Married to the Prince of Darkness (COMPLETED)

Chapter 4

There was a glowing brightness inside of me that represented my life, and it was dimming. I was drifting in a dark peaceful haze somewhere between living and dying. I was thinking about my summers in Florida and my Mom's Christmas cookies- all the tiny things that had made my life so special. There was no anger, no bitterness, just a quiet acceptance that my time had come.

I felt surprisingly peaceful and calm. All the little worries I had in my waking life vanished. It was surprisingly peaceful and my only regret was that I was dying young. My life had been too short, and my experiences too few to say that I lived a life fulfilled. All my hopes and dreams for my future had now been erased and all that lay before me was eternal silence.

I began to let go of my physical life allowing my spirit to drift away from the physical world. It was an odd sensation that felt like slipping into cool calm ocean or lake. The sensation was almost like floating. I felt light, free, and completely serene. There was no agitation or fear, only an infinite calm.

Suspended in the stillness that existed outside of physically reality, I suddenly felt an awful sense of unease creeping up on me, and slowly coiling around me. The tranquil silence began to crackle like white noise and I could hear the faint echo of a voice whispering incoherently. Straining I tried to listen closely.

Through the pops and snaps I heard the soft hushed gasps of breath coupled with tiny whimpers. It sounded like someone was crying, but it was stronger than that as if this person was weeping in despair.

Maybe it was my mother. Perhaps she had found out I was murdered and the strength of her grief was echoing into the after world... but the voice did not sound like my mother. It sounded lighter, more young- like me. The crying continued getting louder and louder. I didn't like this. I wanted to run away from the noise but I couldn't because an icy cold force had overtaken me.

Oh God, I am in Hell?

"Mia..." A woman's voice called to me, "Mia, help me..." her voice gurgled into a kind incoherent white noise that I couldn't understand. Panicking I tried to move away but I couldn't, I didn't know how to. Then through the darkness I heard a different voice, a man's voice.

He called to me as if I was his dead lover calling me 'my love', begging for forgiveness. His voice seemed to drive the white noise and the weeping woman away and surrounded me with an intimate warmth. I couldn't understand how this was even possible. I had no recollection of a boyfriend from my life. Who was this man and what had he done to me to beg for my forgiveness?

I could physically feel his sorrow crowding around me, willing me back to life.

"Drink," he whispered, "Drink to live. Drink to be with me forever. Drink my love."

A foreign life-force flowed into my body corrupting the very laws of nature and reviving it. My heart gave a beat and I felt myself being torn out of Death's embrace and thrust back into my body. My soul began to painfully reattach itself but not fully. A small piece of me decided to remain in the blissfully otherworld, the world where we went to die.

I began to feel my physical limbs of my body and then panic and anxiety hit me like a freight train. I had been dead- the kind of dead that modern medicine could not revive. The sensation was unnatural and odd and I almost felt repulsed by it.

The first physical sensation I felt was the metallic taste of liquid heat that ran down my throat and exploded in my stomach sending shock waves through my body. For what felt like a second but could have been an eternity, there was pain which ebbed away into awareness. It felt like I was waking up from a deep sleep and all my senses were returning to me.

I became conscious of the cotton sheet underneath me and warm blanket above me. I moved my fingers and felt the warmth of a body lying next to me.

I hadn't even opened my eyes but I could tell it was him, the Prince of Darkness. His heavy arm curled around my waist splaying his hand across my stomach, holding me closely to his body. I could feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest against my spine as he slept quietly.