Helluva Distraction

Chapter 42

You ran your hands through your wet hair and pushed the water through the strands. Soapy water splashed onto the tile within the shower before it cascaded down the drain. You continued running your hands through your hair until the water ran clear of bubbles. You closed your eyes and focused on the feeling of the warm droplets rinsing down your body. The dried blood began rehydrating and slipping off your skin as you ran your loofa down your arms and chest. Blitz stood behind you in the shower, he wrapped his arms around you and held you for a moment, his head snuggled into your shoulder.

"I'm proud of you," he whispered through the sound of the water hissing.

"Sometimes...sometimes I scare myself," you admitted. It was a thought that drifted through your mind often but it was never something that you had said out loud, especially not to another person.

"Me, too. You never know what you're capable of until you do it. Killing is something that takes time to accept that you have a talent in, it took me a while even though I've always had an interest in the gruesome parts of life," he placed a gentle kiss on your neck.

"I love you," you reached behind you and set your hand on his head.

"I love you. I'm gonna step out and start making dinner, is that alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks baby," you said as he opened the shower curtain and snagged a towel before stepping out on the bathmat.

You were alone with the falling steaming water and your thoughts. Without Blitz inside the shower with you it felt incredibly different, almost wrong. It had become a routine for the two of you. You closed your eyes once more and continued to wash the soap off of your skin, you felt the dirt and blood slip off of the surface of your skin when suddenly you heard it, a voice as clear as day through the water.

"Come with me," it growled. You stopped in panic and your eyes snapped open. You turned the water off with a harsh yank of the handle and all you could hear was the sound of the bathroom fan rumbling in the room. You took a deep breath and set your hand on a shelf nearby as you processed your thoughts. You couldn't tell if the voice you heard was real or fictional, some kind of misunderstanding of a noise or maybe it was in your head. You took a glimpse at your body to ensure that you had washed off all of Nero's blood, then you grabbed a towel and made your way out of the shower.

You glanced into the steamed mirror and pressed your hand onto the surface before swiping it to the side, revealing your rippled image underneath. You look at yourself, at your red skin, at your horns, at your face, at your eyes. Something seemed...different about your eyes. They looked exhausted and bloodshot, pleading for mercy, for escape. You ruffled your hair with the towel and then wrapped it around your body before opening the bathroom door and waltzing across the hallway to your bedroom.

Blitz and you had transformed your apartment into both of yours throughout the last few weeks, it became your primary place of residence as you each prepared mentally to inform Loona that she was the new owner of Blitz's place. It was a concept that was really hard for Blitz to accept, the whole idea of Loona living on her own, but it was a milestone that he was proud she was ready to reach.

You tossed on one of Blitz's T-shirts and let it hang loosely down your frame, then you slipped on a pair of lacey underwear and made your way into the kitchen and living room area. Blitz stood behind the counter of the kitchen as he whipped up some burgers and was about to put them in a pan on the stove. You walked around the counter and into the kitchen and positioned yourself behind Blitz. You wrapped your arms around his torso and placed gentle kisses along his back. He let out a pleasant sigh before he began flipping the burgers in the pan. Once flipped, he turned around and faced you.

"You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen," he smiled. You felt your face flush as you peered down.

"Sometimes I think I'm going crazy, ya know? I try to understand how I got here, how I found you...just get a better understanding of every choice I made to get where I am today and sometimes it still doesn't feel real. You're my fiance...you," you squeezed his face between your hands, "are my fiance!" you placed a kiss against his lips.

"Finding you was the best thing that's ever happened to me," he kissed you sweetly, "and even though I never thought that I'd be the type of guy to get married, the minute I met you it became all that I wanted to do."

Blitz finished making dinner and brought everything to the table in the corner area of your apartment. You followed him with some drinks and took your usual seat on the right side of the table. Blitz placed a plate in front of you before he clambered down into his seat and began eating frantically. You smiled at his sloppiness and grabbed your own burger and began bringing it to your mouth when suddenly the back of your head stung with a great force and the voice whispered to you again, "Y/N...I know you want power, come work for me."

You dropped your food and grabbed at the back of your head as the aching continued and spread onto your forehead. You pushed your hands against your head with a great amount of pressure and squeezed your eyes shut. You moaned as the voice left your subconscious with an aching and pounding sensation.

"Y/N? Y/N? Are you okay?" Blitz's voice trailed through the air, your mind continued to pound within your skull.

"Did you hear that?" you asked, your voice was foggy as it echoed through the room.

"Hear what?"

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head and the aching within your skull grew with each second that passed by. The air caught in your throat as you muttered out a shrill and fearful, "Blitz?" before everything became foggy and darkened and you slipped into your subconscious.

The darkness surrounded you like a thick and hot mist. The heat stuck to your skin as you walked through an area that was completely barren except for your being. You walked deeper into the darkness, your hands reaching out in front of you searching for anything to support your figure as your head still thundered with pain. You winced and called out into the nothingness, "Blitz? Blitz...where are you?" your voice was the only thing that replied back as an echo.

You squeezed your eyes almost shut to focus on something that was in the far distance. It was tall and menacing, its figure was almost glowing through the fog but it was still difficult to make out through the darkness. You continued to walk towards it, calling out to it to see if it would respond but you continued to receive no answer. After a few minutes of walking through the sea of nothing you got close enough to see that it was an Imp, one that you had never seen before. It  adorned  clown makeup and didn't have arms or legs but instead wore robotic replacements. It danced and moved, the sound of a jingling bell rattled with each twitch that it made. You stared at it from afar in confusion until it finally stopped its dance and stood completely still facing you.

"H-h-h-h-hello Y/N, come with ME" it sang out in a robotic voice that's tone changed from lighter to immensely deep as it finished its sentence. You turned to run but its robotic arms extended towards you, covering a considerable distance. You continued to run, refusing to look behind you as you darted to where you believed that you had come from.

When you turned your head to glance at how close the being was you suddenly crashed into something that felt like a wall. It knocked the air out of your lungs and dropped you onto your ass. You shook your head and gazed up at the object you had collided with to find it was Nero standing before you. His arms and legs were replaced with robotic parts along with a large chunk of his face. Blood oozed from the areas where his real skin met the metal replacements. You used your hands and feet to push yourself back and away from him, panic thundered in your chest as you subsided your screams. Through the darkness and from a distance you heard it again, that voice as it called out to you, it was different from the clown robot you had just encountered, it was someone else. The same one that had talked to you in the shower, the same one from the kitchen table.

"Come to me." The darkness shrouded over your body until you couldn't see anything but the paralyzing image of black.