Death Cherry

[Ash]

The room was dark, cold, and featureless except for the cool brush of fog against her cheeks. That should have been the most alarming thing in the world to feel when your head was just reduced to ... well, ash. Her precious brain matter was stuck to some pieces of her skull in some office building somewhere in Coruscant, blown to pieces and among the splintered rubble of a desk. Any way you twist it Ash felt she had won. That was more trouble than they were hoping for, more paperwork for the faceless distraction, more cleanup for both the Empire and the poor sap who had to vacuum up the scattered skull and wood pieces. If they didn't hurry, her dark blue blood would stain the cheap ass carpet those places always put in to save cost. They will have to replace it, and possibly more if they don't have a skilled carpet expert on hand. Then again, this was the Empire, surely they could afford an artisan.

The Storm Demon felt as if she were floating like she was laying on her back in a cold pool of whatever substance cradled her thin body. She stared at nothing in particular and felt her skin tighten as she frowned. For a woman who'd been delighted through the whole process of getting her shit wrecked, she was rewarded with such a boring spawning room. She couldn't tell if she was on her back or floating horizontally, but she assumed it was the former as she felt both air and liquid. She could tell she was very naked and felt the cold unknown substance lapping at her sensitive skin while the cold air laid on top of her, chilling her nipples to stiffness.

It surprised a lot of people that she didn't have piercings there. Not that she was scared of the pain, she just didn't see the lure in them. The options were limited to rods or rings, but that was the same for almost every part of her body...

"I just don't understand, hun. Why does she have to be such an unruly child! It's as if she doesn't even think about what she is doing and how it will reflect on both her body and us! A navel piercing! What's next? Condoms?"

Ash knew that voice... But how did you forget the shrew shrieks of your own mother? No seriously, if someone has a solution she would like to know the secret. If there was any place where that solution actually existed it would be here.

These words weren't known to her, in fact, it was most likely that it was a memory. Something to keep her company.

"Look at how different she is to Isabelle! They are twins, how can they be so different!"

"Oh, Gerald... Why can't she be more like her sister?"

Naked didn't mean vulnerable to Ash, she stared into the darkness passively as the words echoed off the empty cavern walls around her. She wouldn't put it past her mother to say things like this. As a twin, your parents had to love you equally because they couldn't risk one feeling inferior or left behind as it would affect them psychologically later in life. It was hard to gauge exactly when Bella was the one who was getting all the praise while Emma was left to her own devices.

Any child psychologist could have told you that was a bad idea, but her mother always knew better. Always needed control.

"Gerald!! The police were at the door today! Do you even know how humiliating it was? For our neighbors to come out and see my daughter being led up to the door by a cop! I'm just happy it wasn't in handcuffs, how do you expect me to explain that away? And she was just absolutely impossible the whole time. She couldn't look me in the eyes, and she had this ugly look on her face. I was screaming at her and she still wouldn't look up at me!!"

"I think there is something going on... I found new clothes in Emma's closet. I don't remember buying any of them, and I know this because I don't approve of how revealing they are. One shirt barely had a back!"

Wonderful parenting skills, right there.

"Mercy!! What is that!? A thong?! Emma take it off right now! I will not have people talking about how I've raised the next local harlot!!" A banshee's shriek. "Did you just flip me off, young lady!? YOU ARE GROUNDED!!"

Ash could barely remember that, but she remembered clearly the day her mother realized her worse nightmare had come true...

At some point in their lives, Emma and her sister's skin-tones changed. While Isabelle's looked pink and beautiful, Emma's skin took on a more blemished look. Their mother must have been in denial or just wasn't paying close enough attention. Then again, at that time, Emma had already been in the boxing club. Maybe she simply thought they were bruises. Ash never found out because the woman that 'raised' her didn't ask about them.

When the realization that one of her daughter's was walking a path of sin, she became hysterical and desperate.

"GERALD!! DO SOMETHING!! I don't care if you have to beat it out of her, just don't let her continue like this!!"

They forced her to talk to some therapist, they took all her things away, turned all her friends away, did everything in their power to cut her off from the potential bad influence! She so desperate to save her own image that her mother didn't even consider the possibility that this would just speed up the process. That woman was the only thing that could bring the sin of Wrath into Emma so fast. She had been persistent about purifying her precious daughter, finally paying some attention to the girl she's been damning to the path of hell this whole time. It was all negative and it just manifested in a pair of horns.

Her mother couldn't deal with it and blamed Emma for it all in the end.

Eventually, they stopped talking, she was allowed outside the house, and every time she came back in the care of an officer her mother would cry like the victim.

Ash hasn't even thought of her mom outside an annoyed thought when Bella mentioned her in conversations over the phone, its been years since she's even seen the bitch.

"Of course.." The voice took on a new life. "As expected. I tried to warn her, I tried to do my best as a mother, she just wouldn't listen! She's dead now because she was off doing something stupid and sinful! Shame on her, but shame on me for not being strict enough. You know when I was younger I would have never given my mother so much grief! I have wrinkles! My mother never had wrinkles!! Tck! Why couldn't she be more like Isabelle? She's smart enough, I know she is! Emma... I just wanted one thing from you, and that was respect. You've defaced your body, but you are not the only person who is suffering for it. The neighbors are talking, and everyone is staring!!"

"AND NOW YOU ARE DEAD!!"

The voice roared out in a demonic growl!!