Rapunzel stands, her wounds knitting as she advances toward Gothel, her one good eye glowing faintly red. The demon’s presence radiates from her, her golden hair coiling like serpents, the tower trembling with her rage. Blood drips from her torn nightdress, pooling on the splintered floorboards, but her steps are steady, driven by an unnatural force. The candlelight flickers, casting jagged shadows on the tattered tapestries, their stitched women seeming to writhe in silent agony. The air is thick with lavender and iron, the scent of her hair tainted by the blood seeping from her gashed shoulder and blinded eye. Gothel stumbles back, her naked body trembling, hands raised in desperation. “Rapunzel, I had no control,” she gasps, her voice cracking. “It was the demon, controlling everything—my assault on the royal prince sixteen years ago, my exile, the abuse I inflicted on you. It was all mind control!”

Rapunzel’s lips curl into a smile, chilling and knowing. “I know,” she says, her voice layered with a hollow, otherworldly timbre. She swings her hair, the golden strands moving on their own, wrapping around Gothel’s neck like a noose. They tighten, cutting into her flesh, drawing beads of blood that glisten in the dim light. Gothel chokes, her eyes bulging, her nails clawing at the strands, leaving red welts on her throat. The hair is unyielding, alive with possessed strength, its lavender scent now a sickly veil over the tang of fear. Rapunzel grips the braid and pulls, dragging Gothel across the floor, splinters tearing at her skin, her screams clawing the air like a wounded beast.

Gothel thrashes, reaching the window ledge, her body half-dangling over the void. The night yawns below, a black maw swallowing the moonlight. She kicks wildly, her boot slamming into Rapunzel’s chest, cracking a rib with a muffled snap. Rapunzel staggers, pain searing through her, but her grip holds, the hair tightening further, bruising Gothel’s throat purple. Gothel twists, snatching a shard of broken mirror from the floor, its jagged edge glinting like a fang. She slashes at the hair, severing a few strands, but they regrow instantly, their tips curling like hungry vines, weaving tighter around her neck. Gothel’s kicks grow frantic, one catching Rapunzel’s wounded eye, sending a jolt of agony through her skull, blood trickling anew down her cheek. Rapunzel roars, demonic fury surging, and yanks Gothel upward, slamming her against the ledge, the stone scraping her back raw. Gothel’s strength fades, her body going limp as the hair strangles her into unconsciousness, her lips blue, her eyes rolling back like marbles.

Rapunzel grabs her, heaving her over the ledge with a guttural cry. The hair still coils around Gothel’s neck, and as she falls, it pulls taut. Midway down, her neck snaps with a sickening crack, her body jerking like a broken doll. She dangles, lifeless, against the tower’s jagged stones, the moonlight painting her in silver and shadow, her gray hair swaying like a funeral shroud in the wind.

A laugh echoes behind Rapunzel, sharp and guttural, chilling the air. She spins, her gaze locking on the largest shard of the shattered mirror, propped against the wall. Her reflection is not her own—a demon, horned and eyeless, its maw dripping black ichor, grins from within the glass, its claws scraping the surface as if to claw free. The red glow fades from her eye, her mind clearing as the demon is trapped, exorcised by the mirror’s accidental power. Her body sags, the weight of her actions crashing down, her wounds throbbing with each heartbeat. She stumbles to the window, peering at Gothel’s corpse, swaying in the wind, the hair still tangled around her broken neck.

“Mother!” she calls, her voice raw with desperation. She pulls the hair, dragging the body upward, its limbs scraping the rough wall, tearing Gothel’s flesh, blood smearing the stones like a painter’s cruel stroke. The corpse catches on the ledge, then tumbles inside, collapsing onto Rapunzel, heavy and cold, the lavender scent mingling with the reek of death. “Mother, please wake up!” she begs, shaking her, her hands frantic, nails digging into Gothel’s shoulders. “Don’t leave me! I didn’t mean it!” Her cries dissolve into sobs, tears mixing with the blood on Gothel’s face, her gray hair matted with dust and stone.

