DianaSomething about the way Edric started treating me unnerved me a little.If something is too good to be true, then it most likely is. I didn’t know how to explain it, but it felt uncanny.Nothing beats the feeling of knowing what someone was capable of, and seeing them manifest it.Even if it was negative, it was predictable. That was a huge plus.Edric could turn me into his unfailing slave if he really wanted to and without very much effort on his part. I was already behaviorally docile, mended from birth, and beaten to perfection. All he needed was a little coercion. And yet, he didn’t.Yet, today, he chose to smile when he saw me from afar, and he chose to raise his hands and wave.Edric the monster waved at me.It felt unreal. Of course, I waved back, but I couldn’t shake off the weird flapping in my stomach that came again. As I swept the main area of the house, where everyone would see, his smile plagued my mind.It was definitely wrong.I couldn’t bear to see him smile a
DianaI didn’t know what to make of the dream or what it meant.Was it supposed to mean anything? I have dreamt of my father harming me multiple times. I mean, he did it in real life. How much more difficult of a dream did it have to be?It was simple.Right?I held my wrist, till feeling the pain of the burn. But I remember what Edric said about the phantom pain. That shouldn’t have translated to real life, no?I rubbed on the wrist, and the pain seared my brain. I had to look at it, and lo and behold, there was a wolf head…staring at me, with a slight glow in its outline.What the hell was going on?I peered hard and long at my wrist, hoping that like all dreams, this would melt and I would see my normal wrist again.It didn’t.This was as real as my bed…as real as the very air I now breathed. As real as my captivity.Then, it came to me.‘Child of prophecy.’I didn’t feel watched. This wasn’t like the voice I heard before. It was within me. I rubbed at my wrist, thinking it would g
DianaWhen I entered the room, I did everything religiously. From clearing out the used dishes to dusting the cabinets, I made sure I didn’t look like I wasn’t doing anything.I turned over his bed and swept a little chafing to one side before I began looking for the book.That way, if he came in and I didn’t have enough time to cover my act, I had an alibi.The dirt.‘I was cleaning.’ Such an easy lie to tell.From there on, I turned the entire place upside down.Where was the goddamn book? Wherever it was, I was determined to find it, but holy moon goddess, he was good at hiding stuff.He told me not to touch his desk, so I avoided that with as much caution as I could.I just used my eyes to scan the entire place enough but saw nothing there of intrinsic value. Just a lot of papers where the writing on them made absolutely no sense to me.“How does v ever equal u plus at?” I chuckled as I continued my search. There was a long line of other things he wrote, similar to the initial ‘v
EdricShe was hiding something. I could tell.But none of it mattered.If she was doing something that was going to kill me, and she didn’t want me to know about it, then I was all for it.What completely threw me off guard was the lengths she went to hide it. Attempting to seduce me wasn’t her character at all.She was awkward at it, and if I wasn’t holding myself from a burst of arousal, I would have laughed. It somehow made me gaze upon her innocence and view her as…even more precious.The fact that she threw herself into that circumstance, not knowing how it’d end, but thinking…maybe from stories that she had been told…that I would just let her go, was endearing.Hence, my little pecks and teases showed her what could have happened. The endless possibilities.The fact that any other depraved man would have taken that opportunity to explore her innocence… both scared and enchanted me.She was too pure for this world…too pure for me.I knew that, and yet, I couldn’t stop.I watched
DianaI would never have been able to guess in a hundred years, that Edric was as good as I saw him play. When he played, my headshot into the clouds.I couldn’t believe it was happening, but his songs took me to places that I didn’t think were possible to go when I closed my eyes.He made me believe in the healing power of music.In my father’s house, music only existed to mock me. Each tune they played in jubilation was a direct jab at the life that I would never have. They told me with their songs, how happy they could be, and how left out I would be.Music made me feel lonely, but I must have been broken, because that was the one thing I clung to. No matter how scathing it sounded. No matter how much unhappiness the drums beat into me, I smiled.I smiled because it was an instrument.The player was the man.The harp struck a tune of rebuttal, but I hated the person who plucked the strings.It just made more sense. Now, I was able to enjoy the music that made the piano sound like s
DianaI froze, completely short of words.I didn’t want to tell him about this mark yet, so, I didn’t know what to say now.Despite the lack of practice and the surprise moment, I still managed to compose myself and talk.“How do I explain this so you can believe me?” I shuddered.“Princess,” he tilted his head in a challenge, “I’m older than I remember, and yet I look less than forty. If you told me there was a goblin that came every night to draw a small piece of this mark since you were eight, I would believe you without asking questions.”I took a breath and confessed.I told him about the voice, the message she gave me, and how strange it felt. I told him about the dream and, finally, the pain I felt before getting the branding.“Huh,” he breathed. He didn’t seem surprised or in any particular awe…just thoughtful.I tried to predict how he would feel about me hiding it from him, but there wasn’t any particular annoyance from him on that part.Instead, it felt like he was ponderin
