Chapter Thirty-One

Ooh, I close the door on everyone except for you

Ooh, show me there's still some human left

It's a lonely view, help me to escape the I'm in

Nothing left to lose, let me wrap down to my skeleton

(^Queen Jisoo^)

Chapter 31 - Dead and Gone

Nephele's POV

Sitting at the island bench of the newer, more gothic, version of the King's Quarters in the castle made me think about how everything had turned out.

I do not understand why Lucifer would lie to me about my mother – and even if he did lie about my mother, why did he have to spin the truth so badly?

I get the whole 'lying to protect you' bullshit, but that didn't explain why he painted my mother as the good parent here. Went from 'Daddy Issues' cliché to 'Mummy Issues' cliché real quick, and partially he was to blame for that.

"Why did you change the design of your living area?" I ask, swallowing my mouthful of Caesar Salad and accidently biting my tongue in the process. Blinking away the tears I continue to eat, waiting for a reply from Lucifer who stood against the wall watching me eat.

"Needed a change." I roll my eyes and look at him, deadpanning.

"You know, if you are going to lie to me so often, I am going to be forced to taken extreme measures." I watch his eyes shoot up and alarm enter his eyes, making me want to laugh.

I don't give him the satisfaction of my laugh nor smile, and instead maintain an icy cold expression on my face. I was going to make it hard for him; I was going to make getting me back hell. Kind of anyway. He deserved to be shut out from my mind and my heart for lying to me in such a dire situation. I only wanted the truth.

"You cant escape anymore. Everything is Nephele-proofed." I roll my eyes and smile at him sweetly.

"Watch me." I bite back, totally ignoring the part of me the smiled at the challenge to Nephele's name and wanted to say 'You forgot Nyx'; as in she could easily escape.

I wasn't foolish anymore, and I understood that I needed to stay her for the time being. I had a war to win and it wasn't going to be won with me running away from the greatest ally.

Lucifer's armies were strong and the people of this land knew that there had been a power change – I could use my mate bond to my advantage in these dire times.

Manipulative? Yes. A bad idea? Maybe.

I purse my lips and turn away from him, closing my lips around a fork filled with Caesar salad as I ate silently. I was thinking – my head a mess from the previous weeks events.

It had been nearly two – maybe three if I was correct in my calculations of time - months since I left home. That meant I was expecting a migraine coming soon. I got them rather frequently despite their being nothing 'wrong' with me. The multiple neurosurgeons and neuroscientists I had seen had all said the same thing; 'Likely repression of some trauma which causes resurfaces every few months, causing the brain to have a meltdown and therefore leading to the body following'. Pathetic – don't get me started. I was trailing some medication just before I was taken away, and it had appeared to be working.

That was until the dark angel sitting on the couch not far from me happened to sweep me off my feet and into the Underworld.

Two months since I left home and I was in all this mess. It was crazy to think that I managed to maintain a roughly accurate scope of time where I am.

Two months. Two months meant I was meant to get my period –

"Fuck." I say it allowed as I jump from my stool on the table, noting that the Angels eyes widen briefly as he stands as well. He may look slightly different, but his face remained the same as it was previous to his transformation and it didn't startle me that I knew what was going on through his eyes.

"What is wrong?" It was a slightly panicked voice, but I ignore it and turn to him thinking something else.

"Can I have a calendar of that last six months please? Like the paper ones? And a pen would be nice too." I add quickly and run around the kitchen table looking for a pen in case he couldn't get one. I watch him nod from my peripheral vision, only for the paper calendar to fall from the ceiling and onto the kitchen bench in front of me.

I don't act surprised despite the random appearance of the applicance I had asked for, and grasp the pen in my hand.

Already counting the days and dates since the last known sighting of the holy blood-shedding season, I calculated my expected time and how many days had passed since I had missed it.

As a medical student I understood that stress and trauma did inhibit Lady Falls from coming, and I could roughly estimate when she would return if from this day I was to reduce my stress and abnormal adrenaline and other excitement hormone levels.

From that I had about four days till she returned, which was nice. Some more free time before I was going to be in pain. I didn't bother looking at lucifer as I wrote down and circled dates on the flip-over-by-month calender, noting that the headache would likely come in a few weeks.

