The Killing Beauty Chapter 1

MIA

Perchance it is dark. I cannot precisely tell. I run in the forest, harder. My lungs kick and burn, all at the same time. The way I feel—it is like when you are being forced to run to your death. I don’t attempt to look back. There is no time to turn behind. Wheeling back means accepting death. I keep heading forward, faster and more careful with each progressive step. The skeletons are all around me. They are numerous like flies, dry like fish which has been scattered in the sunlight.

“Mia!” I know that voice. It is dad.

“Dad?” I cannot exactly tell the direction his voice echoed from. I look south, then north, east, and west. I am not sure. “Dad, where are you? Can you hear me?”

I put my senses into use. Before my mother died, she surrendered her powers to me. The trouble is no one has taught me how to use them. I can only heal, no matter how grave or small the injuries. The smell in the air is nasty—like that of lifeless bodies when they are molding into dust. I stare about me. The corpses are coming back to life. Their flesh, at the moment dust, composes quickly and clothes their naked bones.

“Dad, I need your help!”

She stands before me. Her eyes are white and fierce. I have never seen anything like them before. I thought this only happened in horror movies. I was not convinced it could happen to me. What do I do? She is my enemy, her and no one else. She is my blood sister, taken possession of by her late mother’s spirit. Dad thought Aubrey was dead. That is what I believed; that was what those culprits who burned her went preaching everywhere. Right now, she is tracking them, one by one. Before she finishes them off, she wishes to do away with my life.

I don’t know what is happening. My feet stir up the air. Aubrey seems surprised too. Her mouth drops open while she stares at me like she has seen a ghost. She is the ghost, not me. The spirit giving her these tremendous powers belongs to a dead woman. I don’t have a ghost occupying my body.

“Traitor!” She yells out accusingly at me. “You are a witch as well, aren’t you? I was always the witch, evermore the wicked girl. What about you, Mia? Can’t you see you are wicked yourself?”

“All this is your fault, Aubrey. Things are happening in accordance to your choice. If you had been so good to me and dad and everyone else, all this would not have happened.”

She places her hand behind her—and the host of the dead quickly marshal behind her. Everything happens too quickly. One moment, these corpses were around me. The next second, they are motionless behind her like they are soldiers under her command. How does she have tremendous power over the dead?

“You know that the dead fall under my control, don’t you? I have your mother here. She might have been a goddess, yet she is dead. If you won’t do what I want you to, I will banish her soul to the Underworld. You want to know what the Underworld is? You do your research after I am done with her.”

On the spur of a moment, I am spinning quickly in the air. Wind blows at ms me from all four directions and pushes away Aubrey and her dead army. By the time it is gone, I have secured my feet down on the ground. There my wicked sister stands, far from me. She turns behind her and sees that her weak army is lying dead on the ground like before, dry bones without any flesh.

She roars louder while sharp, long nails emerge from her hands. Then she leaps into the air rapidly after me, arching like a cat when it is about to launch on its prey. I spin again and wind comes back from all four directions. With astounding swiftness, it wraps me up and hits Aubrey off me. She is thrown on top of the piled bones. The moment I cease spinning, the wind is gone too. I step towards her while she groans up to her feet.

“How have you become so powerful, you witch? I am Queen of the Dead. No one defeats me that easily.” With these words, she points her fingers at me and vanishes away like ash scattered by wind. The truth is she turns herself into ash and drops out of sight along with the heap of skeletons she is standing on. I am never going to see her again; which doesn’t mean that she will not return for me. For now, dad and I are safe.

“Mia,” a voice says behind me. I turn around quickly. Dad? He stands dressed in his ragged clothes. His breaths are quick and exhausted. I flee after him and pitch myself into his arms. Did he see everything happen? I am silently wondering when he hugs me and asks politely, “Who were you fighting with?”

“Ashley, dad—she is not dead.”

When I first set my foot at Brunswick High, boys seemed to swoon over my presence. I know. Dad always tells me I look like a goddess. At first I used to laugh and brush his words aside like they were mere jokes. He is right. I have the blood of a goddess flowing in my veins. My mother died from the curse of Aubrey’s mom. Yes, Aubrey is my step sister, whose mother happened to be a witch. Her mom hated mine, and never took a moment to rest until she had done something terrible to her. It was her wish to kill us both. She only managed to kill her anyway. My mom cursed her back to keep me alive. That’s the reason I am breathing this morning. If it weren’t for mom’s curse, I would have been good dead too just like her.

This dress reminds me of my late sister, Aubrey.