Heather's heart pounded in her chest as she stared the vampire down. He had seemed so kind, so down to earth, so... human. Clearly, however, it had all been an act. Her shock was soon replaced by outrage. How dare he?! How dare this monster try to get near Rylan, to get near her, to manipulate them into playing whatever twisted game he had going on in his head? Heather's face turned stony, and she could tell Chris picked up on the change in energy, as he actually took a step back from the glass. His own expression turned cold as well, watching her turn on him now that she knew what he was.

"I have no words," Heather said, her voice dripping with venom. "I should have known better than to trust a pretty face."

She turned around, taking the stance she had been trained too: shoulders squared, feet facing forward, gun cluched closely. She couldn't bring herself to tear her eyes away from the door. She didn't dare look back at him.

"Oh, so you think I'm pretty?"

Now she had no choice but to whip around. She glared, still maintaining the callousness she felt in her raw emotion.

"Don't you play your games with me," she hissed out through clenched teeth. "They won't work this time. I know your true intentions. You'll either try to seduce me or break me. Whatever you find easier."

"I have ways to make this as hard for you as it is for me, if that's really where you want to go with this."

Heather crossed her arms over her chest. "You're the one who snuck into my compound. To what, feed? Get gratification from some naive woman? You're kidding yourself if you thought you'd get away with it."

"I came here for food- and not the connective tissue variety... blood, I mean. You're not wrong to think there are vampires like that, but there are way fewer than the ones who are just trying to survive. And me? I'm just trying to survive."

"You can say whatever you want," Heather said. "I know what vampires are like."

"Yeah, and I know what your kind is like too. You're the species that gave us model citizens such as Ted Bundy as well as the folks who invented fascism. You guys love to kill each other as much as we love to kill you."

Heather stalked up to the glass, placing a hand against it. She wasn't afraid of him - wary and spiteful for sure, but not fearful - and she let it show. Chris didn't falter either, stepping right up to meet her gaze. He was over her initial change in personality.

"You know the first thing they showed me when I was in school?" Heather asked. "The video of Howard’s assassination. I knew about it, and I'd seen photos, and written summations... but I'd never seen the video. It was captured on live TV, as you know."

"Of course I know. I watched it myself the day it happened."

So he was older than Heather had pegged him to be. Then where did the 33 come from? She must have just invited him to pull the number out of his ass. She brushed off the meaningless thought process though; dishonesty was to be expected.

"Then you understand why it's the worst piece of footage ever captured."

"I'd argue there's worse. But yeah, definitely top ten." He rolled his eyes, dropping his sarcasm for a moment. "Don't preach to me about how awful that day was. I know good and well. Everyone's lives changed, not just mankind's."

"But we're the ones who suffered for it."

Chris laughed aloud, a dry and sardonic cackle. "Oh, Jesus, you don't know what suffering is. Come back to me when you've been prowling this miserable place for a hundred years. I've seen it all. I've felt it all. You? Well, all I can gather is that you have a bad case of mommy issues and the temperament of a honey badger."

Heather's face, originally shrouded by darkness, couldn't hide the surprise she felt. This was the game he was going to play. He wanted to dissect her. Try and pick at her wounds and see what made her flinch. She smiled, a sudden change that made Chris raise an eyebrow.

"I hate to say it, but I'm mildly impressed," Heather said. "You almost had me there."

"That wasn't manipulation, that was me being mean to you because you're acting like a self-righteous jerk-off. You're just like every other fucking cop that's ever existed; somebody gave you a gun and it went straight to your head. If you think you're some kind of hero, you're not. You're just a victim of a society fueled by propaganda and capitalism, like literally every other human who was born after the Industrial Revolution. Grow up."

He turned around and walked away, sitting down on the bed. Heather stared after him, her eyes wild with anger. She wanted to say something so badly. Every nerve in her body sparked with anticipation. But no. She was too stubborn to let him win. She instead took a deep breath, turning around and walking back to where she was posted. It didn’t help her, though.

"Sweetheart, a little piece of unsolicited advice: never let me get the last word, that always goes straight to my head. Just ask anyone who's ever dated me."

Heather repressed the urge to slam her head against the wall. It was going to be a long night.

Chris stopped talking eventually, likely bored by everything he said bouncing off the imaginary brick wall that she'd built between them. However, he did continue to find ways to annoy her. He bounced one of his shoes off the wall repeatedly, then went to flushing the toilet over and over again, and then went to messing with the sink, where he did speak once again, going on a rant about the water quality of coastal North Carolina and how it was like drinking water from a gutter. After that, however, he simply laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling. She found her eyes trailing to him.