"I didn't know you had regular migraines." I look over at him with a snarky eye, hating how he read my mind.

"I didn't know you enjoyed invading people's privacy." I snap back quickly. He ignores the reply with a slightly guilty look on his face. He doesn't bother to defend or correct himself as I shut the border of my mind on him; locking him out until I felt that I could let him in.

"I had stocked the bathroom with the necessities you require. Please let me know when the migraine symptoms begin." It was a silent request underlying his words. 'Please let me in so I can know you are okay'. I move my lower lip uncomfortably and nod my head at his words, lifting my sight from the calendar and moving back to my plate.

I quickly finish the salad without another word nor look in the direction Lucifer was standing. I didn't bother looking at the calendar again as I noted the dates that I needed to know in my mind. I burned those dates into memory.

"I think it would be best if we started training you for fighting." I snap my eyes from the empty plate, standing from my seat as I look at him. I try to decode the look in his eyes but cannot and end up giving up on doing so. I nod my head at him before putting my bowl in the dishwasher I had asked to be installed not ten minutes ago.

I walk out of the kitchen, feeling his gaze burning holes into my back as I walk away from him.

"Training begins in ten minutes. Clothes are in our room." I remain a cold front as I turn sideways to him, looking over my shoulder and nod my head slightly so he knows that I heard it. I don't bother correcting him with the 'our room' language. Technically it was his room. I just occupied it and wouldn't let him in until I was ready.

I continue walking, ignoring the lingering feeling of his fiery gaze. I stride down the starlit hallway and into his bedroom. It was the same as before, yet more gothic and cozy, there now being a large firepit on the wall opposite the bed instead of the door to the bathroom. The fire was lit and was generating an insane amount of heat to light and warm and the room. I liked it.

I quickly change into the clothes provided which was a pair of black athletic shorts and sports bra. There was a loose cotton black t-shirt on the bed but I ignored it as I grabbed the black hair-band from the pile of twenty hair ties and scrunchies on my side of the bed.

It was easier for me to move in just a sports bra.

I smile at the thought of why I was really just going to wear the sports bra, but didn't let the thought hinder my ability to hurry.

Within seven of those ten minutes I was out of my room and on my way back to the kitchen area. With a skip in my step and a happy smile on my face, I almost run into a dark looming figure appearing out of nowhere.

Thanatos appeared out of thin-air in front of me, making me squeal and jump back from surprise. I was uncanny how these Gods could just teleport – or winnow as they called it – in and out of places. I was just getting a hang of being able to teleport out of realms and that was draining. Imagine teleporting small distances over and over again. That sounded harsh on the mental health.

He grabs my wrist with a cheeky smile before he forces us to enter the darkness of purple and gold that connects the realms and places. It was over in a second and I was once more on the matted floor of a large room. I didn't notice the room as I feel to my knees and rolled onto my back as I gasped.

"A little warning next time ay?" I say to Thanatos, only hearing him laugh in reply. I smile at him, finding his energy rather refreshing and nice.

He reminded me of my brother, and I wish I could see him once more for a proper catch up. Like were we talk like we used to. That sounded nice.

"Stop thinking such depressing thoughts, lets begin." His voice was light and I turn to him with a glare.

"Can people not read my mind? It is the most annoying thing." I huff and push myself up from the ground.

"Stop being so obvious in your thoughts then." I roll my eyes at his mannerism and look at him expectantly.

I decide to change topics as he takes his combat boots off and leaves himself in ankle socks and classic male-workout gear. I laugh at his white and pink ankle socks, similar to my own.

"What's so funny?" He looks at me with an confused expression but I shrug at him, already only in black calve-high socks.

"Just didn't expect you to wear white, and didn't expect you to wear ankle socks." I shake my head expectantly. He huffs at me, rolling his dark eyes with a smile.

"What are we doing?" I continue my questioning, expecting a good answer from Thanatos as he isn't one to fuck around like Lucifer is. I hear him snort as he folds up his black zip-up jumper he was wearing and places it next to his combat boots on the wall.

We make eye contact and I smile graciously, waiting for an answer.

He never gave one.

