As soon as it snapped, it could no longer support her full weight. She went down with Nora still on top of her. The back of her head slammed into the ground, making her see stars. Nora’s weight was like having a hundred pound sack of grain slammed right onto her chest. Her vision swam and darkness crept across it.

She was going to pass out.

“Now,” Nora said, staring down at her. “It’s time I shut you up for good.”

Lola struggled uselessly to get away, gasping like a fish to get much-needed air back into her lungs. The darkness got more pronounced. Her heart fluttered erratically with terror. She heard the guards again. Or at least, she thought she did. They sounded close now.

But not close enough.

Directly above Lola, with her face hanging over her like some kind of moon, was Nora. The smile was back. The same one that unnerved her so deeply before. She held up both of her clawed hands.

“Good night, little bunny,” Nora whispered.

Her claws flashed down.

And the world went black.

But Lola didn’t die. Darkness overcame her but there were also flashes of images. Weird images. She saw claws and fangs but they weren’t Nora’s. They looked slimmer somehow. More pointed. There was also a lot of blood. She could remember that pretty vividly. It sprayed into the dark, night air and splattered against the lawn, the tree, and the stone bench. Probably other places too but she couldn't remember that. It was like a whirling, hellscape, nightmare world that someone had thrust her into, just to see what she did.

And then the images stopped.

They stopped as suddenly as they appeared.

It was sometime later when she “came to.” The darkness slowly receded and it felt as if the world knit itself into being again. She saw stars first, way up in the sky. Then a smattering of clouds. The moon. Then she could feel things. Grass poking into her bare back. A chill breeze across her skin. Sounds came next. People’s voices. Booted footsteps. The rattle of weapons against armor.

What just happened?

She slowly, and very carefully, started to get up. It took her a full three to four minutes before she realized something was wrong. Well, something other than the confusion of still being alive when she knew she should be dead.

Then it hit her.

She wasn’t in pain anymore. With a look of utter shock, she glanced down at her body and found it whole and undamaged. All the wounds she suffered were gone. Her broken bones had healed.

And, she realized with dawning horror, she was completely naked. There were shredded bits of cloth all over the place and when she saw her mostly intact cloak, she crawled along the grass to it and grabbed it up.

What was underneath, however, caused her heart to leap with terror. It was a carcass, ripped to bits and barely recognizable as human. There were deep gouges in the flesh as if something had taken big chunks out of it. Slashes of every size and shape covered most of it. And to make matters worse, it was in at least four different pieces.

Lola instantly recognized it.

The corpse was Nora.