The key opened the lock with the smoothness of spreading warm butter. The click of the mechanism was drowned out by Percival’s rattling breath. Mayme threw the lock aside and pushed the gate open, the hinges creaked and screeched— yet, Percival’s breaths still seemed to eclipse it. She wanted to focus on Elisabeth, but that dark looming presence of her loyal thrall haunted her like a ghost. His shadow crept over her, devouring her own as he remained always a couple steps behind her.

Elisabeth stared up at Mayme with big pale pleading eyes, every so often they’d flick away from her frantically, but always returned to the young woman. Everything besides the withered woman’s dramatically rising and falling chest was still. Unnervingly so, like a frightened deer— or maybe a feline waiting to strike. She made no noise, but she was salivating quite heavily. Mayme wondered why briefly, but thinking about it drew the sickly sweet stench of blood to the forefront of her tongue. It filled her nose and mouth, making her saliva glands begin to work up as well. The room was drenched in blood. For how small the church woman was, she was bursting with it— no. ‘Bursting’ was the wrong. She didn’t burst as much as dribbled. Secreted like a leaky spigot until Percival opened her up and the rest poured out. Burst was far too dramatic, thankfully so as well. Mayme wasn’t sure if she could handle any more drama that night or she might burst.

She shook her head. She thumbed through the keys, they sang like wind chimes as they fell against each other. Her hands were filthy, bloody, and caked in grime. Fingerprints littered every key until she found some that looked as if they might fit Elisabeth’s cuffs. After several that could not even be jimmied in, Mayme found the correct key. The cuffs did not open as easily as the prior lock did, the mechanism must have been rusted inside. They resisted and caught like a dull pepper grinder, but eventually one cuff popped with a groan. As it released, Elisabeth’s arm dropped limply to her side with a disconcerting dry sound instead of a fleshy or meaty one. She gasped as her frail hand slapped against the floor, but immediately she flexed her fingers, then curled them. They creaked, but did as her feeble muscles commanded. Blood broke from the fissures that cracked open over her now smiling lips. Her second arm dropped the same way. She cooed happily and gummed some unintelligible words. Mayme tried to smile in return, but her face refused to cooperate. She lowered her eyes and stared at the gaunt, spindly legs of her aunt. The only thing that stopped her frame from being an exact mould of the bones under were the spiderweb-like ridges her veins and arteries made. They had no other mass.

The locks were the easy part. Getting the woman out of the basement was going to be more difficult. Mayme would have to carry her to safety. Could she even manage that? She felt so drained, so numb. The stairs were so long. She didn’t even know if she could carry herself up them, let alone another.

The looming shadow of Percival cascaded over her aunt’s legs. His breathing was the only thing to break the silence of the room. His eyed burrow into Mayme’s back.

The answer was right there, right behind her.

She had a thrall. An indentured servant. An ever loyal slave. He’d do anything she asked. She had already used him to get the keys for her, already interrupted his free will in not letting him hit her, would this small favour be any different? Mayme scrunched her face and hung her head. She sunk her face into her palms. It wasn’t different, it wasn’t as if—

BANG

Her train of thought was shattered, a hot chunky spray hit her right side. Mayme raised her head out of her hands with a startled half-squeak-half-scream. Her head spun as she looked back towards the church woman, expecting her to have rose from the dead. She remained motionless on the floor, Percival stood in front of her unbothered by the gunshot. No one else had entered the room. Slowly she twisted back to look at the wall Elisabeth was sat against. The wall was empty. Elisabeth was gone, but pale feet caught the edge of Mayme’s vision, then legs, then her matted white hair that slowly turned red. Her gun was tangled in her twig-like fingers. Mayme’s eyes refused to move any farther than that. She didn’t dare see what that bullet did. A stench swirled with the sweet smell that permeated the room. It was sour and spoiled, but the metallic undertones told Mayme what it was. Blood, but monstrous instead of human.

One bullet left.

Mayme wanted to scream again, but her lungs were empty and her throat sore. Whatever left her mouth sounded more like a death rattle than the anguished banshee holler she was preparing for. She collapsed in on herself, flopping to the side in a ball, curled like a fetus. She whimpered uselessly until her burning lungs forced her to draw in a long breath, then, finally, she let out that banshee screech.

Why?

Why was everyone who came in contact with her dying? Her cry was more a mourning for herself than her dead kin she hardly knew. She didn’t care about the church woman nor Percival on any meaningful level, but their deaths were just so meaningless and both because of her. Elisabeth was the last straw. What was all this for? All she had wanted was to pick up some damn incense from the church. That was it! But people could not let her be! They wanted to use her body, as if that was all she was. A body. A body to do with as they pleased. Why did her accursed blood make people so mad? All this horror could have been avoided if only they just discarded their insanity and saw her for what she really was— just a girl. A person. A leech, sure, but not one who had ever caused harm— one that was simply going about her business until they forced her hand. The circumstance of her birth should not have caused all these issues. The same surely went for the skeletal corpse on the floor. Maybe even all of Sangmont.

