Father and the Witch | Part 2: The Flaming Beast

I’m in a red world beneath blackened skies, lit only by an unfamiliar crimson glow bleeding across the horizon like something alive. My sister grips one of my hands. My brother grips the other. Neither of them speaks. They just stare ahead as slow footsteps echo through the darkness.

A flash of sharp teeth lined with gold pierces the shadows.

A beast emerges headfirst.

Flames curl delicately around its feet as it walks toward us with supernatural grace, every movement precise, almost ceremonial. Muscles shift beneath its dark skin with each step, as if something inside it is trying to claw its way free. The closer it gets, the heavier the air becomes, pressing against my chest until I can barely breathe.

My eyes trail upward until they land on its chest.

Then it changes.

The creature folds in on itself, bones cracking softly before me as it reshapes into a feminine figure wrapped in embers, with a face that is almost human. Black eyes lock onto mine with terrifying familiarity, as if they know me better than I know myself.

Then it lunges.

Time slows as its fingers reach for my throat. My sister screams. My brother lets go of my hand. And right before we touch, its haunting voice slips into my mind:

You are the last. You are mine.

Everything goes black.

_________

I wake up screaming, soaked in sweat and dried tears.

Strong arms pull me upright before I can process where I am. Panic surges through me until I hear his voice.

“Silver. Hey. You’re okay.”

Daniel.

His hands stay firmly on my shoulders, grounding me, though tension sharpens his face like he’s trying too hard to stay calm.

Fragments of last night crash through my head - the party, the storm, my sister crying on the phone, the feeling that something was watching me from far away.

Then one thought cuts through it all.

“Where’s my dad?”

My phone suddenly vibrates violently against the mattress.

My stomach drops.

I answer immediately. “Hello?”

“Dad’s missing,” my sister says, her voice cracking apart.

Every nerve in my body goes still.

“Missing… how?”

“I don’t know. After we brought you home last night, Abraham went to check Dad’s house.” My sister’s voice trembles slightly. “Cassandra’s car was outside, but neither of them were there. The entire place was empty.”

Cassandra.

Even hearing her name makes my skin crawl. My father met her years after our mother disappeared, back when he was still obsessed with finding answers the police never could. At first, she seemed harmless - soft-spoken, beautiful, almost unnaturally calm - but she knew things about my mother’s disappearance she shouldn’t have known. Tiny details that were never released to the public. 

From the moment she entered his life, it felt as if something dark had quietly rooted itself in our family. She never officially moved in, but she was always at the house anyway. Her clothes in his closet. Her scent was in every room as if she marked her territory. Like smoke clinging to walls long after the fire dies.

I feel the sting in my nose now thinking of it.

“There was something wrong with the house,” my sister continues in a whisper. “All the lights were off. Every window was open. Dad’s phone, wallet, and keys were still there. Cassandra’s purse, too. But there’s no sign either of them ever left.” She exhales shakily.

 “The police came this morning. They’re treating it like a missing persons case, but Abraham said the officers looked unsettled. The storm knocked out half the neighborhood cameras, and the few security systems still running glitched around the same time Dad disappeared. Nobody saw anyone come in or out.” Silence stretches between us before she speaks again, quieter this time. 

“Silver… it feels too much like what happened to Mom.”

“Where are you?” I ask.

“I’m up north for work. A couple of hours away.” She exhales shakily. “I tried to leave, but we’re backed up here.”

My sister works in mental health outreach, traveling across the region to help patients struggling with severe mental illness. She drives them to appointments and job interviews, checks in on them regularly, and spends most of her days talking people down from emotional ledges most others would run from. She’s spent years calming unstable minds and crisis situations, but right now she sounds terrified herself.

“I’ll call Abraham, I’ll keep you posted,” I say quietly.

Unlike my sister and me, Abraham never carried the same energy as the women in our family. We always felt… different. Heavy with something ancient buried beneath our spirits. Abraham sensed it, but stood outside of it, orbiting the chaos instead of belonging to it. Sometimes I thought that frightened him more.

I ring Abraham a few times - no answer. 

I stare at the phone for a moment before I look up at Daniel, just to see if my brother will call me back, and feel an overwhelming sensation. 

“What happened?” My throat burns when I look up at him. “Why are you even here?”

Daniel exhales slowly. “You disappeared last night. One second you were standing next to me, the next you were heading for the elevator like your life depended on it.”

“I don’t remember leaving.”

“I figured.” His jaw tightens. “I tried to get to you before the doors closed, but there were too many people. Elevators were taking forever, so I took the stairs.”

“You went down twenty flights of stairs?” I ask, bewildered.

His mouth almost twitches into a smirk. “Didn’t really have a choice.”

Something about the way he says it turns me on. It’s as if he’d already decided long before last night that if I ran, he’d follow.

“When I finally got outside, the wind was insane,” he continues. “Trees were bending sideways. Power lines were sparking. But you…” He hesitates. “You were gripping a bench in the middle of it.”

