by Safa Shaqsy
Watching the fire graze the cards to the ground satisfyingly, she turned around with a loud sigh, before the eerie since reminded her of her friend still missing within the house.
“Naomi”, she whispered, feeling frightened and worried at the same time.
“Hello Nora”, the subtle, yet nerve chilling response called out to her from behind.
Nora felt stiffness in her neck, and her breath seemed to cease momentarily just as she turned around to look in the direction from which her name had been called. Like a nightmare she wished she could get out of, she bit her lower lip and slowly took a step back at the hideous sight standing before her. It was unrecognizable, asides the fact the deep brown eyes belonging to her friend continued to linger in the skull now being sheltered by nothing but darkened skin and scale.
“Nao… Naomi”, Nora stuttered. “What… what… what happened to you?”
Naomi looked at her body and smiled, before folding her hands behind her back as she walked towards the window. Nora attempted to step closer but held herself back as her legs seemed too scared to even carry out the move.
“You look surprised to see me”, Naomi smiled without turning around to look at her friend.
Nora opted to speak but held her word back again.
“For years, I have waited, wondering if I would ever get the opportunity to escape from that hell hole called a realm after the cards sucked me in”, Naomi continued. “Yet, here I am… on the brink of death after you jabbed that log into my chest, I heard your friend’s inner cries”.
The room fell silent and oddly so too, while Nora tried to make sense of what her best friend was saying.
“She wanted to live, and I could hear her wishes”, Naomi continued. “She blamed you for everything that had happened to everyone… she wondered why you couldn’t have just let the dingy old tarot cards be and not buy them off of the internet”.
Naomi’s frame turned around, as her body slowly began to take proper form back into that of a human.
“I didn’t know!” Noara yelled at her friend. “Naomi, I had no idea and you know this!”
Naomi held up her hand, snapped her fingers, and Nora felt her left ankle get dislocated in the process.
“You didn’t care”, Naomi replied. ‘All you wanted was fun ad a way out of the miserable life you were having at home”.
Naomi felt to the ground, groaning and whimpering in pain as she tightened her grip around her twisted ankle. “What did you do to me? What are you talking about?”
Naomi wove her hand and lifted Nora from the ground, slamming her into the wall as Nora yelled in pain just as she noticed the cards she had tossed into the fireplace, now neatly stacked atop the couch as if nothing had happened to them.
“You could have been powerful enough to handle all of this you know?” Naomi continued. “All you had to do was embrace what you are, as I did and as your grandmother did as well”.
Nora gasped and her eyes widened as she slumped to the ground. “Mother?”
Naomi cackled aloud and spread her arms apart. “Hello Nora!”.
Nora jumped to her feet and lunged toward the mother as hard as she could. She shoved the woman to the ground and knelt atop her with reddened eyes and heavy breath.
“What did you do!?” she asked
Naomi flipped Nora over and knelt atop her. “You friend is dead… she died the moment my other half, the wraith jammed its claw inside her”.
Nora didn’t want to believe it, and she hurriedly shoved her mother off.
“How is it possible?” Nora asked. “The wraith died! You died, or at least, you were trapped down there!”
Naomi waved her hand and smiled. “A part of me was trapped in that crazy realm with those ol duds, but as long as my wraith remains in this world, a part of me remains tethered here too”.
Nora shook her head, trying had to disregard her mother’s words.
“When you plunged the wood into my heart, or at least my wraith’s heart, you set me free and granted me access to another vulnerable creature in your friend who didn’t want to die”, Naomi explained.
“No! Leave my friend! Let her go!” Nora yelled.
Her mother cackled aloud while she snapped her fingers together.
“You are weak! Too weak to even channel your true powers from the tarot cards!” Sarah smiled as she transformed Naomi’s body into hers. “I will give you one last chance to right your betrayal and stand with me while we bear power over life and death”.
Nora looked towards the tarot cards with a thin smile in the corners of her mouth.
Sighing softly, she looked up to her mother and replied, “Thank you”.
Sarah shrugged and replied, “For what?”
Nora slowly walked towards the couch and picked up the tarot cards as she stared at it intensely without breaking her gaze off.
“You were right”, she replied. ‘I have wasted too many time, allowed too many lives to die because I never really imagined what I’m capable of even when I have seen firsthand what you can do with these cards”.
Sarah tilted her head to the side curiously and stepped closer to her daughter.
“Thank you mother”, Nora whispered. “Thank you for ruining everything I hold dear, and for making me into what I am about to become”.
Sarah giggled, reached out her hand to her daughter, but Nora stepped backwards, yanked out the cards and placed both hands atop them with her eyes closed.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked in a perplexed tone.
