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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I DIDN'T HAVE enough time to breathe, to process what had happened to Denfer. Even though I'd known some things about his past, it was a different thing to be there to experience the pain with him. With every heartbeat I was losing, he was more and more fading away. With every glimmer of anxiety rushing at me, Denfer was becoming only a dwindling light in the distance. It happened every time. The moment I was about to panic, lose control of my emotions and let myself become a capture of my own mind, I was delving further into darkness, getting away from the present moment, getting away from reality.
Maybe I would never be able to come back after all.
Darkness swept in around me and it seemed like I'd fallen into a black hole with no end, without an exit door with a light or a sign upon it to help me find it. The darkness built and built until there was nothing left from that cell. I wanted to rip that blanket of gloom apart, shred it to pieces, break free of its touch. I wanted to panic and scream and have the earth rumbling at my demand for aid. But no one was coming for me. And no one would come. Because here nobody knew me, nobody could see me, and I would stay here forever to experience my own decay.
Hold on to you. Denfer's words still echoed in my mind. A prayer. A silent command. A weapon through the night.
So I kept going, trying to adjust to the darkness, learn its secrets, its hidden gates. My stomach shifted at the thought that I could stay stuck here forever, but I pushed it away. It wouldn't help me now anyway.
A sharp, blinding pain made its shocking appearance in my head and it was almost difficult to think, let alone think straight.
The darkness grew bigger as I surrendered to the excruciating pain and I let the cloudiness carry me away, enslave me, cage me.
Hold on to you.
Fire and wind, snow and water. All the elements boiled in my veins, distracting me, begging me to let them free. I was going mad and I couldn't get away from here.
Hold on to me.
The order changed. My mind stopped racing. I could do that. I could hold on to Denfer because he was someone, he was real and alive and waiting for me on the other side of the darkness. I could hold on to him because he was the only beacon of hope, the only lighthouse. Holding on to me when I was just a ghost passing through past events would have been mindless, it would have been like promising to never let go of darkness. But holding on to Denfer was manageable.
And so I did.
🔱
I was in that room again, but Denfer wasn't laying on the spike-filled bed anymore.
This time he was shackled to the wall—shirtless again, the burnt and ruined flesh of his chest visible from every direction, from every corner of that congested room. It felt like a celebration, like a feast was taking place here. Everyone was laughing and pointing at Denfer's injuries with excitement written on their faces.
