text: Your intuition tells you that resisting would be a lost cause. You have no affection for Conroy, or even a real interest in him, but it seems to you that if it isn't him, it will be someone else just like him. At least he seems physically clean and healthy, that has to count for something. Other men you have seen don't even have that much to their credit. Still, a deep sense of anger wells up inside of you. Choices made by others have brought you to this point, the point where you have to surrender something special to a practical stranger. Once you go down this path, you cannot go back. Innocence, once lost, is never to be reclaimed. If you had thought anyone would be on your side, or champion your cause, you might have fought this. As it is, you concede to Conroy's advances.
  
  While not deliberately cruel in his actions, he cares little for your pleasure or even your comfort. Certainly, if he had, you wouldn't have found yourself pinned against the back of the blacksmith's shop with your skirts hiked up to your hips; it takes a lot of will to not scream and run. The event is a blur of motion and heat and noise. From the other side of the wall you hear each time the hammer strikes against the metal on the anvil, and it coincides with each motion that pounds you against the stone bricks. Conroy's sounds can barely be heard as they turn from exertion into pleasure. Meanwhile you are only feeling physical discomfort and a sense of being diminished with each passing moment. At the peak of his pleasure, your stomach churns with disgust, but you remain outwardly passive, just as the metal neither hinders nor helps the blacksmith; a fact Conroy doesn't seem to notice at all. When he is sated he leaves you without another word, though not before giving you look that almost comes across as speculative.
  
  When you get home, you bathe yourself until you feel raw, but you can't scrub away the horrible feeling of becoming a mere object to be used. You chide yourself for giving in so easily. For a few days you seem to enjoy relative peace as far as outsiders go, though inwardly you're still conflicted about your decision. But you know you can't turn back time; you must live with your choices. In a small village like this one, however, news travels fast, and it's only a matter of time before someone else comes knocking on your door, looking for a good time. By his age and general appearance, you're guessing he heard from Conroy directly, although you do not recognize him. Perhaps you should have said something to him at the time, but considering the fact Conroy didn't care enough about you to respect your wishes the first time, it's unlikely he would have bothered listening to anything else you had to say. Either way you have to deal with the problem on your doorstep.
  
  How will you respond?
  
  > Shut the door in his face.
  You tell the man you are not interested and shut the door in his face before he can argue. To be sure that he gets the message, you lock the door as well. You stand there shaking for a few moments, though you're not sure if it's anger or shame that has created this reaction. Either way, it's wearing on you and finally you sit down at your small kitchen table. Life wasn't supposed to be this way; you should have never given in. It didn't make your situation better, or give you any sense of satisfaction. You didn't even get any paltry pleasure from it. Throwing your hands out in front of you, you spend a good fifteen minutes sobbing tempestuously. Finally you crawl off to the back room to get some sleep; you're too tired to do anything else.
  
  In the morning you feel calmer, if not any better. The next few days are quiet and you start to think that the two incidents have been forgotten, or at least that you'll suffer no further consequence from them. Unfortunately, Conroy proves you wrong. You find yourself cornered by him again, though this time you sense far less hunger and for more malice in his bearing.
  
  "I noticed a little something when I had you up against the wall," he whispers in an ominous tone.
  
  "What's that?" you inquire back, keeping your voice carefully neutral. You're feeling a mixture of fear and anger, and you don't think either one of them will serve you right now.
  
  "You weren't actually a whore at all; you were still a virgin!" he says, almost accusatory.
  
  "I didn't think I had given anyone any reason to believe otherwise."
  
  "Still, you must have wanted it, or you would have fought harder," Conroy goads. "Any good, chaste girl would have rather gone home beaten and bloody before she gave in like that. Of course, this means I should probably forgive you for embarrassing me the other day. I sent a friend of mine from town to you; I suppose since you were never a proper whore you didn't realize the mistake you made."
  
  You feel your anger growing inside of you. How dare Conroy have the nerve to think he had anything to forgive you for! The fact that he presumed you weren't a virgin pales in comparison to his lack of contrition for robbing you of that precious state of being. His inability to realize he had done wrong and make reparations fills you with a deep fury. Insinuating that closing the door on his friend was a mistake born of ignorance pushes you over the edge. Using all your strength you push him away from you, hard enough to surprise yourself, and certainly hard enough to surprise him by the look on his face when he hits the ground.
  
