• In my newfound darkness I found I could move, but I couldn't hear anything, even my own ragged breaths were silent. I felt something rough covering my eyes, like sackcloth. I ripped it away and brilliant colors filled my vision. Looking for something familiar, my eyes raked the surrounding brilliance and finally settled on a person. Dread grew within me. It was Him, the blond angel. He stepped towards me. I backed away as he drew near, but my feet became sluggish and heavy, like weights were tied to them. He stood uncomfortably close to me…and smiled.
    It was a reassuring smile even though there was a tinge of uncertainty in it, but his dark, bottomless eyes took away the meaning of the smile. Without any change in emotion, he seized my throat and lifted me into the air, cutting off my windpipe. I struggled, gagging and kicking out, but he didn't loosen his grip. I felt my life draining away, I could see it almost as if I were a bystander who had nothing to do with my own death. After a minute or so, my body grew limp. I cried out, "No! Fight, keep fighting!" He dropped my body unceremoniously onto the ground and stared me in the eyes. I finally realized I was outside of my body, I had never been inside it. I felt a small sphere inside my sweating palm. I looked down and opened my hand.
    The blood-red glow of fear returned my stare, dying the world crimson. I smelled fresh blood in the air as a cold wind started to howl.
    I don't know quite when the dream became real, but before I knew it, I felt the cage of reality grip my flailing limbs.
    "Oww! You violent woman!" I stopped thrashing about and opened my eyes. I was clutching a white shirt. I looked up into a pair of deep blue, disgusted eyes framed by long, blond hair.
    I gasped, why, oh, why wouldn't He leave me alone? Would he continue to haunt me forever? In my terror I flung him away from me. A flash of red appeared and fell to the ground with him. Almost immediately I felt a wave of exhaustion blur my senses. My limbs trembled, shadows swirled in my vision. A muffling sensation, a feeling of being conscious of falling asleep, crept over me. I vaguely felt a hand press something into my quivering palm and the feeling of exhaustion left nearly as soon as it had come.
    "It's dangerous to not keep this with you always." I shut my eyes, afraid of looking into his soulless eyes again. But his voice was nothing like I had imagined it to be. It was gruff and annoyed, like an older sibling scolding his younger sibling, it was strange enough to cause me to sneak another glance. I cracked my eyes open a tiny bit, just enough to see a bright red glow in my hand. I had been holding it when I had flung him away. Nothing but a small colored marble. Then I recalled what had happened earlier: Bel, the broken wall, the dream of my death…
    I was scared to say anything quite yet, so I looked around to gather my thoughts. I was sitting in a bed, wearing my own clothes, thankfully. The room we were in was a little larger than my own room at home and painted a plain white. There was a window in the wall by the bed, looking out over the tops of many deep green trees, some turning immaturely brown, and a blue sky with a sprinkling of drifting clouds.
    When it finally became too awkward to not say something, I gathered enough courage to look him straight in the eye. There I was met with a scowl, although I don't think he was really mad, more annoyed than anything else. I gripped the red marble tightly and swallowed against the hard lump in my throat that was preventing me from speaking. He spoke first, "Well…what?" I steeled myself once again.
    "What...are you?" My voice quavered as I spoke, threatening to crack and give way. The look in his eyes changed, they narrowed in slight amusement.
    "Same as you, we're Realized." Okay, whatever that is… I tried another tack, "What's your name?" I shrank back as he paused, he didn't have any reason to answer me, why was I asking him questions anyway? He most definitely had the upper hand here, he could probably crush my head in a second like he had that brick wall.
    He pursed his lips, "Shaileh." I blinked, it was quite a pretty and gentle sounding name for one so gruff and violently inclined. It may have only been because he gave his name to me so easily or the perhaps the name itself, but when I met his eyes next, my heart raced and I hurriedly looked away.
    "Uhh…well, I'm Laurel…" Shaileh gave no indication he'd heard me, he just turned and sat on the floor beside the bed and muttered, "Sleep, you need it." My cheeks flushed, was he so high and mighty that he could order me to do anything? The tantalizing thought of refusing hung in my mind, but the possibility of danger was still obviously present. So I lay back on the soft bed and rolled onto my side, staring at the wide blue sky, thinking of what Belzedere's predicament could be and if it was as strange as mine was. Before a minute had passed, my eyelids slid shut and I fell back into the world of sleep, though, thankfully, no dreams of pain tortured me that time.

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    next: Chapter 3