Lamb To The Slaughter ✔️

20

My vision is blurry by the time I enter the house again, both from the rain, and from my eyes re-learning how to see. 

"You are not like Atlantic, Aria, where all you want is destruction and chaos," my father told me. "You can save people. Heal them. I even believe that maybe one day, you'll be able to resurrect the dead."

I enter the house, it's so dark, but with the frequent lightning I'm able to see.

I was dead - I felt it, what it was like to not exist. I brought myself back. How? Can I really bring back the dead?

I put my hand over Liams heart. I shut my eyes as I feel energy getting drained from me, from my heart, my organs, my brain, I feel everything get weaker. It hurts, not like an ache, but it's sharp, and it's everywhere. I can't help but scream after so long, it feels like needles stab me everywhere.

He gasps and sits up. He looks terrified, holding his hand over his heart. I look down at his stab wounds, the shirt is still bloodied, but the wounds are now gone. I stare at him in shock. He looks around frantically and asks, "What the fuck just happened?"

"A human could never take down Atlantic Sinclair," my father said. "Only you, Aria. You're good. It's in your nature to be good, to save. You must save us all from that boy."

"I brought you back from the dead," I say. He looks at me like I'm crazy. But he knows it, he feels it, and he sees the two others dead.

"W-well bring them back, too," he says.

I look over my shoulder at them. I remember the time Malia stole my favourite shirt and stained it, and the time Henry left a plate in the sink for an entire week.

"Nah," I say. 

I push myself up to my feet, but the second I do, my hands grip my hair. I felt dizzy, like I was about to fall over, my head pounded, my ears rang. With poor balance, I made my way to the bathroom, as I always did when I didn't feel well.

I place my hands against the sink and look down, waiting for the white noise and dizziness to die down. 

Once it has passed, I look up, I see myself in the mirror, but is this really me? The whites of my eyes are red and bloody from burst blood vessels. I can't look away from my reflection. I would not cry tears, I'd cry blood. Slowly, I touch my face, I couldn't believe that this was me.

"Are you going to explain to me how you brought me back from the fucking dead?" Liam asks from the door frame. I see him in the mirror.

I turn around, looking away from the reflection that I tried to convince myself wasn't me.

"I can heal, Liam, I can save," I tell him. I can bring back the dead, heal people from illness, take their pain away. "And the next person I save is going to be Atlantic Sinclair."

Right now, he's brainwashed. Convinced by Maria that I don't love him, I don't care about him, that he doesn't even know me. 

He may have killed me, but even resurrected from death, I still care for him. He might hate me, but I still love him, I still love the man I'm supposed to kill.

"Didn't he kill you, too?" Liam questions. I smile.

"He did," I say. "But I love when they play hard to get."

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

A T L A N T I C

"I killed Aria Reyes."

I spoke those words for the first time 4 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes, and 45 seconds ago. They hurt to speak, as if I were speaking glass, my throat getting stabbed and ripped open repeatedly.