Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Power to Corrupt

“Consider this matter over! If you darken my door again or I hear from anyone about this bile spewing from your mouth, I’ll do more than show you the door! Do you understand?”

“B-B-B-But, s-s-she’s your daughter, you can’t jus—”

“I can do whatever I wish, whenever I wish! You have no rule or rhyme over this place or my design, Hannah. I am the master here. I rule over all, and I will bury anything that threatens what I hold dear to my heart. Which, if you didn’t know, is my power. So go, leave me be, wench, or I will make you bleed out before me.”

“You can’t do this. You can’t be so cold. I know you, I know you care for—”

She backhands her across the face, sending her to the floor in a heap. “Sister, I have given you all that you have, all that you’ve ever had. Do not bite my hand, for it will bite back. Go! Before I grow tired of this pathetic display of narcissism.”

Slowly, Hannah picks herself up from the floor, pressing a hand firmly against the right side of her face. “What happened to you?”

She laughs. “What happened to you, dear sister? That is what you should be asking. We were both forged to be part of this world, to rule over its pathetic inhabitants. I have ascended to my rightful place. Where have you risen to?”

“There is always a mirror, dear sister, a mirror to show you what you are, and what you could be.”

She laughs again. “Are you saying I should look at you and see what I could be? How vile a thought. You are the one who has chosen a path not worthy of what we are. We were born to be greatness. What you are is gutter trash.”

“I am purity, like your daughters. Let them come with me, let them be who they are meant to be. Let me show you how we can be better than anything you could ever believe we could be.”

She strides to Hannah’s side and grips her by the wrist, wrenching her arm forward to display the sleeve of tattoos that adorn it.

“These are symbols of who we are; they are the tapestry of our blood. My children will see theirs grow, as ours have. They will be adorned with them, as you should be, as I am. Go from here, live your pathetic life for them, and never darken my doorway again—or that of my children. For the next time I see you, it will be the last,” she says, thrusting her away.

“The next time you see me, I will show you the error of what you have become.”

She laughs loudly. “Are you, the supposed goddess of the people, threatening me?”

“You know me better than that, sister. I do not threaten anyone; I only give them a promise.”

“Then promise all you want. For when the day comes, I will take all you are and bathe my children in it,” she says proudly.

“If that will be the result, so let it be. But dear sister, if I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open, for when I come for you, there will be no escaping my wrath,” Hannah says as she disappears in an explosion of darkness.