Death was… warm.
I could still feel her touch. Every receptor in my body still tingled, infinitely reliving the way it—she—felt against my skin, and that urge, that need… it felt more than just a desire more, or a deep craving to be quenched. This wasn't a succubus' allure.
Being here, and being with her, more than hunger, more than yearning… it felt like I just simply, well… belonged.
"Restrain yourself, if you're able," I heard her say, a stream of different voices, familiar voices, ringing out their request as one. It took me a full second to realize she had vanished, or many I just hadn't noticed her move. I spotted her again just a little further ahead in the front yard, peering at me with many pairs of loving eyes. "Would you walk with me?"
There was no feasible way for me to refuse her. Someone could've had me strung up, legs and feet crippled in all sorts of odd angles, and I'd still find a way to do as asked.
Somehow, I made my way down the porch steps without tripping. She was considerate enough to wait, to maintain a slow, casual pace as I trailed after her, gathering whatever bearings I had with whatever the hell this all was.
My eyes were forever tethered forward—every blink, every step—finding myself accompanying someone new entirely.
Normally, people had certain aspects to them, distinct features, the bare minimum to lay a foundation for some kind of familiarity. I'd say she was the total opposite, but no, she wasn't even that. If anything, she was the epitome of it.
She had everything, was everything—a vivid impression of something, of someone, just constantly morphing, ebbing—and as such, she looked like… nothing.
But her appearance wasn't the only thing in a state of flux.
In the corner of my eyes, all around us, trees would promptly sprout, grow, and eventually wither—vast meadows in a perpetual state of blooming and withering. Stray leaves transitioned between seasons in a single freefall. Nothing was stagnant.
With her being the most egregious example.
It was a good couple dozen steps along the fence line before I heard her speak once again, as she briefly slowed to a halt, turning over to admire the neighboring vista of open plains that had been home for the majority of my life.
"Most often, for the young, home is what they associate with peace and serenity. A little piece of heaven, as they say, as you say…" her voice reached me as more than just mere words. "You're still quite young. No exception to your own youth. But I do wonder when you're much older, when you've returned back to me… what peace and serenity may look like to you then."
Everything about her was its own bliss, its own rapture to be wholly consumed by, suffocating me more and more every second spent lingering in her presence.
"Am I dead?" I asked her, and immediately it all felt automatic. Like someone had just pressed a button—had me speaking without any sense of volition. That's how far gone I was under her spell.
"Worried that you are?" She asked, voice echoing with the most tender comfort. "Or perhaps merely wishing that you are. What could it be, I wonder?"
"I…" for some reason, I had to think about it. And for the first time, it really unnerved me just how hard I had to think about my answer. "I don't want to be dead."
"Now, now, there's no shame in having any… ulterior thoughts," her hand slid across the fencing, shapeless, undefined, as she shuffled closer toward me. "Many couldn't have given an answer like yours even if they wished to. I admire resolve like yours. Always the brightest souls. I'm keen to have you. Eventually…"
"So I'm not dead?"
"No, I'm afraid not," she said patiently. Like a mother indulging her child. "You're still fast asleep in your bed, in your home, dawn only minutes away, you'll wake up soon, and then you'll return to your life as normal."
Suddenly, I blinked. Or perhaps the world did. Suddenly I was seated, elbow propped against the round kitchen table, my palms warm with the heat from a mug of coffee… and she was there too… wearing Sammy's wide, confronting eyes and frown.
"But first," she proclaimed, sounding far less imposing than what Sammy's expression suggested. "I feel it necessary to warn you before you go."
The coffee still tasted like coffee, surprisingly. I took a sip, hoping it'd do some good. Instead, all I got was a mouthful of coffee.
"And that's why I'm here?" I asked, still sounding more daft and stiff than I would have liked. "Why I'm with you?"
"You defied me, Nara'hym," she said simply, a hint of something more behind her formless smile. "Encompassing existence, nothing could ever be beyond my reach but then for a short while, there was. In a small space, a little expanse of your making, to my absolute dismay, I did not exist. Can you see now why I may have a problem with you?"
Perhaps it was lucky it wasn't possible for me to feel any fear. Hearing that death itself has got it out for you wasn't something I'd definitely take too well if I was really myself.
"That wasn't anything against you," I said quickly. "What we did that night, what I did… it was all just to…"
"I know why you did it," she interrupted me, Irene now echoing in her voice. "Ria Ignis. You want her. You want her to come back. All the times you've transgressed me, I have willingly turned a blind eye. But as for your most recent attempt, I'm afraid you have taken things quite too far. Not many can upset me the way you have."