He didn't look much different then he had the morning she'd met him, save for the ugly navy jumpsuit that replaced his own clothes. She let her eyes study the features of his face - almond shaped eyes, full lips, an aquiline nose, cheekbones that entered the room before he did. It was easy to tell he was handsome even before he became a vampire. And it was unfortunate he was; to think at one point the humanity he fronted as having could have once been genuine. In another life…

But she didn't want to get herself into a full blown existential crisis, thinking about what it was like before the war. Where the world was much smaller, she could’ve driven or flown to any destination she wanted and still found civilization, where the internet ruled culture, and modern technologies that she was familiar with were just a radical idea bouncing around the brain of a genius. She felt a pang of nostalgia for a time she didn't even live in.

Her shift finally ended when another guard came through the door: Emily, a young woman with waves of jet black hair. She was one of those people whose resting face made her look like she was on the verge of tears, and it always made Heather slightly uncomfortable.

"Come to put me out of my misery?" Heather asked.

"On the next training drill, I'll make sure to do just that," Emily snarked.

Oh, right, Emily hated her. Heather never could pinpoint why. It may have been a general problem with authority, but that was a completely incompatible trait with being a guard. Did Heather do or say something that rubbed her the wrong way and she was just one of those people who held a grudge over even the smallest misdeeds? More likely, but Heather couldn't even begin to wonder what she'd said or done to Emily that could be taken as such. Or maybe it was internalized misogyny? Yeah, probably that, because it seemed that Emily had a disdain for the female guards when she got along just fine with the male ones. Well, after a few hours trapped in the same room as Chris, maybe she'd develop a hatred for men as well.

"Careful with this one. He's mouthy."

"Funny; that's what my mom used to say to my teachers," Chris piped up, the first time he had spoken in a while.

Heather gave her younger coworker a look that read 'see what I mean?' before leaving the room, not able to stop a small smile from forming on her face at Emily's expense. Okay, maybe she was being spiteful about it, but if anyone had to suffer it was at least someone as rude as Emily. As she moved through the halls, she caught up with Josh, who looked like he'd had an equally rough night.

"That was medieval torture," Josh said. "I think we could report this to the Mayor for abuse of workers or whatever."

Heather laughed. "Oh please. Your assignment can't be worse than mine."

"Does yours snore like an overweight old man with emphysema?"

"No, and that's a very specific analogy."

"That's because it comes from real life experience. Grandpa got kicked out of the home and he’s been living with us ever since. His bedroom is right next to mine, it’s awful."

"How does one get kicked out of a nursing home?" Heather asked, amused.

"Groping the lady nurses, mostly. And making loud noises like 'AWWOOGAA!' when you do it."

"...Oh."

"Yeah. Mom says he hasn't been the same since the battle of Winston-Salem. But enough about my weird grandpa, how was your shift?"

"Fucking awful. He's one of those people that does his best to get under your skin."

"Oh, I knew a guy like that in high school. He was very popular."

Heather let out a plaintive sigh. "They always are."

"With all due respect, since you're my supervisor and all, your first mistake is seeing it as a person."

Heather stopped in front of the women's locker room, lingering outside so she could continue her conversation. "I have complicated feelings about that. I feel like most of the people devoted to calling the humanoid creatures by dehumanizing pronouns easily fall into the trap of underestimating their intelligence. They're monsters for sure, but they know our psychology. They've either lived among us, or were once one of us. And my guy? He sniffed out my insecurities from a mile away."

Josh sighed, scratching the back of his neck. "I guess you have a point. But while I get what they are and still feel like we can't go around acting like they're anymore than beasts. They're like raccoons. It's in their nature to cause problems on purpose."

"God, what bad experiences have you had with raccoons?"

The younger man smiled, turning towards the men's locker room. "I think I've dumped enough of my baggage on you already. Have a good day, Heather."

"You too; stay out of trouble and away from raccoons!"

He chuckled as he entered the locker room. She stood there for a second, pursing her lips. Maybe Josh wasn't a bad option, considering her only other prospect was a vampire that could have killed her and her sister had they actually let him into their lives.