Well, he gave an answer, it just wasn't the answer I expected because seconds after I had asked my original question once more, he lunged at me from across the room with a murderous intention in his eyes making me scream and duck as his body soars over me.

"What the fuck Thanatos!" I yelp from my position, knees bent at the joint with my butt on the ground and my ankles coming next to my ass as I bend my back backwards onto the floor. The position was rather painful for someone who hadn't done gymnastics in forever, but I recover and spring myself from the floor to face Thanatos.

"Gotta be prepared Princess." I narrow my eyes at the name, feeling my muscles tense as the cold ice leaked through my finger tips and onto my hand, the darkness not following too far behind.

Nyx was close to the surface.

That was good. Her powers were sufficient and I was able to tap into my previous talents in my previous lives.

It meant I did have greater control that just a baby learning how to fight.

With that I run forward, my calves tensing a few steps away from the large mass of Thanatos as I propel myself into the air over his head and extend the darkness and ice from my fingertips and into the air aimed at his head.

I wasn't going down without a fight.

I was dead.

I had died and now I was at peace after a harsh beating that was done so many times in the last few days.

Turns out I always lost against these Gods. And now I was dead.

Not literally of course – not yet anyway – but physically, my muscles felt dead.

I lay on the mat, sweat probably dripping from my skin as I let the silence around me become my peaceful retreat.

It had been three days since I had returned to Hell, and three days since I had last seen Lucifer. He was always busy now and although it made me upset somewhere inside my heart, I knew that he had work to do and wouldn't share it with me for some time.

I also knew he was somewhat avoiding me. I felt as though he was figuring out things and that was okay. He wanted space so I gave it. It was something that I valued too, so I gave it to him.

Thanatos had left suddenly a minute or two ago, and since left me in the silence of the workout-gym room. We had fought constantly, for easily eight hours a day or even more for the past three days. He was relentless and so was Lilith whenever she was available to fight. They had shown me techniques to improve, but they personal valued the 'just through Nephele into the fighting kind-of training session'. No surprises there.

I was getting a little bit better, but my body was suffering.

Suffering didn't even account for the mental toll the fighting was having.

Call me pathetic and weak, but I couldn't function anymore.

The training sessions were rough. We had a four-hour block at seven in the morning until eleven where I had half an hour off to go to the toilet and all that. I then had another six-hour block until five-thirty pm where I would be expected to have dinner.

I had dinner alone and often didn't have the mental effort to eat. They didn't bother checking that I was eating either, as I just said I would make something for myself in my own kitchen as I wanted to be alone. It wasn't their fault I wasn't eating much either, much like my own.

I just didn't want to eat much and although my body was going through relentless 'training', I wasn't hungry enough to finish the large portion Caesar salad I had had for the last four nights. I hadn't seen Lucifer so I didn't think he would like dinner with me in my Kitchen, so I just ordered the Caesar from the telephone kitchen service which I had been demonstrated to use four nights ago.

My mental state nonetheless was deteriorating.

It wasn't from the fighting solely. It was from the nightmares, sleepless nights and the upcoming traumatic episode I was to face.

The thing that they didn't know about my migraines was that I relived all the dreams of my former parents over and over and over again to I woke up in delirium – only to slip back into the cycle of dreams. It was literal hell. You couldnt escape and you had to subcomb to your very nightmares. Over and over and over again. I had to repeat the torture that those dreams represent.

The dreams the last time had gotten worse than previously too. I only connected the dots now, but I was dreaming about my past lives as well. I saw Nyx and Nephele and some other forms of Nyx in my dreams the last time I fell into the delirium phase of my migraines.

I don't think you can actually call it a migraine anymore.

I knew that it wasn't a migraine, deep down I knew it wasn't what I wanted it to be. But I couldn't seem to face that fact yet.

The impending episode wasn't far away – I felt it. Maybe a day or two away. I didn't tell them though.

Lucifer asked me to. Except he was busy and I hadnt seen him. I didnt want the others knowing about the migraine as I wasn't comfortable with them knowing about it. That isn't their fault; I just didn't trust them as much as they thought I did. I also didn't want to bother Lucifer in terms of searching for him and telling him. It was irrational and if I saw him in the next two days I would tell him.

