Death is immortality.
Death is your second chance.
Velian Terrashine belongs to a classless society of equality, art and democracy; a land full of creativity and mindfulness. It is in that perfect political system that one wrong movement, one carele...
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SHADOWS IN THE SHAPE of men kept hurting him, some of them with their bare fists, others with blood-stained daggers. He was screaming, black hair filled with sweat and eyes closed, as if he couldn't receive another hit. Or he was waiting for the final one. While he was perched in a corner of that dark and dusty cell, they kept laughing at him as if they were in some merciless circus. I wanted to make them stop, disappear, go away and never return. But I was just an outsider, playing no role in this messed up game of life—or death in this case. His lips were half-opened, yet he didn't speak. His upper body was bare and skinny, tinted with the black color of his own glowing blood.
And then, I saw him. A tall, imposing figure with a dark hooded cloak covering most parts of his face, walking toward the black-haired guy. Standing only a few steps away from him, he held a hatchet with the kind of comfort and ease someone would hold a daisy. His steps were slow, draining, carefully designed to make the guy await his end with even more dread.
One step closer. Two. Three.
The guy hid his face in his palms. The cloaked man threw the hatchet toward the guy's forearm. He screamed.
I screamed too—
Steady hands were wrapped around my body, shaking me, pleading me to wake up, break the iron chains of that haunting dream; of that twisted parallel universe that was made of blood and pain. I stood still, not opening my eyes. I could still see that guy; I could still hear his crying for help. I hadn't been able to see the man's face but his presence alone was enough to create a feeling of cruel dominance, of unbreakable, dark power.
I should have been there, I thought to myself as I struggled to let go of that dream and come back to consciousness. Someone should have been there all those times that young man, probably in his early twenties, was alone and being tortured. Even though I had no idea who he was, if he even existed, or why he was always a part of my nights, I wanted to be there with him, for him.
Regrets were useless but my inability to help him was my biggest sin. And even with all these blankets covering my body, I was trembling, my hands shaking from the cold. My powers had been awakened but only a small part of them now. Only wind and ice.
"Velian."
A voice. A soft lullaby in the middle of the night. The exact opposite sound of the one my beating heart was generating.
I'd fallen asleep crying for the first time in ages. After the realization that I might be Hell's Leader, that I might be destined to be locked in Hell for the power I possessed—I doubted that it was so great anyways—I hadn't known what else to do. After crying for missing my parents and my bedroom and every moment that was passing by and I wasn't part of their lives, I'd thought I'd gone mad.
I tried to stand up. The monent I managed to open my eyes, I found Denfer next to me. In the absolute darkness I couldn't clearly see his face, the face of the king everyone hated. If I were them, I would probably hate him too. And I would be so terribly wrong because I wouldn't know that Hell's Leader was a twenty-one-year-old girl who had been afraid of her every breath up until now. I wouldn't know that Hell's Leader wasn't a leader or a creature of infinite power but a girl with no place to call home.
