Chapter 56 – Not Again…
*
I know what darkness wears for skin. A gentle hand, a patient grin. It speaks in truths that almost hold. And leaves you hollow in the cold.
I’ve bled before for softer lies. Believed the warmth behind kind eyes. I swore I’d never break again. Yet here I stand, and here remains.
You show me wounds like open doors. And something in me breaks and pours. I hate that I want it to be real. I hate how much I’ve learned to feel.
So take me then, if that’s your game. I’ll burn for you all the same. But know that when I finally break. I chose it. For no one else’s sake.
*
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The silence that followed didn’t last long.
The world had barely settled around us when a sharp scream suddenly cut through the house, tearing apart the quiet.
Eliza tensed in my arms.
We turned toward the sound just as something crashed against the floor. Small footsteps stumbled across the old wooden boards—uneven, frantic—followed by harsh breathing and the muffled sound of someone trying desperately not to cry.
And then I saw him.
A little boy collapsed near the doorway, one trembling hand pressed tightly against his cheek as tears spilled endlessly down his face. His dark hair was a mess, sticking unevenly to his forehead, and his small body curled instinctively inward like he already knew how to make himself smaller whenever people were angry.
Standing over him was a woman.
Her face twisted with irritation as she barked something at the boy, sharp and ugly, the kind of voice that filled a house more completely than love ever could.
“I said stop crying!”
She grabbed him by the arm, hard enough to make his whole body jerk. The boy curled further into himself instantly, the trembling hand still pressed against his cheek while he tried desperately to swallow the sobs breaking out of him.
“Why do you always make everything harder?” she snapped. “Always crying… always in the way—”
The rest blurred together beneath the sound of the boy crying.
I felt Eliza trembling hard against me.
“What…” she whispered.
Her eyes moved from the woman… to the boy… then slowly toward me, confusion tightening across her face little by little.
A faint smile tugged at my lips.
I was beginning to adore the expression she made whenever she got confused like this.
“That boy…” I said softly. “Is me.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then a quiet chuckle slipped from me.
“Or rather…” My eyes drifted back toward the little boy curled against the floor. “That was me.”
Eliza’s eyes widened slightly.
She looked back at the child, then at me again, disbelief written so clearly across her face that it almost made me laugh.
“You—?”
A faint smile lingered on my lips as I interrupted her gently.
“Yes,” I murmured. “In a life before this one.”
My chin rested lightly against her shoulder again while I watched the scene unfolding ahead of us.
“This was before I woke up in your world. Before the rituals. Before the blood.” My voice softened slightly. “Before I became what I am now.”
“A different world,” I whispered. “A different body.”
The memory changed before she could respond.
The walls trembled.
The woman vanished.
Another scene took her place.
The same house. The same boy.
Only this time it was a man dragging him across the living room by the arm. The boy stumbled after him, crying so hard he could barely breathe, yet still trying desperately not to fall.
Then the memory shifted.
The boy stood pressed against a wall, flinching before the strike even came.
Another shift. The sharp sound of glass shattering.
Another.
The boy sitting alone in the dark, blood running from his nose while muffled screaming echoed from somewhere deeper inside the house.
And another.
And another.
The memories kept changing around us, one bleeding into the next so quickly that the details barely had time to settle before they were torn away again.
Eliza watched all of it in complete silence.
And through all of it—
I smiled.
The memories continued to shift around us. Crying. Screaming. Fear.
An endless chain of misery that had once been my entire world. Now it felt strangely distant.
Those memories belonged to someone weak. Someone human.
Someone long gone.
My eyes followed the boy as another scene swallowed him whole, replacing one nightmare with the next.
Yet I felt nothing.
No anger.
No grief.
No hatred.
Only a strange sense of detachment. Like I was watching the life of a stranger who happened to wear my face.
A quiet laugh slipped from my throat.
So this was how Baloria felt.
I remembered sitting beneath my tree when she forced her way in, watching my suffering unfold with that same calm smile while she mocked me for every mistake, every weakness, every moment I allowed myself to be broken.
Back then, I hated her for it. I thought her words made her cruel.
Now I finally understood.
The faint smile lingered on my lips as I glanced down.
Eliza was already looking at me. Horror flickered behind her eyes.
My fingers brushed lightly across her stomach as the world changed again.
The house disappeared.
Cold air replaced it. Voices drifted through the memory from somewhere nearby.
