Malia's POV I woke up groggy and disoriented, my surroundings bathed in a harsh sterile light. I adjusted my eyes to accommodate the light before scanning around. The room was stark and clinical, with white walls and metallic surfaces. I could feel my pale skin getting cold on the metal table I laid on, stark naked, restrained by straps that bounded my arms and legs. I tried to break free, but the straps were just too strong and for a moment I thought I felt weak. I decided to shapeshift, in the hopes that my gigantic wolf would break me off the straps, but I just couldn't shapeshift, it was as if every inch of my bone was broken into pieces even though I felt no pain. Medical instruments and monitors surrounded me, their beeps and whirs punctuating the oppressive silence. The air was heavy with antiseptic, the usual one that always smelled at our pack's clinic, and it was indeed clear to me that I was in some medical facility. I tried to recall how I ended u
I held my breath and the two with the scalpel got to cut me up. They sliced my flesh, cutting through layers of skin in a rectangular pattern at the upper side of my abdomen, revealing my rib cage. I screamed like I had never screamed before. The pain was unbearable and I felt it with each slice of muscle and flesh. Mr Grey eyes pinned me down from the shoulders, allowing the butchers to do their work perfectly. They cut out my skin and placed it in a plastic box and then brought a surgery saw. I couldn't see what they were doing, but the second they started cutting the bones of my rib cage, I forgot where I was. The pain was too much, and out of this world, and I collapsed. I opened my eyes to find myself in a church, and strangely, I vaguely remembered the interior, the large crucifix, the altar, the floor tiles, I remembered it, it was where my mother was killed. I turned around to the noise at the door and I saw my mom running into the church, holding little me i
Diego's POV I quickly drove to the medical center upon receiving the news that my father had regained consciousness. Josh had called me to relay the message, but when I got to the hospital, he had fallen back to sleep. " He asked about you when he woke up", Josh said to me. I felt a wave of pride and love; I had a loving father who asked first of me after being in a coma for weeks. " When will the radio frequency treatments begin?" I asked, trying not to feel big headed. " Later in the day", he said. I stayed at the hospital for the rest of the day, doing nothing important, and thinking of a way to find Malia. Ariel, my only hope at finding her had chased me out of her house. I get it, she was still angry at me for suddenly ending things between us without any reason. I definitely had my reasons, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell her. Imagine telling her that I wanted us to break up simply because I no longer felt that spark in our relationship.
" I don't know what you're talking about", I said with fright. " Yes you do. you know what I'm talking about", his head turned into that of the little girl, with his body still intact. I fell to the ground in fear, " No, go away", I shouted. " No, we won't", Patricia and Derek said, with the same head on their necks. " We know you always meet her", they all started to say at the same time, with a voice that sounded divine, echoing through the building, " "and we know what you do with her in your car, you filthy thing". " You're not real, go away ", I shouted all the more. " You're just as filthy as she is. You killed her parents, didn't you". I covered my ears and shut my eyes, but still felt them itching closer, and smelled their breath on my face. " You might as well just kill her". " No!.." I shouted, got up and took to my heels. " Diego, Diego, Diego!" Patricia's voice called but I was still phased out. She smacked me on my shoulder and only then did I
Ariel's POV I sat on my crooked armchair, rocking it around as I brought a small table to the air to support my hanging feet. Mr broom and mob were performing for me as I had instructed them. Not that they were good, in fact, they were the worst performers. Mrs pot and her plates always did a better job, singing melodious songs with heavenly voices. Broom and mob would only jump up and down, up to the ceiling and down to the floor, and the mob would always get his laces tangled up with Mr broom's broomsticks; it was just always fun to watch. But I actually wasn't paying attention, or at least I was carried away; I always was, ever since Diego came. The uneasy, bitter feeling that he left me with a couple of days ago would always come to my mind within every five minutes, and it would always throw me off balance, leading me into helplessness, despair and depression. I reminded myself again to concentrate on the ongoing performance, but then a knock on the door made all t
" Yes it is", the words came from me but I was sure I wasn't talking, I was too flabbergasted to speak, but yet it seemed as if I was not in control of Calipsu's body, as if I was a fragment, a tiny insignificant fragment of consciousness hidden inside her. " And you look better standing there with your smile", she said again, making him smile all the more, " wait let me take a picture". It seemed creepy, absurd even, but it was as if I was seeing through Calipsu's eyes, I wasn't reading her memory, I was just there in her mind, closed off in silence, only to watch her actions unfold. She went to the heliograph that was set on a tripod stand, carrying her heavily pregnant self. For some reason, I felt heavy too, as if I was also pregnant and was walking with her. Right there in the sun-dappled meadow, she stood, with a sense of serene focus. The gentle breeze rustled through the nearby tall grass, and the soft light of the mid morning sun bathed the scene in warm golden
