The Celestial Rose BoxSet

by Annalee Adams

  The chains were rusted and interjected into the cave walls, blasted to the stone with a great force. They weren’t budging anytime soon. It was a large cave, damp and dirty, with sodden puddles from the rainfall that had streamed through the gaps in the rocks above. The corners were quite dark, shaded from the light of the sun surrounding us. My eyes started to get used to the light, and I noticed something writhed in the corner. I strained to gain a greater focus. My little brother, bloodied and beaten, fighting away his demons in the edge of damp cave.

  “Let him go!” I shrieked at the Beast as it laughed evilly in response. The gigantic creature thudded across the cave, picked up the convulsing Caleb, and threw him over to me.

  “YOU SEE NOW!” it bellowed, laughing as the tears flowed from my face.

  My little brother, Caleb, was only at the tender age of eleven. Such a short life to live, so young and innocent, hardly tasted the world and the beauty it could bring. Thankfully, Caleb was unconscious. His pale complexion had turned a tinge of green as the poison of the scorpion’s sting crept through his body.

  Blood flowed from the bite on his abdomen. He must not have had much more blood to give, considering the time that had passed since he was taken. Was he even alive anymore? His chest rose. That was a good sign, perhaps I could save him.

  The Beast stood watching my reaction, as if to gain some sort of sadistic gratification from it. When it saw my relief at Caleb’s ability to still take a breath, it thudded over and stabbed him in the thigh with its sharp six-inch claws.

  “NO!” I screamed, yanking at the chains to stop him.

  Caleb awoke, screaming in agony, wailing in pain as he twitched in spasms, the poison continuing to take over. His distress broke my heart as I pulled closer and closer, bracing my feet against the wall, trying to pull the chains free. I needed to get to him, hold him and sooth away the torturing affliction.

  If I can take life, can I give life? There had to be a balance, surely? If I could reach him, hold him, could I give him my life force? I could give him the best chance at survival while I took on the Beast before me. It was worth a shot, I just needed to reach him.

  “Taylor!” he shrieked, the excruciating pain reverberating in his voice. He held out his hand to me as the Beast tossed it away, keeping us close enough to see each other, but far enough away not to touch.

  “What do you want?” I screamed at it.

  “YOU HAVE TAKEN HER POWER!” it boomed.

  So, it saw me as an abomination, a monster of sought. It believed I had purposely taken these abilities for my own selfish greed. Not that I was attacked by every one of them and happened to absorb their abilities like a sponge. How did it even know me? Why was I so important?

  “Whose power? I didn’t take anything. They all attacked me!” I yelled, still watching as Caleb writhed in agony.

  “THEY ARE NOT YOUR POWERS TO TAKE, HAYA!”

  Who? Did it seriously have me confused with someone else? After everything it had done to me, to my family, to my town, and all this time it believed me to be somebody different.

  “I’m TAYLOR!” I screamed. How dare it do this to me? Ruining my life, killing my friends, and hurting my little brother, how dare it? It could have, at least, called me by my real name.

  My screaming seemed to anger it further as it lashed out, hitting me in the side, slicing open my hip, showing tissue damage and bloodied bone. I had to use my abilities, but I just couldn’t reach the sigil. My chains were too tight and there was just no slack apparent.

  But I needed to. Where was the control now? I was in too much pain from the lacerations to control anything anymore. The demonic creature knelt beside me, took its bladed fingers, and stroked them across the wound on my face; an expressive form of recollection, almost. How was something this evil able to communicate feelings of tenderness and comfort? Was this just another of its twisted games, luring me in to take me out once and for all?

  Caleb screamed a death defying, blood curdling scream, one that will remain embedded into time itself, relived for an eternity through the memories of those close. He had grown claws out of his hands. Blood flowed freely from within him as his body arched and contorted. Fighting the Beast was no longer an option. I needed to give Caleb my life force, quickly. It had to happen immediately, he didn’t have much time left.

  Seeing him like that, so pasty and defenceless, how could any God or being of love and light let something so abrupt, so traumatic, happen to an innocent little boy? Was there even a God? I knew the stories of Lilith and Eve, but that’s all the supernatural history books spoke of. After Cain was cast out, God disappeared, never to be seen again. It appeared his creations took over his throne. And where was Eve in all this? Wasn’t she supposed to be an angel of light, the greatest good of all? Where was she to stop all this?

  Writhing in pain, with broken limbs and torn, bloodied skin, Caleb slunk his way over to me. The Beast watched in awe, taken aback by the love our family shared as we fought to be by each other’s side. Caleb managed to push himself forward just a little more, and in doing so, I could reach one of his clawed hands with my feet and pull him closer to me.

