Prisoners of Sin: Deadly Feast of Twilight

Sweet sugar

Cold air that smells of sugary-syrup dances all around me. It carries with it something that drums like a heartbeat, noticeable yet inaudible. That's what makes me open my eyes wide. And what was torn out of me was a loud gasp.

  I'm in a room filled to the ceiling with flickering, whispering shadows with gleaming ruby eyes. They're all watching me, low laughter building. My head swings around to try and count them all, but I know it would be fruitless; there are just too many.

  Something hits the ground with a soft, metallic, resounding thud.

  Curious, I ignore the shadows and take a peek at it. What I find was what appeared to be a elegant fork made out of blown sugar. Silver, with delicate red ribbons wrapping around the handle. I pick it up, and the shadows screech and scatter.

  "Oh, hi there. You've found my fork," a child behind me says.

  I yelp and whirl around to see who was there. To my surprise, I find a young girl, seeming to be anywhere from eight to ten, with wavy blackberry hair and cherry red eyes that her skin look even paler. My stomach rumbles faintly, and embarrassment flushes me raspberry-red.

  I noticed something else: she's impossibly thin, all skin and bones.

  This girl wears a cheery yellow dress and matching flower crown, but there's a sense of wrongness about the crown. Peeking out from among the blossoms, I see some miniature, bloody silverware. Tiny forks, spoons, and knives dance with the blossoms and leaves.

She tilts her head, hair shifting into her eyes. Only her nose and mouth remain visible to me, and I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round, rushing 'round and 'round, all the way until I grow sick. My legs give out not too long after, and my hands sting when they make contact with the ground.

The girl giggles, covering her mouth, her eyes no longer being covered. She gets on her hands and knees and crawls to me, snatching up the fork as she did so. That's when I catch sight of her wings.

Like the fork, they seem like they're made from sugar. I've watched a lot of baking shows, so I recognize that look. But I'd never seen wings like that. Black and mottled, pastel red Angelle wings, all in a set of four placed between her shoulder blades.

"W-w-who are y-you, and w-where am I?" I stutter out, trembling violently. My hands fly to the pocket in my jacket, grabbing the knife I keep there, and opening it. "Stay back!"

She stops, sitting down almost like a fox. "I'm Vi!" she exclaims excitedly. "And you're in the Demon's Realm, duh." She sticks out her tongue at me.

Vi. What a strange name.

The dress she's wearing flickers, changing. It goes from yellow and ruffled to gingerbread-brown, with a wide skirt and puffy, white sleeves. Illustrations of candies decorated the bottom, then they shift to a forest scene. Two silhouettes of children approached a house.

"Y-your dress," I say, suddenly hating myself for pointing out the obvious. "It's changed."

She glances down, not all that interested. "Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Now, who are you, Little Miss Intruder?"

I take a deep breath and unwisely pocket the knife. "My name's Iris, and I have no idea how I got here." Slowly, I manage to ask, "How exactly did I get here? To....wherever this place is?"

  Vi smiles widely, revealing frighteningly sharp fangs. She lets out a small hum, sustaining it for longer than necessary. Cherry eyes flash to mine, and it appears as though there's firelight in them.

  "You were summoned here," she says as if it were plain to see. Getting up, she begins to skip around me. "You're just in time, too. The feast is going to start in a week."