𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 - the harvest

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘 Ophelia had spent inside the prison world would portray her as mad. She awoke, alone in the middle of a street that was completely unrecognizable to her. She didn't bother to look around, all her mind could focus on was the brother that was missing from her side.

From the moment their siphoning powers were discovered by the family, they were treated as if they were nothing. They were segregated from the family, forced to watch their siblings dance around the home with all the happiness in the world whilst they, the abominations, were restricted to their rooms.

They would eat after everybody else had finished, they had restrictions on using their own bathrooms. Their parents no longer trusted them; the once loving glances towards their children turned malicious, they no longer saw their children, they saw monsters.

Ophelia and Malachai were one and the same and thus, they stuck by one another's side. The details of their shared mistreatment was a gory and tragic tale, and more often than not, Ophelia would step up and stand in front of her brother. She wouldn't show her parents fear as she faced them with nothing but fire in her whiskey-colored eyes.

It was true about what they said about shared trauma bringing people closer together. Ophelia and Malachai were not just brother and sister; they were best friends; they were all each other had.

And so, when Ophelia awoke without him by her side, her heart had thudded violently and threatened to break free from its bone cage. She had spent hours traversing through the city she had landed in; New Orleans.

New Orleans was a beautiful city, one she could appreciate. What she could not appreciate, however, was the barrier placed around the entire city. The first time she had tried to cross, it had burned her; her skin sizzled as she hissed in pain. She made a day of it and walked around the entire city, testing if the barrier had any holes or flaws and even tried to siphon it. Nothing worked. She had screamed and cried until her lungs ached in pain. She was stuck and all alone.

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It was a random day, well, not exactly, it was always May tenth, nineteen ninety-four inside the prison world. But In the real world, where days still passed and time when on, it was just a random day. Ophelia had awoken to complete silence just as she always did.

It was awful. Being in silence alone with haunting thoughts plaguing her mind. Every day that passed for the nineteen years she had already been stuck inside the quiet world had turned her numb. All thoughts of her brother had once brought that creeping sensation of sadness to her gut, but now, all she could think about was what her family had done; how they had torn the siblings apart.

Yes. What the pair had done that night was awful, but to a certain extent, the family had deserved it. Kai deserved to be the leader of the coven; he was the strongest and he had promised that he would change how the coven would be led, he would have led with his sister by his side. They would have been untouchable to their sorry excuse for a family.

Ophelia's dull eyes looked around the room as she finished getting dressed; if there was something Ophelia did enjoy about the prison world; it was the access to free food and clothes. She exited the regal room she had selected as her own and trudged down the stairs.

The home, or rather, mansion that Ophelia had taken up residency in was beyond huge. The rooms were decorated with vintage furniture and chandeliers hung from the high ceilings. Lavish curtains swayed lightly from the breeze that came through the ever-open windows; after all, who could ever break-in?

The barefooted brunette slowly made her way towards the kitchen, one of her favorite rooms; for such a petit woman she could eat.

Roughly ten minutes later, Ophelia sighed and finally put away the box of cereal she had been munching on, pouring out the discolored milk into the sink.

She didn't exactly have a plan for the day, she never did. More often than not, she occupied her time by playing on the grand piano that had its own room, with the fire flickering in the background. Other days she would spend hours in the woods that surrounded the plantation, tending to the vast amounts of peony's she had planted. Or sometimes, she would draw; not beautiful landscapes and detailed portraits, she wasn't that fortunate when it came to those, but she focused on fashion, designing clothes even though she knew nobody would ever see them.

The city was large and had many nooks and crannies to explore; that was one thing to be thankful for she supposed.

New Orleans, as Ophelia had come to find, had a rather fascinating history that the brunette studied day in and day out; absorbing as much information about the more... mystical side of the city. Much to her fortune, New Orleans was rather big on voodoo and witchcraft.

The oddly still city also had a large variety of bars and clubs that were all empty, of course, but that also meant that Ophelia never quite had a shortage of alcohol to drown her sorrows in. Over the years she drank like a sailor and built up a rather hefty tolerance that she was sure one would applaud, if anyone ever could.

