In the basement
of the Jones's house, dark and oppressive. Marietta crouches behind a stack of
dusty boxes, her heart racing as she hears whispers in the corners. Anne Faith
stands beside her, eyes wide with fear.
Dan appears from
out of nowhere, towering over them both like an evil god. He reaches for
Marietta first, his fingers twitching towards her throat. She screams and
lunges forward, but is pushed back by invisible forces. Dan's gaze narrows as
he sees her resistance.
Anne Faith
stumbles backward into a corner where she falls to the floor in a fetal
position, rocking back and forth with sobs wrecking her body. Her eyes are wide
with terror and desperation.
Marietta's
fingers brush against something sharp—she recognizes it now: one of Dan's
hex-dolls. It's lying on the ground beside a pile of blood-soaked rags. She
stands up, trembling but determined. "I won't let you hurt my sister," she
whispers through clenched teeth, her eyes glowing with newfound resolve.
Dan chuckles
darkly as he steps closer to Anne Faith again. "You're brave." His voice drips
with malice and a hint of something else—something humanly innocent.
Marietta lunges
forward once more, but this time Dan's fingers are gone before she can even see
them move. He snatched the hex-doll from her reach, examining it closely as
though studying an ancient artifact.
Anne Faith's body
convulses violently now, spasms wrecking every limb and causing a low moan to
escape through clenched teeth.
Dan returns his
attention to Marietta with renewed interest. "You're smart," he says softly. "I
like that," twiddling his thumbs in a sadistic manner.
Marietta's
knuckles turn pale as a ghost as she clutches the hex-doll tighter in her
grasp, its writhing for something or someone to use it for good or evil. She
feels a strange tingling sensation spreading through her veins.
Dan, with one
swift motion, grabs Marietta by the hair and lifts her off the ground, slamming
her against the wall with enough force to leave tears in her skin and creaks in
her bones. "You're going to learn today who's your maker," he growls in an
animalistic tone before she wriggles out of his grasp.
Marietta staggers
back onto shaky legs but doesn't falter for a second. She clenches the hex-doll
tighter, its fabric crinkling with each heartbeat of terror and tears she has
been born to shed.
Anne Faith cries
out again, blood trailing from between her teeth as she curls into herself in a
more desperate fetal position, begging for mercy from Dan.
Dan looks down at
Marietta's face and grins wickedly. "And you're going to learn sisters aren't
worth fighting for. Not when they are useless like her," he spits on the floor.
Marietta feels a
surge of courage igniting within her as she reaches up and snatches the
hex-doll back. It's now covered with dried blood from where Anne Faith had
clung onto it. As Marietta holds the hex-doll aloft, tears streaming down her
face, her eyes blazing brighter than the stars of heaven. She whispers to Dan, "You're
going to rue the day you messed with us. My sister's my world, and you're not
taking the only thing I have left in this world!" She lunges forward but is met
by Dan's sly movement, and she falls to the ground.
Marietta stands
up, trembling but determined. She recognizes the hex-doll lying on the ground
beside Anne Faith. Her fingers brush it first, recognizing its significance.
"I don't want to,
but I might have to use that ugly thing, she said to herself."
Dan grabs
Marietta by the hair and slams her against the wall with exceeding force enough
to knock most people out, but Marietta's resolve stays firm. Her eyes burned
brighter than Maryanne's when she jumped into the abyss, willing to drown
before she'd forsake GOD. She doesn't falter for a moment; an almost
supernatural force is keeping her alive at this point. Marietta lunges forward
once more with all the strength she can muster and grabs Dan's hex-doll from
his hand. She holds it tilted slightly in one fist while clutching Anne Faith's
blood-soaked rag in the other hand. Still shaking but now more determined than
ever...
She uses a small
piece of the hex-doll's fabric to smear Dan's face with some of Anne Faith's
dried blood from her cheek. "This is your last chance," she hisses in a
remorseful tone, "keep pushing, and you'll regret what happens next, voice raw
as salmonella."
The hex-doll in
her hand begins to glow faintly, as if awakening under her forceful touch. Its
fabric starts tearing apart at Marietta's desperate pleas.
Dan recoils back,
eyes wide and mouth open in shock or perhaps pain. "What are you doing... Uh...
he stumbles on his words. You, you don't know how to use that, just give it
here, and everything will be okay, I promise."
Marietta turns to
Anne Faith, who is still lying in the fetal position on the ground, eyes wide
with amazement at her sister's ferocity and Faith. Now she's pleading with
tears, "Be careful, sister! Please help me, but don't kill Dan!" Anne Faith
said, "Remember what Mama taught us, even monsters deserve mercy!" Her voice
cracked like a broken note as tears overwhelmed her.
Marietta reaches
for Anne Faith's blood-soaked rag and uses it to smear Dan's face with the
blood-stained fabric. She drags the rugged rag across Dan's face like
sackcloth, reminding herself of an ancient sacrificial offering.
As she finishes
applying the rag to Dan's face. "We won't trust you like our Mom, you bastard!
I'm not letting you hurt Anne anymore!"
Dan's eyes roll
back in his head, and his body convulses like lightning in a bottle, violently
shocking him. He then collapses in his own putrid vomit. The hex-doll shatters
into pieces after Marietta drops it.
"Thank you, sis!"
Anne Faith said to Marietta. Marietta helps Anne Faith to her feet, and they
make their way cautiously out of the basement. The sisters leave with a bond
and a lesson that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.