  Shouting in anger, he starts to rise and you assume, from the way his eyebrows draw downwards, that you'll be in trouble once he gets to his feet. So you run. Conroy is pretty fast, however, and soon cuts off most of your retreats. In the end, you find yourself heading into the swamp, hoping to lose him in there. A few times he almost catches you, but the further into the swamp you get, the more hesitant he becomes. Feeling desperate, you charge straight though a deeper part of the swamp, ending up waist high in sludge. At this point he stops chasing you, apparently caring more about the state of his clothes than any sense of vengeance. Or maybe he just doesn't want to explain to anyhow why he ended up soaking wet and muddy.
  
  Trembling, you wait until he moves away, but you're still afraid that he's hiding somewhere, waiting for you to leave the safety of the muck and mire. So you stay in the watery part of the swamp and slowly try to navigate yourself further away. After about half an hour of this, you're shivering, but you're still too afraid to leave the water. It isn't until you see a small shack in the distance that you think it might be safe to leave the safety of the depths.
  
  The shack is a single-story affair with rough stone walls and a thatched roof that looks a bit thin in places. While it doesn't look very welcoming by itself, it shows that someone survived in the swamp long enough to build it, which gives you hope. An even better prospect is the thick curl of gray smoke that winds its way upwards from the chimney; it means that someone is home, or will be home again shortly. With any luck, the person in this hut will not be the type to side with the likes of Conroy. Pinning your hopes on that notion, you ascend from the sludge and knock on the door.
  
  A tiny old lady stands there peers up at you with snapping black eyes. In her face you can see her assessing you, and this makes you nervous. Finally she lets out a small chuckle and moves away from the door, motioning for you to enter. You do so without further hesitation, the fear of Conroy in the back of your mind outweighing any thought that this woman might be just as dangerous.
  
  "Sit down, dearie. Why, you're all soaked. Foolish thing to do," she says, clicking her tongue a few times. Despite her numerous wrinkles and gray hair, she moves about quite nimbly and stokes the fire. The inside of the little shack is quite snug and fairly tidy, and it smells distinctly of smoke and the herbs that hang from the ceiling. She gestures towards a wooden chair, which you sit on quite gratefully.
  
  "It didn't seem as foolish as letting someone beat me," you say, surprised at your own forthrightness. The woman smiles for a moment, but then seems to realize the content of your words and quickly turns it into a frown.
  
  "Now why would someone want to beat a nice young thing like you?" ask the woman, handing you a cup of warm tea. You blow on it to help it cool while you formulate an answer. Again you surprise yourself by telling this woman everything. She never interrupts, and watches you intently over her own cup of tea while you give her the sad tale of your life. Finally she reaches out and pats your hand.
  
  "Poor ducking," she murmurs. "People can be so barbaric. But that's in the past now; there's no reason to return to that life if you don't wish to."
  
  "Do you mean I could stay here?"
  
  "Well, you could, but I don't imagine that would be very fulfilling for you."
  
  "But you live here."
  
  "Yes, my little wren, but I'm an old woman; I've already lived most of my life. I spend most of my time looking backwards, not ahead." She tugged gently on a lock of her gray hair as if to prove the point. You feel a sense of disappointment budding; you fear that this woman is going to turn you out.
  
  "Thank you for the tea," you start to say, but the woman cuts you off with the lift of a wrinkly little hand.
  
  "Don't worry about going yet, child. I wouldn't turn you out after such an experience. Besides, we are one and the same. You have the Power. I might not have even let you in if you hadn't." Then she chuckles rather madly for a few moment. You're not sure what she's talking about; certainly if you had any sort of power you would have made your life better. You certainly wouldn't have hung around to be emotionally abused by everyone in Endlemire.
  
  "Tut, tut," chides the old woman. "You will see in time."
  
