EMELINE
"You were going to embrace my friend also known as death. But given the consequences, you woke me up-you, you are my bride."Â His bride?
I looked around to be sure but nothing on my part understood why the man who saved me thought I was his bride. It was a joke, wasn't it? But how could it be when he looked so smug about it?
"Oh! For devil's sake! The first time I've got to marry a lady who turned out to be deaf!"
I opened my mouth to say something, to counter his words but nothing came from my lips just as the girl in front of me stayed silent. Both of us were stunned, how could we not when the man, Alexei, as he called himself looked nothing like the man I noticed earlier. While that man was polite to me, this one was just mocking me.
"Who exactly are you?" I heard the girl whisper. Alexei, I called out but the girl kept her gaze on the man as if I never said anything. Maybe I never did. It was a nightmare after all.
"Oh. Look at that! You can speak. And here I thought I was talking to a deaf and mute." Alexei clapped his hands, forcing me to take a step back. I had to get away from here. I couldn't be stuck into one of these vicious cycles again. Not when there was not a cure to begin with.
You are not even a demon, something in me chastised. Demos lied, didn't you realize?
"You didn't answer my question, you asshole. Who are you?"
This time I didn't bother to answer. I was quickly realizing that anything I said was not heard by any one of them. It's like I was practically invisible to them. So, I just stared, waiting for them to finish talking.
"Such dirty mouth for a young lady! No, that won't do. Once this matrimony is done, we need to have a serious talk about that kind of behavior. I think I even have the-"Â Alexei started to look for something on his cloak only to come out empty. There was a frown on his face as he let out his next words. "Oh well...I thought the ring would appear with the ceremony on its own. My mistake, now where were we?"
"I don't know what you are talking about. There isn't any matrimony going on." Even as the girl said those words, she looked confused.
"You forgot it already? Oh, the melodious chants, the screams of those witches, and the scary sound of your vows. Ouch! That hurts Emeline. That really hurts!"Â That fake gasp was followed by the girl's whisper asking if he was real or not. If she was dead or not.
Every emotion vanished from his face as he looked down at her. "Who do you think I am, Emeline?"
"Your everything." A voice deep within me taunted, forcing me to let out a scream.
And to my surprise, the same scream woke me up from the nightmare. The only difference? Unlike every other time, I had two nightmares I clearly remembered which led me to squeeze the silk between my fingertips in alarm. Wait, silk?
My gaze went to my fingers and then the fine silk that was draped around me. Not only it was there to make sure that I had every comfort that could be given but also I had a room with lavish decoration. It had rich red curtains and a black marble floor. One King-sized bed where I was currently sitting on, a walk-in closet, a door to probably to the bathroom, and a small balcony. And to my left was a big door to get out of the room.
I jerked away from the bed to see that I was wearing my previous clothes minus my jacket. Thank God, at least nobody changed me. Maybe they used a spell for me to get dry then? Dammit. One by one all memories came to my mind again and I froze. The man who saved me was the one haunting my dreams. All those times I never could put a face on those black abysses and now he was there.
Real.
Everything was started to look more real than it did in centuries.
He wanted something from me back then. What if...what if he still wanted that something from me? I had to get out of here too. Hide from both Demos and Alexei.
Stumbling, suddenly I faced a wave of exhaustion. I looked around, trying to find a mirror but this room had no mirrors. Cursing under my breath, I tried to lift myself so I could dematerialize but my body felt too weak to even take a few steps.
Shit, my head was still spinning.
Before I could think of opening the door of the balcony to jump, the door behind me opened itself and came running the man who saved me earlier. But this time he had another spiky-haired man and a woman following him.
"Emeline! You alright?" He interjected. To everyone, he sounded calm but the way his vein raced told me that he was only faking the emotion. My own wasn't slowing down either. The more he walked toward me, the more my breath caught on my throat. And when he raised his hand to touch my chin, I didn't even realize when I backed out with a choked whisper.
"Don't touch me!"
"Emeline...you screamed and you don't look so good to keep standing. Can you at least tell me what happened?" His voice had an authority that almost had me rambling about the dreams and my pain. But why would I tell him about...
