565: The Harbinger of Death
“You can’t be serious!” princess Mary raised her voice when Samira lifted her top hat. “Samira! Have you completely lost your mind!?”
Brittany finally saw cracks in the princess’s confident façade. However, this was not a cause for celebration. Bloody Mary may have grown increasingly infamous for her rotten personality but compared to her big sister… Brittany couldn’t help but feel that Mary raised her voice to purposefully draw more attention to the scene.
Undertaker Samira, Brittany recalled the unofficial nickname of the third of the Seven Sisters. Not that Samira had any position that dealt with dead people. And yet, time and again, whenever there was another body, someone would claim they saw the third princess in the vicinity.
Even if most of those were attention-seeking fabrications, eventually the rumors grew so pervasive that the story evolved to the next logical step. Whenever people saw Samira, they started to speculate: who might have died; who will die?
“The Harbinger of Death,” Remi muttered.
Stupid! Brittany thought. Stay silent and maybe she won’t notice you!
Samira raised her top hat and then quickly lowered it back on her head. Except it didn’t stop on her head. The top hat went lower—and with a wave—Samira was gone from the rooftop.
“Wha—” Brittany gasped.
Hoping that The Undertaker would simply disappear was too good to be true. And as fear of what was to come filled Brittany’s heart, she cursed her stupid self. What on earth possessed her to get involved with the princesses? Before Brittany could answer that question, she realized that Samira was behind them.
A cold stare. An expressionless face. How could such fiery eyes be so lifeless? Brittany wondered while Mary shouted something. Samira waved her top hat, and darkness engulfed Brittany.
Utter darkness. Without light. Without sound. Brittany couldn’t see her own hands. She tried touching herself but couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t tell if her hands moved at all or if she even had hands to move. Brittany tried to shout but no sound came out. She didn’t even feel her mouth move. Looking around proved just as fruitless. With utter darkness in all directions and no sense of up or down, was she already dead? Did Samira kill her with a single move? Was this what awaited after death? Complete nothingness in all directions for all eternity?
“AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” Brittany screamed only to realize that she was on her hands and knees on mossy terrain. “A-ah!?”
Brittany looked up and realized she was now in a forest. Remi was on the ground next to her, as was Mary, and Samira a few feet ahead, her top hat back on her head. The two princesses were the only ones properly upright on their feet.
“What was that!?” Remi asked with a shaken voice.
Mary didn’t answer.
“My little sister didn’t want to cause a commotion,” Samira replied in her stead. “I kindly obliged and changed the scenery.”
“We’re in Shadow Woods?” Remi asked after looking around.
Samira nodded and then asked Mary, “Do you still intend to return to the palace?”
“Why do you not want me there so badly?” Mary asked.
“Why would anyone want you there?” Samira answered with a question. “You’re unpredictable, constantly causing trouble, a danger to yourself and others. Your stunt in the mines was the last straw.”
“Last straw for who?” Mary asked. “If I go back to mother right now, won’t you be the one in trouble for leaving me with those purple shits?”
“This is your final warning,” Samira said and touched her top hat again. “Find a hole to crawl into and don’t come out. Maybe after a few months you’ll be given another chance.”
“No, this is your warning!” Mary raised her voice. “Fuck off before I give you a beating you should have gotten a long time ago!”
“So be it,” Samira said and took off her top hat.
Princess Mary spat several pink bubbles right at Samira, but the gothic princess caught all the bubbles into the pitch black of her top hat. Samira then reached into her top hat and pulled.
“What the…” Brittany stared in disbelief.
When Samira pulled her hand out of her hat, she had a pair of long, furry white ears in her clenched fist. Brittany almost began to expect that the princess would pull out a rabbit, only to quickly see that it was something much bigger than a simple rabbit. Something that could not possibly fit inside that tiny hat.