Crystalline tears dripped down the greasy round jaw of the witch girl and dropped into her stake, the mood in the room grew sombre. Aerith swallowed hard, his mind wondering what the young girl had gone through before he found her tied up on that wooden cross, he recalled that she was dripping blood. Most likely she had been whipped.
At a very young age she had suffered what no one should have at her age, and surprisingly she acted oblivious to it. But maybe she did, and she only hid her true emotions, it made him feel for her.
A silver screen fizzled into thin air before his eyes with runes and bold words.
[Title Enchantment (Hope's Shackles) is active]
"What the--", he thought.
He recalled the enchantment saying he could not look away from the suffering of others. He did not want to look away from her now but it was a good enough time as any to try it, he tried to look away without making it obvious cause any reaction from his father or the young girl.
As he turned his heady slightly, it did move only an inch. As she was about leaving his peripheral vision he felt every vein and muscle in his neck practically throbbing, he could feel it pulling his head back. It was like trying to pull a freight train, he could feel beads of sweat begin to form on his face and his temperature rising. Eventually he gave up and looked back at her, trying to hide the exhaustion in his face. Luckily his father's full attention was on the young girl.
"Shit! The enchantment is real." He screamed in his head. Believing that his own actions were controlled by a silver screen was nothing short of crazy.
Another second passed before another silver screen fizzled into the air again, this time with different words.
[Title Enchantment (Eyes of Revelation) is active]
"Another one?" He groaned inwardly.
If his memory serves him right which it always did, this enchantment clearly said he would be able to see things as they truly were... Whatever that meant.
Now a second passed before his vision changed, he could see the girl giving off a strange aura over her. It appeared as a thing radiance of colour emanating the outer regions of her body. It was dark purple, he caught a similar aura around his father, only lighter. Around himself he could see one also a bit darker than his father but lighter than hers.
"What's this now?" He thought. "These colours are they... colours of emotions?"
It was the only thing that sounded sane to him at the moment, if so then did purple signify fear. That would explain why hers was darkest, she must have had a very deep fear about her past.
Aerith reached out his hand to pull her closer to him, to give her a semblance of comfort but she pulled away sharply from his hand shivering. "I'm sorry."
"You idiot, she's clearly traumatised and she could drain your blood in an instant if she wanted but she didn't." He screamed in his head.
His father was the one to save him from this embarrassment now. His voice was loud and commanding but also carrying a hint of compassion. "You don't have to say anything if it's hard on you, I can show you to a proper room. I would hate to put my son's saviour in any form of discomfort."
They waited for her response both father and son, she was a child but not an ordinary one either. No child would survive what she had, also no child would have the same powers as she did.
A few moments passed, now their food was barely warm. Their appetites had long since left them, the girl sniffed back her tears, her trembling had ceased slightly but the aura around her had only darkened more. Only Aerith could see how she truly felt underneath and there was nothing he could do to help but watch.
It took a while but she finally spoke and when she did, her voice sounded cold, broken and hollow. It was oblivious to the image of the young adorable girl she had moments earlier, he could feel the blood vessels in his neck throbbing. He wanted to write it off as the anxiety but his conscience could not, she was a blood witch after all.
"Papa hated mama and mama hated me, papa and mama feared I was cursed, they beat me and stopped feeding me. They said they wanted to send the demons away from me." Her tiny knuckles tightened on the steak, and her upper teeth but into her lower lips, breaking the seams of her lip and causing a small line of red to droop from it. The blood started to break apart, turning into bubbles that covered in the air around her, Aerith could feel his throat grow tighter, he could see her aura turn darker.
"I got hungry, I fed on the mice, I didn't want to. They cried everytime I fed, they were my only friends in the dark room." Aerith's eyes grew dim, his aura turned to a darker shade of purple. The girl whimpered. "Papa and mama found out, they beat me and threw me in the trash, I cried for mama but mama left. I called papa, papa left."
Her aura turned darker and darker till it started to spread out from her with visible tentacles, and soon it was no longer a dark shade of purple but pitch black ink-like vines entangling her. Each vine writhing and moving like one living organism, Aerith's heart skipped multiple beats his eyes trembled in their sockets. Since he was the only one who saw it he knew things would get bad really fast.
"I got home after days but mama and papa were gone, everyone beat me. Everyone called me a demon. Mama and papa never loved me, mama and papa never named me, they say I should have died. I want to die, please kill me. I cried for mama to kill me." Aerith watched as tears of red streamed down her eyes, only to float off as bubbles of blood.
He felt his lungs clawing for breath, not knowing he had not been breathing for a while now. When he tried to breath he felt an ache in his chest, he felt something warm coming out of his nose. He raised his hand slowly to touch it and it came back red.
He could hear his father screaming his name, but it was hard to hear as something streamed out of his ears. He could not also look away from he girl because of the enchantment of his skill to look at his father but he could tell from the corner of his eyes that his father was now on the ground screaming.
His vision blurred as blood leaked out of them, "So that's why I couldn't breath, I'm bleeding out. What a way to go."
He tried to focus his mind on the girl behind him, the vines of black ink turned to the drill, they had not consumed her fully and become an entirely different being. A huge black monster made entirely of a sea of black ink writhing and mixing together, it had huge silver eyes, a maw with a hundred thousand shark teeth both beneath and above. It's form was that of a formless monster, it was terrifying and gruesome to behold.
"Is that a demon?" He asked himself as he felt his body begin to swell.
The only words he could hear from the monster were. "I deserve to die, I shouldn't be here. Kill me, please."
He immediately understood what emotion this was, it was deep, unadulterated- hatred!