Maybe.

This is the cliche stupid part of my story, I already knew that. But logically I couldn't be bothered finding him and telling him.

To add complications, I hadn't received my period yet. That could mean multiple things, but the longer I didn't have it without medical intervention such as the Pill, the more drastic the effects on my fertile health.

I would sort that out later though.

I pushed myself from the mat, sticking to it like a fly would stick to a spiders web. My muslces ached and I wanted to crash back down as the world swayed in front of my eyes. I blinked multiple times, clearing my vision from the white dots that danced like they were doing the salsa, and I got onto my feet and stumbled to the large mahogany doors that lead to the grand hallway of the castle.

The gym wasn't in the King's Quarters. It was actually on the other side of the castle and proved to be a good twenty-minute walk back to my bedroom. I liked walking it though; it gave me time to think about things.

Limping my way due to the leg injury I sustained about an hour ago when Lilith and twisted and pushed me down, leading to my knee bending ninety degrees to the left whilst my leg stayed straight, I had to limp to help myself heal faster. Pushing through the heavy doors, I managed to keep myself upright as my head throbbed with insistent pain.

I walk through the corridors I had burned into my memory, eyes half closed as the pain grew more intense. I swallowed the lump in my throat and bit through the pain and flashes of white under my eyelids and I realised my predictions were wrong.

Turning the corner like in a trance, I notice that the soft carpet under my feet hardens slightly and I know I am heading the right way. I should be nearly opposite the grand staircase that leads from the second floor down to the first floor of this stone castle.

"Mistress, are you okay?" I don't look at the kind voice who asked that and almost jumped at the sudden voice, but I nod my head and continue down the hall with all the effort that I can muster. I hear her laugh as if I was just being dramatic - probably because I was - but when I gasp in pain, I crack my eyes open to see her face look a little worried. I hear the lady's footsteps scurry off in a panicked rush, but before I can call after her, a stab is aimed at the right side of my brain.

I maintained my course, opening my eyes against the bright light and noted I was in the hallway above the foyer to Hell's Castle and only had to continue walking straight to reach the King's Quarter.

I didn't know how to describe the pain I felt. It wasn't physical, but at the same time it was physical. It wasn't emotional but it also was emotional. Mental pain was there, but the addition of a strange form of emotional strain and the throbbing stabs of physical pain made me feel so sick.

Within minutes that felt like hours I was through the doors that marked home for me. They were warded from letting people inside the safe walls, and only a select few could get in without the permission of Lucifer himself.

I was one of those people, thankfully.

The doors close shut behind me automatically with some sort of warded magic and I understand that I am locked in here for the time being. That was most likely good. It was safer that way.

I clutch my chest as my vision flashes white at a faster pace, my hand rubbing the middle of my chest on my sternal to make me somewhat conscious. I needed to feel something other than this pain and rubbing the sternal was a common way to wake a person from the unconscious. It was of course only done by those who knew how to do it.

I gasp as the pain registers briefly but subsides seconds after it is registered, knowing that I must be in a bad shape for this to happen so suddenly.

Only steps into the massive foyer of the Quarters I fall to the fall with the slip of my stepping. I am metres away from the kitchen and less than thirty seconds from my bedroom where I would be safe. My muscles ached so much though. I tried to push myself from the floor with as much strength as I could muster but the pain in my bicep muscles as I did lead me to flail and collapse against the floor. I yelped quietly, the sound barely escaping passed my nearly closed lips.

I stretch my limbs as they spasm slightly, white light encasing my vision and my body and I am thrown into the world of the subconscious dream.

"Mummy, where are we going?" The little girl who sits next to me asks in a small childish voice. I turn to her and notice that her bright blue eyes shone through her light brown hair messily tied up into a small ponytail on the top of her head. She was adorable, dressed in a pretty pink dress with a matching pink scrunchie attached to the band that held her frail hair in place.

