Villains Aren't Born, They're Made [1]

Fifteen: The Heartbeat Of A Dead Girl Calms The Flickering Of Flames

"ORPHEUS!" Her voice made me want to smash my head against a wall covered in nails.

"Yes, Aphrodite?" I ask as I rub my temples, still sitting in my bed as the entire room is burning down.

"What do you think you're doing!? You're going to burn the entire palace down, you- you stultus." She yells at the top of her lungs as she throws buckets of water around my room.

"YOU'RE SOAKING EVERYTHING APHRODITE! HASN'T IT EVER OCCURRED TO YOU THAT I CAN MAKE IT WITHOUT WATER!?" I yell at her, which causes the flames to get bigger and turn purple.

"You were saying?" She asks as she runs out of the room.

"What's going o-" I hear another incredibly annoying voice say. Then I see her, Melione. Something about her seemed different than it did before I fell asleep. Something was different, or maybe I saw her differently.

"The- it's- what happened?" She asks, laughing at my entire room being on fire.

"Well my idiotic brother over here clearly has a death wish. You might not be able to burn to death, Fifi, but mother and father can still kill you. You know they ca-" she says, stopping her sentence as she remembers Melione is new and doesn't know anything about our awful parents.

"Fifi?" Melione asks. Normally I would've scolded Aphrodite for using that ridiculous nickname but I had too much going on to care.

"Orpheus BloodWell! You wretched boy! You are going to be the death of us, the downfall of this kingdom!" I hear the voice of one of my oppressors say. "Lovely morning to you too, mom." I respond with a smirk. Then more yelling takes place. More, and more yelling. At this point I wasn't even aware that Aeolus, my father, and Arlo had all shown up as well.

I looked at my surroundings, everything turning to ash, everything covered in orange fire, as I desperately tried to control the fire. My powers were all tied to my emotions, so yelling didn't necessarily help. Despite my constant attempt to explain this to mother dearest, she never paid attention.

I look to see Arlo and Aeolus trying to put the fire out as Melione picks something up off the dresser near my door. It was a locket, a locket Serenity had left behind. I wanted to yell at her, I wanted to scream, to tell her to put that down. I wanted to be mad. I wanted to hate her. But something inside told me to let her examine it. To let her know who Serenity was, to let her find out what happened to her. Part of me knew she could help. Part of me was delusional, sleep deprived, and desperately needed therapy.

I watch as her facial expressions change as she examines the engravings on the locket. Curiosity. Joy. Confusion. Sadness. Anger. More and more anger. Before I knew it, I was standing next to her. I hadn't even realized I left my bed.

"Serenity." Is all I said and she looked up at me, her grey eyes had a purple tint to them as I said her name. They had flickering reflections of the bright orange fire that engulfed my room. "She says she's sorry." Is all that came out of her mouth as she put her hand around my wrist, then the orange flickering started to fade. The yelling was completely drowned out. All I could see was her, not Melione, but Serenity. I didn't understand how this was possible, but I wasn't going to question it. This was the closest thing to happiness I had felt in years. All I could hear was her heartbeat, not Serenity's, but Melione's. It was slow, it was contagious. I could feel my heartbeat slowing down, then all the orange disappeared completely.

"Arlo, pick this mess up." I heard my mother tell the hybrid monkey man that worked for us.
"What mess mother? Nothing- I don't understand. It should all be ash." Aphrodite says and I turn around to see everything in my room completely unaffected by the flames that once consumed it.
My father turns around slowly to look at me. His cold features sent shivers down my spine as I gulped and tried to stand tall.
"You better be grateful boy. You have no idea how lucky you are." My father's frigid voice says as he stands in front of me, staring down into my eyes. "You're lucky she's here." He says in a softer voice, making sure Melione couldn't hear then he walks out of the room, my mother and Arlo following.

Melione. Then I remembered, she was still holding my wrist. "What're you-" I ask, turning around but she wasn't there. "Where'd she- what?" I ask, looking around the room for her. "Where what? Are you ok? What happened Orpheus?" Aeolus asks, running up to me, putting the back of his hand on my forehead. Most people, with a fever, feel hot to the touch; however when I do, I feel cold. "You're burning up, that's good. If you're not sick what-" Aeolus asks as he tries to find out why my room was previously in flames.

"Where's Melione?" I ask and Aphrodite and Aeolus look at eachother confused. "Probably in her room... I haven't seen her since last night." Aeolus replies, his voice full of confusion. "What? No, she was here. She was right there!" I yell, gesturing to the dresser next to the door. "Dude, that ghost girl was never here." Aphrodite says, walking past me, scoffing at my comments.

"I swear it! She was there! She was holding Serenity's locket! She- she... What?" I exclaim as I look around the room. Cold tears fill my eyes. "Just... Calm down... Ok? You were in shock, maybe you imagined her?" Aeolus tries to explain. "Why would I do that?" I ask as I walk to my closet.

"What're you doing?" He asks.

"I'm going to get answers. I know she was here, rather anyone else saw her or not." I explain as I grab clothes, as I was still in my pajamas. "Right... You know, you should probably stop the whole breaking into her room thing. Just a suggestion." He says and I throw a tie at him. "Yeah, yeah. I'll stop breaking into her room when she stops... Stops being so creepy." I respond, looking at him with a smile and he rolls his eyes.