Payment
"Here, take it!" Sarra spat out harshly, a show put upon by her unwillingness to display how much she was scared at such an absurd show of power projected by this spirit just a few seconds ago. It didn't even take a second for it to kill her just like that. One second here, she was thinking about Envy's threat but now just after a casual glance by it, Envy had fallen dead there like a stack of feeble packs of cards.
Only now she began to mull over the consequence of what she has summoned this time…
Though Sarra was afraid, she wasn't regretting it even a bit. Using such unconventional summoning was necessary or it would have been her instead of Envy, who would have fallen lifeless on the ground by now. It was a situation of kill or be killed, an apt emergency to forgo any restraints or apprehensions, which is exactly what she did.
Recently Sarra had become very clear on the matters of life or death owing to her life changing incident of that night ritual, that had cleared a few things in her mind like how far she was willing to go to survive. The answer was clear. This sobering clarity is knowing that she was ready to do 'anything' to survive because she can't die yet. Not before….
While all these thoughts were swirling inside her mind, on the outside with her cloak of indifference thick, Sarra casually sliced her palm to let blood fall from her hand. Immediately after, she hesitated on how to proceed next. Her inexperience in these matters was quite evident. She was unsure as to how this spirit would take it from here but her worry was unfounded as the spirit, not caring at least for its image, coiled around on the ground like a pet such that its demonic mouth was directly below the sliced palm of her.
Sarra was mildly surprised as she noted in her mind that aside from feeding and violence there weren't many thoughts in their minds, after all they were not from here but from otherside. It was a thing she would remember next time.
Drip..
Drip..
Drip..
Blood dripped slowly as the spirit beneath her licked its lips excitedly, savoring each and every blood droplet that was drenched with human essence as well as spirituality of a young human witch. It wasn't least bothered by the slow method of its payment. In Fact it was enjoying this slow way of taking her blood as it allowed it to savor the taste for a longer time.
Slowly minutes passed by, while Sarra's face gradually began to turn white as the blood continued to fall down without any sign of clotting over. It was like her blood wasn't in her control any more, rushing outside into the waiting mouth of the spirit.
'What is happening? Blood should have stopped by now. Did it do something to me?'
Unable to bear such steady loss of blood any longer, while still full of wariness Sarra harbored strong doubts against the spirit but the summon showed no sign of awareness about her changing expressions or rather showed no care for it. It was happily savoring the droplets with its eyes closed in euphorbia.
Suddenly Sarra felt her head spinning, as her feet nearly wobbled with black spots appearing before her eyes. A tell tale sign of fainting. She quickly stabilized herself by fighting off this dizziness while realizing that she had already lost too much of blood, and now she couldn't afford any more of this torture without harming herself.
"Okay eno.." Sarra immediately commanded with the best impression of her stern voice but her throat choked midway as she felt the eyes of spirit open and look at her. It was a casual glance but it shook Sarra at her core. Those inhumane eyes broke all the restraint she was holding upon the intrinsic fear of this creature. It was like this creature suddenly had a hold upon her throat preventing her from speaking up.
'Not again…' thought Sarra as she made herself stare in those eyes. She made an enormous effort to not back away from its gaze all the while preparing herself for the worst. With all the conviction and bravery she could summon at this moment, she repeated herself slowly.
"I said enough…" Sarra enunciated the words while trying to hold back from stepping back under that intense stare of the spirit. Though technically she was looking down on it as the creature was coiled beside her legs, but the scary presence associated with it was like that of a snarling tiger. It was the feeling of being in the presence of a natural predator.
Taking control of her nearly trembling hand, she closed her palm and pulled it back all the while maintaining eye contact with the spirit. The creature remained there in its position, staring at her without doing anything. Sarra wasn't sure but it looked like it appeared to be in some type of conundrum.
'Oh so it is this…'
Suddenly a light bulb moment went off in her head as it struck her why this beast was acting like this. She slowly rotated her hand, and there on the back of her arm, the markings of the Old Witch Maya were beginning to glow slowly. The red blood soaked by this mysterious script was now emitting a faint colored shine which means…
"It's enough. Go back now." Fueled by her discovery, Sarra commanded in a more natural tone.
The spirit slithered and floated back while at the same time, keeping its eyes fixed upon those mysterious symbols on Sarra's arm. Finally as the symbols began to shine a little more brightly, it snarled in annoyance but in the next second floated up and began to disappear, likely ending its summon. But before going away, it didn't forget to smirk at her.
"Hehe.. Little girl don't look so relieved. What you have associated yourself with is far more dangerous than me… Hahahah"
*Crack*
Abruptly not expected by anyone, as this spirit was disappearing, a huge yet distinct human hand shaped thing made of black ink like energy seemed to materialize behind it with a cracking sound. The air twisted around like it had broken the restrictions of the space to appear here, and this newcomer just after its arrival grabbed for the fading spirit.
Sarra stood rooted to her spot in shock, as in front of her very eyes the hand instantly evaporated the spirit just by plucking at it. At the last second, just before being obliterated the spirit's human face morphed into an incarnation of despair but even this change of expression was unable to catch up to the speed of the strike of this hand, as it evaporated the very next second.
'What?' The girl felt her worldview spin as she wasn't able to keep up with this instant change in situation. But it wasn't the end yet.
Sarra felt her heart skipping a beat as after finishing that strong spirit the hand slowly floated down to face her. It turned around and the back of its palm came face to face with Sarra who felt her mind going numb with fear and shock, as the back of the hand was not similar to the human hand in any manner.
The grotesque creature, whose front was in the shape of a human hand, but backward was riddled with almost thousand thin spikes like eyes that all had wriggling red pupils in them. All of those eyes erratically moved around in some unknown disjointed rhythm, but now all those pupils shivered and focused straight at the back of the Sarra's hands where those symbols were taking shape in a bright glow.
Chill ran down the spine of Sarra as she felt her breathing stopping entirely at this moment. Her loud heart struggled to jump out of her chest, as she remained stuck there, frozen, not even daring to take a breath to disturb this mysterious creature and bring down her impending doom.
Since the moment Sarra had stepped into this realm her journey had been pretty uneventful nearly making her forget where she was, a place where even the strongest of people on earth fear to intrude into. But now for the first time she directly came face to face with the horrors of Dream Realm that matched with the reputation of it on Earth.
Thump.. Thump.. Thump..
A sole beating heart signified passing of time in this area, but Sarra could swear that each passing second felt akin to several years of suffering and despair for her. Finally, just as she was about to faint, not able to take any more of this psychological torture with her already weakened state, the dream realm creature suddenly floated back and just like it had appeared, it disappeared in a crack of space.
It was honestly surreal as well as anticlimactic, but Sarra was not the one to question it.
At this moment with the relief washing over her, Sarra finally lost her bearings as she felt the scenery before her eyes becoming dark, as she fainted onto the ground. A lone girl in the middle of nowhere in a foreign dimension could never dare to faint here but she was already out of her limits.