Courting Death | Book 3

T W E L V E

T W E L V E
Rotting Beauty

MY SCREAMS TORE through the entire room, echoing insanely as I gritted my teeth in pain. It felt as though a large chopping knife had been used to peel each and every layer of my brain off, the intensity multiplied by a tenfold as I let out screams of excruciating pain.

"Concentrate on Ida, Addison. Do not break it under any circumstances." I could hear Dimitri's voice yelling at me, telling me instructions that I had better follow if I wanted to survive this ordeal and live long enough to see the next sunrise. His words melted into my mind like honey in warm tea. I knew that I had no choice but to follow as instructed.

By my two sides, I could faintly register Calvin and Wilhelm taking position, holding my arms down so that I wouldn't thrash out of place. They held me to the spot, pinning my body down with their otherworldly strength. Though I knew that they were doing it for my own good, I couldn't help but struggle against them for my body wanted to escape the clutches of this agonizing torment.

I concentrated as hard as I could, picturing Ida's features, or rather my own, in my mind. I imagined her in her younger days before she knew Fabian and the time in which they were in love. That love was what I zeroed in on and focused all of my attention to. Hopefully, their burning passion would be enough to tide me through this ordeal and get me to the other side.

Just like how someone might have stepped on a fragile twig on the forest floor, all of a sudden, that pain disappeared. It melted away into nothingness, just a numb buzz that I could not completely feel. When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the room of the Heart of Hell. I was in a dark void which contained no one exactly. From a distance, I could see multiple constellations and if I hadn't knew better, I might have thought that I was standing in the middle of space with how the stars glittered and shone with such magnificence.

"Ida?" I called out into the darkness only to have my voice echo back to me. There was no one in sight and I couldn't wonder if I had failed and was now trapped in a limbo of my own consciousness.

Needless to say, I felt completely lost. Unlike the previous times, I was completely alone. There was Bella, no Minnie, and no Dimitri to help me with all of this nonsense. In this void, I was the only soul left to venture what seemed like an infinite path into nothingness.

Just when I thought that all hope was lost and I truly was left in a place of no return, a swirling vortex of light began to appear out of nowhere. Without even waiting to see if this vortex was one that would benefit my cause or not, I jumped in with zero hesitance. I tumbled through to the other side, slamming into the ground with a groan as I rubbed the palms of my hands. There was a sharp scratching pain that had appeared due to the impact of my fall and I couldn't help but let out a string of curses and profanity.

When those foul words left my lips, however, I heard a few gasps around me. Immediately, I looked up to see that I was smack in the middle of a sort of town square that seemed to be set a few centuries back.

The women in the town were dressed in extravagant ball gowns that were tightly cinched at the waist. The cuffs of their sleeves were long and flowy, trailing with their every movement like a satin ribbon. Their dresses seemed to be made of the finest silk, shimmering under the sunlight and catching its rays whenever they moved even just the slightest. For the women that were not so extravagantly dressed, they too had dresses that reached the floor. Though it did not seem to be made with such expensive material like silk, the cotton fabric still allowed their garments to flow in the wind like an angel descending from Heaven.

My jaw dropped, shock flooding my body as I scrambled to my feet. To my utmost horror, I was the only one for as far as my naked could see that was dressed in modern clothing. More specifically, a large gray sweater and a pair of scuffed ripped jeans.