It's mid evening and the swamp is deeply shrouded in darkness. The only light comes from the lively fireflies swarming patches of wet verdure and the eerie glow from the inside of the witch's hut. It sits inanimate among the sounds of slipping slough and the croaking of frogs.

Two figures walk through the mud with weapons and a lantern in hand. It took them longer to reach their destination than they planned, the nightfall coming sooner than expected, so they decided to go with their original plan and deal with the witch rather than camp out in the nastiness of the swamp.

"Who the hell wants to live in this shit hole?" Hansel says as he kicks his boot up from the thick mud. His boots are messy with both dried and fresh dirt and smells of horrid swamp water.

His sister ignores his complaints but mentally agrees with him. The place is so distasteful with stinking vegetation, musty water, and rotting animal meat that she doesn't think any human being, including a witch, could thrive there. She doesn't complain out loud but she doesn't like it as much as her brother.

"This is it," Gretel says in a low, steady voice.

She sets the lantern down on the mud and her fingers apprehensively grip her crossbow, transfixing her eyes on the rickety door a few yards in front of them.

"About time," her brother says, cocking his gun and briskly making his way toward the front of the door.

"I fucking hate this place."

He kicks the door open with his dirtied boot, splits the wood into pieces, and barges in without waiting for his sister to follow him. He quickly scans the space of the hut- gun offensively raised- with the expectation of the witch ready to blast a spell at any intruder.

There is no one. Nothing moves.

"Where is she?" Gretel asks as she comes in through the door right behind him.

She cocks her crossbow up and scans the inside of the hut with him. The lit candles sitting around the room look newly replaced with fresh wax cascading down their sides. The old, meager furniture sit still as if no one has touched them in many years, the wood wet and rotten. A crystal ball and an open book lie in the center of the room atop a ceremoniously covered table sitting idly by each together. To the side stands an elevated basin of mystique water, its blue color glowing mysteriously in the orange candlelight.

"A Sabbath?" Gretel speculates, noticing the spread in front of them.

She approaches the table harboring the book and crystal ball and examines them, noticing the page to be on a certain spell. Compos Mentis the title text says and the rest of the words are transcribed in symbols she doesn't recognize. She flips through the pages and sees more of the foreign symbols. She scrunches her brow and finds it more suspicious than any book of spells she's come across.

"Come on out now," Hansel calls as he walks around the hut, though it seems there is no good place for the witch to hide, "Wherever the hell you are, come on out."

A low, menacing sigh suddenly echoes through the small space and the two immediately raise their weapons at the haunting sound. Their eyes dart across the room, trying to see where it comes from. The sounds of the croaking frogs and swaying water reach their ears again, the sigh gone.

"Did you hear that?" Hansel asks, glancing at his sister.

"Yeah," she replies, looking at him with alert eyes.

The sigh sounds again, this time louder and more menacing. The sound's vibrations crawl on their exposed skin and raise the hairs on their necks. Gretel glances at the spread of objects in front of her again before looking back at her brother.

Her eyes suddenly widen at the sight of a grinning witch standing right behind him, her sharp teeth bared into a maniacal smile and eyes wildly wide open with tiny pupils.

"Hansel! Behind you!" Gretel yells.

"Wha-?!" Hansel lunges forward with a double take behind him.

Gretel quickly pulls her trigger the second he ducks and shoots multiple arrows at the witch but the witch is quick and dodges all of them with ease. Hansel fires his gun but also misses her movements and only shoots an old chair sitting by, shattering the legs to pieces. The witch then runs towards them with a wand in hand and blasts a spell so quickly that neither of them can react in time. They are blown backwards by a strong pressure, their weapons flying from their hands and sliding to the sides of the hut.

The witch cackles and jumps atop Hansel who is lying on the floor from the blast, still stricken by the sudden blow.

"I'll take yours first," she hisses with her nose inches away from his and then puts the tip of her wand up against his temple.

Hansel feels a lightheadedness suddenly taking over his consciousness. His body goes numb, all the sensation feeling like it's being sucked out of him through the point where the wand touched his head. His eyes start to roll back and his consciousness begins to blacken.

"HAH!" Gretel grunts, grabbing the witch's shoulders.

She violently pulls the witch up from Hansel and thrashes her down onto the table with the book and crystal ball. The witch scurries up from the debris just before Gretel could land a fist on her jaw. Gretel throws another punch but again misses. She then grabs the knife from her leg pouch and swings the blade at her opponent who dodges every swing while moving backwards.

The witch quickly grasps a piece of wood from ground and uses it as a buffer and shield to immobilize Gretel's blade when it pierces through. The witch raises her wand to cast another spell but Gretel anticipates her quick movements and whacks her arm away, redirecting the blast and blowing a hole through the hut's mud wall.

Gretel takes the open opportunity and sends a knee towards the witch's body, nailing her square in the gut. But again, the witch is quick to recover and barely winces at the hit. The two women continue trade blows with fists and wand, Gretel struggling to keep up with the witch's fast movements while also trying to offensively land a hit.

Hansel is still on the ground with his senses distorted from whatever the witch did to him. He tries to get up but to no avail, his head throbbing in pain. He rolls on his stomach to try and painfully reach for his gun that is sitting a few feet away from him. He glances up at Gretel and the witch who were still fighting, knowing that he has to come to Gretel's aid before the same thing happens to her. If he doesn't, no one is there to save her.

The witch casts a spell and barely misses Gretel's head when she ducks under; but the witch's movements are still fast and before Gretel could pounce up from her duck, she's thrown back from a kick sent at her face. The metal toe of witch's boot crashes into Gretel's forehead, a loud crack sounding through closed space. Gretel's body crashes up against the wall and before she could fall to the ground, a slimy hand chokes her throat and crashes her back up against the wall.