DianaThe first thing that came to me while I was strategizing for ways to…end his life…was the one thing that made all werewolves run for the hills.Silver.I mean, it made sense to try this, since it was the one thing that served as the end of the road for all werewolves.Using normal blades to stab a werewolf hurts like hell, but in the right conditions, a werewolf would never die from it. The healing factor borne from the combination of man and wolf was just too strong.Silver, however, circumvented that strength.How? No one really knew.A lot of people believed that shapeshifters were impure beings, and because silver was a pure metal, it repelled anything that wasn’t of the original design of the creator.It made just enough sense for us to adopt, nothing else.However, if I was going to get a good chance at really doing damage to Edric, I was going to have to do more than just a stab in the chest with a silver knife.I was going to have to get the silver to soak into him. He n
EdricPain.Hot, searing pain.I felt it burn my chest, slash a bone, tear through my heart, and graze a lung.I closed my eyes, as though that would somehow make it okay, but it didn’t, and it forced a roar out of my already damaged lungs.I noticed her hand trying to pull out of the stab, but I held it in place and stared her in the eye.“Don’t you dare give up,” I growled.There were tears in her eyes, but she was strong. She didn’t let them fall. Instead, she pulled the knife a little ways out and pushed it in again, sawing at my heart.The pain blinded me, and I didn’t know when I fell to the floor.“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m so sorry…”I nodded because she didn’t deserve to do this. I forgave her before it even happened, knowing that I was the one who was supposed to apologize.This one hurt – the stab, and maybe it’s because it had been a while since I had done this, but it seemed to do more than just hurt.It weakened me.Was I really dying?Oof. Never mind.The bleeding
DianaI didn’t want to enter the room at first. Knowing I could no longer feel the taps filled me with a sense of dread.So, what if I entered the room and found out he was dead? Then what? How do I tell Muzan, who was certainly more attached to him than I was?What would the burial plans look like?I didn’t think I had been successful, but I sure as hell hoped so.I hoped so because it would have been inhumane to subject him to the pain that I had just put him through.‘Please, Edric.’ I whispered in my head.‘Please, just die.’Finally, I mustered the courage to open the door and enter the room. It was eerily silent, and some of the candles had already burnt out, giving the room a dimmer, more sinister glow. I didn’t know what to expect.I opened the spell book and chanted the release spell.With all luck, there should still be no movement in the water.I waited.Nothing.Absolutely nothing at all.I don’t know why, but an overwhelming amount of sadness hit me. Now that this was al
DianaWell, that didn’t go as well as I planned.I thought I had all the mental resources and preparation to deal with the event that he didn’t die.But as I stepped out of that room, shaking and unable to see through the tears that welled over my eyes for whatever reason…I saw that it was the complete opposite.Something inside me was breaking.I had just killed a person twice…and now, I had to ‘kill’ him again. I had to kill him as long as he stood up.How?I had initially thought the feeling of disappointment was what was going to overwhelm me. I was also readying myself for the fear, in case he got angry or something else.I wasn’t prepared for the guilt.I wasn’t prepared for the way my conscience felt trapped. Like I was committing the murder over and over again. Two murders in less than a month. It didn’t matter if the man was still alive.The fact remained that I had sunk a knife into his chest, and my intentions were the same each time. To end his life.I couldn’t process t
EdricPain.Hot, searing pain.I felt it burn my chest, slash a bone, tear through my heart, and graze a lung.I closed my eyes, as though that would somehow make it okay, but it didn’t, and it forced a roar out of my already damaged lungs.I noticed her hand trying to pull out of the stab, but I held it in place and stared her in the eye.“Don’t you dare give up,” I growled.There were tears in her eyes, but she was strong. She didn’t let them fall. Instead, she pulled the knife a little ways out and pushed it in again, sawing at my heart.The pain blinded me, and I didn’t know when I fell to the floor.“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m so sorry…”I nodded because she didn’t deserve to do this. I forgave her before it even happened, knowing that I was the one who was supposed to apologize.This one hurt – the stab, and maybe it’s because it had been a while since I had done this, but it seemed to do more than just hurt.It weakened me.Was I really dying?Oof. Never mind.The bleeding