Cold creeps up my spine.

“You were on the phone with your sister, but it didn’t even look like you could hear her. Then you just collapsed.”

I stare at him silently.

“I grabbed your phone when you passed out. Your sister said you’d been talking about your dad and that stress does this to you sometimes. She came over, and your brother helped get you upstairs.”

“They had to leave this morning,” Daniel says softly. “But I told her I’d stay with you.”

Stay with me.

The words settle strangely in my chest.

I throw the blankets off and rush into the bathroom.

“You should eat first,” Daniel says from the doorway. “You barely survived last night.”

I glare at him through the mirror while brushing my teeth. “What are you, my keeper now?”

His expression darkens slightly. “Maybe somebody should be.”

The comment should irritate me, but instead, it sends a strange heat through me.

“Thanks, but I’m fine,” I mutter. “If you want to help, hand me that water bottle.”

He does immediately. Too immediately. Like protecting me is instinct.

“You can leave after this,” I add. “It’s Saturday.”

“No,” he says quietly. “I’m staying with you.”

No hesitation this time.

For a second, our eyes lock, and something sharp flickers behind his expression -  not just concern. Hunger. Conflict. Like part of him wants to pull me closer, while another part is calculating what I truly am.

“Come with me then,” I say finally. “I need to see my dad’s house for myself.”

Daniel nods instantly.

We drive across town beneath bruised skies swollen with rain, begging to burst. The closer we get to my father’s neighborhood, the darker the clouds look.

By the time the house comes into view, every instinct in my body is screaming at me to turn around.

Every window is wide open.

The front door sways slowly on its hinges despite there being little to no wind.

The moment I step out of the car, dread crawls up my spine.

“Silver, wait!” Daniel calls, but I’m already running toward the house.

The closer I get, the colder the air becomes. Not a normal cold.

Dead cold.

The kind that settles into your bones and makes your instincts scream.

I step across the doorway.

Instantly, something inside the house awakens.

A violent force tears through the hallway and wraps around my body like invisible hands. The air shifts hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. Before I can scream, I’m yanked deeper into the house and slammed against the wall with enough force to crack the picture frame beside my head.

The front door explodes shut behind me.

I hear Daniel shouting my name somewhere far away as darkness consumes everything, and I slowly pass out.

__________

I am here again. This cursed place. But this time, it feels different.

Before entering this world, it felt like drowning inside someone else’s dream. Blurred. Confusing.

Now… I can feel it reacting to me.

Breathing with me.

Watching me.

I look down and feel a warm, grainy, coagulated clump. 

Is this blood and dirt? MY blood?

I push myself upright slowly, every muscle aching like I’ve been dragged across stone for miles. Above me, the sky pulses dark crimson, shadows moving beneath the clouds like living things.

It feels like morning, yet there is no sun.

No warmth. No god.

Time folds unnaturally here. I can’t tell if I’ve been lying there for minutes, days, or years.

But unlike before… I’m aware. Lucid.

And somehow that terrifies me more than monsters.

Something has changed.

Or maybe I have?

A low vibration hums beneath the ground, moving through my body like a second heartbeat. The deeper it settles into me, the more I understand.

This place isn’t just a dream. It’s connected to my soul.

To the daughters.

To her.

I can feel her energy surrounding this place like a forcefield - ancient, feminine, deadly. The atmosphere bends around her presence.

She is everywhere here.

Watching. Waiting.

I try to stand, but gravity suddenly crushes me back into the dirt like the world itself is testing me. My arms tremble violently as I force myself forward, crawling instead.

The land stretches endlessly around me -  piles of black sand, burning trees in the distance, shadows moving where no souls exist. Occasionally, whispers drift through the wind, but they don’t sound human.

Then I see it.

A large dark pile several feet ahead.

At first, it looks like black sand shifting unnaturally beneath the crimson light, twisting and gathering as though something beneath the ground is trying to become human. Slowly, a shape begins pulling itself upward - shoulders, arms, the curve of a spine. The sand thickens into the outline of a body until, finally, a head starts to form.

But the moment a face begins to emerge, the entire thing starts collapsing in on itself.

The figure silently screams as its body disintegrates, dragged backward into the earth like invisible hands are pulling it down. Sand pours through its unraveling form, swallowing it piece by piece before it can fully exist. It looks less like a creature and more like a soul trying to claw its way out of the ground - molding itself from the cursed land itself - only to be consumed by it again before it can escape.

Pain tears through my limbs as I drag myself closer anyway. Something inside me is pulling toward it.

I reach the pile and press my hand into the warm, grain-like substance.

Soft.

Wet.

My stomach twists.

Then my fingers brush against something solid buried beneath it.

I grab it instinctively and pull.

Hair. Skin.

A skull emerges from the pile engulfed in black flames, its jaw hanging open in a silent scream.

I freeze.

Then the skull’s empty eye sockets snap toward me.

A deafening scream rips through the world, not from the skull.

From me.

And everything goes black again.