The young girl seemed to be around four years old, her vocabulary rather well developed for someone so seemingly young, which made me think she was actually older than her complexion lead me to believe. I watched as the girl dangled her legs over the edge of her car seat, herself strapped in with her brother holding onto the frayed corner of the seat tightly. When looking over at the brother, the tears were obvious in his eyes, something the young girl seemed to miss as her mother wove in-between cars on the highway, the green signs indicating exits passing as blurs. I sat in-between the young girl and her apparent brother, the bond between them fairly obvious. I was confused as the brother's arm flew through my body as if I was transparent, although I knew I was.

A reoccurring dream that plagued my night.

This wasn't real – this wasn't rea-

I swallowed thickly as I saw the mother's eyes dart up into the rear-view-mirror quickly, looking over her daughter and son before they darted back to the oncoming traffic and road ahead.

"Mummy?" The little girl's voice was quiet, fear lacing her word as she placed her fingers on her lip, a thing the girl still does now when she is nervous or worried.

"Sorry baby, it is a surprise. We are just going away for a few days. Think of it as a holiday." Her mother's words reassured the girl immediately, her brother however saw through the lie almost instantly.

"Yeah Elly, we are going to some place warm for a while." Her brother reassures, the little girls head looking over at him before goofily smiling as he smiles back with a darker expression on his face. The smile was so out of place, the atmosphere in the car a lot darker and weary than the little girls humour.

The mother's eyes dart back to the rear-view-mirror once more, not in search of her children's eyes but for the traffic behind them.

I knew how this scene played out. I had watched it through, seen it too many times to just walk away and pretend although I didn't know what was going to happen, what I couldn't change.

I wanted to scream as I saw the familiar glint in the distance through the windscreen, the darkness that surrounded the car making it easier to spot the more times you looked at it. I wanted to leap forward and get in the way, stop the unstoppable.

Except I did nothing as I watched the silver bullet glint under the random street light, the bullet moving ever so slowly from a gun that glints under the moonlight a kilometre away.

I did nothing as I watched the bullet penetrate the glass of the windscreen, the sound following mere milliseconds after it slipped into the mother's forehead. I did nothing as I watched the blood splatter the seats surrounding the female, did nothing as I watched the little girl scream as blood coated her skin, as she swallowed the thick metallic taste of her mother's blood. I did nothing as the brother yelled, his arm coming out as he leaned through me to cover his little sister as the car spun, the wheels failing to gain traction as they spun, the sound of wheels screeching and horns blaring as the car continued to spin.

I did nothing as the girls scream continued, her scream turning into my own as tears leaked from my eyes once more. I screamed as the car slammed forcefully into something, and continued to scream as I watched the lifeless bodies being thrown through the air.

This isn't real. This isn't real-

I convulse on the floor of the foyer, the solid red carpet under my body not assisting in anyway. I scream aloud as tears stream down my face. I scream as I begin to be sucked back into another dream. I watch my form clench and roll as I try to maintain control over this situation.

I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be here. I couldn't escape - someone let me out. I don't want to be here.

I was in control. I was in control. I was in cont-

I gasp as another memory surfaces in front of my and the world flashes a pale ice blue around me, igniting my body is a case of pure ice cold wind.

The darkening sky wept overhead; large tears splattered down upon the little pale blue girl who sat quietly observing the world around her. She didn't mind the darkened mood that world was experiencing. It made her happy in a sick sense, it made her calm and not scared, not worried for her safety.

The sky may have been a grey, but you could still make out the luminescence hue from the tall and weeping trees that shrouded the not to distant hill. This place wasn't like the one Nephele knew. No, it was far different. The trees here glowed a bright neon blue and the creatures of this world seemed to be from a fantasy novel. In this world, the people were blue. They had very humanistic features however their skin colour defined them, as it appeared to do anything. Nephele thought of the baby blue colour of the child's skin as nothing less than beautiful.

I had been here before. This isn't real, this isn't real-

I was sucked back into the reality, watching, silently watching. The child was only small after all, it was not as though she could comprehend the severity of what she was experiencing within her life, nor comprehend it to be considered and deemed a crime by society. She thought it was normal, and that made it only hurt more for her.

The grey clouds that surrounded the tower she was confined in made it seem that there was no outside world, however the beauty of the rain that fell against the opened windows that lay open so many metres about the ground reminded her that there was an outside world. She wasn't trapped within this strange but individually unique fog filled land.