  The old woman is right. She let's you stay with her for quite some time, though she never reveals her name to you. In the beginning, she works you rather hard, sending you out to various tasks. And while her words are usually kindly, she doesn't accept any arguing. Not that she ever threatens you, but there's a certain hard look in her eyes when you try to protest that makes you meekly back down. The rest of the time she's generally pleasant, though you often wonder if she's quite all there. The first several tasks make sense. Fetching wood, for example, helps keep the house warm. She has you pick flowers from the garden and check animal traps for food. She teaches you how to skin and cook animals, though sometimes you catch her muttering incomprehensible phrases now and then while she does this.
  
  Once she seems convinced that you will follow her orders, things start to get interesting. You find yourself sitting beside her at the cooking hearth, watching her put a variety of herbs and other such things into the pot. A think, heady smoke rises past the rim and you feel your eyelids becoming heavy. Despite this, your mind still feels rather alert, even though your body becomes so relaxed it's limp. Although you hear the old woman chanting, you can't seem to make out the words. She might be speaking in another language, or you might just be so affected by the smoke that you can't concentrate enough to distinguish one sound from the next. Finally she claps her hands loudly, three times, and you seem to jolt alive.
  
  Hovering between the two of you is a shimmering form. It looks almost human, but the features are vague and wispy. Without facial features, you're not sure if this being is malevolent or friendly...or something else altogether.
  
  "Aha! I knew it. You are a vessel, just as I was," the old woman says exultantly.
  
  "Vessel?" Somehow the word sounds ominous, and you think you should be afraid, but your emotions seem rather subdued at the moment, as though they hadn't woken up with the rest of you.
  
  "Some people just have the ability to connect with the spirits on a very intimate level. While it will change what you can do, it never changes who you are," the woman explains. "You simply have to...invite one in."
  
  "How do I do that?" With the worry of being taken over put to rest, and somehow you never consider that the woman is lying, you find yourself rather curious.
  
  "Life is power, so just ask yourself, what do think life is." The old woman sounds rather intense, her tiny form shaking.
  
  "Life is pain," you answer, the words spilling out with a rush of bitterness that breaks through the calm you have been feeling. For a moment you are tempted to take back those words; they would never have passed in Endlemire. Such thoughts were not becoming of a young lady. Then, you realize the statement is truly how you feel. You have seen no evidence that life is at all a pleasant thing. Rather it's a brutal state of being that leaves the vulnerable at the mercy of the powerful. And you're tired of being the one without the power.
  
  "So be it!" the woman cries, her eyes gleaming, her voice rising to a feverish pitch. She says another word you don't understand, but it effects the shimmering form, which had been hovering quietly during this entire exchange. But it's no longer complacent. Instead it rushes at you, spreading itself around you in a fury of activity before flowing inside of you from every available opening. It isn't painful, but for a brief moment you're terrified. Then there's silence and stillness, and even the old woman seems frozen in place for a time. As for you, you are left tingling. You can feel the spirit inside of you, but it isn't in your consciousness, though you can sense some sort of strange intellect brushing up against your own. There isn't a sense that it's trying to invade you, or take over, but more that it's observing you somehow.
  
  "And now you are finally ready for some real training."
  
  > Time passes
  You are finally ready to go back to your home, if it's still there of course. It won't go well for the people of Endlemire if it's not.
  
  The eight months has been spent under the tutelage of the old woman learning about your powers, how they work, and how to use them. It turned out that the question of life has permanently altered the gateway to your power. When you experience pain, you can feel power pooling inside of you, held in place by the spirit until you're ready to lose it. This wasn't easy for you to learn, because your body wasn't used to seeking out pain; in fact, you had spent most of your life trying to avoid it. After several lessons, however, the rush of power overcame the painful feelings until you could no longer distinguish between pain and pleasure. But this wasn't the only change. At first the spirit inside of you felt like a separate entity, but the more you used your powers, the more it felt like a natural part of you. By the time you were ready to leave, you barely feel it at all; you just feel your own power and sense of purpose.
  
  Finally, you are on your way. The old woman wishes you luck. You come back to Endlemire and are not surprised to find that little has changed. Even your house is pretty much the way you left it, except that the food has gone bad and there's a lot more dust present. It's nothing that a little elbow grease won't fix, but you don't care much about tidiness right now. You do get rid of the rotten food though; things still have the power to disgust you. The bedroom and front area of your house gets a quick cleaning, but you don't spend much time or effort on the matter. There are more important things to take care of.
  
