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flesh. When the creature reared backward to escape my grip,
my sister glided across its exposed belly, releasing a crimson
tangle of gleaming entrails. The beast collapsed upon the
street and was quickly set upon by ravenous flames. The fire
seemed to join my side, surging and roaring across streets,
engulfing or routing the crowding cannibals that tried to
stand in my way. Then, she appeared from the darkness and
smoke.
I had no idea the Deadworld could encompass such a
dream. She was a wicked song of teeth and claws, set to the
awful melody of burning, sightless eyes. Though she was
a living horror, an echo of dethroned beauty reverberated
throughout her features, suggesting the distance she had
fallen from grace and dream. Blind though she may have
been, some invisible force from her whited eyes plunged
beneath my flesh, searching and summing. I could feel her
conjuring alien hungers from the emptiness of my stomach,
trying to fill me with forbidden appetites. Something about
her eyes held an actual power, not some abstract force, but a
tangible violation of nature, and it was trying to change me.
She took a step from the smoking ruin of a tunnel entrance,
as if looking more fully upon me would better allow her to
focus her strange power. But my body kept its own secrets
and would admit no mysteries beside its own. I felt the
searing gaze of my family meet the sightless eyes of Black
Molly Patience, and I could smell her fear.
I was airborne, my sisters laughing out in front of me,
their metal teeth glittering with the lights of a thousand
fires. Molly snatched me from the air in a cage of claws.
Though my body ceased its advance, my sisters’ journey
was far from over. Their laughter dimmed as they sank into
filthy layers of cannibal flesh, severing the vital tubers of
Molly’s neck. Pitching me with surprising might, Molly sent
me crashing through the wall of a nearby barn slathered in
hungry flame. I toppled to a dirt floor covered with burning
hay and corpses. Quickly leaping to my feet, I prepared to
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