"Gretel!" Hansel shouts in distress, his throat straining.

He can only watch for his body still can't move no matter what he told it to do. He is helpless. He can do nothing.

"I've been waiting, dearie," the witch says hauntingly with a light cackle, her small, wild pupils training on Gretel's face.

Gretel can barely retain her consciousness from the hit she had taken to the head. Blood drips down from her forehead and runs into her open mouth, her breath ceasing from the strong grip on her throat. The pain is unbearable and she can't fight back. She is done for.

The witch carefully places her wand up against Gretel's temple as she did with Hansel and her grin spreads wider. Gretel feels her consciousness slip further into the darkness, the pain slowly going away as her body goes numb from the spell. The tip of the witch's wand glows blue and a stream of blue mist escapes Gretel's temple as she slowly pulls her wand back.

"No!" Hansel shouts, reaching out a weak hand. He can still do nothing.

Gretel's eyes slowly roll back into her head and a choking sound escapes her lips. Her body goes lifeless and her head props back up against the wall, the blood cascading the sides of her head. The witch lets go of her grip and Gretel crashes into the ground still limp.

"Greeetteel!" Hansel screams.

"Looks like I don't need yours," the witch says with the ominous grin still on her black lips.

She moves towards the small basin of glowing blue liquid and dips her wand in it, releasing Gretel's mist into the solution. She then takes a glass bottle from under her robes and slowly pours the blue liquid into it, closing the opening with a cork after she finishes. The witch raises the bottle in front of her face, its neck hanging at her dirty fingertips, and gazes at it with admiration.

Hansel only watches her with his body still not moving. He glances over at Gretel still lying lifeless a few feet away and fear of his sister being dead overcomes him with such ferocity that he mentally screams at his body to move. It doesn't.

The witch walks over to him, her boots thumping on the dry mud and conjuring up dust particles that shower his face. She halts in front of his face and looks down on him, her eyes much more relaxed than before. She hangs the bottle above his head.

"You want it back?" she asks with a mocking tone and a haunting air behind it. Then her eyes flash wide with the wild look suddenly returning and her voice completely changes into ragged hostility.

"Then fight for it."

She violently kicks him in the face and everything goes black. The last thing he hears is her insane cackle following his consciousness into the darkness, quickly fading along with it.

"No...Gretel…"

The sun shines into the open door of the hut and the blasted hole on the wall. It's late morning and the two are lying on the floor, battered and bruised. The sounds of frogs still rang, though lesser than the night, and the swamp looks much less treacherous. The inside of the hut remains in a mess from the fight the night before, wood broken into pieces, blood and piles of small rubble strewn all over the mud floor. The basin sits empty on its pedestal and the crystal ball and book are gone.

Hansel jolts awake with his head throbbing in pain. His muscles ache and he feels his face dirtied with dried mud. He grunts as he tries to move his limbs and is welcomed with more searing twinge. His consciousness slowly recomposes itself and he realizes that he's lying on the dirt ground, the memory of the previous night quickly dawning back down on him.

"Gretel!" he breathes and quickly glances up at where he remembers where her body lies.

His vision focuses at the blurry image of a body lying a few feet away. Gretel is on her back, her face facing his direction but still lifeless. He squints and sees that there is no blood on her semblance when he can swear that she was bleeding when the witch kicked her- if his memory is right.

And if his memory is right then Gretel is possibly dead.

He slowly scrambles up from the ground and makes his way towards her, ignoring his own pain that courses through his body. He falls to his knees and reaches for her body to prop it up against him.

His eyes don't deceive him- there is no blood on her face and the gash on her forehead from the kick is completely gone, no trace of even a scar. Her face is peaceful, as if she's only asleep and not beaten unconscious.

But is she dead?

He bends down to put his ear against her bosom and hears her heartbeat, slow but it is evident that she is still alive. He feels a surge of relief engulf him, knowing that his sister is still alive even after what happened the night before… whatever that was.

"Gretel," Hansel says softly but urgently, gently shaking her to get her to wake, "Gretel, wake up."

He shakes her a little harder and her face slightly frowns from the movement like she is annoyed that someone's waking her up. A small groan escapes her lips and she shifts uncomfortably in Hansel's arms.

"Gretel, it's me, Hansel," he says louder, "Wake up!"

Her eyes slowly flutter open and she groggily groans again. As they open, her eyes focus and it looks like she is more aware of her surroundings, finally regaining consciousness. She looks straight at Hansel and then around the hut with darting eyes, looking alarmed.

"Hey, it's alright," Hansel says gently with worried eyes, "Whatever the witch did to you, you came out okay. I'm right here, Gretel, don't worry."

Gretel doesn't reply and merely stares back at him with the same baffled look. Her mouth hangs slightly open as if she is about to say something but can't find the words.

"What's wrong?" Hansel asks, confused by the look she is giving him. He hasn't seen his sister look this vulnerable and frightened in a long while.

She blinks.

"Wh-who are you?"

Yay!

So this was an idea that I had prancing around in my head for a while so I thought I'd finally let it out before I lost it haha. I know that it went by pretty quickly but this is just, again like the first chapter of Simul Aeternum, a pilot chapter to see if it's an idea that people would like!

I'm also trying a different style of writing with this one: active voice and sort of script-like. I found it kinda refreshing from always writing in passive voice for all my fics haha. I don't know, maybe I'll stick with it? Not for Simul Aeternum though; I think I'm in too deep for that one to just suddenly change writing style haha.

But anyway constructive feedback and comments, as well as opinions about where this story is going (from what you've read from this chapter), are most welcome! :) I love and appreciate hearing readers voice their honest opinions.

Thanks for reading! Until next time~