Heather collected her belongings and clocked out, driving straight home as opposed to doing any shopping. It was Rylan's day off, anyway. She pulled up to their home, a two story house that looked the same as every other one in the neighborhood. Their parents had bought it decades ago, after they first got married. After their mother disappeared, they'd managed to keep the house for themselves, but they still had to pay off the mortgage. Which, as it turned out, their mother shouldered the burden of. She was a scientist - a biomedical researcher, to be specific - and as such one of the higher paid citizens of their community. Heather entered the house to find her sister sitting on the couch, eating cereal and watching political talk shows. Rylan seemed to live for discourse, meanwhile it just made Heather want to piledrive her face through concrete.

"Hey sis, how was work?" Rylan asked.

Heather thought for a moment, and realized she didn't have the heart to tell her that their crush was a monster. Instead, she took the easy way out by telling a half truth.

"Not great. The new positions are killing me. Standing in the same place all night is even worse than sitting at a desk. At least in my office I actually had something to do. This system is a joke."

"Desperate times and all that," Rylan said.

She turned up the volume on the TV. Two men were sitting at a news desk, accompanied by a woman anchor. They all were having a heated discussion. Heather tilted her head, curious to at least know what they were talking about.

"Bringing back a central form of government is the way to go," the older of the two men said. "It's what this country was founded on! And don't cry to me about the rights of compounds to govern themselves, because states were allowed to enact their own laws."

"Yeah, which were regulated and manipulated by the federal government and other meddling forces!" The younger man argued. "I mean, look at the last president we had! Four years of policies that actively hurt and divided this country!"

"And now we're more divided than ever!" The older man said, getting heated. "And it's not the fault of a president, it's the fault of creatures who thought we were vermin they could just wipe out of existence!"

The younger man leaned forward in his seat. "I never even said anything about the war, but since you want to bring it up, let's! I am not going to excuse what happened, as it permanently changed life as we know it and nearly wiped out the goddamned human race, but I'll ask you this: if Howard had never become president, would this ever even have happened? Was this not the final straw after years of systemic oppression, corrupt politicians, and policies that benefited the 1% instead of the 99%? Couldn't that be what led the witches to develop such a superiority complex over us? Think that we were unevolved? Face it Chuck, they look at us the way we look at monkeys throwing their feces at each other. We need to find a way to come back together and do good, without the prehistoric governmental values made by slave owners in the 18th century. That's what got us into trouble in the first place! That, and the fact we choose to hate what we don't understand. What we refuse to understand."

"Christ, Rylan, could you turn that shit off?"

"Shh, the man has a point!"

"No amount of whataboutism could change or justify what happened. Now put on something we can both stomach, for God's sake."

She finished the ham and cheese sandwich she had made, her last meal before she planned on passing out for the next eight hours.

"You're not even using the term whataboutism right," Rylan sighed, annoyed. "But fine."

She changed the channel to a much more tolerable local talk show, and Heather sat down on the couch, choosing to forget about her problems at least temporarily.

Later that night, Heather entered the prison, noticing the lobby was more empty than usual. Most of their resources were being used just trying to keep things under control while Montgomery’s husband Isaiah and the rest of the IT team desperately tried to fix the system. But it was fried by something they didn't understand and possibly never would, at least not without getting themselves into very dangerous territory. A witch had certainly done it, but for what reason? And where were they? Not that it was hard for witches to evade capture. Humans may have had weapons and armies, but at the end of the day, witches were still much more powerful, even more so than vampires and werewolves.

As she was clocking in, she spotted Montgomery. The Warden flagged her down, and Heather made her way over, worried that next she was just gonna tell her more bad news.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I wanted to inform you, a handful of us have been invited to the Mayor's banquet on the 27th. You included."

Heather couldn't prevent her eyes from widening. "But... Why me?"

Montgomery maintained a professional manner about her, but deep down Heather could tell she was just as puzzled. "From what I understand, it's to celebrate the scientific and technological advancements made by the brilliant minds of New Wilmington, your mother being one of them."

"Oh. I see."

Montgomery gave her a sympathetic look. "I know your mother’s disappearance may still be a sore subject for you, but I believe the Mayor simply wishes to recognize her achievements. You don't have to RSVP; though I highly suggest you do. It's not wise to upset the highest rung on the ladder."

Heather let out a small sigh. Her boss had a point. "Okay... how much do you want to bet I can still squeeze into my old prom dress?"

As expected, the joke did not go over well.

"Please buy a new one."

Montgomery slipped away, and Heather found herself mumbling under her breath.

"With what money?"

Heather was already in a bad mood thanks to the conversation with her boss, but it worsened as she made her way closer and closer to Chris's cell. She could already hear his voice echoing through the metal corridors.

