Silent Dawn Chapter 2

Silent Dawn: Chapter 2 (WoH)
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2008
Belgrade, Serbia

The tale of the twin witches, Jelena and Katerina, terrorized many households for decades. It began in the forested outskirts of Rakovica where a simple family once lived peacefully in an old wooden house. The mother of the household, Natasa, went into painful labors which heralded the arrival of the twins. The father, Iosef, was informed by the doctors of his wife’s underlying condition – a complication in child delivery detected earlier. He was given the painful choice of choosing between his wife or the twins. Iosef decided that a doctor’s findings would not dictate which of his family would live and die and so he seeks out the spirits prowling in the darkest corners of Rakovica.

The response was swift, both of his wife and the twins would survive, however, it came with a price. Both twins suffered anthrophagia – an impulse or desire to consume human flesh. If the cravings weren’t sated, both twins would convulse violently until death. This drove Iosef to abduct tourists from the city, people who never knew anyone and whose disappearance would not lead to immediate searches. However, as years passed, Jelena and Katerina grew, and so are their appetites. They were also gifted with an affinity to dark magick. Iosef became nothing but servants to the twins while their mother became bed-ridden to the point of paralyzation. The twins’ appetites grew and their hunger made them violent. Their capability to conjure the esoteric made them fearsome.

This made Iosef to start abducting people within the community until all eyes turned to him. He was incarcerated after he was caught trying to abduct the community’s school professor. Jelena and Katerina starved, forcing them to resort to consume their mother instead. This granted them fullness in strength that they are capable of carrying out abductions on their own.

Their hunting ground was the community they lived in. It was said that the blood of ravens can put them off-track, and so people began to bleed murders of crows on their doorstep. The practice attracted the Agency and discovered the origins of the tale.

When the presence and capabilities of the twin witches, who had committed a fair share of atrocities ranging from snatching a lone woman off the streets, to abducting several people in the surrounding areas, were confirmed, they deployed the ace up their sleeve.

Protectorate Hagellator stepped off the cargo truck disguised as a mover. His brown and silver Praetorian Battle Gear was lightly scarred from decades of fighting. The gold crucifix on his right shoulder and the long rosary around his waist glinted under the moonlight. He walked towards the lone house at the clearing on the other side of the forest with his Blast Rifle in hand.

His presence was immediately detected by the Jelena. She was identical to her twin, Katerina. Both women wore brown dress, red doll shoes and a pink ribbon on their hair. Jelena’s hair was short while Katerina has long one. Both their eyes were bloodshot. From the attic window of their house, Jelena watched the figure approached. She snarled and began conjuring assistance as she bled her palm with a knife rusted with the blood of a goat.

From the bushes, a tri-horned goat-man appeared. Hagellator whirled mechanically and swiftly fired at the hand of the goat-man, sending the cleaver it held away from its grip. Three more shots went to its chest, cauterizing it with a great degree. The suddenness of the attack and the speed of the Protectorate’s reflexes have stunned the entity. Hagellator sent it to the ground with a kick. The last view it had was the Protectorate aiming the barrel of his Blast Rifle at its face. Blue flashes later, eternal darkness and the screams of its victims.

Hagellator glanced at the house and grinned. For the first time, Jelena felt fear. The Protectorate advanced closer; Jelena rushed towards the broken couch where Katerina was sleeping. She woke her sister with groans and moans, which made her twin to shove her back. Katerina glared at her; Jelena was pointing at the approaching figure outside.

Katerina decided to conjure a water elemental from a pond near the house. It rose in the form of a gelatinous woman whose face was covered in hair. Within its body were hundreds of hands cramped together to fill up her shape. The cries of the dead who were victims of extrajudicial killings can be heard from the entity. Hagellator paused and turned.

It approached.

Hagellator sidestepped as the entity attacked. A quick low kick to the entity’s left knee sent it reeling. Hagellator rammed the Blast Rifle’s stock against its left temple, sending it to the ground. The Protectorate’s head turned towards the twins watching through their door’s window glass. Still gazing at the two, Hagellator pulled the trigger of his Blast Rifle four times, killing the entity.

He continued his approach.

A serpentine entity appeared from the porch of the house. On its chest, three faces can be seen, yelling blasphemies at the Lord. Hagellator felt tired of dealing with the twins’ machinations. He whipped out a vial of holy water and tossed it at the serpentine entity, quieting the faces. He opened fire at the entity until it tripped. Hagellator pulled one of his halberds from his back and hacked its head apart.

With the door unimpeded finally, he approached it and brought it down with a kick. He was greeted with the sight of a T-shaped living room with the farther back leading to the kitchen and a staircase along the left wall leading to the second floor. He entered the threshold of the living room and detected Katerina with a machete from his right.

Hagellator raised his halberd horizontally; the staff of the weapon parried the machete. He clenched his left fist and launched a hook which slammed against her intestines. She was thrown back to the wall. Jelena conjured goetic magick from the staircase on the left, invoking the appearance of a floating séance and sent forth a clawed hand reaching towards the Protectorate.

Hagellator rolled forward and riposted with a downward strike which amputated the arm that came out of the séance. He whirled and fired his Blast Rifle thrice; one hit the wall beside Jelena while the other two hit her squarely in the face and chest. Her skin immediately fell off upon contact. The sizzling of flesh can be heard followed shortly by Jelena’s bloodcurdling scream as her nerve-endings fired upon realization that she was burned.

Katerina wildly threw herself at the Protectorate; Hagellator simply impaled her with an upward thrust of his halberd, its pike entered her chest and exited through her spine, shattering it. Hagellator grinned as he let electricity course through his body and towards the weapon until it reached the dying corpse of the witch, further frying her. The Protectorate pulled her close before igniting her through willpower alone. The combusted body flailed and scream, her reflection was visible from Hagellator’s eye lenses until it went still.

The Protectorate discarded the corpse and turned to Jelena, who was sobbing hysterically while looking at her face on a shard of mirror. Hagellator climbed a few steps and sighted Jelena. He fired a quartet of shots, hitting the target until she was lying on the floor. The cauterization sealed her mouth shut, forcing her to cry with a muffled sound. Hagellator raised his left hand in the air, causing all the shards from the floor to rise up.

Jelena watched in horror as the Protectorate brought the hail of shards at her body. The whimpering witch convulsed a few seconds before she froze. Hagellator grinned before exiting the house.

“Command, this is Hagellator.” The Protectorate spoke as he pressed the side of his helmet. “Target, dead.”

“Return to facility. We have a new task for you.”

This made the Protectorate smile even more.

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(Silent Dawn Tale)