"You are trying to get inside my head, aren't you?" My accusation was thrown away with a soft chuckle.
"I'm not in your head. Please calm down, will you?" With that, he touched my cheek. That cold feeling rushing through my skin made me gasp in pain. Pain for what? Loss or wanting to feel that something again?
This was getting dangerous. I didn't even know what Demos did to me and I was engaged to him. Not only that, I was letting another man touch me, the same man who asked my hand in marriage in another part of my life. Wrong...this was all wrong.
"Don't come near me." I shook my head, confused at the turn of events. "You're...I don't trust you."
His eyes narrowed immediately. "And you trust that demon King who may I add did nothing when you were pushed into the water so you can drown and die."
He wasn't letting me go. Why couldn't he let me go? As if by fate suddenly an idea came to my mind. Why didn't I think about that before? Taking a deep breath, I raised my fingers to touch his jaw. He momentarily froze and then relaxed.
Big mistake.
"Don't ever touch me again or get in my room. Now, get out." The moment the words left my mouth, his eyes snapped to meet my own. For a second, I wondered if it didn't work on him but like all the others, he was physically enabled to resist the compulsion. His hands were torn from my cheek, his body following the movement until he was out of the room.
"Another power, wonderful." His dry laugh brought chills to my bones even from a distance. Perhaps that's why I clenched my fists and stared at the other people in the room, hoping that they would leave me alone.
"Please go."
The spiky-haired man nodded, leaving us be but the woman held her position with her gaze only reserved for me. So when she brought a cup out of nowhere, I had no choice but to be careful with the witch.
"What's in that?"
"You're in pain. Take this." I looked at the woman sharply.
"You're a witch. Why should I trust you?" There was a smile forming on her face as if she was planning something cunning and when she opened her mouth, I had no doubt that I was about to be trapped into another mind game of a witch.
"I know you have questions, Emeline. I can feel them strangle you as you take every breath." The woman let out a sigh. "Now I can help you with those questions only if you truly seek it. So for starters, you need that void out of your head, don't you? You feel it start to warp around you the moment you take that potion by the demon king, isn't it?"
"How do you know about that?" I had a hard time grasping everything that was happening around me. Too fast, too much.
"I'm a Volkios, the representer of witches. I only wish good fortune for them. Even the past ones."
Past ones?
The girl in my memory was a witch before she died. What if it was me...
I didn't want to think anymore. I just wanted to stop my head from spinning. Without thinking, I took the cup and knocked down all the content into my throat. Within seconds, I was coughing as the fire went through my veins. God, how it burned.
"What did you put in it!?"
As I felt the last bit of my consciousness leaving my body, I heard the woman saying. "Trust me, you'll be back."
If only it was that easy...
***
The next time I found myself waking up on the same bed, I could only curse my own fate.
Why? WHY?! Why did I have to do this now? And of all places, here? I really wished that I had good timing...This sucked. I couldn't even escape from a place I voluntarily wanted to come. So what could one person do?
I turned to Demos's thinking of clever ways to quickly get rid of these creatures.
I could call for Demos but I didn't exactly trust him right now so he was out. Though I could call out Demos's right-hand man Fallon but he was out somewhere on some mission I had no idea of, so, that plan was also thrown into the back of my mind. I could jump out of the balcony but I wasn't strong enough yet and I didn't want to wonder what they'd do to me if I get caught again.
Dammit.
Just as I thought to seek out that good for nothing witch who knocked me out, someone knocked on the door. Shit. I grimaced and walked to the door, opening it to find two men in front of me.
"Can I help you?" I didn't care how rude I sounded to them. I was angry and hungry. Not a good combination for someone who just found out she wasn't even the right species as she was thinking for millennia.
"Let us come in."
I looked at the spiky-haired guy from earlier who was holding another person who looked sick in his hand. The moment I looked at the sick person, something in me wanted to rip that man in half. And the shock of it was what forced me to grit out. "I don't know what's happening to me but can you please just take him away?"
All I could think about was this never happened before. I knew I could bring dead people to life but for me to be hungry of the almost dead man's soul? No, there was definitely something wrong. Perhaps that witch messed something up on my brain? Now, that was a more plausible reason.
