The moon shone brightly, white night flowers were in full bloom. The breeze was soothing and the world was drunk in calmness.

  Flammel had finished four jars of Falernian, his head turned a bit heavy. Maybe it was the alcohol? Or maybe it was the subtle but constant sweetness of the blooming flowers? Either way, all he wanted now was to go back to his private manor and sleep in like the drunkard he was.

  While pushing himself off the bed he felt a tug. Turning behind he found that his gold ring on the left hand had caught tangled up in the maiden's hair he had brought in and raped.

  He made a gurgling sound at the base of his throat so loud that it roared through the dark space, and pulled his hand as such that the maiden was pulled across the bed, the bedsheet crumbling beneath her dragged body, and then both the maiden's bare body and the crumpled bedsheet was dumped onto the floor.

  He leaned close enough just to strangle her, his thick fingers squeezing the last traces of life's vitality out of her battered body.

  "Whores like you are fun to kill." He mocked and laughed, his voice low and edgy, his face twisted with such inhumane disgust that could be born only through the abuse of the irrefutable power he had over her weakness.

  The girl looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, the last of her breaths fanning her lungs to sustain her body for just one moment longer.

  "You...shall...die..." She breathed out, her voice broken, her throat burning up, her senses slumping down in the eternal darkness we call as the 'Death.'

  "Whore!" Flammel roared like a wild beast and the black space trembled with the harsh sound of him banging her head against the hard wood of the side rail of the bed. Her head split and blood ran down her wide, bloodshot eyes, parted lips and further below, down her broken, twisted throat. Bits of her brain went flying upon his face, and he looked even more inhumane than before.

  "Dead holes don't curse, now do they?" He thrust his hand forward and dug her insides out of her vagina and thrashed her body a few more times before spitting on her face and turning away. She remained there, twisted and soaked in her own blood, neck broken, body torn apart, and eyes wide open.

  She was watching. In silence.

  When Flammel came out to the courtyard, he had gore running down his face, brain matter stuck in between his bared teeth, in his thick beard and eyebrows, his fingernails still feeling the way they had dug into her insides before pulling them all out. "Whore really didn't know her 'place'." He spat and approached the exit of his hideout with heavy steps.

  The door was closed. He could not open it.

  He kicked. Nothing happened. He kicked several times more. Nothing happened at all. He called out for his men. No one came.

  The night was not only calm but also still.

  He turned around and barked, "Where the fuck have you all died? Did the tits of your sluts unman you?!"

  Quietness.

  This wasn't possible, right? He and his men were all here. Did they go back? But without his permission? Impossible. Then where were they?

  His head was turning heavier now. His nostrils were burning and he was sweating profusely. "Bastards. I feed you all for nothing." He groaned and turned to the door, kicking like a madman.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  "Huh?" He turned around to find no-one. "Who is there?" He called out. No one came. No one answered. He resumed his kicking.

  "Do you want me to open the door for you?"

  He spun around with lightning speed this time, only to find no one else again. "Bitch!" He barked and laughed like a maniac. "You think you are doing something here, huh? If I get my hands on you, I'll tear you apart from your hole. Come out if you dare!"

  The night fell quiet. The only sound he heard was of crickets and his own shallow breathing. He resumed kicking on the door once more. A minute passed or two. And then he heard it again.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  He froze. His fists were tightened now. "Who is it?" He barked. "Who the fuck are you?!"

  From the distance came the voice again, but this time it was broken, as if someone was taking her last breath.

  "Come...back..." She breathed out, her voice broken, her throat burning up.

  Flammel realised the whisper was coming from the direction he had just come from. He could feel his cold sweat trickling down his heated skin now. "You...shall...die...." she had cursed him. What stories did his grandmother tell him when he was a young boy? "Beware of the Churel and the Shakchunnis, for they shall come for your life-"

  "Come... back...." She breathed out again. His feet moved before he felt his feet had moved. He was running towards the voice. He crossed the courtyard, ran inside and up the stairs. And upon reaching the doorstep he found her exactly where he had left her- on the floor, in her blood, twisted and broken. He felt his pride rising to the crescendo. He sure wasn't possibly gonna be touched by a 'hole', now would he? He came in and hunched beside her, and twisted her ankle. That sound of breaking her feet ringed through his skin like a trophy for his triumph. This is what they did, right? Bent her feet so she could not come walking back for her revenge, right? He exhaled a breath that he didn't realise he was holding back until then.

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  A moment passed by. The night was calm again. His breathing had returned to normalcy too. It was the time for him to get back to his manor and get his much-needed fucking sleep.

  He turned around.

  She appeared before his face.

  He fell back.

  "That... that's not... possible-" He looked at the floor slowly. The blood was there. The body was gone.

  His blood ran cold.

  "Come back." She said again. This time her voice was not broken, neither did she sound like she was on the verge of death. It was a calm voice, so calm that it struck fear in his heart, like a distant force pulling you towards it fiercely, and you have no other way than to surrender.

  He ran out of the room and fell on the stairs, and pushed himself up on all his four to escape.

  Her bloodshot eyes followed him. She was watching. In silence.

