She felt rather than saw the others turn towards the woods. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The figure reached long skeleton hands outward and black waves of fire shot out towards Mel and the cabin emerging it in a fire. Within seconds the cabin was engulfed in black flames. The screams of her Aunt and Grandmother overpowered the horror Athena felt. She called on her magic with all her strength.
Mel ran from the door of the cabin followed by a few coven members all covered in flames each dropping to the ground. The flames licked their clothes but not extinguishing. Black magic. Athena called to the sky raising her arms and called on the Goddess. She pulled open the sky and the clouds rolled across it. Thunderstruck in the distance. Rain poured down on the cabin. Finally extinguishing the flames with a hiss. Mel and the coven members lay motionless on the ground their clothes blackened by the flames. “Mel…” Athena gasped reaching for her.
“Athena!” Her aunt screamed. Athena was thrown back across the lawn. She tumbled as the electric fire entered her body like fire burning every part of her. Slightly stunned and dizzy Athena opened her eyes to see Oma and Aunt Aurora battling the Darkling, their powers of white light striking the sky as the Darkling’s dark energy grew. The Darkling seemed to grow off the power, sucking the energy in. With every power they sent the Darkling drained their power, her Grandmother’s hair turned white as a ghost and Aunt Aurora’s was flowing suit. They aged before her eyes.
“No!” Athena screamed the air being sucked from her lungs. Athena scrapped her fingers across the dirt grabbing the ground, pulling power from the Earth away from the Darkling. She could see her hands begin to glow as the power was being pulled into her body. The air sizzled, and her hair rose. Slowly Athena got up electricity ran up and down her arms, the hair on her arms stood up as static ran across her body. The wind whipped around her. “Stop…” She whispered. A deadly calm came over the land.
Her Aunt and Grandmother sunk to the ground each turned to look at Athena with fear in their eyes. Athena slowly rose floating just above the ground and staring at the Darkling. The hood of the Darkling was thrown back to reveal a black skeleton head with red glowing eyes in the sockets. Athena reached out her hand and white electricity shot towards the Darkling. The Darkling sent out a stream of black fire toward her. Their powers connected with a loud boom shaking the Earth. They shattered upwards lightning up the sky. The storm Athena had summoned swirled around them as she focused all her energy on the Darkling.
The Darkling’s black versus her white electricity battled back and forth for ground like a pin-pong ball neither one truly winning. As the Darkling’s power got closer to Athena, she could feel the change in her energy and the darkness. The pull. She wanted to accept the darkness when it was near her. Athena wanted to give into it and be free, not to be restrained by the rules and regulations of the light, but she heard her Grandmother’s soft voice in the back of her mind calling out to Athena to be strong, she drew on that strength.
Athena pulled the power from Earth calling on the goddess for strength as her light got closer to the Darkling, they opened their empty socket of mouth and let out a ear-shattering screech. Her Oma and Aunt Aurora coward to the ground covering their ears as Athena twisted away from the sound momentarily stunned. Just enough to be distracted that the Darklings power shot back towards her connecting with her outstretched hand and singeing the back of her hand black throwing her to the ground.
Dazed. Athena looked up to see four more cloaked Darklings join the other Darklings from the fog. Her Grandmother cried out and her Aunt turned to look at her with a searching desperation in their eyes. The Darklings’ let out a teeth-clattering sound between each other in a series of clicks like a foreign language. It was then Athena knew fear, true fear. In the pit of her stomach, the sickness overcame her. Five against one. This is what her Aunt had been hiding. Death was knocking for all of them unless she did something desperate.
Athena would have to do something dangerous. The Darklings focused their power and two sent blasts straight for Oma and Aunt Aurora. “NO!!!” She screamed gripping the Earth once more Athena sucked the remaining power from around her sending a shield of wind and light in front of her Grandmother and Aunt deflecting the blast.
With a unison snap of their necks, the Darklings turned their glowing eyes on her. They reached out their hands like robotic machines and shot uniformed black magic out at her. Athena turned desperately and looked at her family and whispered in the wind. “I’ll always love you.”
“Thena…” Oma whispered tears dripping down her cheeks.
The blow connected with her, and Athena took all the energy in. Accepting it and changing it. She felt her core turn black and her essence start to turn dark. “Goddess… Grant me strength to turn this energy and do one final task…” she whispered. Athena’s once golden eyes slowly turned black to the core but as she felt the energy of the Darklings slowly turn her. The light was slipping away she needed to act before all trace of good was gone, her ability to care was already slipping away with the wind. The power was amazing. She cackled in the wind.
“This ends tonight!” She screamed as black and white fire shot spiraled from her hands breaking off into five parts and hitting the Darklings. Slowly the black fire began to dominate the white. The Darklings let out an ear-splitting screech. As their hoods were thrown back and their bones seemed to turn to ash and the robes floated away in the wind.
Athena felt the power engulf her the darkness pulling her down and sucking her into the center it was devastating. It tore her soul in half the light fighting the dark, too much. Her body was on fire. She knew what was coming, her body couldn’t handle this kind of power. Death was coming to her, and she prayed to the goddess now that they were safe that she be free. Lifting her hands to the sky she screamed as her feet became roots and her arms became branches, and the goddess gave her back to the Earth. Golden leaves grew on that tree like her eyes, and black streaks in the bark reminded them of the price of the darkness.
This she would forever be remembered by the Beatrix coven as the one Priestess that went to the Light and Dark to save them from the Darklings.
The End
Savannah M. Kammer 