Dreda

The water was calm, and the air was cold. As soon as her bare feet stepped from the filthy grass onto that soft sand her whole body quaked from her toes through the ends of her scorched dark hair.

She paused, but just for a moment. Not out of fear, but out of comfort. This was her place of transformation. If she was meant to have revenge, it would start from whatever was to come next.

Dreda did not know exactly what she must do, so she simply began to walk. Letting every cold grain of sand slide effortlessly through her blackened toes. Speaking to the land in a silent tongue known only by her. Begging it to take her back. To suck her in and show her its secrets. To strip her down to her deepest, barest form, so she could emerge, reborn once again no longer made of flesh and bone. Reborn a demon, a banshee, a specter. A child of darkness who would fold the entire would around her, and drink from the very souls of every man responsible for this nights butchery.

After what felt like hours of silence. Hours of screaming into darkness. It spoke back. The water called her name. But not her Pagan name. It spoke to her new name. A name no letters could spell. A name no voice could sketch. But a name that would soon fill the entire realm with a fear so dark, no one would dare utter it even if their tongues could learn how.

She knew the water was cold, but she had never felt anything so warm. The darkness had already begun to shield her. She could feel it pulling her deeper, and deeper inside of it.

As she walked she tore her dress from her former body as if she were ripping the flesh from off its bones. Step by step she grew closer, tore harder. Until one step was her last, and she was gone. Her tattered dress floating like a shell atop the icy water.”