Snow White Queen

A cold laugh echoed throughout the walls of what would have seemed like an abandoned building. From the outside, the walls seemed to crumble and the whole place creaked from age. Broken windows and the smell of rot that emanated from the place were hard to miss. There was no vegetation outside of the house, nor any animals. Of course if any passerby were to have the sudden unwitting urge to go through the front door, they would find that the interior of the house was in high contrast to the outside.

Past the front door, made of old rotting oak wood, the foyer seemed warm and inviting, complete with tall, handsome ceilings that seemed made to show off a large, crystal chandelier. The entire place glowed with a honey colored lighting that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The place was very open and, indeed, it did seem too large for the outside of the house to contain. It would give one the feeling that they had walked through the door of a small cottage and into a mansion.

The decorations were not sparse, as the entire place, from what one could see just from the foyer, was decorated to the max. Nothing was spared. Glass vases, delicate figurines, a fire place in the distance, and chairs made of beautifully carved, dark wood with brilliant cushions adorned the place. In fact, it was full of many pretty, dazzling objects.

But anyone foolish enough to walk into that particular house was asking for death. Or worse.

For all its beauty and visual warmth, the walls of the building, even the air, carried a disconcerting cold. The walls spoke through their inability to hold warmth, as if something so natural and human could not survive in this house. Those who merely walked by the home would shiver and shake, perhaps even be plagued by nightmares they couldn't explain. With just a glimpse at this house, this tome, any being would sense in the deepest pits of their souls, that this place meant death itself.

And yet, a harsh, cold laughter rattled the entire place, emanating from somewhere beneath the floors. A basement, or perhaps a dungeon, waited below the floorboards. The laughter which seemed to rattle the place came from a man who seemed to be the very persona of the home that he inhabited. He wore a beautiful, expertly tailored suit that fight in all the right places, giving him a refined, gentlemanly appearance.

His face was angular and his eyes glowed like gentle, blue pools. But he would have looked unnatural to the mortal eye. His eyes beamed like soul-less windows. He laughed maliciously, and coldly. His laugh moved through the whole house and carried on the wind that tried to flee his domain as fast as it could.

"Daddy...please." A small, timid voice whispered from behind his pants leg. It belonged to a girl who couldn't have been more than ten years of age. She wore a dress or rich color. Her face was a more feminine version of the man's. But the similarities between the two stopped at their faces. The girl trembled like a leaf in a violent storm, while the man stood stiff as a statue.

"If you want it to stop, then you will have to stop it yourself." His voice was a hollow echo of a human voice. He grinned then, his face contorting into a mask of malicious delight.

Both his and the girl's gaze were directed at a cage that lay in front of them. In it sat another young girl dressed in mere rags, her hands chained behind her back. Chaffing could be seen on her wrist, but no shackles adorned her thin legs, because they had seemingly been broken. In front of her, slowly approaching, was a beast. It was something too terrifying to describe with words.

In a sense, it was a monster on four legs, hairless simply because it looked as if body parts had been shredded and forced back together in the most grotesque way possible. The thing was an abomination to nature. It had razor sharp teeth protruding from a hole that would have served as a mouth. The thing should have bled from the way it looked, but as blood would begin to run out of the pocked marks in the things hide, it would merely be sucked back into the tattered flesh.

This monster was a purposeless beast. Well, not purposeless entirely: it was meant to teach and to kill.

"Dad! It's going to kill her! Stop it!" The girl cried out loudly, standing up and ripping her dress in the process. Panic flooded her face, but fear made her body stay behind her father.

"Of course it is. Then it will tear her apart and eat whatever is left. She will be alive the whole time. I imagine it will be excruciatingly painful." The man said thoughtfully. "That is, unless you have the will to stop the thing."

"Dad I can't. I'm not ready." The girl pleaded. Her voice now fully showing the panic she felt.

The man snorted and smiled. "Then your friend will die and you will watch." There was a dark gleam in his eye, as if he relished watching something so disturbing. In a way, he may have. There was nothing about the man that would have exuded warmth, protection, or sanity.

Panic could be seen all over the girl's face. Salty tears streamed down her cheeks in frustration. Splotches of bright red came to fill her countenance as she strained herself. But nothing happened. The monster in the cage twitched as if it was shaking off a bug, and seeing this, the girl only became more upset.

"Dad! Please don't do this!" Her voice rose in her hysteria, becoming nearly a scream.

In a flash the man's hand came down across the girls face. There was a crack, the sound of bone snapping. The girl's head jerked back and she clutched her face with a frantic cry. "What have I told you about screaming? If you are too weak to save that mongrel, then it will die."

