion she had in this lonely world. With what scraps of wood the villagers discarded, she had over time made a partition in the barn, claiming for herself a tiny portion of the room right next to the only window in the place.
But no matter how many years had passed, the nightmares never changed. Every year, when the day of the incident draws close, it came to haunt her without mercy. But it was the first time in her life that she had woken up before she lost herself.
Eve stood up from the floor, pushing her palms against the thick blanket she called bed. Tugging at the lock that held the wooden panes in its place, she unlocked the windows, her eyes searching the fenced area thoroughly.
"It seems that the forest has visitors." She mumbled, narrowing her eyes at the outline of trees that stood tall beyond the village borders.