Trigger Warning: mentions of assault, abuse, trauma

She smiled. It was not a nice smile. Cold, unrelenting, and frozen in pain, it traveled from her lips to the icy spark in her hazel eyes and ended on the exhale. Her hand raised slowly, palm extended.

Haah.

In an instant all eleven assailants were clawing the air, dangling in shock, legs kicking wildly, furious noises that could only escape in frantic, choking gutterals. The façon’s eyes roved around, finally landing to meet the icy, smiling stare.

…..’pl…..please….’

Predator becomes prey. Let them worship you with their fear.

She froze, and her head snapped up, the urge to kill whispering in her ear, prompted by the disembodied voices.

You are no different than us. Drop them. Hard.

The smile was still frozen, yet now a twinge hinted at the ugly fight rearing its head in her mind. They were her attackers, now in her power to crush. With one tiny twist of the wrist, all necks would break.

Peace. Be still.

The quiet breath sliced through the cacophonic howl of twisted whispers and settled on her ear like a gentle friend. Quietly, her thoughts began to stabilise. Slowly, her palm lowered. She closed her eyes. The pain from her last memory, bound, gagged, screaming and pleading while the façon had leered, jeering over her in the blank test room, loosening his buckle, seemed to her the only reward for this act of mercy. The hate creeped from the crevices of her recollection as she grit her teeth. The fatal poison, the deed of their malice, crawled and bubbled in her veins, reminding her of her imminent end.

‘WILL YOU NEVER LET ME KILL THE HURT?’

The vivid mental scream echoed at the backs of her assailant-turned-escapees, all tripping and stumbling towards the grey night outside. The façon threw a last glance behind him as he lurched away. Her female silhouette seemed glued to the cold concrete, unmoving, head bowed, eyes closed.

‘Is she praying?!’

His compatriots shoved him forward, almost toppling over and crushing him in the frenzy to escape the empty parking garage. ‘Demons don’t pray, GO!’

In an instant, the cold walls lit with a seering flash. Lightning cracked and ripped through the open abyss of the garage, ricocheting from wall to wall, encircling what had seemed just a moment ago an empty space behind the fleeing mob.

‘ENOUGH.’

Her attackers covered their ears at the thunderous Voice, falling to the ground, dragging themselves frantically into the night. One by one, the façon last of all, they groveled away until, finally, they bolted for the alleys.

If the façon would have looked back again, he would have seen that her attention was focused upwards, past the concrete, past the isolating roof of the garage, past the mob of fleeing humans. This new expression was of Peace, washed in a gentle gleam, as the twisted whispers became ensnared and embodied. Prolonged, pained, inhuman screams ripped through the night. As she closed her eyes for the last time, a horde of shadows fell, writhing, finally chained to their downfall in the face of the Presence above her.

The poison ignited. Her glowing form dropped to the ground. She smiled. It was both a cold and burning, peaceful and triumphant smile. She lay there, flesh burning and melting away, peering up at the Presence none could see approaching, picking her up, smiling down upon her in tones of Love, cradling the demon-child.