Chapter 4: Unmasking in the Spirit Realm
After trekking for days through tangled jungle and scorched savannah, the weary couple finally reached a decrepit boundary marker that raised Afiong’s first pang of unease.
They had crossed into a realm as mystical and alien as her husband himself – the haunted borderlands of the spirit world.
No sooner had they passed through the ethereal mists than Afiong’s picturesque fantasy began disintegrating into nightmarish surreality. A shadowy form emerged, demanding her bridegroom relinquish his legs in payment.
“Wha…what is happening?” the princess cried, her voice shaking. Yet even as she protested, another entity appeared to repossess her husband’s borrowed arms.
To her escalating horror, more and more spirits manifested in terrifying succession. With each one, another appendage or organ was viscerally torn away from her beloved’s body…until all that remained was a grinning human skull mounted sickeningly upon the torso.
“AAAAAIIIIEEEEEE!!!” Afiong’s screams rent the ghostly air as she beheld her husband’s true, ghastly form for the first time. For he was no flesh-and-blood prince as she believed, but a lecherous spirit who had used trickery and illusion to lure her into this hellish snare.
Will the treacherous skull-creature now spirit Princess Afiong away into eternal darkness? Or might a glimmer of hope still remain?
Chapter 5: An Old Woman’s Compassion
“Yes, sweet princess,” the lecherous skull-groom cackled throatily. “You have been cruelly deceived by my carefully crafted disguise!”
With a diseased, rasping laugh, he continued maliciously, “All the more fitting that the vain girl who would only accept ‘perfection’ is now forever bound to… THIS!”
The skull bridegroom gestured obscenely at his grotesque, purloined form. Afiong recoiled, revulsed by her own terrible judgment. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the gravity of her predicament fully congealed.
“Please…let me return to my family, you wretched trickster!” she sobbed, tasting the bitter ashes of her shattered pride. “I have learned my selfish lesson well…”
But the vile skull-creature only sneered and prepared to drag her back to his dwelling in the abyss. Just then, a frail, querulous voice interrupted them:
“Leave the poor girl be, you lecherous scamp! She is but a foolish child led astray…”
An wizened old crone emerged from the miasmic swamplands, eyes brimming with pity for Afiong. The skull and his wicked mother locked in a tense confrontation…
At last, the vicious creature relented with a frustrated growl. “Very well, Mother. Let us at the very least bring her to our hovel first.”
Do you think the crone holds more noble intentions for Afiong, or is this another deception? What wisdom might the old woman have to bestow?
Chapter 6: The Spider’s Hairweaving Gift
And so the weeping, penitent princess was dragged by her malevolent captor to his dreary abode, a ramshackle hut that seemed to lean under its own miserable atmosphere.
When they arrived, the holy elder crone greeted them with a warm embrace for Afiong, who quickly grew to cherish their first compassionate interaction in this nightmare realm.
“There, there, my poor misguided child,” the old woman cooed. “All is not yet lost for you, if you can but pledge to renounce your arrogant ways and heed the wisdom of your elders.”
With a trembling voice, Afiong agreed wholeheartedly, so desperate was her shame and desire to escape this wretched place. Satisfied, the crone assured her that the means for her deliverance would soon arrive.
True to her word, the next morning they were visited by an extraordinary spider – a master weaver of the most intricate and fashionable hairstyles. The crone instructed him to bestow upon Afiong an enchanting, gravity-defying coiffure using his mystical arts.
As the final touches were complete, Afiong peered into the cracked mirror to behold herself. Though her features remained, her spirit was now that of a humbled, enlightened soul, as profound as the otherworldly hairweaving that crowned her.
Seeing the change within her, the sagacious crone nodded approvingly…
What mystical powers does the arachnid stylist’s work contain? Could this be the secret to Afiong’s return from the clutches of the spirit realm?
