Vesna was lying in the ground, feeling the sun in her face, feeling so empty. Well she had been feeling profoundly lonely lately, even though there were now more people around her than ever before.

two years earlier, everything had felt magical. She was alone, yes, but not metaphysically. She was friends with her own fears. The material world meant nothing to her, allowing her to walk vaguely and freely, without worry that bad things might happen. She was in good company, always dedicating to metaphysical/occult work. 

Every night, she walked alongside spirits that others would not dare to face. She never saw them as something to fear. To her, it was part of a feminine essence: to care for what frightens, to tend to the dark rather than run from it. By feeding them her fears, the nightmares ceased. She would always wear white, in a way people would feel uncomfortable. She would never understand why small choices we do can bother people…

She was married to another occultist, thinking this would expand her inner world and make her magick more powerful. Two connected minds, one egregore that could never be destroyed.

This man was attracted by her magnetizing energy, her inner world, her power. There was something so initiatory, liberating, creative yet destructive about her, it was more than love, it was overwhelming for him. 

The things he admired about her, was the things he dismissed. He always believed women were instruments for male work, never accepted the concept of her own wills. She was free, and he loved that. Once he started restraining Vesna, she become something else. She was completely alone. He made sure to remove her faith, her freedom, her thoughts… Just to keep her in a kind of mental prison, so she would belong only to him. Every surface reflects only him, until she forgets her own outline. She couldn’t wear white anymore, she had to wear colors, dye her hair, change everything until it was someone else.

“You’re no longer the woman I met,” he said. “She’s gone. You deserve nothing for now. You don’t treat me the same. I don’t feel the same.” 

She hesitated. “Isn’t that what you always wanted? Change… Lately I’ve just… I’m not feeling well with myself.”

He frowned. “How can you not? Your life is perfect with me.”

She looked down. “I don’t know who I am anymore. Everything that was with me suddenly is gone and I don’t know why, or how.”

She remembered the moment of betrayal, and how it sank her even deeper into depression. When I say depression, I say that she was stuck even more in the material world. Their souls had felt connected, so why would her magical world allow this to happen? She couldn’t bear more pain.

“Isn’t that all your fault?” he said. “You were so quiet, cold, problematic. She was being what you used to be to me, nice to me. I felt loved. Any man in my place would’ve done the same. How could I resit a woman that pretty while you were being so cold?”

At that moment, Vesna realized he was no longer the man she met, or maybe, he was never that at all. Maybe her magic and spirits would comeback, once she was far away from him. A person so cruelly pragmatic contradictory, weak and deflective couldn’t fit her world. 

Was he the cause of the inner damage on her? She escaped that night, ran away into the forest, and she could hear everything more clear, she could feel the spirits, her essence coming back to life. She was herself again, all she had to do, is to get rid of the parasite. 

She went back to the lake she once meditated by, before her marriage, before the restrictions he placed on her. She was wearing a long white dress of sheer fabric, drifting around her like mist, barely touching the earth. She was there, finally, a star magnolia spread above her, its flowers loosening themselves and falling gently into the water below. She could speak with the entities, a moment of reunion. 

“Every choice can consume you, even when you think you don’t have one.” an entity said.

Suddenly, the entities were gone and the spirits were agitated, flying around making Vesna barely see anything. Then, silence, they were all gone. “I am alone again?” She thought to herself.

She starts to feel weird, like about to vomit or expel something, her body was shaking, she was burning and freezing at the same time. She bent forward as she started to vomit something fine and fibrous pulling away in long, pale, trembling strands. What emerged was not fluid but woven, tight, suffocating strands that left her gasping. She let it all out and a huge relief came to her. 

A moment of peace that was interreptued by her husband trying to stab her back, she immediately avoids it and try to fight back, he grabbed her fists and she stepped in those strands she just vomited, it was so sticky that they were both stuck. Suddenly that weird feeling is back, her chest tightened with a crawling pressure, not pain, but a wrongness that wouldn’t stop moving, it was itchy, and it spread through her body.

Long, jointed limbs, bending at angles no human body should know, came out from her, become part of her. It was dry, white and rigid. She used it to grab him, lying down hold him. She wasn’t stuck anymore, but he was, in her web. 

She no longer reached for vision, only for sensation. Her body had grown even more pale, her eyes no longer existed. The world revealed itself through vibration, pressure and energy. It was superior to any sensorial sensation she could ever experience as human. His fear and horror did nothing but deepen her hunger. She was now eating fears herself. One bite on his neck made him paralyze completely. 

She left him trapped in the web. Before closing it around him, she spoke once more: look at me. All you wanted was control. Now, all that remains is this pitiful state of yourself. Your ego made you think you were above everything else, everyone else. It made you feel great. But your ego what was bring you to me. To this moment, I’ve been waiting for so long to be fed. All these fears inside of you…  Well, you wish you never took all the light from me. 

His eyes moved so fast but he couldn’t scream, only suffocate into her web. She grabbed his knife, and stabbed his heart. 

Her path to the metaphysical was now open. She wrapped him quickly, drawing him tight into her web… It was time to digest all those nightmares.