"Look, I know what's happening, Allegra warned me. I just came here to give you this person for a..." He stopped looking for the right words when a sigh left my mouth.
"Fine! Can you both come in?" I couldn't stand for too long anyway.
He nodded and quickly came into the room with the man in tow. "Have you stopped freaking out yet?"
Before I could answer, he shook his head, "Never mind that. You must not tell anyone what I'm about to tell you after you had your fill. Especially don't tell Lex."
Lex? He must be talking about Alexei...
"Don't tell him what?"
"I'm Zedkiel Lytton by the way. I'm sorry that I might've freaked you out." Freaked out would be far too good from what I was feeling. It's like I was going insane, like every pore of my body was hungry for something.
"This is an offering for you. I know you crave souls. He's a human and he tried to expose the Coven to his species so-"
"You want me to finish him." I connected the dots.
"Yes, and it'll be good if you take him now before he dies cause if he did then he'll just come back."
No way.
"How did you know all of these?" He gave me a weak grin, which had his lip ring shine in the light.
"I know a lot of things about you. We all do. We met before...you went to Hell."
"What?"Â No, it couldn't be true, could it?
"Did you think we just take people in without knowing anything about them? You are something to all of us." I didn't want to believe him. The witch told me the same thing but why couldn't I remember?
"And your friend? Did he know me too? The man who saved me?"
"Alexei?" Zedkiel tasked with another sigh. "He is a good man, Emeline. And, I know we don't always see eye to eye but I consider him my blood. He won't hurt...not you, never you. Please, take your compulsion back. He can't come into this room unless you want him to."
Yeah, that was exactly why I did it.
"Maybe I don't want him here." His hazel eyes didn't miss the hard tone in my voice.
"We will let you go." I couldn't have heard him right as I looked at him shocked. A beginning of a smile was on his lips when he continued. "Just let him in. Your freedom exchange of letting Lex in this room and you will let him explain."
He was giving me a choice.
"OK." I shrugged. Ever since I took the medicine, it was messing with my head. It must be. Or why did I agree so easily? "Now I'm going to take my...fill."
He chuckled at my words, giving me some privacy by going to the balcony. Only when he was gone that I looked at the half-dead human in front of me. I walked up to him, waiting for something to happen. And just as I thought that maybe I was mistaken, a violent jerk of my body had dark shadow like things coming out of it which warped him tightly, blocking his escape. A loud scream followed but I kept taking from him. When hands hold me back, I jumped.
"Don't-"
"Touch you. Yeah, I get it. I just held you back from messing your bedroom up. The dead body vanished." True to his words, ashes flew in the room freely and my nose scrunched by the scent.
"Sorry, I lost control. I-I don't know what just happened." He nodded and a question lurked in my mind that was killing me if I didn't ask it.
"Those witches...are they-"
"They have been taken care of." He trailed off. "It's better if you don't involve yourself with that right now. It's Coven business."
"You mean they have been shunned. Ok, ok. If I can't ask questions about my mistakes, then tell me this, why did I feel all your touches?" I could tell that the question caught him off guard. So I specified it. "I mean when I was in Hell, I used to feel nothing when someone touched me. But here...I feel it, it's so strange for me."
"Cause you are not a demon made by the King?" He shrugged, tilting his head to look at me.
"Then what am I?"
He looked at the floor beneath him. With the sudden awkwardness, I couldn't wait for him to leave the room or answer me. He didn't. Instead, he stared at me warily. "I can't tell you that as it's not my place. But all I can tell is he will be back. I owe him."
"Who will be back?"
"Lex doesn't even know about this. The man told me I had to keep someone safe. He wouldn't tell me who. He just said to go to you, Emeline. He said you'd understand." Suddenly he stood up from the couch to make his way to the outside.
"Wait! Who are you talking about!?"
"Jonathan Vale Franklin."
I couldn't believe it. That man was coming back. And sure enough, Demos would find out. That someone...
I wasn't the only one who escaped that night.
There was another one.
The biggest mystery on earth.
The Prophesy herself.
***
Her father is back! And don't you all think Zed is acting strange? And what do you think of prophecy being a girl and her coming back? Did you expect it? Let me know! Vote, comment, & Enjoy!