  He came to the outer courtyard and banged on the door again, his hands and feet thrashing about wildly.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  Flammel turned around to find her approaching him, her feet hanging in the air, broken and bent backwards.

  "Whore!" He barked, his fire sword materialising beneath his palm. He struck the door with it. Nothing happened.

  "Why?!" He continued to struck until he felt tiredness taking over his limbs. It was as if the door was protected by some kind of invisible barrier that he could not pass through.

  And then he felt it- cold, bony fingers tapping on his shoulder. The overwhelming stench of rotting flesh twisted his guts and he faltered back, vomiting across the dry grass on the ground.

  "Should I open the door for you?" She said again, and this time, when he looked at her corpse-like face, he finally realised why she was repeating the same sentence over and over again.

  Because this was the exact same thing he had mocked her with when he was raping her and she was staring at the door, hoping to escape, and he had turned her fear into her worst nightmare.

  But now, even with her feet bent backwards and torn apart from her core, she had come back crawling out of her nightmare, just so she could claim what belonged to her - His life.

  She smiled, a cold brutal smile that churned his insides into a thick mess of flesh and gore.

  "So you have come to take your revenge on me, huh? You want to kill me because I didn't let you go? You want to kill me because I raped you?" His grip tightened around the hilt of his sword, his rage rising up higher. "You can't do shit. You will never kill me. You could not kill me even if you tried a thousand times. A whore like you is just as good as the hole you have. But I tore apart your hole too, did I not? So now, you are good for nothing. Nothing at all."

  His chest was rising up and down now from the exertion of his heavy breathing. And then she began to slither closer to him.

  He felt his bones crawl back under his skin.

  Under the full moon he could see her clearly- her body drowsed in thick black smoke, her long hair unkempt and flapping around her like starving tentacles, her bloodshot eyes boring right inside his soul, her mouth a vicious line of a gory smile, her young breasts palpable enough to be outlined and her ankles broken, her delicate feet twisted backwards. She had rotting flesh slipping away from her face and body every now and then, as if she had aged a decade's years within the span of a few faltering minutes. But above all, what deeply instilled fear in his body and mind was the way she seemed famished - famished for Flammel's flesh and soul.

  "You shall die." She said.

  She was close now, so close that even through the Death Miasma enveloping her bare body, Flammel could see her intestines hanging out of her vagina, which was in turn, torn apart too.

  His eyes widened. He could now feel what he had compelled her to feel then - helplessness and hopelessness. He didn't like the feeling. He was always the predator and never the prey. He always had the power but was never overpowered. But now, the tables had been turned over.

  Before he could even grasp what was happening, he felt his chest being cut through. By his own sword.

  He had stabbed himself.

  He opened his mouth to say something but felt those bony fingers on his tongue. And then it was pulled out. He cried out, but no sound came out of him. She continued to stare at him, her smile widening in response to his pain.

  And then, he cut through his heart deeper.

  Somewhere in the back of his head he thought it was over, that he had succumbed to his fate. But no. He felt those same rotting fingers inside him once more, this time pulling out his insides from his groin. He wanted to tell her to stop, beg her to cease inflicting pain upon him, but all he could do was huff and puff and vomit out blood from his already bleeding mouth.

  She opened her mouth, several leeches were hanging from between her bloody teeth, and she spoke.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  This time, it was her laughter that rang through the night, mocking him of his powerlessness. Pain shot across his trembling body as she twisted his ankles, bending them backwards just like he did to her feet.

  He looked down only to find her looking up at him with that open mouth of hers, leeches crawling across her tongue now and she was laughing at him while draining away his life vitality slowly.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  She laughed again and pierced his body with her rotting fingers, cutting him here and there, slashing through his eyes and throat, peeling off his skin from wherever she liked.

  "Should I open the door for you?"

  She put her hand inside his cut-open chest and dug into his heart, stabbing it with her fingernails again and again.

  Standing on the edge of his death, Flammel could finally see what was hidden from his eyes before, or precisely, what she had kept hidden from him all this time and now had chosen to reveal, only to serve his death colder than what it already was.

  The door Flammel had so desperately tried to open was actually open all this while- his mind was just under her control. The men he had called for were all there - their corpses scattered across the ground like mauled farm livestock. He had killed them. The full moon had turned bloody, and those white night flowers had blood dripping down from them. His entire estate was in ruins and he was right there when all of it had happened- He was the one who made it happen.

  "So... shall I open the door for you now?" She sang right beside his ear and smiled at him - the smile so sinister he would not forget even in Hell.

  He felt his arm move one more time to put his sword on his neck, the cold metal stinging against his flesh. He tried his best to pull it away and failed. He was under control, surely, just not of his own. Through his blurred and bloody vision he could see her eyes - those bloodshot orbs were staring right back at him, relishing the terror that they instilled within him, savouring his fear and helplessness.

  Blood splattered. She laughed.

  She had made him cut off his head.

  The night witnessed her dance among the fallen corpses, heard her joyful screeches when she bathed in their blood and drained their flesh. And when she devoured their souls, she reminded the awakening world of who she was herself.

  "Death."