The memory of the loose floorboards surfaces, the hollow where she hid lavender petals to mask the tower’s rot. Rapunzel wraps Gothel’s body in her own tattered nightdress, a final act of respect—she won’t bury her naked. She carries the corpse to the opened floor, the wood still splintered from her earlier frenzy, and lays it among the faded lavender petals, their purple bruised like old wounds. She cuts two strands of her hair with a trembling hand, weaving them into a delicate bow, its golden threads glinting in the candlelight. She places it over Gothel’s heart, a fragile offering, and covers the body with more petals, their scent choking the air, a funeral rite for a woman she both loved and hated. She seals the floorboards, entombing her, the wood groaning as if in protest.

Rapunzel begins to clean, scrubbing the blood-soaked floor, the bedding, her torn nightdress, her movements mechanical, her one good eye glassy with shock. As she works, a voice slithers from the mirror’s shards, low and insidious, like a whisper from a grave. “Rapunzel,” it purrs, “I am Molik, demon of necromancy and illusion.”

She freezes, her scarred eye aching, and turns to the glass. Molik’s form flickers, trapped but potent, its eyeless face a void, its horns curling like smoke, its voice a velvet blade that cuts through her mind. “I am a weaver of death and deceit, born in the shadows of forgotten graves. My necromancy breathes life into husks, bids the dead to walk, while my illusions twist the mind, crafting visions that bind the soul. I sought to ensnare the king, to make his court a necropolis under my sway, his armies puppets to my will. But I was bound to Gothel, a flawed vessel, her mind too frail to bear my full dominion. I forbade her mirrors, for their truth risks exorcism, shattering my hold. Through her, I wove illusions to fuel her cruelty—visions of you as a stain, a threat to her stolen youth. I used your hair, infused with angelic essence, to work my necromancy, siphoning its power to keep her flesh young, her beauty a lie that needed no mirror’s gaze. Even now, my illusions haunt you—Gothel’s voice echoing in your ears, her footsteps creaking these boards, the false hope she’ll return, though her bones lie cold.”

Rapunzel’s breath catches, her hands clenching the bloodied cloth, her knuckles white. “Why me?” she whispers, her voice trembling, the tower’s walls seeming to close in.

Molik’s maw twists, a grotesque mimicry of a smile, its ichor dripping onto the mirror’s surface. “You are no ordinary child, Rapunzel. The king sought your blood to cure his leprosy, believing you magical, your pale skin and shimmering hair proof of divinity. He was half-right. Your mother, ailing and pregnant, was fed stew from a dying angel your father found in the woods after three days’ hunting. Cannibalism would’ve meant death, so he cut its wings, buried the body, and brought the flesh home. Your mother, wasting on porridge, ate the angel’s stew, and you were born—pale as moonlight, your hair a weave of divine residue, your blood a font of power. Gothel hid you here, fearing the king’s blade, but I shaped her fear, made her see you as both prize and peril. My necromancy bids her shadow linger in your mind, my illusions fracture your thoughts, making you see her, hear her, believe she’ll walk through that door.”

Rapunzel’s stomach lurches, the tower spinning, the lavender scent choking her. “The angel’s burial—what grew there?” she demands, her voice sharp, her one good eye burning with need.

Molik’s eyes glint, and it speaks in verse, its words a riddle carved in shadow:

The poem  burrows into Rapunzel’s mind, a lock without a key, its meaning slipping through her grasp like smoke. Molik’s voice softens, deceptively gentle, its claws still scraping the glass. “Your father hid you in this tower to shield you from the king’s hunt, bringing meals to you and your mother. She died—poison berries, a bitter end. He buried her in these floorboards, masking her decay with lavender, a ritual of grief. When Gothel sought refuge, fleeing her crime against the prince, your father lied, claiming the lavender was for the tower’s scent. One day, hunting, he vanished—swallowed by the woods, or the king’s wrath. My illusions kept Gothel’s mind tethered to you, her fear and obsession a cage I crafted. And now, you bear my mark, your thoughts a canvas for my necromantic art.”

Rapunzel’s hands shake, the cloth slipping from her fingers, the weight of her cursed blood, her angelic origin, crushing her. She stares at the mirror, Molik’s form fading, its necromantic whispers spent, leaving only silence. The tower closes in, a tomb of lavender and lies, and she is alone, her mind a battlefield of illusions, her hair a noose woven from a dying angel’s grace.