When the world settled again, we stood in the middle of a fenced playground beneath a dull gray sky. Worn buildings surrounded us on every side, their faded walls stripped of anything that might have once felt welcoming.
An orphanage.
The boy was older now. Maybe ten.
A fist slammed into his stomach hard enough to fold him in half.
Laughter followed immediately after.
Three older boys crowded around him while another shoved him into the dirt hard enough to tear open the skin on his hands.
Around them, other children watched.
And did nothing.
Not one of them moved.
“Eliza,” I said softly, watching the scene unfold before us, “when my parents died, they sent me here.”
My voice remained calm. Gentle.
One of the boys kicked the child hard in the ribs.
I tilted my head slightly.
“As you can see…” A faint smile touched my lips. “It wasn’t much better.”
The memories started changing faster now. The boy eating alone while other children whispered and laughed.
A teacher grabbing him roughly by the collar.
A bathroom floor stained red from a split lip.
School hallways.
Classrooms.
Bruises hidden beneath long sleeves.
Sleepless nights curled beneath thin blankets.
Mocking voices.
Laughter.
Isolation.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Years of it.
An entire childhood slipping away while the world carried on as though none of it mattered.
No one came. No one understood.
Eventually the memories shifted one final time.
The orphanage disappeared. The school vanished.
Now we stood beside a crowded street illuminated by the pale glow of traffic lights. Rain had just begun to fall, tiny droplets drifting through the evening air.
The boy was gone.
A man stood in his stead.
Older.
Tired.
Alone.
We watched him walk slowly down the sidewalk with empty eyes, his shoulders carrying a weight no one else could see.
Then came the shouting. The screams.
Headlights. A deafening screech tore through the night.
The world lurched violently.
Metal twisted.
Glass exploded outward.
And then—
The body struck the pavement hard enough to paint the street red.
Silence followed.
The memory froze there.
Rain hung suspended in the air like crystals. People… humans frozen in place.
“I never had anyone,” I said softly.
My eyes remained on the street ahead of us, the entire world trapped within a single moment.
“No one who cared whether I lived or disappeared.” My fingers traced a slow circle against Eliza’s stomach. “All that pain… all that suffering… I carried it alone.”
The frozen raindrops trembled around us.
“My entire life was spent fighting the darkness.”
The humans stood motionless in panic, mouths frozen open in silent screams. And beneath them, lying in the middle of the road, was the mangled corpse of the man I used to be. Blood stretched across the wet pavement in dark crimson streaks, suspended alongside the rainwater that never quite reached the ground.
I watched it for a few quiet seconds.
Then I lowered my gaze to Eliza.
“But then…” I whispered, feeling my smile slowly widen, “I finally gave myself completely to it.”
Her breath caught immediately.
The sound was small. Barely noticeable. Yet hearing it sent a thrill through me.
A laugh slipped from my lips.
Small at first.
Then another followed.
And another.
Each one stronger than the last.
Suddenly I was laughing openly, the sound echoing across the frozen street around us. My fingers slowly loosened around Eliza’s waist and I stepped away from her, spreading my arms wide at my sides as though embracing the shattered remains of the life that had brought me here.
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?” I asked through laughter, my eyes fixed on the frozen sky above us. “After everything… after an entire life drowning in that darkness… to finally give in to it.”
The air around us began to tremble.
Small cracks spread across the frozen street.
My laughter only grew louder.
“That pain,” I continued, the exhilaration in my voice impossible to hide, “that emptiness eating away at you every single day… pretending you’re fine while something inside you slowly rots…”
I turned back toward her.
“You have it too.”
The words sent another laugh tearing from my throat.
The cracks spread faster now, splintering through the buildings, the streets, even the frozen rain hanging around us.
“And do you know what makes it even better?”
I laughed again.
My smile widened.
“We both survived it.”
The world shattered around us.
Darkness rushed in immediately, swallowing the frozen street, the rain, and everything lying beneath it.
For a brief moment there was nothing.
Then the darkness peeled away and the crimson sky returned.
Ancient branches stretched overhead, whispering softly in the endless wind.
The familiar warmth of my sanctuary settled around us once more. My beautiful tree stood exactly where it always had, watching silently over its domain.
A smile lingered on my lips as I drew in a slow breath.
Home.
The exhilaration still hadn't completely left me.
My wings unfurled behind me, stretching wide beneath the crimson sky as I turned toward Eliza. The movement felt natural here. Comfortable. Like every part of this place welcomed me back with open arms.
