Athanasia

Athanasia was exiled to the wilderness for witchcraft. Allegations of witchcraft came along after two of her husbands died mysteriously, and the third disappeared into thin air. She was unable to prove her innocence. Before her banishment, she had her left eye gouged out and her hands chopped off. The communal leaders didn’t want to risk her using her alleged magical powers to survive, and so they maimed her form before she was exiled.

The woman was forced out into a dense forest. She was warned to never return to civilization, for if she would, anyone had the right to kill her on the spot without any repercussion.

Thus, physically and mentally broken, Athanasia roamed the forest for hours on end, awaiting the dreaded end while skulking and moaning in pain from her wounds. Her arms were cauterized and yet the scorching phantom pain of her now missing hands refused to let up. Visions of her unfair trial flashed in her now missing left eye as her left registered the scenery of the dense forest. It was comforting for her to know that the forest was quiet and rather desolate. No man or animal in sight to hasten her imminent demise.

As the hours progressed, the woman’s hunger and thirst grew and her pain had turned more severe. By nightfall, her security had all but vanished. The once beautiful and serene trees turned into menacing dark giants staring down at her from above. Her hunger and thirst had become all but unbearable. Her legs hurt and her wounds were almost agonizing. Athanasia decided to lay down beside a tree to rest up. She closed her eye and started fading into the realm of dreams.

Her dreams were not pleasant, they were of torture and ruin; she was mercilessly flogged and beaten. A piece of her dignity was stripped away from her flesh with each blow. Her body ached all over as she was subjected to the ethereal punishment over and over again until her mind could take it no more and she awoke.

She gasped in awe as the sight of four massive clawed hands faced her. Barely making it up to her feet with her back against the tree, she noticed there were no claws, mere tree branches. Athanasia breathed a sigh of relief. Just as she was calming herself down, she heard a rustling in the bushes nearby.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood. She called out, “hello?” as she looked around. No response came, but more rustling followed. The woman’s heartbeat quickened. She called out again, but nothing responded. Neither man nor animal. That was her sign, Athanasia decided she should move again, so she started walking, but the rustling noises followed her. She picked up her pace, but rustling kept following. She started running and the rustling following still. Panicking the woman took a sharp turn, no longer having her peripheral vision she didn’t notice the low-hanging branch, and it hit her across the face. She fell down, tumbling down a hill.

Once her body stopped tumbling, Athanasia barely had the strength to open her eye. Her body ached all over and the feeling of a liquid caressing her arms and back under her dress filled her mind with dread. She feared being already dead, as a piercing pain shot through her torso. She wondered whether a rock or a wooden spike pierced her. Waiting for her end to come, she gazed up above. Her heart sunk when she saw a legion of clawed arms all flying in her direction. They were sprawling from a few gigantic masses the size and shape of which her mind could barely comprehend. The gargantuan demons of Hades were upon her.

Their appearance had been made worse by the fact she couldn’t tell where, which ended and where each started. The ungodly things shared a single massive silver, unblinking eye. Brighter than all the stars in the night’s sky. Athanasia wanted to scream but her throat seized up. Thus, she was forced to watch in terror as their demonic arms withered towards her. They crept towards her broken carcass painfully slowly.

A nocturnal bird’s flight across demons’ shared silver eye shook the woman back to her senses. She sighed a sigh of relief and her distorted vision cleared. The woman was staring at the moon, showering an ancient tree with its silver light. In her panic, the pain seemed to vanish. Feeling slightly livelier, the woman decided to get back up to her feet, her bones creaking with every inch she accented to her vertical base. Once on her feet, she heard another rustle and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up again. She has looked around and could see nothing at first.

Then, a fiery red eye appeared from beyond the bushes.

And another one.

And another.

Before she could notice, Athanasia was surrounded by fiery eyeballs seemingly suspended in the darkness.

Something growled at her.

She screamed and attempted to run, but her legs gave out underneath her.

A massive black dog emerged from the darkness, bearing its yellow canines. Its red fiery eye stared straight through Athanasia’s soul as its pitched black fur danced like a black fire in the night’s wind.

Athanasia attempted getting back up to her feet, but a sinister howl pierced her ears, freezing her blood.

More black dogs appeared, all of them surrounding the wounded woman, slowly creeping upon.

She howled one last time as one of the cyclopic black dogs pounced…