1 The Beauty and the Witch

They cornered her in the theater corridor. She didn't got even the chance to punch one of the hooded vampires before her hands were restrained. A scream tried to struggle out of her lips, but they didn't want to spoil the experience of the aristocrats in the next box who seemed interested in the opera. The cloth was pressed against Sophie's nose and she had a few seconds of failed struggle before the scent of herbs brought with it darkness.

For a long time, the witch believed that death finally came to her. At least it was at her best: the puff-sleeved blue dress she was wearing during the attack was stunning. Most of the time it was Henrietta who dressed that well, and Sophie couldn't recall the last time she wore something other than her faded boots and patched pants. However, no jewelry could be found on her body, in case those bastards were thieves. Again, a luxury only Henrietta could afford.

The first night Sophie had some time to enjoy herself was the one when she was killed. It sounded so pathetic, something a random uncle would use as the title of a creepy story with a life lesson...

If she hadn't just died!

...Haha. What a great post-life joke.

And then the light came. Not as usual, when Sophie woke up from another night of work. It was a sickening glow that shook her stomach somewhat violently. With it came a sense of "this just got worse" that stagnated in the witch's bones. She had to blink a few times before she could see the two girls right under her nose. They were identical.

Of course they were. Because even close to death, her intuition had to come in the form of prophetic dreams to say goodbye somehow.

Sophie sighed, suddenly with a great headache. "So, let me guess. You..." she pointed at the girl with a delicate nose, big pink eyes and long lashes. "You are my lovely sister, Henrietta. And you, your poor thing, you are me, aren't you?" she pretended pity at the other girl, with messy dark hair and crooked nose.

The twins stared at the witch without emotion for what felt like an eternity. "If you are trying to scare the hell out of me, you'll need to find new ideas. These Halloween-inspired faces just don't make the job anymore."

The mini Henrietta was the first one to move. Right. The first one to ever react faster. After all, intuition and divination stuck pretty well to reality.

Sophie looked at the girls with what she called boredom expectation. At least some kind of entertainment in hell, heaven, or whatever was waiting for her. She couldn't remember what witches believed. Maybe reincarnation? Who knows. The only good thing she did to her own kind was killing stupid vampires. It was a well-payed job at least. The scheme of an evil genius.

The mini Henrietta grabbed the mini Sophie with terror. "HELP ME!" the scream ripped the pink spirals of her brain. "DO SOMETHING! HELP ME!"

But the mini Sophie gave her a cold psychopath look. A second later, the girl took out of a pocket a small kitchen knife. It was just in that particular moment, when the mini Sophie pushed the mini Henrietta, that the witch noticed that they were sewed. Like rag dolls. Together. The mini Henrietta didn't fell on the floor, how it was supposed to be. Instead, her half of the body swayed limply in the direction it had been boosted.

A blue line glued the sisters' flesh together starting from what looked like a shoulder between two necks, running down the exposed swollen belly, and ending between their genitals. A perfect half. Almost a masterpiece. Blue meant peace.

And the mini Sophie started cutting where tranquility once was.

The mini Henrietta screamed again with the pain while red stained the shining blue of the line. "STOP!" she begged tears in her eyes. "PLEASE, DON'T!"

But the mini Sophie didn't stop or hesitated. She continued, with no emotion at all. The lungs popped out of the rib cage and the heart swayed between the layers of skin. "SOPHIE! SOPHIE, STOP! IT HURTS, STOP!"

The mini Henrietta then turned to the big Sophie, who was watching the scene in shock. There was blood everywhere and organs falling from their bodies. A macabre spectacle of unholy carrion.

"PLEASE!" the mini Henrietta tried one last time, but now her hand was addressed to the big Sophie. "SISTER! SISTER! HELP ME!"

With a final cut, the bodies were cruelly divided. The mini Henrietta fell to the ground sobbing, while the mini Sophie tried to stay on her single foot for several seconds before also land. The sound was almost like corpses being thrown into the ditch.

The taste of blood reached the witch's tongue in some ironic way. She needed a moment in silence and closed eyes to recompose. There was the smell of rotten flesh, of sickness, hunger and despair. When she could open her eyes, the mini Henrietta was dead, and the mini Sophie looked at her with a gentle smile.

"Why..." the word trembled in her tongue. "Why... this?"

The girl turned at her dead sister's body with a certain sadness. "She was annoying."

Sophie blinked. "What?"

The girl smiled again. "Now she has her side all to herself. And I..." a tear fell from the mini Sophie eyes. "I have my share too."

A shiver went down the witch's spine as the monster looked back at her. "Why do you ask? Do you want me to cut you too?"

"Sophie." a voice crawled treacherous at her ear.

Big Henrietta looked at her with eyes full of horror.

"You.." she grabbed her arm, their naked sewed bodies shaking. "You'll never cut us apart, right?"

Sophie screamed in the pitch dark while pushing their united bodies with blood dripping from her mouth.

"SOPHIE!" the big Henrietta screamed. "WE ARE SISTERS! I BEG TO YOU!"

In a second, the sickening glow was everywhere.

In the other, Beauty and the Witch were together until death took them apart.

Or at least a kitchen knife.