I stood out in front of the balcony which overlooked the rest of Fealettia. I couldn't fathom their reactions. Why did they look so fearful when I asked to go outside? There was nothing disturbing about it, not one bit. Regardless, I looked out, allowing the breeze to sweep over my face and tickle my nose.

Time seemed to stop completely, all my family's trials and griefs in which had weighed me down for the past year gone. Why did the weights feel like? You might ask. Those weights were like getting trammeled for life. Like shackles binding you to everlasting fire or perhaps pandemonium. That's how it felt like.

The sky sprinkled with stars of distinctive shapes and sizes, seemingly making a constellation. A waning crescent moon hovered upon the land, giving Fealettia it's lunar luminescence alongside the rather halcyon dead of the night and hoots of owls resounding in the air.

But steadily, diabolism rose, the skies turning dusky and far more stygian. I trembled, my heart starting to pound more vigorously in my chest.

Intuitively, I kept stepping back and back, the suspense growing worse by the second. Then, I closed my eyes. I couldn't think straight any longer as everything I saw speed up yet my movements became sluggish. It felt like a swarm of butterflies had caught me when I realized the doom that could and surely would impede me if I didn't act now. The realization of my death and much bigger desperation for life than expected. Yet with every ounce of nerve left in my blood, I opened my eyes. A bleak, acrid wash ran over me.

There was a dark enchantress staring directly back at me, floating in the sky, her yellow-red eyes oozing with corrupt. Her skin as pale as a banshee, long grey-white hair spilling out from under the black hood, dark ink around her eyes and paint around her bow-shaped lips. On the back, she had black malignant wings.

She had an apathetic smile on her face that was equally as wicked as her magic itself. It was now completely gloomy, all signs of the illuminating light of the stars ceasing.

The dark enchantress raised her claws, mumbling an enchantment in an eerie, iniquitous whisper. I wasn't able to distinguish what she was saying exactly as she spoke in a language I never heard of. Before I knew it, as soon as the dark enchantress ceased her whispers, I saw that she had summoned monstrous black-beak claws.

I wanted to flee but I couldn't, no matter how much I fought. I was the marionette being manipulated while the dark enchantress was the puppeteer, controlling me as my limbs and arms felt as if strings were attached and my head was forced to hand limply.

My eyes turned as black as midnight and while I wanted to scream for help, I found that nothing came out. My voice was no longer my own.

The dark enchantress showed no emotion apart from an antipathetic smirk. She upheaved me further from the patio, where I was now hovering in the sky. The next thing I knew, the pain pierced me internally and externally as the black-beak claws tore through my stomach.

I wanted to scream but this time not for help but because of the pain. If I could, I would have described it as if someone was twisting and crushing my organs over and over again until they were nothing but mush.

Bursts of fire spiraled through the air towards the dark enchantress, causing her to lose her antipathetic smirk temporarily to teleport.

"Oh, if it isn't the lovely Hestia..." The dark enchantress said with mordacity. A phoenix with plumages of sangria red, and marmalade orange appeared, her wings surrounded by an aura of crimson flames. When she flew by, streaks of gold and scarlet would arise and irradiate the sky with golden hues.

The Phoenix, engulfed in flames, cawed viciously, "I don't need your flippant little bantering, you no good for nothing demon. You have two choices." She warned.

"Your first choice is to leave Liselotte alone, go back to that cesspool you crawled from, and declare to your harebrained king that we will fight to our last breath or else..." The Phoenix laughed tigerishly. "I won't hesitate a second to burn you alive."

The dark enchantress scoffed, "Hmph, we'll see about that." She summoned indigo-hued demonic flames, which attempted to hunt down the Phoenix. But with incredible skill, the Phoenix dodged the flames and flew in a spiral across the sky, seemingly mocking the dark enchantress.

The dark enchantress bared her barbed teeth, once again summoning another round of her demonic flames. But just like before, the Phoenix dodged them all, managing to get to the nape of her neck and biting into it.

Yet the dark enchantress didn't wince nor whimper of pain. Instead, the puncture from the bite automatically patching up by itself. "This is not the end, I will come back for the girl and kill her!" She snarled.

"Aira now!" I heard the Phoenix as it transformed back into Hestia.

I fell deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, the only sole thing I could remember was the muffled voices of Odessa, Aira, Sofia and the feathery cocoon of wind being me soothingly to the ground.