Nora remained silent momentarily, before she began to mumble. “Take my soul… take my will… make me the sacrifice you seek, and grant me what I need!”
The card began to burn brightly, while Nora yelled in pain.
“You stupid girl!” Sarah yelled in anger.
She wove her hand and caused Nora to crash into the wall, but the girl wouldn’t let go of the cards, as she continued to pledge her life to it.
“Take my soul… !” she yelled, while se crashed into the wall behind her and her head felt like it was about to get split open. “Take me!”
Sarah raced towards her daughter, as the cards glowed even brighter, and her daughter continued to pledge her existence to it.
“The cards are mine!” Sarah cried in ager. “I will not allow you take it away from me!”
Nora upped herself from the ground and replied, “The card was never yours! You were never meant to be here and you have no right to possess my best friend’s body you wicked woman!”
Sarah took some steps backwards, but Nora had surprisingly moved closer to her in unexpected speed.
“Get the hell out of my friend!” Nora yelled, jamming her fist into her mother’s chest and sending her flying backwards.
Sarah managed to remain on her feet as she slowly transformed back into Naomi.
“Your friend is a part of me as I am part of her”, Naomi spoke, in what Nora could guess was her mother’s words. “You cannot kill or harm us!”
Nora stiffened her fist momentarily, as she felt her body continue to shudder with rage and immense power.
“Absorbing the tarot cards powers and having the elderlies with you after giving them your soul is all for naught, you silly child”, Naomi chuckled.
Nora watched her best friend slowly approach, smiling and wearing a rather innocent expression on her face.
“Nora… please save me”, Naomi pleaded with her eyes bearing tears, and her lips trembling as she approached her friend.
Taken back by the appearance of her best friend, Nora stiffened her nerves and accepted her friend into her embrace while they shared the warm feeling of having each other in their arms momentarily.
“It is inside you”, Nora whispered to her friend.
Naomi shook her head while she wept into Nora’s shoulder. “I can control her… I promise you”.
Nora slowly parted from her friend and locked her in a rather stern gaze.
“It is gone”, Nora sigh
ed.
Naomi seemed lost as she asked, “What’s gone?”
Nora stepped closer with her eyes closed and tears rolling down her cheeks. She placed her right hand on Naomi’s chest, before tightening her other arm around the lady and leaning her head into her shoulder.
“Your brown eyes”, Nora whispered. “It is gone”.
Naomi gasped as she felt something tear through her chest, and her breath suddenly ceased. Nora held her friend closer to her body as she wept with Naomi’s heart in her hand, beating slowly until it grew dead and unresponsive.
“My mother will never let you live”, Nora whispered with tears. “It is the only way to get rid of her”.
She stepped backwards, and watched her best friend fall to her knee, while she held the girl’s heart in her hand. Naomi’s body fell to the ground in deafening manner, causing Nora to fall to her knees as well, with her right hand bearing a distinct marking in form of a phoenix.
“What have I done?” she asked herself, feeling too scared to drop her friend’s dead heart.
Something about the manner in which she had resolved to killing her best friend didn’t sit right with her, and Nora felt doomed at heart as she wondered if the tarot card now infused with her body and soul had not dictated her action.
She tossed the heart over and towards Naomi’s body, as she shrieked, “You made me do it!”
The tarot cards were neatly stacked by Naomi’s dead body, as the day outside the house slowly cleared, and everything seemed to return to normal.
“Well done Nora!” Nora heard Meralda’s voice echo around the room.
Nora looked around in frightened manner.
“You will be of use to us after all”, Merlada cackled, as her voice echoed and slowly faded away.
A loud thunder erupted from outside, and the ground began to hiss in disturbing noise as Nora hurried to her front door. Crevices began to appear in the earth, and through them, dead bodies began to crawl right out. In the midst of it all, Nora watched her father’s body make its escape from underneath the earth, while Daren’s corpse could be seen in the mix too.
She stepped backwards, feeling short on words, as she asked herself, ‘What on earth have I done?”
She looked back to the tarot card, and felt her eyes widen, as it leaked of blood and bled all over the floor. Something dangerous had been awakened and Nora could feel it in her soul. Something about killing her best friend had awakened something and she couldn’t help but wonder what hell she had unleashed upon the earth this time around.
About the Author
Safa Shaqsy is an author of the bestselling book, Alien Busters series. She graduated from a business college but participated in many writing activities including writing her own stories and poems as she expressed herself through words. Her love for novels started when she got a novel as a gift, that’s when she discovered the magic of the fiction world.
