Three stories about how you shouldn’t mess with supernatural powers. Enjoy.
The Undying Vines
The Goddess Pillar rose toward the shining sun, its base rooted into the earth, with emerald vines twisting around its weathered stone. Verdant tendrils embraced the pillar’s surface, digging within cracks, embedding deep into the carved rock. A symbiosis standing for more than a thousand years; plant and stone bonded, an eternal manifestation of the deity’s power.
And presenting an eternal temptation.
That’s why they come, to steal a leaf, a sprig, a small piece of the divine. To indulge their hubris and capture power.
All they find is death.
The power of the goddess was never theirs to take.
Aftermath
Wishes have consequences.
The first rule of Djinn magic. Every first year hunter learns it, including me, yet I blindly ignored it. Now I’m totally screwed. Oh, but that Djinn knew how to tempt me. His life for granting my deepest desire, my unspoken wish.
Unspoken until the words passed my tongue, “I want to be free.”
One unguarded moment manifested into reality and a sharp slice of regret. The only way hunters can be free is through death. I knew that and I believe the Djinn did as well.
Now my time is running out, the hunter becoming prey.
Arrival
She walked from the flames, encircled in grey, hazy smoke, the folds of her gossamer dress indistinguishable from the effluvium. The fire flared behind her, consuming and growing, casting an eerie halo of light around her form. With each second, the aghast villagers waited for her to erupt in screams and flame, but she was impervious to the conflagration.
She only smiled, waiting for their screams as her blaze burned away their village, their homes, and their lives.
When nothing remained save ashes and bones, she left the village, small fires scorching the earth in the wake of her footsteps.
Be Afraid of the Dark 
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