So I returned the gesture.
Spreading my own arms wide, I smiled at her.
"Tell me, Eliza..."
My gaze settled on her face.
"After everything you've seen..." The smile on my lips widened slightly, exposing the sharp points of my teeth. "Are we really so different?"
For a moment, I simply watched her.
Waiting.
I expected one of her usual reactions. A denial. An argument. Perhaps another stubborn attempt to convince herself that the similarities between us didn't exist.
That familiar defiance. That proud lift of her chin whenever she thought she was right. That stubborn spark that always appeared in her eyes whenever I pushed a little too close.
But no answer came.
Instead, I watched tears gather in Eliza’s eyes before spilling over and running silently down her cheeks.
My smile faded.
Her entire body had started trembling. She was shaking hard enough that it looked like she could barely keep herself standing.
The sight dragged me straight back to that village.
Back to the moment she had broken down in my arms after I had stumbled into the memories she had spent years trying to bury.
I hated seeing her look like that.
I hated seeing those beautiful eyes filled with so much pain.
The exhilaration from moments ago slowly drained away as I watched her struggle to speak.
"No..." The word stumbled out of her. Her head shook violently. "No. It can't be."
More tears followed.
"What I saw..." Her voice cracked. "That can't be real."
Thats when I felt it. The emotions pouring from her hit me as clearly as the desire I had felt the first time our eyes met.
Grief tangled together with heartbreak. Confusion. Anger. And fear—so much fear that it almost drowned everything else out.
I didn't understand the fear. But the rest was obvious. Warmth spread through my chest, and before I realized it, my smile had softened.
She was crying for my past.
For everything I had shown her. For everything I had endured.
She was crying for me.
The realization had barely settled inside my chest when Eliza suddenly screamed.
"I won't believe it!" The words hit me hard enough that I actually froze.
Eliza looked up at me, tears streaming endlessly down her face. Her entire body was still trembling, yet there was a fierceness in her eyes now that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
"I won't!" Her hands clenched into trembling fists. "Demons lie!"
The words came out sharp and desperate.
"They manipulate humans!" she shouted. "They trick us! They make us believe whatever they want us to believe!"
Tears continued running down her face, but her eyes never left mine.
I said nothing and simply watched her.
"I won't trust a demon."
Her voice broke apart almost immediately.
For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping from beneath her lashes.
"I can't trust a demon..."
Her voice had become so quiet it was almost swallowed by the wind moving through the branches above us.
"...not again."
The words settled and stayed.
I didn’t move. I only watched her.
The fierceness had left her face completely now. That sharp, burning thing she carried in her eyes was simply gone. What remained was quieter. The stillness of someone who had said everything she knew how to say and had nothing left to give.
She stood there trembling.
For a few moments, I let the silence remain
Then I crossed the distance between us.
My wings folded behind me as I stepped into her space and wrapped my arms around her. One hand settled against her back while the other found the back of her head, gently guiding her toward me until her forehead rested against my chest.
She didn’t resist.
She didn’t hesitate.
She simply leaned into me.
Her breath caught once, breaking unevenly against my skin before another tear slipped free, and I found myself holding her a little tighter. Not because I was afraid she would pull away, but because I didn’t want her carrying all of that pain by herself.
So I held her.
And listened to her breathing.
To the quiet trembling that still hadn’t left her.
And somewhere in that silence, I finally understood.
The fear had never made sense before. The other emotions had. But not the fear.
Now it did.
A small smile tugged at my lips.
Of course.
She thought I was lying.
She thought everything I had shown her had been carefully crafted to reach her. Every memory. Every wound. Every piece of myself I had laid bare before her.
Not because she believed it.
Because she was afraid to.
The realization sent a strange warmth spreading through my chest.
How adorable.
A quiet giggle escaped me before I could stop it.
Eliza was still pressed against me, still trembling slightly, and suddenly all that fear felt different. Smaller. Softer.
Because if she was this afraid of being deceived, then some part of her had already started to believe me.
I stayed like that for a little longer, enjoying the simple weight of her in my arms before finally pulling back.
Only enough to see her face.
My fingers slipped beneath her chin and gently lifted it.
Wet eyes met mine. Tear-stained cheeks.
That same stubborn girl who had been arguing with me moments ago.
My smile softened.
“Eliza,” I murmured, brushing my thumb lightly across her cheek.
“What do I have to do…” The question came out quieter than I intended. “…to make you believe me?”