She didn't like that part of the day; the part where she couldn't guess or estimate what was to come. She didn't like this day she had decided, regardless of her love for the rain. The despise for the fog that shrouded the unseen view from her tower was greater than her admiration of the rain.

She swallows the lump in her throat as she hears the voice from her nightmares speak to the side of her, the side which she was facing away from as she stared out the window, her back curled against the chipping light brown wood and legs tucked under her arms.

A shiver runs down her spine, her vertebrae visible from under her partially clothed back if you really looked hard enough, though no one from this time really did.

"Cassidy, it is time." The language was not English but yet I could understand as though it was. I could hear the syllables on my tongue, I could almost taste their language, as if it were my own. The worlds rolled out of his mouth, the door he entered through leading to the stairs in which he would take her down; where her unholy fate would lie. She wasn't in control of this, but she knew she could've been.

All she had to do was push herself forward from the edge.

All she had to do was fly.

"Cassidy, I said it is time to go." The voice grew rougher and Cassidy didn't obviously care that the man now grew closer to her, ever so slightly more aggressive as he balled his fists.

Nephele watch on from the side, there but not there, like the Angel of Death, knowing the girl's emotions but not that the same time.

"Cassidy –" He was cut off by Cassidy propelling herself to the side, throwing her body weight into the force, which was not much considering she was barely eating these days.

She – I – watched as the girl fell in the air, down the tower she was once locked inside. I watched as the girl's white hair flew around her as she fell, how her face portrayed a sense of calm; a sense of peace. This time I screamed as the girl had flung herself from the stone tower, knowing that this was an inevitable end to a life that had no meaning in the scheme of her mothers wishes.

I watched as the girl's body disintegrated into a million, maybe a billion pieces of white, pure white, ash. Ash that floated in the air around me as I too suddenly fell from the tower and the ground beneath me gave out.

I screamed as I changed setting and fell into the abyss that had shown no mercy.

I fling my body from the ground as sweat breaks through on my forehead, knowing that not much time has passed. I cry out desperate for something other than this hell.

This wasn't a migraine anymore.

"Lucifer!" I cry out in desperation, knowing that somehow, he had to have heard me screaming, for if he didn't hear me then I would be alone. If he didn't hear me I would be stuck in this alone.

I didn't want to be alone anymore.

"Lucife-" I try to scream again but it was too late as I was sucked back into the dark abyss. The dark abyss that was the same colour as the darkness that ran through my veins and surrounded my body. The same abyss that I was representative off.

The same darkness I used to call my home.

The skies cried today. The skies were dark and gloomy. They held no mercy, no sign of happiness nor no sign of hope. That wasn't their role today.

Their role was cover. They would provide me with a way out.

I was free once I made it past the battlefield. I was free from her once I passed the grass field that stretched one-hundred metres. The battlefield was filled with fighting warriors and monsters of all kinds. I could escape her, and get back to Daddy and Erebrus if I got beyond the battlefield – if I got to their side.

Hiding behind a rock after escaping the white granite walls of my Mothers ranks, I was now trembling with fear. I knew I couldn't go back. I had to at least try.

I stood from the rock, facing my possible death and deciding to just do it. The warriors were distracted and likely wouldn't notice me, besides they couldn't kill me. They had to keep me alive, plus apparently, they can't kill me. I could only be killed by another God's hands. That was the law Mother had taught me as a threat.

It turned out to be good threat.

Placing my footing on the crunching, dry and dead grass below my feet, I push off and sprint down the slightly slopped hill and powering through the battlefield. I hope to be insignificant compared to everyone around, just a mere Goddess running through the battlefield that was too small to notice in the middle of the fight.

I ran and smiled as blood sprayed around me, the corpses from blackened charcoal monsters falling around me as my Father's armies gained the lead in this battle. I smiled at the blood on the ground, finding it not gruesome as I once would have. It didn't bother me.

I slid under a pair of men and women fighting against each other, their swords slashing at each other vigorously. I notice the girl's eyes sparkle as she sees me pass her and I knew that sparkle wasn't good. I swallow and continue on, sprinting away with burning calves and hamstrings as I near the end of the battlefield.