"Every day I spend my time, drinkin' wine, feelin' fine, waitin' here to find the sign that I can understand, yes I am..."

She braced herself, pressing her access card to the door's scanner. It opened, revealing Chris lounging on his bed, while the man guarding him stood there, staring off into space as if he were trying to dissociate.

"In the days between the hours, ivory towers, bloody flowers, push their heads into the air, I don't care if I ever know - there I go..."

"Have a good shift?" Heather joked, trying to be chummy with the guard. Liam, she was pretty sure his name was.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

He glared at her. "This isn't even the most annoying thing it's done all evening. Fucker's all yours."

He shoulderchecked her as he left, the door automatically shutting behind him. Heather rolled her eyes. It seemed like all the guards she didn’t share a shift with were pricks.

Chris stopped his serenade, looking over at Heather. "Another day, another dollar, eh short stuff? How much do they even pay you for this, anyway? Has to be pennies an hour, judging by how war-weary you look."

"Have I not made it clear I'm not participating in this?" Heather asked.

"Alright, if you don't want me to talk, then I'll sing to you. The other guy seemed to really like it."

"I don't need your caterwauling. I have my own music I can listen to."

"Caterwauling? You know what, no. Your words can't hurt me. I know that I have talent."

Heather put the wireless earbuds of her music pod into her ears. It was her new strategy to combat Chris's attempts to make her snap at him. She put in on shuffle, pleased to get a good song on the first try. But it didn't take long for Chris to pipe up again.

"You were born bluer than a butterfly; beautiful and so deprived of oxygen… Colder than your father’s eyes, he never learned to sympathize with anyone. I don’t blame you; but I can’t change you. I don’t hate you, but we can’t save you…"

A chill went up Heather's spine at how close to home the lyrics hit for her. She quickly pulled her earbuds out, turning to face him.

"What?" Chris asked. "Have you decided you’d rather listen to my caterwauling instead of that garbage, Heather? That’s right, I can hear it. You’re gonna blow your eardrums out."

"Don't you put my name in your mouth," was all Heather could retaliate with.

"You know what? That's fair. Because I know good and well that you'd never have the decency or respect to call me by my name."

"If you cared so much about respect, you wouldn't be here."

"Neither would you."

Heather caved, walking up to the cell. She ended up nose to nose with him, the only thing keeping them apart several inches of impenetrable glass - though their venomous expressions very well could have melted it.

"I am here because it is my duty to protect the people of this compound," Heather said, her voice level but still full of malice. "I'm what stands between you and their lives."

Chris's anger turned into disbelief. "Duty?!" He balked. "God, you're deluded. In my past life I was a vet tech; do you think I went running around acting like Jesus himself sent me just because I was performing an essential service? P.S., dipshit, you're wasting time and resources keeping me here. You may as well just kill me."

"I gladly would, but we've decided to show mercy to your kind. You should be thanking Mayor Townsend for that."

Chris let out another one of his humorless laughs. "That White Walker? I don't fucking think so. The only way you'd find me thanking her is if… I can't even think of a good rebuttal, that was such a fucking stupid comment. You should get an award. Wait, you're childless, right? You, ma'am, are actually eligible for a Darwin award. Usually it's reserved for guys who do things like go on missionary trips to islands untouched by modern civilization and get Magellaned for it, but I think you'd be a good contender for the thrown out onto the front lines of a society that only cares about money as a sacrificial lamb to keep all the other sheep docile category, because Lord knows it's gonna get you killed one day. It's the same thing they did to kids who were mad about 9/11. Time is a flat circle."

He illustrated his point by drawing a large circle into the air. Heather clenched her jaw. She wanted to yell, to scream, to throw an absolute tantrum. To walk into the cell, pin that vampire against the wall, and hammer it into him how wrong he was. Instead, she shook her head, exasperated.

"I'm so done with you. You're unlike any vampire I've ever encountered. You're not trying to be slimy, or manipulative, or flirtatious, you're-"

"Calling you out. Yeah. It's not like I have anything better to do in this Godforsaken hellhole. And guess what? You make a very easy target, especially because the girl I met is worlds away from the person you actually seem to be."

"Funny, I could say the same thing about you."

"Sure. The difference being I haven't convinced myself you're a villain."

Heather scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. "Don't try to front like you don't hate humans."

