Awakening

Everything seemed to be transpiring in slow motion. Pushing herself up onto hands and knees, Anna’s smile widened and she slowly shook her head from side to side. The battle had been and she had prevailed, but she was changed and was now so much more than she ever was before. Inanna was gone, leaving behind dim vestiges of memory from another time, another place and a reservoir of raw unbridled power. Leaning back, bum on the heels of her feet, she looked at her damaged and bloodied hands, she cocked her head slightly to the side, a slight smile touching her lips as her wounds vanished, new and old, as flesh knitted and healed, scars fading away to nothing. Similarly, the visible skin through the rents in her shirt mended as she made herself whole, her entire person unblemished and without flaw.

Looking up, almost as if just noticing the people surrounding the circle, she frowned.

“Welcome goddess,” Vera said, lowering herself to her knees and bringing her forehead to the ground.

Anna looked at the old woman, she who had authored this affair before Anna was borne. Rising to her feet, she moved forward, easily brushing aside the childish containment spell surrounding the circle. Still standing, she held her hand several feet over Vera’s head. The old woman snapped her head back off the floor, eyes wide, mouth hanging open making no sound as she reared back onto her knees. Anna turned her head slightly, eyes falling on Don Donaldson. The corners of her mouth curled into a smile.

There was a gasp as others in the room watched Vera began to diminish, shrinking into herself, rapidly getting smaller and vanishing into her floral print dress. Anna looked back down to the pool of clothes now at her feet. Crouching down, she brushed aside some of the cloth and located the little body of the aged woman. Reaching down, she curled her hand around the trembling librarian, carrying her aloft as she stood upright.

The spectators, still maintaining their positions around the circle watched in mute fascination. Anna turned, extending her arm and opening her hand to display the withered Vera, now no more than two inches tall, in the middle of her palm.

Anna’s expression changed, eyes glowing balefully as her lips parted revealing clenched teeth. Curling her finger inwards rapidly, she closed her fist around the ancient crone and squeezed, brittle bones snapping easily under the pressure as she screamed. Opening her mouth, Anna brought Vera into it, pushing the moaning broken woman in and closing her lips behind. She swallowed, the limp form easily making its passage down her esophagus.

Time resumed and pandemonium erupted as everyone seemed to panic and try for the stairs to get out of the basement. In his hurry, one of the men unfamiliar to her tripped over Adam’s corpse, tumbling to the ground before hastily getting back to his feet and running toward the stairs.

Anna’s locked onto the fallen form of the dead man on the floor, human emotions filling her as she moved over and knelt down, putting her hand on the undamaged part of his head. He had loved her, of this she had no doubt, and he had died for her, taken by the policeman. Her eyes narrowed as she turned her gaze to the people struggling over one another to get to the door. Opening her mouth, she let out a guttural sound, a noise of composed of rage and sorrow mingled in one. She clapped her hands together and the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, trapping two people desperately trying to get out. Bending down, she kissed her father’s cheek, then stood upright and walked slowly to the bottom of the stairs.

Veronica’s mother, turned, looking down at Anna, eyes wide and full of unrestrained fear.

Anna smiled then opened her mouth slightly. “Please Anna, let us help you, please honey,” came a perfect imitation of Brenda’s voice though Anna’s lips never moved, the exact same words Brenda had said to her back at the house.

Brenda put her hands to her face and screamed.

The man on the higher step behind Veronica’s mom was the one who had stumbled over Adam, he was clawing furiously away at the door. When Brenda started screaming, he hurriedly looked back over his shoulder before frantically slamming his shoulder into the door.

Anna raised her hand, a slight gesture and both people on the stairs began getting smaller, the transition very rapid.

A sob from behind her, captured her attention, turning, Don Donaldson on his knees, shaking his head from side to side. “Please sweet Jesus,” he babbled looking into her luminescent eyes.

She smiled and winked at him, before turning back to the two tiny ones trapped in their own clothes on the stairs.

Ascending slowly, she first sifted through Brenda’s garb and plucked the unconscious form of the middle aged woman out, then rooted through the unknown man’s clothes to find him. He pushed himself into the corner of the stair, yelling and shouting, arms raised in some feeble attempt to fend her off. She shook her head slowly and closed her hand around him. Turning, she walked back down the stairs into the basement, the fainted Brenda in one hand, the man in the other. Moving near her father’s body, she again crouched down, pushing the man hard to the ground near the pooled blood, breaking his legs in the process.

The man rolled onto his back, clutching at his legs and screaming in his tiny voice. She lifted her foot and brought it down over top of him, stepping down and crushing the life out of him, twisting her foot from side to side, creating an unrecognizable greasy red smear on the floor when she lifted her foot away.

Opening her hand, she regarded the mother of her best friend, a woman who had given birth to a daughter only to advance her own self-interest. She hesitated, the human part of her realizing the death of her mother would devastate Veronica regardless of the fact the woman was complicit in the girl’s rape.

“Please Anna,” mumbled the high school principal, now the only other person in the room. Why he had remained, she wasn’t sure, either he had been too scared or too foolish not to attempt escape.

She walked closer to him. He brought his hands together in submission and supplication, “I beg you, please don’t hurt me,” he whimpered.

She nodded slowly, reaching out with her free hand touch the side of his tear streaked face.

“I am going to hurt you,” she said, voice soft.

“No,” he pleaded, shaking his head back and forth, eyes round and terrified.

She chuckled softly. “I appreciate you’re unhappy with the decision, however, maintain some degree of decorum,” she said, using his voice and words he used in his office.

He pushed himself back and away from her, she opened her fingers and gestured in his direction, watching amusedly as the principal turned and thrashed as he was swallowed up by his clothing.

Snaking her hand in through the folds of oversized clothing, she found him squirming inside. Closing her hand around him, she pulled him out and dangled him in front of her face.

“No!” he squealed.

“You are nothing more than a spineless bureaucrat,” she indicted.

“No, please, I tried to stop them, to spare you,” he pleaded.

“And a liar,” she added, rolling him over, his little belly against fingers, she put her thumb on his back, digging the nail in just above his buttocks. He squealed in pain as she pushed down, feeling rather than hearing the little snap as his back was broken.

He wailed in pain, unable to feel his legs as she inverted him and dangled him in front of her face.

“No,” he mewled.

She laughed and lowered him into her waiting mouth, pushing him to the entrance of the throat with her tongue before lifting her chin and swallowing.

Looking down at Brenda still unconscious in her hand, she glanced up at the door at the top of the stairs. Closing her fingers around her tiny prize she crossed the basement floor to the stairs. A nod from her head opened the door as she ascended the stairs. The night was yet young and there were still scores to settle.