"Would it help if I said it won't happen again?" I looked at her, staring at a swirl of features beyond recognition, hoping to find a semblance of... something, somewhere. "I don't know what you know. But Ria made it clear she didn't wanna come back, and none of us have any plans to - "
"I would say that you are lying," she cut me off again, as kindly, as gently as she did the last. "And not just to me, but to yourself too, Nara'hym."
That same inexplicable blink of the world happened again, and this time, we were out by the lake, sunlight gleaming across serene waves, splashing the tip of my feet laid outstretched by the rim of the lake.
Ash's white locks then slowly spilled onto my shoulder, and she continued to speak, "Souls like yours, resolve like yours. I know sooner rather than later, you'll refuse to leave things as they rightfully should be, and in turn, you shall choose to defy me again."
I was quiet… and she… she was right.
At some point, I would have tried again. Tempered and bolstered by a reason, any reason, convinced without a doubt that this time would be different. The look on her face before she went… I can still remember it… just that alone would have been reason enough for me.
"Ria Ignis belongs to me now," she said. "I need you to understand that, okay?"
I glanced down at her, the bundle of pure white now flowing much grayer. "Even though she isn't dead?"
"She isn't even supposed to be in the first place," she answered, giggling softly. "Nothing eludes me, escapes me because everything returns to me eventually. It is simply the way of things. Ria Ignis had already lived. I am owed my due."
"But she isn't dead."
"Yet she longs to be," she retorted. "Not dead, yes. But the closest she can ever be to her desire. Don't take that from her. Don't take her from me."
I didn't want to argue with her. It seemed like a stupid thing to do. Who was I to disagree and critique something that transcended beyond existence? And yet a small piece of me, that same piece that thought long and hard for me, was not ready to comply.
"What happens if I refuse?"
My knees began to buckle beneath me. I looked down, suddenly I was standing again. I looked up—open fields met my stare, a line of fences stretching beyond the horizon, and once more she stood there immersed in the view.
As if we've never left.
As if nothing had ever happened.
But something did happen, the way she turned, that feeling less than kind, the way she met my eyes.
"Don't refuse," she said. "That's why I've come to warn you."
There was something about her then that had me clamping up. Not an inch of her felt nefarious, dangerous. All throughout, she had been nothing but polite and patient. Maybe it was something innate, a sort of primal instinct… it wasn't fear, far from it… this feeling… it went beyond that.
And I didn't want to know any more about it than I already have.
"Something tells me you understand now," she said to me, smiling a smile plain and empty. "With that out of the way, I shall give you back your slumber. But first…"
I saw her murky figure turn toward me again, glimpses of familiar faces in her kind expression.
"Is there anything you wish to know?" she asked. "Any lingering questions I may answer before I leave you be?"
It's like she's reading my thoughts long before I even have them. If so, then do I still need to even say anything?
"Several, actually," I muttered. "I'll need a while to.... just to straighten them all out."
"You don't have a lot of time," she warned cheekily. "Make it count."
"It's about Ria again."
"I believe we have moved past - "
"I just want to know one thing, alright?" I hurriedly spoke. "Here, how has she been doing over here?"
"No longer a concern of yours, Nara'hym. Now if that is all you wish to say, then…"
"Fine, your… your face, then… you..." I said, stammering out the next best thing that came to my head. "Why do you look like…?"
Once again, wearing an all too-knowing smile, she promptly finished the rest of my thoughts.
"The mind isn't able to perceive what it cannot comprehend. To compensate, it latches to what is familiar. It hears, it sees, what it wishes, what it desires. I appear to you how you wish me to be."
"Then what do you really look like?"
"In time," she assured me. "Perhaps, in time, you will be able to comprehend me as I am. The next time we are to meet, Nara'hym. Till then, I shall eagerly await you."
"Nara…?" I felt my lips fumble at the attempt. "Why do you keep calling me that?"
"I simply refer to you as you are."
"That's not my name."
"No, it isn't," she agreed completely. "I know it isn't."
"Then, what does that - ?"
Suddenly, for the last time, I blinked—slowly fluttering my eyes open to the deep, pristine white of my ceiling, my question fading away to the chirping of birds somewhere outside my window.
This time, actually for real this time, groggy, dazed, and my head heavy with far more than just fatigue…
I was finally awake.
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