*Content Warning: brief non-detailed scene of attempted sexual assault
***
Yska was a beautiful young woman. She turned heads everywhere she went; some in jealousy, some in lust, and some in curiosity. Always eager to offer a gentle smile and a kind word, she was well liked, and everyone was happy to see her around in the village.
“Hi Kumela!” she exclaimed as she entered the bakery.
“Yska! So glad to see you,” she said as she came around the counter to hug the other woman.
“Good to see you too, friend!”
“What can I get you today? Kumela asked.
“Just a full loaf from today, please.”
“Of course! I’ll be just a moment,” Kumela said before she disappeared into the kitchen. She reappeared with a long loaf of freshly baked bread and two flat bread muffins.
“Oh Kumela, I can’t accept that.”
“You can and you will,” she said as she wrapped up the baked goods. “We should plan a picnic soon. It’s been so long.”
“It has! We will get together soon, I promise,” Yska said as she paid for her purchase.
“See you soon!” Kumela called as Yska waved goodbye before she stepped back out into the road. Yska strolled down the main road toward her cottage at the very edge of town. She twirled her skirts and sang to herself as she danced around the muddy ruts left by carriages in the dirt road.
A tall man who was leaning against a post outside the pub puffing on a cigarette watched her. As she passed him, he took a long drag and dropped it to the ground before he pushed off to follow her. The man watched every swish of her skirts as he hung back, sticking to the shadows. If she noticed his presence, she didn’t show it.
As Yska walked, the trees on either side of the road became denser, multiplying the shadows. She was nearing her cottage now. After another few minutes of walking on the main road, she came to a turnoff hidden by bushes and evergreens. No one would even know it was there unless they were looking for it. For good reason.
The strange man slinked through the shadows, stalking Yska. His eyes followed her as she walked up the path to her small stone cottage. She didn’t enter the front door, but went around to the back of her home.
Stepping lightly, he stayed under the cover of the thick trees as he silently followed. The man watched her disappear into her cottage. Undeterred, he crept closer, moving low to the ground. Behind the cottage was a large pond. He skirted around the pond and tiptoed along the side of the house. He peeked in a window and saw Yska move from room to room.
The lecherous man crept to the door and tried the knob, but the door was locked. Still not discouraged, he retreated to the edge of the trees and waited. His wait wasn’t long. Yska reemerged from her cottage in a gauzy robe.
She dropped her garment, exposing her nude body, before she slipped into the pond. The hidden stranger watched as she swam across the pond, watching her body glisten in the wan light of the sunset. When she had her fill of swimming, she stepped back near the bank to dry off and that’s when the man made his move.
He crept up to the pond, careful to move as silently as he could when her back was turned. His hand wrapped around her arm as the other came around to grope at her bare ass. Yska screamed and pounded her fists against the man’s chest, attempting to beat him back.
The man’s hand gripped her tightly to his body as he tried to unfasten his pants. His intentions were obvious to Yska, which reinvigorated her struggle. She fought as hard as she could against him, causing him to lose his footing on the loamy bank of the pond. He fell into the pond, pulling Yska’s nude form along with him.
When they hit the water, his grip broke, and he flailed in the black water until he resurfaced. He sputtered and coughed as he splashed around.
“You bitch!” he roared as he spun around, looking for Yska. There was no sign of her. He peered down into the black water to see if he could see her pale body, but the water was too murky. Their fall disturbed the silt on the shallow ledge of the pond, obscuring the bottom. After floating there for a few minutes, waiting for her body to surface, the man made his way to the bank.
As he clambered up the soft earth, something grabbed his ankle. He rolled to his side to see what had a hold of him. The man’s eyes fixed on a webbed and clawed hand that wrapped around his leg. His gaze moved up a pale, scaled arm with a barbed fin that stretched from a slender wrist to a bony elbow. The man’s eyes continued up the arm to the creature’s face.
It was Yska, but she was different. Black eyes gazed back at him. Barbed fins cradled her eyes and stretched back in three rows to where her human ears would have been. Striated armored plates decorated her forehead. More barbed fins ran along her brow line. In the middle of her forehead dangled a blue, glowing lure, like a deep-sea angler fish. Her hair cascaded down from behind the armored plates over her shoulders.
Yska’s crescent shaped mouth bore sharp fang-like teeth angled inward, likely to grasp her prey with. Prey. That was him. The man turned and clawed at the soft earth in front of him. He kicked and struggled to break her grip, but she was too strong.
The water splashed and sprayed as he fought against Yska. His fingers left deep, muddy furrows in the soil as she dragged him back into the murky water. He kicked and screamed, but the water flooded his mouth when she pulled him under. His scream turned to a frantic burble of bubbles in the black water.
Pain bloomed in his shoulders as Yska’s clawed fingers dug into his flesh. The man opened his eyes, searching the blackness for her shape. Inkiness was the only thing that filled his vision until a faint blue glow shone in front of him.
The light brightened and glinted off her velvet voids of nothingness. Yska’s curved mouth opened, and the flash of blue light glinting off her needle-like teeth was the last thing the man ever saw.
Yska would eat like a queen all winter this year.
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