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Ophelia had spent the majority of the morning with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a rusted watering can in another, droplets of crystal-clear water sinking into the dry ground that surrounded the blooming baby-pink flowers whilst gulps of the bitter brown alcohol burned its way down the brunette's throat.

As the day went on and more clouds filled the sky like clockwork, a small tugging feeling enveloped the woman who tried her best to ignore it. But as the sky grew even brighter and the sun beamed down on the skin that was left uncovered by the red sundress that adorned her frame, the tugging grew stronger and Ophelia couldn't ignore it.

At first, she believed it to be from the multiple bowls of cereal she had consumed; her body begging for something healthy to get her through the day. But no, that couldn't have been it. The sensation was still present after she had set herself down to eat lunch by the cool water of the swimming pool.

The woman hissed, her hand flying to her stomach where the sensation burned at her, begging her to follow the trail it had laid out for her.

Her mind flooded, wondering what the hell could have been happening. Nineteen years had passed, each day the same as the last and the same as the ones that would follow. She had never experienced anything like it, and so, she slipped her feet inside the rather chunky and white shoes that sat by the large door of the plantation and headed in the direction that the sensation was almost pulling her towards.

It took some time. The shoes that gave her an extra couple of inches trudged down the familiar roads and paths of the magnificent city. She held an appreciation for the city she lived in, but it was a constant reminder that she couldn't leave; that she could never be with her brother.

The sensation continued to flood her body; her veins were on fire and her breathing increased to harsh breaths as she stood where it seemed to gather; the Lafayette Cemetery.

Ophelia rolled her eyes that lacked their old fire. Of course, the cemetery that was filled with a bunch of dead witches was the source of the sensation.

She closed her eyes with a deep inhale and let her body lead her to wherever she was being called to. Ophelia Parker had vowed to herself on her second anniversary of being imprisoned that she wouldn't feel hope again, she wouldn't bother looking for a way out... because she didn't believe there was one.

But now, standing outside the cemetery that housed witches' bones, she couldn't help but think that perhaps, there was a small sliver of hope.

Her body carried her past the graves and tombs that lined the path of the silent cemetery. It was odd really, she frequented the cemetery and read the names of the deceased. The brunette had always loved the history of the witches, but the moment her true nature was revealed, that was the moment she despised all witches; how dare they condemn their children, family, and friends to lives full of nothing but neglect and abuse, just because they were different?

She had recognized many names that were carved into the stones, some she knew were witches, some may have been people, wolves or humans. Who knew?

The tugging grew stronger until her eyes snapped open and her knees buckled beneath her. Her head was filled with voices, voices that slurred and echoed as she tried her best to listen.

"Do you believe in the harvest?" Those words rattled against her skull as her knuckles grew white, gripping at the hair on her head in an attempt to relieve herself of the pain.

A meek voice replied to the woman who had spoken, a small 'yes' was uttered and suddenly, Ophelia's mind flashed with images of a young blonde girl who couldn't have been older than sixteen.

Ophelia cried out, an agonizing scream spilling from her lips as the images flashed and stirred until the teenager's throat was slit and blood spilled out. The brunette continued to wail as her insides felt as if they were being pulled in every direction.

Her body was on fire and her eyes remained clamped shut as the images of two more girls filled her mind, only to end the same as the others.

It was a blood bath; Ophelia had recognized the first words she had heard. The Harvest was a ritual, or more so a myth that devout believers of the ancestors believed in. It was supposed to bring the witches more power and make them stronger than ever.

As if someone flipped a switch, the pain fizzled out and the images disappeared leaving Ophelia panting heavily, "What the hell?" she breathed as her mind tried to wrap around what she had seen. She didn't recognize any of the people she had seen.

Just before her breathing could even out and Ophelia could finally relax, the pain erupted once more, in a violent burst that gripped at her entire body. Her vision blurred, a bright white replacing the dull grey of the tombs before finally, she closed her eyes.

