Monsters at the Door 5 of 9

There was no debate, no negotiating, no bargaining. Dawn Meadows was going into the cauldron. She found herself cramped into the confining space, bound hands down by her ankles, with nylon clad knees drawn up close to her chest.  Dawn was steeped in steamy red broth, bloated bubbles burping, popping, and hissing with her splashing down into the boiling liquid.

The startling searing sensation had her seeing sufficient stars in a series of white spots before her eyes. Dawn's shocking exclamations were muffled by the soiled coffee pantyhose that were tied tightly around her mouth. She thrashed reflexively against her perilous predicament, but a large and mottled green hand bore down upon her small sloped shoulder, encouraging her to be a "good girl" and "stay in the bath."

The heat was overwhelming, shocking her body into unfathomable levels of disorientation, causing her lead to loll, and her emerald eyes to begin rolling in her head. The goblin's other large hand, reached under her delicate chin, and held her drooping head in place, while Dawn's mind reeled with shock and infinity.

She found herself surreally remembering playing King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, when she was a little girl. She recalled always being so scared when her inexperience with computers and her carelessness resulted in disaster. Dawn would watch the antiquated pixel computer animations of Rosella getting caught by the witches in their cave, and tossed helplessly into their boiling stew pot. Or when she would fail to retreat from the giant ogre in time, and the monster would grab Rosella by the braids and drag her off to an untimely end. The game would inform via text that "Dinner is definitely on YOU tonight!" As a young girl, Dawn's green eyes would widen with fear at the awful fates Rosella would face. She would refuse to go to sleep at night until her parents would assure her that: "Rosella is just in her adventure games, you're not going to get boiled in a stew pot, sweetie."

But as another pair of goblin hands approached the side of the cauldron and pawed hungrily at the sheer Silken Mist pantyhose that pulled taut over her bent knees, Dawn realized in her dizzying hazy brain that her real life adventures were going to end EXACTLY like Princess Rosella in her childhood computer games!