Percival’s shadow still loomed. His dull, empty eyes followed her as she writhed on the ground. Her hands grabbed fistfuls of her hair, her knees shoved into her chest, her heels kicked at the back of her thighs. Tears and mucus ran down her face as her frustrations from the entire night finally came out as a tsunami. If she had the sense to think she’d think herself a toddler, but thoughts were so far beyond her at this point. Through her fit her stomach began to growl. That was the only thing that stirred Percival out of his catatonic state. He lumbered closer to her and knelt down. She stopped, snot dripping over her quivering lips, and stared through her fingers and hair at him with her pale eye. She waited for him to do something, half hoping he had somehow reverted to the awful man she knew, but the other other half hoped for comfort. She received neither. He tilted his head to the side, his long straggly hair fell away from his neck as he exposed it to her. His stare turned from blank to expecting.

He said nothing, he reminded mindless, but this action speak loudly to Mayme.

Abomination.

She was an abomination, and everyone treated her as such no matter how she acted. No matter how righteous she portrayed herself. She was what she was, and she was a monster. Nothing would change that. That night served as proof enough of that fact.

She got off the floor and onto her knobby knees. She crawled onto him on strained limbs, strangling one of his legs as she eyed his neck. A vein ran down it, bulging and prominent even with how much blood he had already lost. Bursting.

She was an abomination. No matter what she did, that is how she was seen. All she was doing was hurting herself by being the ‘better person’.

She leaned in close, her teeth brushed against his neck like daggers. Her tongue rested against his skin, feeling his pulse pound against her. Her body braced for him to cry out or push her… yet, he did not. His head rolled to the side and allowed her more room to feed as a small coo left his vocal cords. Droplets of saliva mixed with his sweat, weighing them down enough to travel like rivulets to her bottom lip. The saltiness reminded her of blood— no, not just blood. His blood. The blood he had forced upon her— forced down her throat whilst she was unconscious. Forced into her. A bolt ran though her and her jaw locked open.

She couldn’t do it.

She wasn’t an abomination.

Tears rolled down Mayme’s cheeks.

She jolted back as her jaw snapped shut like a bear trap. Her mouth was so close that her lips remained on him, but her teeth did not even graze his skin. She sat there like that for a long time. He probably deserved to be drained dry, but she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t prove him right about her, even if he was a dead man. His corpse wasn’t even worth desecrating. Despite everything, she was still what she was. Mayme. Just a girl. That had not changed.

She came in search for blood bags, and she did find them. No matter how rancid they were, they would suffice. It wasn’t as if she could become a thrall to a dead woman— if her half blood status didn’t already protect her from that type of fate. She crawled away from the thrall and towards the table on the other side of the room. She didn’t bother to stand, she reached blindly above her until the pads of her fingers brushed the crate she thought the blood bags were in. Slowly she dragged it to the edged, then pulled it off. Both the bags and the box they were in fell to the floor in a cacophony of clatters and sploshes. The bags bounced, the blood inside frothed with all the commotion. She grabbed a bulbous bag labelled ‘Untampered’ off the floor and brought it to her mouth, sinking her teeth in without hesitation. Her taste buds were immediately assaulted with a foul bitterness. This blood of her kin tasted spoiled, it made everything inside of her mouth retract, trying to avoid the waves of red. She gagged it down— one gulp, then two, then three until she couldn’t any more. She dropped the half-empty bag and coughed, sputtering up whatever she had not swallowed. She racked her fingernails over her tongue and salivated all over the floor as her body wretched. She was able to keep everything down through desperate gasps and hard swallows. Even still, she could already feel herself improving. She was still tired and beat down, but strength did creep back into her. Inch by inch. She’d be fine. But she did need to get moving— she wasn’t sure how far morning was off, and frankly she didn’t really care. She just needed out of this building. Away from all this slaughter. She just needed to get home. She just wanted a hug from her mama.

Mayme stood and stumbled towards Elisabeth’s corpse, her eyes cast away from gore and only dared flick to it to locate her gun. The poor thing was almost unrecognisable from the start of the night. Warped, stained red, but still clearly functional. Still the same pistol that had been at her side. As Mayme untangled it from the dead woman’s fingers she could not help but notice how different it felt in her palm. Lighter, but heavier. Familiar, but foreign. Hot, but cold. Maybe she was just losing touch with reality. She didn’t bother to stuff it back into her corset, holding it was a small comfort she refused to give up. It felt like holding a hand.

The open door to the staircase was an inky abyss. She didn’t bother retrieving the candelabra, she just wanted to go home. Her footfall echoed through the stair well as soon as she stepped into the blackness. Then, another footstep did. Heavy, lumbering…

Mayme turned, she looked at the thrall who tailed her. The light of the basement still enveloped him. He was grey and pale, his eyes were sunken and dead, and his chin damp with saliva and blood. His lips parted and his jaw was slack. His lame arm swayed at his side. That was the only movement on his body. He didn’t even blink. He was fixated on her, always close behind but eerily calm and mechanical. He was not unstable or jittery like the other thrall, he had no reason to be. He had his mistress.

It had its mistress.

The pistol felt heavier in Mayme’s hand.

One bullet left.