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The world shifted. It felt like her entire soul had been plucked from her body and shoved elsewhere. The white light faded from behind her eyes and slowly, Ophelia allowed them to flutter open. As her vision cleared and all blurriness faded, her brows furrowed.

She was exactly where she had been. The only difference was that the light blue sky that had been above her had been replaced by an almost black one. It was the night, small and blinking stars littered the sky, but the tomb beside her; it had been a relatively new tomb, and yet moss that wasn't there prior now obscured the name carved into the rock and there were stains from where the rain had pounded relentlessly.

Time had passed.

Her head was still fuzzy, and the confusion didn't help. But the ever-distrustful woman kept up her guard. Her mahogany eyes were guarded and darted around as she rose from her position on the cool ground, unbothered by the bleeding scrapes on her knees.

Her head snapped up at the sound of a scream, one she somehow recognized. Chaos filled the air and more screams accompanied, building by the second.

Ophelia Parker was nothing if not a thrill-seeker, a brash and hardheaded woman who stormed headfirst into the first sign of trouble, recklessly wanting in on the action.

What she saw baffled her. People.

There were other people; she was out, she had escaped. Before she could dwell on her victory, her eyes were drawn to the crimson liquid that steadily flowed down the stone steps where bodies laid still.

It was the harvest, she was sure of it, and that meant there were witches with power for the taking.

Before she could even take another step, a flurry of dark blurs sped past her before coming to a stop behind the witches of their choosing. Vampires had crashed the ritual, their pearly white and razor-sharp fangs almost gleaming in the moonlight before they plunged into the necks of the witches that took it upon themselves to sacrifice their own.

The scene before her would have scarred those who were faint-hearted, luckily for Ophelia, she had seen and spilled her fair share of blood. In fact, her eyes almost glistened as she watched vampires tear away at the witches. It was a show to her.

The screams of a child suddenly drifted towards her ears and slowly, her gaze was redirected, moving away from the spilled blood and towards the young girl that screamed with all her might. She was in the hold of a witch that was determined to slice her neck and taint her pure-white dress with red, but the girl fought hard and caught the attention of one of the vampires.

He was a dark-skinned man, an attractive man Ophelia had to admit. As soon as his almost onyx-colored eyes latched on to the teenaged girl he snapped into action. His speed carried him behind the man that held the screaming girl in a tight grip and without hesitation, the vampire plunged his fangs into the man's neck before dropping him to the ground.

A fire lit itself inside of Ophelia's stomach as a hand clasped at her wrist. Her head turned to find one of the stray witches staring at her with a dark look. Ophelia almost snarled, her lip pulling upwards as she harshly grabbed at the man.

Her hand glowed an ominous red and the man in her grasp cried out in pain as his magic was pulled from his body. Ophelia panted and a grin appeared on her plump lips for the first time in nineteen years; she rose a hand and with a smile she flicked her wrist, using the stolen magic to snap the man's neck.

The dangerous expression on her face faded to her usual stoic one and her head turned back to the show she had been watching, only to find the dark-skinned vampire and brunette teenager staring at her in shock.

Ophelia could only imagine that the pair weren't expecting, what to them, looked like a witch fighting another witch. Her eyes drifted over the vampire's shoulder as an elderly woman approached him from behind. He hand was outstretched as she muttered incoherent words beneath her breath, causing the vampire to grip his head in pain.

Ophelia was intelligent and she could certainly be manipulative; she knew that if she were to make a life in the now bustling city she would need 'friends', she would need people that thought they could trust her. She needed to be on a winning side. And so, she seized the opportunity in front of her and stormed forward with a glare that would make even the most monstrous of beast's shudder.

"Motus." the siphon muttered and flicked her wrist, using the magic she had stolen to throw the witch into the air. The brunette teenager hid her face in her hands as the witch landed on a pike, blood spilling to the ground as she choked on crimson liquid.

Ophelia took a few more slow steps, a smug smile painted on her lips as she held a hand out to the vampire, willing to help him stand. "You're welcome."

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19-07-2020