  The next day, when you are out and about, you get a lot of strange looks. Not being psychic, you don't know what they might have been told, but you would guess they gave you up as dead, or at least permanently gone. But no one approaches you about it, which also doesn't surprise you. It takes a few more days, but what you have been waiting for, finally happens, though not where you expect it. Coming home from a day at the market, you walk into your home only to be accosted by Conroy. He pushes you against the wall, rather roughly. Apparently eight months time wasn't enough to cool his shame. It might have been upsetting if it wasn't what you anticipated. Still, you pretend to be hurt and afraid.
  
  "You escaped me once; it was foolish of you to think you could come back after what you did." His words come in a low hiss of anger, and he squeezes your arms tightly. You make sure to wince at this, though all you really feel is power starting to bud.
  
  "This is my home," you protest.
  
  "You should have thought of that before you decided to strike me." And his actions mimic his words as he slaps you across the face. Whimpering softly, you keep your body language vulnerable; the more he abuses you the stronger you will be, so you make sure to make him think he's getting what he wants. His abuses, physically and verbally, escalate as he tears off your clothing and has his way with you. Forcing yourself to squeeze out a few tears, you hide the thrill of the growing power. When Conroy finally releases, you send your power flowing through him as a spell of suggestion. Maintaining your victimized posture, you wait until Conroy is well and truly gone before you stand up, brush yourself off, and briskly get back to putting away the things you brought back with you.
  
  Over the next few weeks Conroy visits you several times; he can't seem to get enough of you. After the fist couple incidents, the tables turn, and you take charge, letting any pretense of victim-hood slip off of you. With each visit Conroy becomes weaker, and you become stronger; you created a spell that allows you to feed off of his energy. By then Conroy is hooked, and becomes an agent of your will. Through him you bring more young men to your vengeful bosom. With them you follow the same pattern, starting off by playing the victim and then turning yourself into the master of the situation, filling them all with the same spells. They all became weak and complacent, slowly alienating their friends and family as they became consumed with a compulsion to see you.
  
  Unfortunately, your desire for vengeance and your newfound love of pain blinded you to the consequences of your actions. When it was only one or two young men visiting you, it was hard to pinpoint the cause of their change in personality. But as your group of followers increased, it became harder and harder for the people of Endlemire to ignore; activity in the village started to slow down, and the number of young men becoming sickly was cause for concern. Especially when you started bringing married men into the fold. The elder men and the majority of the women, banded together to find the cause of these problems. You hadn't bothered covering your tracks, so everything leads up to you.
  
  Secretly they sent a few representatives to the nearest town to get help; they couldn't trust their own young men not to interfere. Quietly the suspicious young men were followed and then rounded up so that they wouldn't be able to warn you. One night you, and the young man you were with, are dragged from your bed by a group of strange men. While they are firm, they don't hurt you enough for you to draw enough power to throw them off; you aren't strong enough to fight using your physical body alone. As alarmed as they are, they don't bother with a trial. You're bound to a stake with a huge pile of wood beneath it. Everyone is more than eager to throw flaming torches on the pile, and soon your world is filled with smoke and heat.
  
  You know this is the end for you; with your mind so set on destroying others, you never learned any magic to heal yourself. It is getting hard to breathe, and you can feel the pain of flames licking at your skin. It's intense enough that it breaks through the usual thrill that pain gives you, and once again you remember what unadulterated pain feels like. But it still fuels your magic, and you will have the last laugh.
  
  So, you throw back your head and laugh, long and hard, only interrupted by coughs when the smoke gets too much. This enrages the villagers even more and they shout curses at you and pour more logs on the fire. Gathering up all the pain into yourself, you release a final spell. The fire surrounding you surges to impossible heights, hiding you from the sight of the people. With a push you send the heat away from you in several spitting arcs of flame. You feel, more than see, them connect to the people in front of you, and your ears are filled with the screams of pain. Their pain only reinforces your power, and you keep sending the flames hurling towards everything in the area. Finally, with your lungs filled with smoke and your skin crackling and splitting, you can hold out no longer. You go out in a blaze of pain filled glory, and Endlemire goes out with you.
  
  Days later there is nothing left of Endlemire except ashes.