"Noah!" , I shout with all my might.
Naturally, my lazy boyfriend did not answer.
I am standing, like every morning, by the gate of Noah's house, shouting for him to wake up, gazing at his closed window on the first floor. It is way past 8 AM. We are, as usual, late for school. I could use my wings to break the glass, sure, but the last time I did it, I saw the scarlet red in Noah's eyes, a color I haven't seen for a year now. It was both funny and scary, because when Noah is woken up abruptly from his beauty sleep, he instinctively summons a mini voodoo doll and a knife, ready to kill whoever did this to him.
I almost died that day, that's why I don't do it anymore.
"Noah! We're late! You have to wake up!"
Yesterday was the twelfth Purge Day. Noah always has a hard time waking up after those. He still has nightmares every now and then, of the person he used to be before, of the crimes he had to commit when he was raised by demons.
Someone opens the front door for me, and it takes me no time to get inside the house.
"Morning, Hitori-chan" , Lailah greets me with a terrifying bed hair, eyes closed, shirt half tucked into her sweatpants, the other half wrinkled and out.
"Breakfast's ready, only the boy isn't" , she slowly articulates, her voice muffled by sleep, her sentence interrupted by a yawn.
I climb up the stairs to Noah's room. I slowly turn the handle. Sure enough, his pc is still open on a new video game he recently got addicted to. I have to remove my slippers to step over his shirts, scattered on the floor.
When I remove the covers, I find no one underneath.
Where is he? In the showers already?
I check the bath, quickly shutting it again because none other than Lailah is inside.
"I was here first! Wait in line!" , she shouts.
Lailah is really sensitive about baths, I realized when she moved in with Noah.
She decided to fulfill her proper role as a mother after she had lost her powers.
"Good riddance" , she told me. "Being a queen sucks."
I often forget that Lailah's mental age is the same as a high school girl's. Immortality surely prevents people from growing.
She didn't move in with Michael, to our surprise. She said she wasn't ready for marriage yet, and he accepted it right away.
Anything for you, my Queen.
I still hate his cheesy guts.
Michael now acts as a normal boyfriend, and they go on dates every weekend. Sharing the same opinion as myself, Noah refuses double dates with them.
It's weird. He told me.
I continue my search for Noah.
He isn't in the living room, he isn't in Lailah's. There is no trace of his shoes anywhere. Did he leave already? Without me?
I ran the rest of the way to school. My heart aches by the time I arrive. My legs hurt, my school uniform is slick with sweat.
I drag my feet, with the rest of the strength I have left, to our classroom.
As I open the door and am ready to shout an apology, my mouth remains open.
There is no one here.
What is happening?
Where is everyone?
A thousand thoughts race through my head. An ancient fear grips my heart, squeezes my lungs, sucking all the breath out of me, my knees buckle. They must be dead. The demons have all turned back. They must be here for revenge on us. They must have killed Noah, I must run—
Just as I am about to turn and leave, I glimpse something from the corner of my eye.
A silhouette, doing a poor job of being invisible. Blending poorly with the background. If I wasn't panicking, I could have noticed it right away.
"Noah, is that you?"
The mist clears, and there appears my boyfriend, a small wooden box in his hands.
"Surprise" , he murmurs, as if afraid to stir noise.
I only frowned at him. "You scared the living daylights out of me"
He nodded. "I know. Turning the clocks of your house an hour ahead was necessary after all." , he grinned, guilt obvious on his face.
"You did what?"
I looked to my right, up at the mural clock.
It read: 7:14 AM
"Why–Why did you–"
"Happy birthday, Hitori"
Noah's eyes turn into the ocean, his irises taking on every color of the rainbow. The sun seeped through the window, casting its light on his face, making him shine even brighter, and in the early morning of my birthday, there stood my angel, the most beautiful one on Earth.
"But Noah, it's not my—"
He shook his head, his messy hair fluttering in the wind.
"I wanted to celebrate it. One year after the End. One year after the beginning. I told you I'd stay with you forever, and I mean it."
I walk towards him. I take the box from his hands and rest it on the table.
"Now that there's nothing material between us anymore–"
I take him in my arms, caressing his hair with one hand, his back with the other. Our wings materialized by themselves, wanting to join in the embrace.
From faraway, anyone can see us, but no matter how hard they focus, they won't see two human silhouettes.
All they will see is a huge ball of black embracing white, as our wings melt into each other.
Yin & Yang.
A half-demon and a half-angel.
A human and a doll.
One would call this union strange, out of this world, even dangerous.
Alas, the ones who say that will never know.
How much love can change a person.
YOU ARE READING
The Voodoo Doll
Fantasy[COMPLETED] Noah is a boy who was raised by demons all his life. He has the ability to commit perfect crimes by using voodoo dolls and killing with them. He was taught ever since he was young to show no mercy to his enemies. Yet, because of his unu...