Malia's POV " Malia!" I heard my mother calling out to me in the lovely way she did whenever she wanted to coax me into eating meat. I hated meat so much as a child that I never ate it, but my mother, knowing so well that I needed the essential nutrients it provided, always had to pet and convince me each time before I'll consider eating meat, if not, I'll stock my tummy up with chips and veggies - imagine being a vegan and a werewolf? Ironical isn't it? I was just so very stupid back then. " Malia!" the voice called again, and as I laid on the cold, bare, concrete floor, I saw her before me, together with my dad and little brother, standing before the door. They were all there. " Malia", my dad called this time, " we will never leave you, we will always be with you. Now get up child", he said in a very calm way, and I needed no soothsayer to tell me that I was hallucinating - dad never sounded calm, " get up and stay alive", my mum added. Even though I knew it was
" What the hell is going on here?" I asked the Diegos, but I was quite sure that my voice was so tiny that I wasn't heard. " Take her out", the last Diego that entered said, leaving me confused. He looked like the Diego I knew, but his voice was different. They came over and took me by the arm. I resisted, but they easily overpowered me. " Diego! Diego it's me", I said as they carried me out of the room. Only when I was carried to the properly lit hallway did I realize how I stupid I was - none of them was Diego. They roughly dragged me along the floor, not minding that I was so weak, and then brought me into the same room I was taken away from, where Hansel was. There was another bed at the corner, and they dragged me to the bed and strapped my naked body to the bed which was more of like a metal table. My vision was still blurry, my eyes were still getting adjusted to the bright light. I tried to tilt my head to avoid directly looking at the light bulb at the
I must've had an ear problem. Yeah, that must have been the case. Or rather he didn't literally mean what he was saying, like he was using an idiom. That must be it. Those damn idiomatic expressions can be as misleading as hell, imagine someone walking up to you and telling you that they saw a white elephant, only for you to later figure out that there wasn't an actual white elephant, just that the person had witnessed something unimaginable. Yeah, it was always unnerving, just like when you find out for the first time that Santa Claus doesn't actually exist, it's just mom that has been placing those gifts under the tree all those years. I even knew a girl that cried for several days when she found out that the tooth fairy doesn't really exist, the poor fellow would've probably been a grandmother by then, or would have even met her demise. " Excuse me sir, you mean that she had a vampire turn you into one, right?" I asked, just to be clear. " No. She turned me into one by hers
" What? You do what?" I asked him, my eyes widened in surprise. " I said I know who you are. Now come on in or if what you want to say is very brief, you can say it here right now", he said, keeping me on my toes with his husky voice. " Okay", I said. He proceeded to go into the house while I followed after him. His footsteps were tired, as if he was finding it hard to carry his own weight. He led me into the sitting room; a fairly spacious one with cloth covered sofas, all giving off the aura of a warm home. " Have a sit", he said, pointing at the sofa right opposite the television. The sofas were four in total; a three in one, a two in one, and two singles, all set to fill up the space allocated to the sitting room. He sat on the one next to the television, with a sofa dividing us both, giving a considerable amount of distance. " So, what do I owe this August visit?" he asked, relaxing carefully on the sofa, preparing himself to listen to any rubbish that I had to spill
Ariel's POV I immediately got zapped up into the familiar tunnel unconsciously, but instead of traveling down the tunnel, I started swirling around like that was inside a tornado. Drops of water appeared out of thin air, forming little screens that were showing different things, but all were of Calipsu, as if I was watching short videos of her with different screens, all passing by and rummaging with the storm inside the tunnel, giving little time for me to make out sense of what any of them were showing. The wind was picking up, blowing my hair into my face and my clothes almost away from my body. I tried to focus on the screens, but they were too much for me to focus on anyone. One screen was depicting Calipsu at another date with Diego's father, another was the familiar picnic scene, another was of both of them in bed, making love, another showed where she was casting a spell on a sleeping Diego's father, lying in the center of a witch's circle, but the one that grabbed my
