It's silent, except for the sound of my feet smacking against the wet sidewalk. The streetlamps cast dim lights that throw shadows across the road. No cars pass here except for those that are driven by car thefts and druggies. This road is where I have grown up. I freeze mid-step. A shadow has moved. It twisted closer as if drawn by me. I suck in a scream and shake my head, realizing how paranoid I've becomes. Shadows are not alive, they are where the light doesn't hit. I remind my self. Yet, I can't shake off the since that something is not right. I have walked this road since I was able to cross a street without a helping hand, but I choose today to be scared. I continue walking. Footsteps echo my own. I stop, but the footsteps keep moving. It gets louder with each step, and is getting closer. I reach into my bag that is hanging off of my write arm, and wrap my hand around the bottle of pepper spray.

"Hello, pret-tit-y girl." A male voice slurs. I spin around, and the smell of alcohol attacks my senses. The mans head rolls to the side, and I believe he is going to topple over, but he snaps up strait instead. His eyes are blood shut and glassy. He grabs the arm that is wrist deep in my bag. His grip is tighter than I expected. He wrenches my hand out of my bag with enough shocking force to send my pepper spray souring in the air. "No no no no. No pep-pep-pepper spray today." He back hands me across the face with his free hand, then sends me to my knees. The hairs on my arms stand up on end, and the air taste thick. I try to breath in, but it's like I'm breathing in a cloud of fumes. The drunk screams. I look up through the stinging tears to see the drunk no longer standing over me, but standing few feet back, under the street light. He is scratching and trying to pry off black vines slithering up his legs. His screams echo off the building that surround us. I feel something cold and wet tugging on my jeans, and I look down to that what is attached to the drunker is now wrapping around me. I realize that what I am seeing are not black vines, but arms. More arms branch off the main thick arm that is pooling from a black pool at my feet. where the arms come to a stop, there are black hands with seven long fingers ripping my clothes and scratching my legs until blood starts to drip from the cuts. To my horror, every drop of blood is absorbed by the thing that is tightening still. I am unable to hold back my own scream, and it scratches my thought on it's way past my lips and into freedom. I scream until I run out of breath just to suck in some more and scream again. I try to get my fingers under the wet arms that ooze out liquefied darkness, but they do not give. I scratch and pry with no prevail. The arms stop squeezing as if they have come to their braking point, but I know they could squeeze until every bone in my body is crushed to splintering. They stop moving but they don't let go. My blood drips past them and joins the wet puddles below. The water turns pink with my blood, and the arms seem to strain against the ground as if they can no longer stretch any farther. The black pool has disappeared. My screams freeze with the arms, loathing what will happen next. I look to see what has happened to the drunk, and wish I hadn't. The arms have wrapped around his neck, and is now loosening it's grip. They slither back down his body faster than they did going up. The drunk is slumped over and once he is free of the monsters, he collapses o the ground. No blood is dripping from his many cuts, and with horror I realize the arms have absorbed it all, and the drunk is dead. His skin is gray, and his glossy eyes are wide open and full of frozen terror. A new round of screams claw from the inside of my thought, threatening to find it's way out one way or another.

"Calm, my beauty." I look up to see a tall woman, studying me like a scientist studies a dissected frog. Her elegant hair falls below her knees like flowing lava. Her green eyes are slitted like a snakes, but still seems unbelievably beautiful peeking out from between her think eyelashes. She wears a olive green dress that flows to her ankles, like a waterfall. Her head tilts. "So you are the girl, my father constantly talks about." She smiles cruelly. "Well my sister. Father will be delighted to know that you fight in my army." She laughs, and it rings out like millions of bells. The screams cease as if marveled by her beauty. The arms slithers down and disappears into the ground, but I still can't move. I look down, and see why. My feet are melting away into thick black goo. I scream, and struggle to get out, but I can't move my legs. I fall on my but, and watch with horror, as I slowly melt away. I feel nothing throughout the process. My arms start to do the same, and more and more of me join the black goo on the ground. The last thing I hear are the tinkling sound of the witches laugh.