Chris shrugged. "You’ve got me, I always kind of have hated people. Blame it on too much George Carlin too young. But here's the difference between you and me. Your world is black and white. Vampires are evil, humans are good. You guarding a prison full of sentient beings being held without trial is right, somebody taking desperate measures such as stealing to survive is wrong. Me, on the other hand, I'm not a fucking six year old. I believe in nuance. I see the good, I see the bad. I see the good in you, as much as the bad drowns it out. And it makes me a little sick that you can't do the same for me, but I really don't know what I expected. Tonight's your lucky night, because I'm done trying to reason with you, trying to talk with you, and trying to draw some sense out of you."

“Good, because I know you're just playing a mind game."

"...If I ever do get my hands on your firearm, rest assured that my first priority will be blowing my brains out. You'll be just fine."

He walked back over to his bed, flopping down on his side with his back to her. Heather turned her back to him in return, putting her earbuds back in her ears. She had just started playing her music again, when he started to sing. This time, however, it wasn't to taunt her.

"How long have we been here? Am I ever coming down? I need to find some lower thinking if I'm gonna stick around... I'm not going anywhere, who do I think I'm kidding? I'm still standing in the same place where you left me standing. I am easy to find..."

Heather took out her earbuds, a moment of clarity washing over her. Did he sing to vent his emotions like she had for so many years?

No, no, that was impossible. He was a vampire. Vampires weren't supposed to feel things, at least not things like that. But he wasn't just reciting lyrics he knew like he was earlier. There was a palpable feeling of loss and struggle; as if he was hoping to be heard by someone who clearly wasn't alive anymore.

Heather shook it off. Another trick. Another trick. Another trick.

But she couldn't bring herself to stop listening.

"That! Fucking! Vampire! Trying! To! Tell! Me! How! I! Think! And! Feel! Who! The! Fuck! Is! He! To! Tell! Me! I'm! Wrong! Like! I'm! Some! Misguided! Naive! Little! Princess! He! Needs! To! Rescue! From! Her! Evil! Mother's! Tower!"

Heather punctuated each word with another wallop to the punching bag. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. Anytime she thought about the smoothness of his voice, or the lyrics he sang so sorrowfully just as easily as he breathed, she gave yet another blow to the punching bag. He was getting under her skin, and she hated that. She was stronger than that.

"Jesus Christ girl, what'd that bag of sand ever do to you?"

Heather paused, looking up to find her sister in the doorway. She was drinking a mason jar full of coffee - God, no wonder they ran out so fast.

"I'm mad," Heather huffed. "About... work stuff."

"Yeah, I could tell by the way you were screaming at the top of your lungs about how you don't need no shit from no man. Oh, and by the way, you're sweating like a damn pig."

Heather looked in the large, reflective pane of glass that had been sitting in the garage for as long as she could remember. Sure enough, she had loose curls cemented to her forehead, and her dark grey leggings and sports bra were soaked in unflattering places. She sighed, slumping over in a chair she kept next to her exercise equipment.

"Not my fault this garage is hotter than Hell. Speaking of, when's that air conditioning guy supposed to be coming?"

"Not until next week. They said our air conditioning is still working so it's technically not an ‘emergency’."

Heather let out a low snort. "What a joke. Did you cuss 'em out?"

"I was tempted, but honestly I didn't feel like it would help our case at all."

Heather chuckled at that. Her cell phone began to ring, and she picked it up, curious as to who was calling her. To her surprise, it turned out to be Josh. She accepted the call, not knowing what to expect.

Josh cut right to the chase. "Heather! You've gotta get down to Market Street!"

In the background, she could hear the jeering of a crowd. "...Why? Is there some kind of awful live performance going on?"

"No, they actually caught a witch!"

Heather gasped. "A witch?! That's impossible!"

"It is when they're using magic, but this one hasn't done anything! They just strung her up in the middle town! Now the Tactical Team's coming in and the Mayor! Come on Heather, you can't miss this!"

Heather thought about how sweaty and grumpy she was, but disregarded it. Maybe watching the prison take in an actual witch would be some catharsis.

"I'll be right over!" She hung up, turning to Rylan. "Come on sis, we gotta beat the Tactical Turds there!"

"Oh Lord, here we go..." Rylan said, but she climbed into the car with Heather anyway.

Heather made it to Market Street in record time, parking in one of the few spots she could find before racing towards the center of the action. She and Rylan pushed through the crowd, eventually coming across the spectacle. But it wasn't what she had been expecting at all. Instead of a witch cackling and cursing them all, she found one that was sobbing hysterically.