The girl sat on the floor, her face turned to the ground, as blood began to drip from her now broken nose. It was not her first broken bone. In fact, in her short lifetime, she had accumulated more broken bones than most adults would ever have. All of them had been the man's, her father's, doing. His hand was like steel when it came to discipline.

No, this was not the girl's first broken bone. The pain was all too familiar, yet beneath the pain and panic, she felt something else boiling up. It was anger; red and swelling from years of abuse and humiliation. This was not her first broken bone, but the girl felt with a strong and rising power that this would be the last.

And in that moment, a peculiar thing began to happen to her: she began emitting a low wail. It was one of sorrows and angers so strong that they shook the house and they would have shaken the world if not for the strange magic that made the house cold and cruel.

The man felt the wail begin at his feet and for the first time in his life, he felt something penetrate his flesh. It was a feeling he had never felt before: it was fear.

"Wha-" Before he could even finish the question, the man's mouth snapped shut, as if iron bars were holding it that way.

And he began to move, not of his own will, but that of someone else. One foot in front of another, he found himself unlocking the cage. Then stepping into the cage. Then carrying out the girl with the broken arms and legs, the same girl he had shoved in there earlier. He lay the broken child on the ground. Then he stepped back into the cage and reached through the bars to lock it. He threw the keys out when he was done and they landed at his wailing daughter feet.

Then he was facing the monster.

The same power that had been holding him, suddenly released him. And now the panic had set in. "Kyle," he began slowly, "let me out this instant."

But his daughter paid him no attention, instead, she turned blatantly away from him and moved to help her friend who he had just lain down. He could barely see her face, but he knew what was coming.

"Kyle!" He said more sternly, trying to take control of the situation. He would have controlled her, made her let him out of the cage, made the beast stay where it was. But the cage itself made it impossible for him to do any of that. So the beast turned on him with the sharp toothed grin that it always wore.

It advanced, yet his daughter still paid him no attention. She picked up her friend, who must have weighed as much as she did, if not more. Kyle carried her friend out of the room with strength that no normal human would have possessed. As she reached the steps, her friend in her arms, she turned back and met her father's gaze. Her own was cool and even, while his was panicked as he tried to back as far as he could away from the monster.

"If you're not strong enough to control it, then you will die." She said as blood dripped down her nose, then she carried her friend out and up the stairs.

In that very moment, the man laughed at the irony of the situation. Then the monster struck and the man was ripped to shreds.

...

The large group stood outside in the cool, misty night air as they watched the house become an inferno. Kyle felt something inside her chest tighten as she watched the place that had once been her home burning to the ground. She would call it sad, but deeper down, she felt relieved; free even.

A large man, slumped over with age stood at her side, his face a marble mask. He did not smile or weep, merely gazed at the bright red and orange flames with no feeling. His eyes occasionally moved to look at the girl beside him.

"Kyle." He said, his voice as steady and marbled as his face. She gazed up at him with wet eyes. There were tears there, but no one was sure whether they were of joy or sorrow.

"I hope you understand." He said, his voice low enough that only those in the group surrounding them could hear. "This means that you take your father's place. You are our new Lord."

Some in the group shifted uncomfortably at that moment. Kyle closed her eyes and turned her face back to the house that was now being burned away into nothing. By morning there would be no evidence left of what had happened in that hell hole. There would be charred wood and possibly even some nonflammable decorations left over, but the fire would consume everything, even the beast and what was left of the corpse it had consumed.

"Yes. I understand." Kyle said in a low voice. "I am the White Lord now. Those of you who were under my father are now under me. If there are those who do not like this situation, then this will be the time for you to leave. I don't want anyone here who still feels loyalty to that monster."

She didn't look around, but she could here the uncomfortable shifting and gasping of the crowd. None of them dared to move, until slowly, one by one, figures completely shrouded in shadow moved away and disappeared into the darkness. When all who wanted to leave had left, the remainder of the group were small beings, some of them still children. A few adults stood here or there, and there was a misty figure that hovered just above them all looking solemn.

Kyle looked at them then, starring into each of their faces. The girl who had been in the cage was being held up by a boy with shaggy hair and yellow-brown eyes. He looked to barely weight 70 pounds but he stood tall and straight, clutching the broken girl in his arms.

Kyle smiled then, her face softening for the first time in her life. "Let's go then." And all of them moved off and faded into the darkness.

The house that had once been cold collapsed into itself and was finally consumed by fire.