DianaThe first thing that came to me while I was strategizing for ways to…end his life…was the one thing that made all werewolves run for the hills.Silver.I mean, it made sense to try this, since it was the one thing that served as the end of the road for all werewolves.Using normal blades to stab a werewolf hurts like hell, but in the right conditions, a werewolf would never die from it. The healing factor borne from the combination of man and wolf was just too strong.Silver, however, circumvented that strength.How? No one really knew.A lot of people believed that shapeshifters were impure beings, and because silver was a pure metal, it repelled anything that wasn’t of the original design of the creator.It made just enough sense for us to adopt, nothing else.However, if I was going to get a good chance at really doing damage to Edric, I was going to have to do more than just a stab in the chest with a silver knife.I was going to have to get the silver to soak into him. He n
DianaI froze, completely short of words.I didn’t want to tell him about this mark yet, so, I didn’t know what to say now.Despite the lack of practice and the surprise moment, I still managed to compose myself and talk.“How do I explain this so you can believe me?” I shuddered.“Princess,” he tilted his head in a challenge, “I’m older than I remember, and yet I look less than forty. If you told me there was a goblin that came every night to draw a small piece of this mark since you were eight, I would believe you without asking questions.”I took a breath and confessed.I told him about the voice, the message she gave me, and how strange it felt. I told him about the dream and, finally, the pain I felt before getting the branding.“Huh,” he breathed. He didn’t seem surprised or in any particular awe…just thoughtful.I tried to predict how he would feel about me hiding it from him, but there wasn’t any particular annoyance from him on that part.Instead, it felt like he was ponderin
DianaI would never have been able to guess in a hundred years, that Edric was as good as I saw him play. When he played, my headshot into the clouds.I couldn’t believe it was happening, but his songs took me to places that I didn’t think were possible to go when I closed my eyes.He made me believe in the healing power of music.In my father’s house, music only existed to mock me. Each tune they played in jubilation was a direct jab at the life that I would never have. They told me with their songs, how happy they could be, and how left out I would be.Music made me feel lonely, but I must have been broken, because that was the one thing I clung to. No matter how scathing it sounded. No matter how much unhappiness the drums beat into me, I smiled.I smiled because it was an instrument.The player was the man.The harp struck a tune of rebuttal, but I hated the person who plucked the strings.It just made more sense. Now, I was able to enjoy the music that made the piano sound like s
EdricShe was hiding something. I could tell.But none of it mattered.If she was doing something that was going to kill me, and she didn’t want me to know about it, then I was all for it.What completely threw me off guard was the lengths she went to hide it. Attempting to seduce me wasn’t her character at all.She was awkward at it, and if I wasn’t holding myself from a burst of arousal, I would have laughed. It somehow made me gaze upon her innocence and view her as…even more precious.The fact that she threw herself into that circumstance, not knowing how it’d end, but thinking…maybe from stories that she had been told…that I would just let her go, was endearing.Hence, my little pecks and teases showed her what could have happened. The endless possibilities.The fact that any other depraved man would have taken that opportunity to explore her innocence… both scared and enchanted me.She was too pure for this world…too pure for me.I knew that, and yet, I couldn’t stop.I watched
DianaWhen I entered the room, I did everything religiously. From clearing out the used dishes to dusting the cabinets, I made sure I didn’t look like I wasn’t doing anything.I turned over his bed and swept a little chafing to one side before I began looking for the book.That way, if he came in and I didn’t have enough time to cover my act, I had an alibi.The dirt.‘I was cleaning.’ Such an easy lie to tell.From there on, I turned the entire place upside down.Where was the goddamn book? Wherever it was, I was determined to find it, but holy moon goddess, he was good at hiding stuff.He told me not to touch his desk, so I avoided that with as much caution as I could.I just used my eyes to scan the entire place enough but saw nothing there of intrinsic value. Just a lot of papers where the writing on them made absolutely no sense to me.“How does v ever equal u plus at?” I chuckled as I continued my search. There was a long line of other things he wrote, similar to the initial ‘v
DianaI didn’t know what to make of the dream or what it meant.Was it supposed to mean anything? I have dreamt of my father harming me multiple times. I mean, he did it in real life. How much more difficult of a dream did it have to be?It was simple.Right?I held my wrist, till feeling the pain of the burn. But I remember what Edric said about the phantom pain. That shouldn’t have translated to real life, no?I rubbed on the wrist, and the pain seared my brain. I had to look at it, and lo and behold, there was a wolf head…staring at me, with a slight glow in its outline.What the hell was going on?I peered hard and long at my wrist, hoping that like all dreams, this would melt and I would see my normal wrist again.It didn’t.This was as real as my bed…as real as the very air I now breathed. As real as my captivity.Then, it came to me.‘Child of prophecy.’I didn’t feel watched. This wasn’t like the voice I heard before. It was within me. I rubbed at my wrist, thinking it would g