Page 2 of Blood Seeker

A war is coming.

Which side will you choose?

Everything is so dark here. Cold. Painful. Agony personified.

I used to count the seconds. They later turned into days and weeks. It’s hard to know what’s true down here. I die. I live. I die again.

My mind wanders once more, and I swear I hear Sethios’s voice. So smooth. Warm. Concerned.

I miss you, I want to say to him. Why haven’t you come for me? I want to demand. Why hasn’t anyone come for me?

We did this for a reason.

I left my daughter behind to protect her. Has she grown up? How old is she now? Is she safe? Did Osiris find her in the end? Is Gabriel alive? Is Sethios?

My lungs fill with ice once more. I’m used to it now. I can only hold my breath for so long.

I allow it to consume me, to pull me under for those brief moments of blissful reprieve found only in the afterlife.

Sometimes my daughter visits me. It’s all a dream, an unrealistic expectation, but I indulge in it anyway.

Just as I allow myself to fall into a vision now of black wings and a cruel grin. Not Sethios, yet so much like him. I sigh. Where are you? I wonder. Does your heart break like mine?

I feel light. Reborn. The chains a shackled reminder of my fate.

This isn’t a happy story. I sacrificed everything for those I love, only to reside in perpetual anguish.

But as long as my little angel lives, there’s hope.

The prophecy says she’ll be the one to destroy us all. Does that include me? Her father? All our friends and family? Has the High Council of Seraph found her?

I shiver.

This world is so bleak and dark. So absolute in its obscurity.

Another inhale.

More burning.

Death.

On and on I go.

Drowning in circles, longing for escape. Longing for him. My love. My existence. The one I can no longer feel. The one who makes my heart break even in the afterlife.

Free me, Sethios… I beg him. Free. Me.

But it’s a lost cause. No one can find me now.

It hurts. It burns. It slays me once again.

Death. Sweet death. I can breathe here, if just for a moment. But those black feathers tickle my vision once more. What are they? Why are they here?

I wake again to something new.

The water has disappeared.

The world is filled with stones. A chair. More chains. Where am I? Another vision?