Salvation
Donna placed the blue bowl carefully on the altar, ensuring that the vessel's curves fit perfectly in the aperture of the white marble. The blood-curdling screams reverberated through the damp walls of the underground basement as the heat of the fires from the burning stakes seeped through their searing skin.
“Are you sure about this?” Melanie questioned with a hint of doubt in her voice.
“Can you hear the screams of our sisters above?” Donna fumed, as she kept grabbing the jars from the rickety cabinets and tearing off the ingredients one by one, as she threw them into the bowl, “We were the healers of this village. We healed them with our magic and witchcraft. And when the storm comes, they kill us to protect themselves, they drag us out to the town squares and burn us!”
“I understand that,” Melanie pleaded, “But, think about the consequences of this. This is going to set off a chain reaction that will be beyond our control!”
“They promised to protect us!” Donna shouted, her voice rising in harmony with the other witches burning at the stakes above, “The mere mortals cornered them from all sides and they surrendered without putting much of a fight. And, for what? Because they wanted to live and traded their lives for the lives of the ‘evil witches’ living in this town!”
Melanie sighed. She knew the ramifications of this act of retaliation, but she also knew that Donna was right. No matter how many times they would help mere mortals and defend themselves, they would eventually be hunted and burned at the stake all over the country.
“They say that burning us is an act of salvation for them,” Donna smirked, as she pounded all the ingredients in the blue bowl, “This bowl of purity will show them the true meaning of salvation. What we can give, we can also take away!”
The blue bowl, filled with mystical ingredients, began to give off an earthly, eerie glow, as they came together to form a clear, pulsating liquid. Donna smiled in determination as she gently lifted it up from the altar and slowly made her way up the old stone stairways. The heat started to scorch their skin, but it did not matter to them anymore. In a matter of seconds, it would all be over, out in the world in all its glory for the world to witness.
The stairs gave way to a steep inclination, narrowing into a dark tunnel. As they walked along it, they could see the huge cloud of smoke clouding the end of the tunnel, laden with the terrifying glow of the fires and the sparks flowing out of it. The screams became louder and more painful, as they soldiered their way through the strong smoke and the odour of burning flesh and melting bones. The end of the tunnel was finally in sight, the mouth surrounded by tongues and daggers of flames.
"It is time!" Donna said ominously, as Melanie followed her out of the tunnel, into the open flames above. They made their way through the flames, as their dirndls burned bright orange and yellow, skinning them cell by cell. All around them stood tall wooden stakes and trees, with women tied with taught ropes cutting through every inch of their skin and tight enough to crack their bones. The flames from the trees were turning everything to ash as the smoke rose high and clouded their eyes. Their skin was raw and red, melting and bleeding profusely, as their eyeballs bled and started to cook. Standing in the patches where the fires could not reach them, were the mortals who poked and prodded them with hot, metal sticks as they cheered and laughed them on as they burned to their deaths, and laughed at them as the pools of blood led to tiny rivulets meeting at their feet.
Donna and Melanie stood in the middle of the mayhem and bloodshed. Donna faced them and smiled.
"And it shall be done to you, as you have done unto them!" She screamed, gaining their attention. By the time they understood what was happening, it was too late. She raised the blue bowl above her head and poured the glowing potion on the spilled blood.
Without warning, a flash of light erupted from point zero, as electricity coursed through them. And just like that, thentopes fell off them and they could walk through the fires. Their open wounds healed and their raw skin sealed without scars. Their clothes weaved themselves whole and their shoes were mended. But, what the fires gave, the fires also took away.
The mortals enjoying their agony and pain began to experience the same, as their skin melted and fell off their bodies, exposing their raw, bleeding muscles. They began to scream and writhe in pain, their weak bodies crumbing to the burning grounds as their beings absorbed all the fires. As the trees and witches healed, the mortals took the suffering upon themselves.
And at last, the burning fires consumed them all, leaving no mortal behind. As every healed witch came together in an embrace and a promise to claim back what was always theirs, the flailing smoke blew the ashes of the fallen, away into oblivion, never to be seen again.
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