I almost cheer as I pass through enemy lines and into the middle ground, the people around me all hitting and fighting and bashing and punching and slashing and slaying those around them for the sake of winning me.

Was it worth it? To kill all for me?

No. It wasn't.

That's probably something that I understood now. It wasn't my fault that there was this war going on. It was something that was predestined and out of my hands – something which the oracles had predicted for centuries before my birth. Something which they predicted would happen regardless of measures taken to stop this.

I saw Erebrus ahead of me, hair shinning under the roughish red-lit skies. We made a brief shot of eye contact and I can see the relief behind his eyes as he fought off the rough and large spiked beast that was trained on him. I ran towards him, just as he ran towards me as soon as the beast was on the floor. I ran towards him like my life depended on it, because it did.

I was so close to him; so close yet so far.

Time passed quickly and I realised that I was able to make it to him. I could almost touch him; I could almost hold him again. After years apart I could see – touch, absorb – him once more.

Except I wouldn't have that pleasure this time. The battlefield stood in silence, although the fighting taking place around me, everything slowed down as I black tipped arrow flew through the left side of my upper back and into my chest cavity.

I threw myself forward into Erebrus' arms, his arms circling me as the momentum of the arrow throws me off balance. I choke – holding my breath and trying to make the pain go away. I hear him yell to me, his voice so distant as I rocked myself forward knowing that I couldn't escape the fate the oracles had put in place.

I couldn't escape this, regardless of the ending my story will continue to have.

I could hear his words clearly now. I could hear him; I could hear him. This was real.

"I will find you again Mea Amare. I will find you." I wanted to cry out at his faint whisper, but am not able to as though I am thrown underwater, and nothing is what it seems anymore.

The last thing I saw was him. His face hovering over my own, his teary eyes begging me to stay, his hair teasing my forehead as I lay in his lap. The last thing I smelt was him. His cologne, his earthy smell, the smell of home, the smell of peace. The last thing. The last thing I heard was him. The last thing I felt was him. His lips on my lips, his fingertips on my skin, his hair on my forehead, his tears on my cheeks. The last thing I heard was his voice. Crying, screaming, begging, yelling, speaking. The last thing I tasted was him. His lips pressing closely to mine, the lingering taste of him on my tongue as I collapsed in on myself.

The last thing of my existence was him. It was always him.

Death wasn't cold or cruel.

It wasn't warm or comforting either.

It was neutral. There wasn't anything there. I could feel, and I could think, but I didn't physically feel nor physically move. I was at peace.

I let the burn in my throat cease. I let the pain in my mind leave. I let the aches of my physical body disperse. I let the coldness of my core leave me. I let Lilith go. I let my mother go. I let my father go. I let their essence escape my body and their memories disperse till I knew of them no more.

I didn't let him go until the very last moment.

I let him voice and his invisible hands was over my body. I let his hair run between my pale fingers once more. I let his lips touch mine for the last time. I let myself imagine him smiling one last time too. I had to let him go eventually, but I did wish I could cherish him forever.

I let everything go in that moment; the moment I was thrown into the waters of Death.

I let this world; this life, go.

I let it go, because he will find me again.

I didn't doubt it.

I didn't doubt it as I awoke in his arms, the palace walls surrounding me as I flailed in and out of conscious.

I didn't doubt it as I cried in his arms, the soft air meeting my skin as I was lifted into his embrace, when I realised how my story will end time and time again.

What was occurring right now; wasn't a migraine. It was a story. It was a story that had been so repressed and stifled and when it was unleashed it would cause a tsunami of pain, heartbreak, betrayal and agony.

This wasn't a migraine.

This was a hostile takeover.

No words for this rollercoaster. Please tell me your thoughts!

THIS IS MEANT TO BE NUTS. THIS CHAPTER IS NUTS FOR A REASON, ITLL MAKE MORE SENSE NEXT CHAPTER I PROMISE HEHEHE.

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QOTC: What type of music do you like?

Let me know your thoughts below:

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SONG: ~<>~ Skeleton - Tails

How did you like the two recent chapters? Please let me know!!! I REALLY NEED TO KNOW X

Tiktok - GracexRose

BYE BESTIES!

ROSE xoxox