To forstall the future

The door rattled angrily. There was more to this house than the eye could see. The sole occupant, a beautiful young woman in her mid twenties is its prisoner; bound from beyond her birth to the house in which she lives.

Looking into her mirror a vision she spies, an old hag carrying a basket of apples. For a beauty that must rest. Resisting would be a futile gesture, she knows as the angry door rattles the beast within attempting to break from its cage.

She arrives bruised and battered from the fall she had to take to play the story to its ends. Her future she knows and holds at bay just beyond the angry rattling door. Never once has she peeked, not even through the keyhole to see. She knows the small gods, have given her one advantage, her future she can forestall.

She does not understand that it might hold some glimmer of hope, some ending to all these terrible fates she is destined to deliver. A spinning wheel or a Rose all glisten with regret. She knows this is her fate, and yet she can still not find the courage to open up the door.

As night falls, again she lays down her weary bones. The small gods delight in the dark of the night knowing she will never leave. Yet in the night, within a dream a small child’s frail voice beckons drawing her in her sleep. Begging for her help draws her near the brink of the door. In sleep, she goes where in her waking state she could not face.

As she opens up door, the dream fades away. Bright light streams into her eyes as she realizes that the door she feared to venture through was her only escape. Now the beast that she must face shimmers into view and the world awaits her decision. Should she feed or bleed the beast or turn and run back into the safety?