Encounter: Witches of Sin

Talk: Witch of Death and Witch of Mirrors

It was a quiet night. Or so I'd like to say, but at this point I'm unsure of what time it is.

It all started roughly a week ago, when news started spreading of the royal palace's servants having been massacred. It was hard to believe, but the people who'd gone to the palace to inspect the place found no traces of life. Well, that's a bit of a lie, there was a lone survivor: the late King's daughter, Lady Marie Antoinette. She was alone in a castle that was supposed to be filled with servants.

But that same castle had no such servants.

From what I've been told, the hallways were dusty, the windows clouded, the corners filled with cobwebs. It was practically abandoned, yet there was a single soul living inside as though nothing was wrong.

However, all of that was just rumour, and from a single man, no less. A group was dispatched to investigate the palace, since neither the royal family nor the servants have been seen for the last few weeks, and of that group, only one man managed to return alive. What happened to the rest of the group, no one knows.

Roughly around the same time, nights became longer while days became shorter. With each passing day, the night would slowly but surely become longer, until eventually the sun no longer showed itself.

Frankly speaking, it was a completely strange phenomenon.

But it was no matter to me. Generally, no one cared what I think. People think I'm blind, after all. Everything I've heard is not information that I've been told, but rather information that I've overheard. Frankly, I'm fine with having nothing to do about this. It just means that no one will bother me.

“Open your eyes.”

Or so that's what I thought...

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It was a quiet night. I've come outside to take in the night breeze, thinking that no one would bother me because they would think I'm blind.

I'm not actually blind. I just have my eyes closed as a default. The reason being that if I open my eyes, life would disappear. Whenever I open my eyes and it just so happens that people are in my field of vision, they will die. This was because of the power of my "Gift", a power I've named "Deathbringer".

In any case.

I was sitting quietly in front of a water fountain, minding my own business, sometimes accidentally overhearing other people's conversations, but it's not as though that's my fault. Footsteps, chatter, criticism, footsteps, I can hear a multitude of things.

“Hey, can you open your eyes?”

But the one thing I couldn't hear was when the owner of the voice in front of me appeared. At the same time I heard her voice, everything else went silent. There was no pointless chatter, no loud footsteps, no criticism against me, nothing. I only heard this woman's voice, her breathing. But I can't hear her footsteps, her heartbeat. It was as if I'm hearing a floating ghost.

“Hello?”

“I can't open my eyes.”

She called out to me again, so I answered her. I couldn't hear her footsteps, but I felt that she sat down beside me.

“Hmm, that's clearly a lie. It's not that you can't, you don't want to, right?”

“If you knew, then why did you ask...”

She's a strange girl. She doesn't seem curious, but she doesn't seem to have malicious intent. I'm stumped, I don't know how to deal with her.

“Well then, I'll get to the point. Nothing fun in beating around the bush...”