The witch was strung up by her ankles from the side of a building, wrapped in bonds that looked like something a magician would have tried to escape from as part of their show.

"Please!" She pleaded, her cries falling on deaf ears. "I just want my sister back. That's all I want! That's all I asked for!"

The crowd continued to shout and curse at her, one person even throwing a glass bottle at her, which shattered against the bricks next to her head. Heather felt Rylan grab her arm.

"I don't like this..." her sister said.

"It's crocodile tears," Heather replied. "The moment we let her go, she'll wreak havoc for sure."

"Don't you think she would have done that already?!" Rylan argued. "I mean, for fuck's sake, look at her! You can't tell me those tears are fake."

Heather looked the witch in the face. She looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place her, especially because the other woman's features were contorted from her sobbing. If she was faking her anguish, she certainly was talented at it. She continued to yell out to the crowd, her wet blue eyes puffy and pale cheeks flushed pink.

"She didn't do anything wrong!" She sobbed. "She wanted to get new lipstick! She didn't even steal it, she bought it! I know she was branded a Heretic by our own kind, but she is not evil!"

Heather's heart dropped to her feet. Just a few days before, her coworkers had given her several unopened lipsticks. Rylan moved forward, but Heather stopped her, pulled out of her moment of shock.

"What are you doing?!" She gasped.

Rylan ripped her arm away from Heather's grasp. "This isn't justice, dude. This is cruelty."

"It's not like - Ry, they're not people, they're monsters."

Rylan's face contorted with anger. "Are you really trying to justify this?! What if that were me up there, pleading for your safety?!"

"We're not witches!"

"Yeah, and I would hope we're not soulless bastards either, because that'd make us no better than the worst of them!"

The Tactical Team began to pull up, and people cheered. Instead of going towards the witch, they started to perform crowd control. Heather continued to hold Rylan back, though she struggled in her grasp. They were both startled by the witch suddenly gasping, her eyes moving up towards the building across the street.

"You!" She cried, now furious. "You promised me my sister!"

A shot rang out, and everything seemed to move in slow motion until the very second the bullet pierced the witch's skull. Blood and viscera splattered on the wall behind her. All went quiet for a few moments, until the crowd erupted into cheers, as if it were a football game and their team had just made a winning touchdown. Heather turned around to find Julia on the roof of the building, lowering her rifle. Next to her was Mayor Townsend.

"Citizens of New Wilmington," Mayor Townsend said, "we continue to be victorious over the monsters that have plagued this world for over a century now. They may think they have won the war, but they have yet to realize the true power we humans hold!"

The crowd cheered even louder for this. Heather turned to Rylan.

"Ry, let's... Rylan?"

Her sister had her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. Heather frowned.

"Jesus Christ, it was just a witch!"

Rylan turned to her sister, and in her brown eyes was a storm of fury and heartache. "You saw the same fucking thing as I did. You saw what they did. And you're going to try and tell me it was okay 'cause it was 'just a witch'?"

"We need to protect ourselves!"

"That wasn't self defense! That was murder!"

"But-"

Instead of responding verbally, Rylan hocked a loogie, spitting it onto the ground right by Heather's feet. She then stormed off, still visibly shaken by the ordeal.

They didn't talk for the rest of the day.

Heather found herself standing in the middle of a clearing. Confusion immediately rushed over her - she'd never been to a forest before. The long grass swayed around her legs, being blown by a warm breeze. The air was humid, but it wasn't insufferably hot. In the dark sky above her, the clouds gave way to show a full moon. It was beautiful, but she couldn't drink it in - not until she figured out what was going on. She moved her hands, only to find them chained, as well as her ankles. She was clothed in nothing but an ankle-length cotton gown, as stark white as the moon. Bugs nipped the bare skin of her arms, and she moved to swat them, rattling the chains.

Surrounding her was a group of people who mostly seemed indifferent to the position she was in. Some flanked her, holding up the ends of the chains that bound her. She felt like an animal about to be led to slaughter. A dark pit formed in her stomach as she realized that could be exactly what was happening. As for why and how, she didn't know. A woman wearing dark robes approached her. She physically appeared to be around forty, but was clearly a witch, so there was no telling how old she truly was. The powerful ones did enjoy unnaturally extending their life spans. She pulled back the hood of her cloak, revealing pin straight honey blonde hair.

"Magnolia Knotley."

Heather wanted to say that wasn't her name, but the words were stuck in her throat. All she could do was stare down the woman in front of her, waves of rage and fear roiling in her chest like the ocean during a storm.

