She's The Lie (She's The Enemy Sequel)

Avery

"It's like we throw away the things in life that really matter,
Just so that we can make it to the top, and wonder what we're even climbing after..."

(Small CW: Fairly vivid descriptions of violence)

The door creaks open slowly, the metal hinges grinding harshly against the metal of the door as if it knew the terror that was about to face me. I don't understand how she can watch from overhead, so full of power and freedom and yet does nothing. Does nothing as a figure passes through the door, eyes narrowed, glare stern. 

I can't be back here. She promised I wouldn't be back here. 

The carpet of dust is disturbed by the term;e of the groud as heavy boots step onto the decaying wood of the floorboards. I can hear her breath, filling the dark expanse of the empty room, the excess of her oxygen already beginning to fill my lungs.

"Avery..." Her voice is bitter and filled with spite, snaking in between the darkness like a needle and thread, sewing stitches in the void of darkness. I clench my eyes shut, imagining the village in which I used to call my home. Imagining Emelie, imagining holding that little boy in my arms, imagining where they are now. 

They're happy. 

I wish I were with them...

Her hands wrap around my arm, fingers digging into my skin, nails threatening to pierce the thin layer of skin which coated my bones. She rearranges her fingers, touching her thumb to her middle finger around the top of my arm. I don't have enough will nor strength to fight back as she raises a dagger to the bottom of my arm, making a clean slice through my skin before collecting my blood in a small vial as it runs down my arm. I remove my attention from the pain soaring through my body, pretending I'm home once again.

I'm home.

I'm home.

I'm-

She releases the pressure in my arm, wrapping a tight cloth around the large gash she had created before pulling another vial from her pocket. This one filled with dark blue liquid which looked almost black under the soft light of the moon which had crept through the doorway.

"Open wide..." 

It trickles down my throat, spreading through my blood like fire in gasoline. It's an all familiar taste, like drinking after years of being sober. And suddenly years of fighting, years of hope and faith beyond any that this situation could ever be worth, are washed away in a single moment. 

But this time, there's a difference. This time I didn't feel weak as the liquid poured into my blood. I felt power beyond any I'd ever felt before. It's strange how alike weakness is to strength. However, instead of fear clouding your head, power does. It seeps into every corner of your body until the want for it makes you reckless and careless. Your hunger becomes so desperate that it is almost as if you are weak anyway. So you throw away everything you've ever had for a single taste of what you once had. 

That's everyone's hubris in the end. It was Keres' and it will be mine. But first, I have to save my sister. I watch the woman screw the lid onto the vial in which she'd collected my blood. The vial in which she had collected my blood for what seemed like endless years before she'd sent my lifeless, weak body to the King, just so that I could be slaughtered in the most brutal, dishonourable way possible- by my own kin.

I'm so incredibly tired of being weak. I'm so incredibly tired of being so human.

I raise my gaze, my eyes locking with her ice blue, almost white iris'. It's a threat, one that she seems to laugh at. Because, after all, what could a small fragile young human girl do?

I lunge at her, hand wrapping tight around her throat. It seems that her strength is no match for my newly gained power. I grip tighter, anger coursing vigorously through my veins like a chained beast. Which, is what it had been. Locked in a prison of its own making for so long. Too long. The woman wrestles under my grip and I realise that after years and years of torment, I didn't even know her name.

All I knew were the countless vials, the constant searing pain and the blood. There had been so much blood. I might have been able to drown myself with it, had she not taken it for god knows what.

Strangulation isn't as simple as it seems, it's actually one of the slowest and most painful ways to die. After around ten seconds of pressure on both the carotid arteries or veins, a person loses consciousness, their flow of oxygen cut off. It's a defence mechanism, done so your body can preserve the air still diffusing through your lungs. 

In fact, to actually kill someone by strangulation is rare. It takes around 33lbs of pressure to close a person's windpipe completely, for Fae, this is much larger. However, closing a person's windpipe is not what kills them, quite far from it actually. It takes around four to five minutes of constant pressure to kill someone, their body doing whatever it can to survive. 

That's the thing about Faeries. They are so goddamn persistent.

I don't even notice when she stops breathing. I just keep clenching the muscles in my fingers tighter and tighter. And I remain in this position for what seems like hours, although in reality may have only been twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of a constant 33lbs of pressure, most likely more. 

She was dead. And I was free.

And just like that, she was back in my head, demanding that I loosen my grip. Telling me that my sister was alive. Telling me that I must find her. I must find her and protect her. Bad things are coming- dark things. She must be safe.

I stand up, finally opening the door to this godforsaken room, watching the soft light of the stars light up the dark expanse of the sky. It was so beautiful. I move my gaze around the room before it lands on a small cabin. 

It's littered with vials similar to the one the woman still holds during her neverending sleep. And there's an odd stench in the air, like a thousand mixtures of a thousand different smells. Some of the bottles are labelled, most of them consisting of a lower case letter and a few numbers following it. All but one. One which has a label that couldn't even be possible.

Emelie.

A/N

I hope you enjoyed! I think a chapter every other day may be better for me since I am able to edit them in the days between, so, the next chapter will most likely be posted a few days from now!

Thank you all so much for reading and, I hope you all have a wonderful day! Xx