Death. It has always been a mystery, a journey whose end no one knows. No one has ever trailed down that road and returned, and so there was no answer to any questions one might have regarding the phenomenon. But one thing was certain; that everyone, every living creature must die. For humans, their time was shorter. They mostly died at seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred, or sometimes a hundred and a few more years, but it never exceeded a hundred and fifty. For werewolves it was a bit longer - three hundred, three hundred and fifty, four hundred, and so on, but they normally did not exceed five hundred. Witches normally exceed five hundred, even reaching up to seven hundred if they do take proper care of themselves, while vampires were topping the list, being able to live for a thousand years, but normally not exceeding a thousand and two hundred. It was also believed that one goes on to another part of the world after death. The Abrahamic religions - the Christians, Muslims, and
Patricia's POV I drove off immediately as soon as we locked up Diego in the room. I couldn't tell why dad would choose to have him locked up in that house, of all the places that he could possibly be locked up in. The house held memories that I wasn't so fond of, memories that I had buried deep inside me, sent straight to the back of my mind, and seeing the house again almost got me overwhelmed with the emotions that I had tried so hard to bury over all these years. But yet again that was predictable of my father. It was literally in his nature to torture me, to bruise me, both physically and mentally, all for the goal of making me stronger and wiser, and it was working. The fact that I walked into that house and came out without having cried myself to stupor was evidence of my father's toughening syndrome being active in me. I drove off immediately before the wall I had put up would crash to pieces, dropping the two guards at the Maester's quarters and leaving immediately t
" No, please, stop", Diego said, likely talking to himself as he struggled to let go of my neck. Trembling, he got his hands off, tears running down his cheeks as he tried to control himself. His head moved with the intention of burying his teeth into my neck, but instead he bit into his arm, shouting in-between as he kept biting his arm. I was too astounded to even move and I just laid there, watching him try to tame the monster in him. " Tie me up now!" he said as he continued biting, somewhat making it hard to discern what he was saying but thankfully, I was quick-witted and realized what his grumbling meant. I pushed him off my body, slamming him into the wall as the urge in him tried to have him attack me, but instead he bit deeper into his arm as the dripping blood increased. I quickly got the bed sheet and immediately tackled him to the floor, tying the sheet behind his back and letting him gawk for some time. I got off him and moved to the other side of the room, trying
Malia's POV I kept worrying. About Diego, about Hansel, about alpha Jace. These three men whose lives have become much harder just because of me, and I couldn't help crying myself to sleep sometimes. I felt that Hansel was getting better, even though I wasn't pretty sure if he had woken up, but alpha Jace was definitely getting worse. Hans' constant visit to the dungeon and his beatings and threats confirmed all that; he was dying. The physicians at the clinic couldn't figure out what was happening to him and couldn't find a remedy, something to treat him with. I wondered what could have gone wrong with me. He wasn't supposed to suffer from my bite, certainly not, not even when the bite was deep enough let alone when the bite wasn't so deep. There had to be an answer somewhere, a solution, an explanation as to why that was happening. The door slammed open and one of the guards walked in, with another following right behind him. Without saying a word, they both held me, ty
Was it Diego? Hell no, it was his father, but he damn looked exactly like his son. If Diego had been the one staring at him, it would feel like looking at a mirror; just that the mirror would have a moustache and curly hair that was even better than his bland face and plain boy haircut. It absolutely felt like deja Vu. " Um, yeah, yeah, I'm faaaaaaaine", she was about to let go of hid grip, forgetting that her legs were still stunted and her back was still angled perpendicularly. Yeah, I was inside her, muted, shut out, somewhere inside, but still very much able to know what was going on even though I had no control whatsoever of her actions or whatever was going on - just like old times, back at the picnic memory. She was about to fall even harder as she threw her handbag upwards in a reflex action, her right leg moving up to form an angle of 95% while her left one stayed put to the ground, and for whatever reason it may be, her mouth was terribly wide open. He surg
Ariel's POV Calipsu. She was a legend in the witches' world. The most powerful of all witches, the most skilled and advanced in tropical magic and spells, that was who she was. All the witches revered her, afraid to incur her wrath upon them; that was just how strong she was. She was the leader of the witches' council before Madison, and during her time as my mother usually told me, witches were feared as demigods. She was the thirteenth member of the witches' council, and their sovereign power and glory was sometimes attributed to the number 13; a number that cleans and purifies. The number 13 brings the test, the suffering and the death. It symbolizes death to the matter or to oneself and the birth to the spirit: the passage on a higher level of existence. For the superstitious, especially with Christian folks, this number brings the bad luck or the misfortune. But for the cabalist, the number 13 is the meaning of the Snake, the dragon, Satan and the murderer. But it is a