"You have been convicted of treason against your Coven and its leaders. For this crime, we have chosen to brand you a Heretic and strip you of your magic. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Heather had a lot of things she wanted to say, but ended up speaking words that weren't even her own.

"Yeah. Bite me."

The crowd around her murmured. The Coven leader's expression didn't even twitch. She picked up a goblet off a serving tray held by a child no older than 12. The cup was filled to the brim with a liquid that looked menacingly dark in the moonlight. Oh God, was that blood? Her stomach churned at the thought The leader approached her, grabbing the sides of her face, forcing her mouth open slightly. Heather wanted to struggle, but her mind and body were completely disconnected from each other by that point. She sputtered as the dark liquid was poured into her mouth. To her relief, it obviously wasn’t blood, but whatever the concoction was didn’t taste much better.

Once Heather had finished the potion, the Coven leader turned around, starting towards a path in the woods ahead of them. The other witches followed suit, urging Heather along. As they walked, the only sounds were the crunch of feet on foliage, and the droning of summer insects in the night. It was almost peaceful, but a sense of dread shrouded her like a curtain.

She was led to a river cutting through the forest, the rush of the water audible. It rained a lot during the summer, making it overflow past its normal banks as a result. She froze, staring at the water in terror. She felt herself get pushed to her knees, and looked up at the people around her. There was a spark of light, and Heather watched as a man's hand began glowing with a white light. He pressed his palm to a rod he was holding, which ended in an insignia. It started to glow just as hot. Heather's heart pounded in her ears as she realized what was happening.

A woman behind her pulled her bundles of curly hair out of the way, revealing the vulnerable nape of her neck. Heather's terror grew as the man approached with the hot brand, almost purposefully slow. Her legs burned with the urge to run, but still, nothing happened. She let out a scream as the hot brand pressed against her neck. She didn't even know what it was a brand of; all she had caught in the dark was a vague serpentine shape. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the rod was removed from her. The man leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Don't worry, my beautiful flower. The true pain will come from within."

She was pulled back up to her feet. Her fear was replaced by nausea, but her stomach still refused to let her have the privilege of emptying her stomach. In fact, she kept her head held high as they hoisted her upright.

"For your reckless use of magic," said the Coven leader, "the only adequate punishment was to strip it away. No longer will you feel it flowing through your veins, and no longer will you be in touch with our Goddess Athena. You will have a dark pit in your soul that you will never be able to fill. For your traitorous ways, you shall suffer."

Heather looked the coven leader directly in the eye. She smiled. The older witch looked disgusted, but Heather couldn’t focus on that. She felt her body jerking. Away from her captors, away from the chains. They rattled around her wrists and ankles as she raced straight towards the river. The witches watched, shocked, and Heather caught only a glimpse of their faces before the swollen river ripped her away. Her body was shoved to and fro by the turbulent current, bashing against rocks, water flowing into her mouth that she choked on and spit out. Soon enough, she could no longer keep her head above the surface. Her eyes and lungs were starting to burn. Above the surface, moonlight trickled down, tantalizing and cool.

"You'll wake up any second," she assured herself mentally. "Any second now, this horrible dream will be over, and you can go hug your cat and stress eat some ice cream. It's only a dream, Heather."

Well, no. It was a nightmare. One there was no sign of her waking from anytime soon. Finally, the burning in her chest became too much, and despite her better judgement she took in a breath. Pain radiated through her as she took water into her lungs, and she started to thrash even harder, the fear of being drowned alive not nearly as severe as how much it hurt.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Her mind screamed. "I don't want this! What have I done?!"

A gurgled, indistinct noise escaped from her throat, creating bubbles in the water around her.

Heather's eyes snapped open. She didn't even know when she had blacked out. Or wait, was she awake? Miraculously, she seemed to be. Instead of being surrounded by forest, she was in her stuffy bedroom. And aside from the sweat clinging to her skin, she didn't feel wet. She sighed in relief, flopping back against the pillows. But her relief was short-lived. On her ceiling, instead of the mural of blue waves and a sunset sky, there was a message scrawled out in desperate, fingerpainted handwriting.

IN MY DEATH, YOU WILL KNOW HOW SHE SUFFERED.

This time Heather actually woke up, letting out a gasp as she sprung straight up in bed. She quickly looked up, relieved to find the mural. Awoken by her, Maru let out a grumbled little mew, standing up and stretching. He approached her from the end of the bed, climbing into her lap and head butting her chin. She hugged him tightly, repressing the tears that had begun stinging her eyes.

