A woman dismantles a sadistic cult, only to find peace in accepting the unresolved loss of her sister.
Copyright © Priya Florence Shah
The humid air of Pinewood Forest clung to Cora Lansing as she trudged through the underbrush, clutching her lantern. The flickering light illuminated her determined face, a map of scars, both physical and emotional.
She had returned to her childhood town for closure, determined to confront the memories of her missing sister, Rachel, who had vanished years ago.
The townsfolk whispered about disappearances, but Cora knew there was more—ritualistic markings found at the sites and eerie chants heard on moonless nights.
Tonight, she had a lead: a cabin deep in the woods. Her instincts and intuition, honed from years of survival and self-reliance, told her this was the place.
Inside the cabin, a group of hooded figures circled a bound woman, chanting in low, guttural tones. The leader, Marcus Vale, held an ornate dagger as he performed the rite.
Marcus exuded authority, his sharp features and piercing blue eyes hiding a rotting core of cruelty and disdain for women. The cult’s motto — Women are vessels — was etched into the walls in blood.
Cora wasn’t prepared for what she saw, but she acted instinctively. Her scream pierced the night, and the cult members froze. The victim’s pleading eyes locked with hers, and Cora darted forward.
Marcus lunged, but Cora’s lantern crashed against his temple, sending him sprawling. Grabbing the victim’s hand, she bolted into the night.
***
“Who are you?” the woman gasped as they stumbled into Cora’s modest cabin on the outskirts of Pinewood.
“Someone who’s not letting these bastards win,” Cora replied curtly. She tended to the woman’s wounds, her mind racing. As Cora listened to the woman, named Lily, recount her abduction, chills ran down her spine.
Lily described the cult’s inner workings — rituals meant to summon power and wealth, the trafficking of women who didn’t make the “cut,” and the deaths of those who resisted.
Cora knew confronting the cult alone was impossible. But she wasn’t alone. As she drifted into a troubled sleep, an overwhelming warmth enveloped her. A golden light filled her dreams, and she saw the silhouette of an otherworldly figure.
It whispered, You are shielded. Walk boldly.
***
Back at the cult’s lair, Marcus nursed his injuries, fuming over the intrusion. His lieutenants, Simon and Liz, fidgeted nervously.
“It’s just a setback,” Marcus snarled. “We’ll retrieve her and the witness. No one disrupts us without paying.”
But the cult’s plans began to unravel.
The next day, Simon was found dead in his workshop, impaled by falling tools that seemed to leap from their shelves.
Liz began hearing whispers in her home, disembodied voices condemning her. She was institutionalized within a week, screaming about hands pulling at her.
Marcus dismissed these events as coincidence until a third member, Jared, was found burned alive in a freak car explosion.
***
***
Cora, meanwhile, found unlikely allies in Father Elijah, a kind but world-weary priest with a tarnished past, and Detective Maria Torres, a no-nonsense cop who had long suspected the cult but lacked evidence.
Together, they pieced the cult’s history: a legacy of misogyny, black magic, and greed, spanning decades.
“They’ve taken too much,” Maria muttered, loading her service pistol.
“But something is fighting them back,” Father Elijah added, his voice trembling. “I’ve seen the signs — guardian forces. Divine wrath.”
Cora didn’t fully understand the scope of her protection, but she felt it — an intangible barrier keeping her safe.
***
The cult’s remaining members, driven by paranoia and Marcus’s obsession with restoring control, planned a final ceremony. They intended to sacrifice not just one woman, but all the captives they still held.
Cora and her allies stormed the lair just as the ritual began. The scene was chaos — women in chains, the cult chanting desperately, and Marcus in the center, knife in hand.
But the moment Marcus raised his blade, an invisible force shattered it. The ground trembled, and the air grew electric. One by one, the cultists began screaming.
“Stop!” Marcus yelled, but it was too late.
A chandelier crashed onto one, lightning struck another through a skylight, and the rest either fled or fell to inexplicable heart attacks.
Marcus, the sole survivor, staggered into the woods, clutching his chest as unseen eyes bore into him. He was found days later, babbling incoherently, and institutionalized for paranoid schizophrenia.
***
***
The captives were freed, the lair destroyed, and Pinewood settled into an uneasy quiet. Life moved forward, but the scars of what had happened lingered, unspoken but heavy in the air.
Cora felt it most in the moments when the world fell silent — when the rush of purpose ebbed, and she was left with the raw ache of what had been lost.
Rachel was still gone. The cult, even in its destruction, had taken more than it could ever repay.
Weeks later, Cora stood by the edge of Pinewood Forest, a spot where Rachel and she used to play as children.
She knelt, sifting the dirt through her fingers. A distant echo of laughter teased her ears, faint and fleeting, like a forgotten memory slipping away.
“What do I do now?” she muttered aloud, not expecting an answer.
The wind stirred the leaves, carrying no scent of lavender, no whispered promise of peace — only the raw, indifferent breath of the earth, unyielding and eternal.
Cora exhaled, the tension she hadn’t realized she was holding loosening just slightly. There would be no clean resolution, no divine reckoning that brought back what had been taken.
But as she turned to leave, her steps felt lighter. She realized she didn’t need closure. She didn’t need answers. All she needed was the resolve to keep walking.
The forest stretched behind her, vast and untamed, as she disappeared into the unfolding day.
***
