Cause Fear

“Slay the witch!”

“One hundred gold per hand!”

Anna shuddered, full panic, feeling the overwhelming urge to want to cry. “I-I’m not a witch! Don’t hurt me!” she called out to the touchlight.

“Surrender peacefully and we will only cut off your hands!” commanded one male voice from behind.

“Liars!” bellowed the stylus. “Bleed ‘em out!”

Anna frantically looked around.

“Take heed! The witch has an invisible accomplice!” shouted another male voice. The crank of a heavy crossbow winch could be heard grinding away. “Do not shoot, you could hit us!” “Cut her down with your sword!”

Boots stomped as her pursuers closed in rapidly from both directions. Anna could barely see, caught in the tunnel vision of fight or flight. She could hardly think. She was prey.

“On your right!”

The only way now appeared to be that of a minor passageway at her immediate right, sixteen inches wide at most. Anna nearly threw herself into it, squeezing into the tight fit, just out of a sword’s reach as it thrust for her back. Heart pounding in her throat, both shoulders pressed against the cold, sweaty stone, Anna shoved her way in deeper. She was slender, but even this was repressively tight.

The light of the phone showed the way ahead. Dead end.

“Stop, witch.” The commanding male voice was just behind her. Anna didn’t dare turn her head to make out his face. She might be out of a blade’s reach, but a crossbow bolt at nearly point blank would be ridiculously easy.

“Please, I’m not a witch,” Anna pleaded softly, facing ahead, staring into the dead end.

“Drop your lantern and your robe. Then extend your hands straight back,” the man commanded. “I will cut them off as quickly as I can. This is the only mercy we will show. Otherwise we will shoot you.”

“Please.”

“Ten.”

“Nine.”

“Eight.”

“Ok, ok,” Anna gasped. “I surrender.”

Tears trailed down her face as Anna slowly hunched over, carefully setting her phone on the hewn stone floor. Behind her she could hear many bodies shuffling about, breathing heavy from exertion, voices exchanging ugly comments in hushed tones. Anna knew there was no way she could survive a double amputation. Maybe tourniquets? But infection? Without antibiotics?

“Just ash ‘em,” the stylus cooed in a seductive whisper.

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” Anna sobbed softly.

“Your hands. Now!”

Anna plopped the pall at her feet. She then extended her hands back directly behind herself.

There was a great deal of shuffling, the man grunting from the strain. He couldn’t fit within the tight passageway, his bulky armor rasping against the stone. “You are too far away. Stand up. Come closer. Keep your hands showing.”

“Ok.” Anna stood slowly, her knees quivering. She tried to force herself upright, but the emotional weight of being soon amputated, bleeding out, pulled her right back down. After several quivering breaths, she tried to fight gravity once more, only to remain on her knees, completely drained.

“Sir, she is spent. I do not believe she is going to be able to stand,” said a younger male voice.

“Then I will shoot her,” the commanding man said flatly, voice shifting as he turned. “You there, hand me your crossbow.”

Anna sobbed softly, hands fumbling for the pall. “Please… please, I just want to go home.” Maybe if she put it over herself completely, and wrote the right thing, this would all end? She floundered in overwhelming emotion, hands trying to find a way to pull the black velvet over herself entirely.

“What a pathetic thing you are,” the commanding man spat at the sight of Anna’s uncoordinated movements.

While the unseen crossbow was passed along slowly to avoid a misfire, Anna increasingly cocooned herself in black velvet. Then, thinking it to be good enough, she slipped her left hand into her apron’s joey pocket.

“Show me your hands!” he demanded.

“Liquify orrrrganssss,” the stylus instructed in a sultry purr as it felt Anna’s fingers slide slowly along its length.

Anna squeezed the stylus tightly in refusal.

“Crossbow. Now!”

Under the black velvet Anna couldn’t see, but she clenched her eyes tightly closed regardless.

Thwack! Snap!

An unseen force slammed into Anna, center mass, with such brutality that it threw her onto her forearms. She cried out from the pain as splinters showered around her cocoon with tiny echoes. Then nothing else. No radiating pain from being impaled, no sudden warm, wet feeling of blood rushing from a grievous wound.

The commanding voice swore.

“The bolt… shattered?!” gasped the younger voice.

“Her robe is enchanted!”

“Write, now, fool!”

Anna’s terrorized brain scrambled for the most humane thing she could come up with. Pressing the stylus' tip to the stone floor, she scrawled out the letters quickly in the blind.

<C-a-u-s-e.> <F-e-a-r.>

“Pansy.”

Long silence.

Did it… not work?

Suddenly many noises at once. A terrorized, blood chilling scream. “Monster!” A male shriek. “Run!” Weapons falling to the floor. “Rats!” “Ahhhh!” Bodies shuffled, armor banged and screeched against each other, shields clattering, as the unseen witch hunters in the hallway tried to escape their individualized worst nightmares as hastily as possible.

Soon the demolition derby was fading down the hallway, leaving only one sound remaining. That of a sniffling, sobbing, young man.

“No, please, get them off,” he whimpered.

Anna lowered her cocoon, craning her head to look behind her.

Of all those who pursued her earlier, now just two remained. A middle aged muscular man in dull bulky half-plate armor and a slender younger one in a rust stained chainmail shirt and leather pants. The older one sat on the floor, back propped up against the stone wall of the hallway, staring blankly ahead, eyes frozen wide in terror. The younger was curled up in a fetal position, quivering and sobbing softly. “Get them off, get them off,” he kept pleading.

Neither were of any danger to her now.

Anna slipped the stylus into her joey pocket and slowly collected herself, wiping the ears away from her face with the backs of her hands. She looked down to the letters she had blindly written on the floor, holding up the light of her phone to examine them more closely.