A few wraps later, she was done.
"Thanks," I said solemnly.
"I'm almost not as bad as I seem, huh?" She winked at me.
"Mm-hmm." I said in reply. " Your name?"
"Pardon?" She turned, hair flipping around.
"You never told me your name." I winced with pain from trying to stand.
"Oh! The name's Grenda. Now, time for your friends, I'll take the girl first." She quickened her pace and I tried my best to follow as quickly as possible.
The beach reappeared and we strolled to the fort. She used the same knife to cut my bonds. I grimaced at seeing it again, especially since it was smeared with my blood.
She told Rien and I to get the others up to the fort and that then she'd take care of them.
Rien noticed my bandages. "What was your sacrifice?" He asked.
"She took a vertebrae." I said with my head hanging as we walked a few hundred yards to Aaron and Ambur. Rien didn't answer, as if this disturbed him so much that he didn't know what to say. I grabbed Ambur's bound hands and helped her up, while Rien helped Aaron up. They had cloths over their mouths.
We walked them up to the witch and she took Ambur first.
A while later, they came back out. I didn't see any blood, wounds, cuts, or gore. But, wait a minute,
she looked... Older.
I had to ask. "What happened?"
"She sucked 20 years of my youth." She replied with a shaky voice as the witch cut her bindings. She sounded like she was about to cry.
The witch did a "come here" motion with her finger to Aaron and said, "You're next." With a dim grin.
At least an hour later, Aaron came back out with the witch. His face was white. Like dead white. I could imagine that all of ours were, though.
"Aaron, are you okay?" I asked him, worried.
He didn't reply.
The witch spoke a last time, "You have earned your passage." She then did a "right this way"/bowing motion.
I checked to make sure that everyone was okay before continuing. Even though they were obviously not.