Carrying the fat cat with her, she went downstairs, welcoming the chill that hung in the air. To her surprise, when she walked into the kitchen, she found that Rylan was awake as well. She was sitting at the table, playing a game on her phone with an empty bowl of what appeared to have been cookie dough sitting in front of her. She had the same idea as Heather, it seemed.

"...Did you have a nightmare too?" Heather asked, only half expecting a reply. Rylan was the queen of giving the cold shoulder.

"Yep. We pissed that witch off bad."

"Are you sure that's what it is?" Heather asked. "She didn't look like she was performing a spell, and even if she wanted to, her hands were literally tied."

Rylan paused her game, placing the phone face-down on the table. "I don't fucking know, man. That whole thing was wrong. I know you don't agree, but it was. Something or someone is punishing us for doing nothing about it."

"You think this is a punishment?"

"Well duh. What else could it be? I felt like I was actually dying, even though I knew it was a dream. It's... a curse. Face it, we don't know jack shit about witches. They keep the secrets of their magic and how their society functions well hidden. For all we know, this was the plan all along."

"To be publicly executed so you could give some random humans bad dreams? Sure, Ry. I believe that."

Rylan rested her chin in her hand, leveling a look at Heather. "Oh, yeah? Well enlighten me on what you think happened, Supervisor Hall."

Heather bit her lip. "We could argue morality all day. But thinking about it, it's just... A witch comes in out of nowhere, doesn't fight off the people capturing her, gets strung up really elaborately - I mean seriously, who has a straightjacket just lying around the house ready to go whenever the opportunity to capture a witch arises? And the fact that Mayor Townsend was there with the Tactical Team, as if she knew what was going to happen... the whole thing is just way too convenient to be spontaneous. But I have no idea what the motivations even would be for killing a witch in such an elaborate, public manner."

"She was a good person put in a bad situation, it was obvious from the get-go. Someone made a promise to her, and broke it. They set her up."

"I... I don't want to think about the possibility of one of the higher-ups collaborating with her kind. It's just too much."

"Well, if we're gonna go by what she said and the weird circumstances, that looks exactly like what happened. And you know what? I'm more concerned about her, because she wasn't trying to hurt anybody, or steal, or whatever else you act like these prisoners come in for. Yeah, I said it. Half of them weren't even fucking doing anything wrong, and y'all lock them up anyway. I'm tired of acting like none of them have any humanity. I know what we were taught, the stories we were told... the image of that vampire standing at the podium holding his head by the hair is ingrained into my brain for life. But think about it. The case for none of these humanoid beings having any humanity whatsoever. It's... stupid. It doesn't make sense."

Heather was shaking, but whether it was out of outrage over what she was hearing or fear of being confronted with those thoughts was unclear. Rylan took her lack of response as an invitation to continue.

"I don't know, something’s wrong with this. Not just with the witch. With all of this. Someone somewhere has a motive for setting up the system to be the way it is, and she proves it. I've been doing a lot of research on government - how it used to be, particularly in the US, along with how compounds tend to govern themselves - and it seems like we've forgotten how easy it is for a system to become corrupt. You give someone power who shouldn't have it, they're gonna abuse it. Every. Single. Time. Maybe not always to the extent of, say, Joseph Stalin, but it's gonna happen."

"Thinking like that could get you in big trouble, Ry."

"Exactly why I should be thinking it. The fact they don't want me to proves I'm onto something."

Heather leaned against the counter, not able to look her sister in the eye. It was all too much for her to stomach, but she didn't have an argument for it aside from what they were taught and her own personal experience working at the prison - two things that Rylan would clearly write off. Instead, she pushed herself back upright, approaching the situation with sympathy as opposed to anger.

"I know it's hard for our generation, but-" The look on her sister's face stopped her in her tracks, causing her to reevaluate. "...I don't know what the fuck you want me to say, Rylan. I really don't."

"I want you to start acting like a human being with a soul instead of a government sanctioned android. That's what I want."

"I'm sorry, I just..."

Rylan waved her off. "Let's just agree to disagree for now, because frankly, I don't want to hear it. And I'm tired of being mad at you over it because it’s pointless. You're never gonna change."

Heather eagerly took the invitation to change the subject and get back into the swing of things with her sister, reaching into the freezer to grab a tub of ice cream. But a hurricane of doubt and anguish still swirled in her mind, threatening to drown out even the most deeply ingrained feelings.