  It wasn’t just Caleb anymore, it was something else. It was the beast in him taking over. He writhed, and he withered as I pulled him next to me, trying to hold his broken body, sobbing, pushing every drop of energy from me into him. But it wasn’t doing anything except tiring my soul. Caleb still screamed in pain, he still pleaded for mercy, he still screamed the sorrow of a thousand lost children. He was changing. The Caleb I knew was dying, and in its place was another beast trying to be born, the same beast that tried to escape from the body of the dead girl, Sarah.

  But it wouldn’t reach out, it wouldn’t survive this. Caleb’s body was too young, too innocent, too mortal. The beast clearly needed the body of a supernatural to change and grow from. Perhaps that was why I was there, to sacrifice my own being to give birth to the Beast within.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn’t face looking at him anymore; his poor mutilated face, he pleaded and begged for an ending. I wrapped myself legs around him tighter, trying to force any kind of comfort on him. I needed my arms free, needed to hold him. Instead, I was chained in pain, ignoring every slash he made at me with his claw-like fingers. I forgave every attempt at biting me out of agony and anguish. I couldn’t save him; my little brother was dying the most disturbing of all endings and I could not do a damned thing about it. I couldn’t even summon the power to end his life, to save his soul, to ease his pain as I felt him jerk violently, gargling on his own blood, choking the life out of him. His heart slowed and his breathing faltered as he gradually let go of me, twitching. I gripped him tighter and he died the pain of a thousand deaths that day, and with him, part of me died, too.

  CHAPTER 24

  I must have passed out from the blood loss, or from the extreme mental anguish of losing my younger brother. He still lay there beside me, all mangled and bloodstained, cold to the touch with all signs of life gone from him.

  I was still chained to the cave wall, yearning to hold my brother properly, really cradle his fallen body and cry the tears of so many. My face was broken, too It stung from salty tear’s while my heart lay crushed within my chest. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I had failed, failed at being a big sister, failed at being a daughter and failed at being a hero. Everyone around me died. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. It should have been me.

  The Beast sat beside the cave entrance, yet it was dark and he became surrounded by shadow. He looked even more grimacing than before. He had watched me as my brother died, watched my pain, listened to the sorrow within me, and smiled as my little brother’s heart finally gave out. He was the purest definition of a monster, the exemplification of a malevolent evil. It had waited for my mortal body to wake so it could watch me relive the devastation and loss once again.

  The Beast snaked its way over to me, knelt beside me, and licked the blood from my face. It tasted the part
of me that Caleb opened as he slashed wildly with his serrated hands. Then it grabbed my face, cupped my chin in its skeletal hand. It leant in close and bit deep into my neck, tearing away the flesh, draining the blood from my body, what little of it was left. I remember shaking and twitching as it bit deeper, hitting an artery and my blood pulsated out of me. This was it. This was peace at last. I could give up and die, return to Eve in Heaven's former glory. It was my time to meet my mother again, kiss my brother and hold him tight. It was my time to die, a welcome release.

  “TAYLOR!” A horrifying scream echoed through the cave. It was Harland. He had tracked down the monster like a true combat tracker and ended up right at the entrance beside Lucian. They both ran in. Harland leapt and changed mid-air, diving down straight onto the beast, knocking it backwards and releasing me from its grip. I slumped into an early grave in the arms of my Lucian once again.

  “Oh Taylor!” he cried as he broke me free of the chains.

  I couldn’t hug him. I could only pick up the broken corpse that my little brother once inhabited and scream the devastating sorrow. The sorrow that I could not save my brother, could not help him, couldn’t end his suffering, and I could not cradle his body as he died.

  Sobbing, I placed his broken frame down on the floor and Lucian covered him over with his jacket. Meantime, Harland was trying to keep the Beast at bay. Lucian tried to pull me out of the cave, but what he didn’t realise was that I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way that monster would live another day. Never, ever would it step foot outside of the cave alive again. And with that thought, I ignored the lack of blood in my body as it rushed out of me, ignored the pain flooding through me. Instead, I listened to the pure adrenaline taking over as the chemicals ignited. Out came the monster within and I changed form into that of the fiery girl I was born to be, leaping into the air.

  Lucian yelled for me to stop, but it was too late. I had succumbed to the pure rage within me. I did not care anymore if I lived or died, only if I took the beast down with me. The savage instinct to kill, maim and torture, became all I was about as the darkness from within took command.

  Using the art of the Femme Fatale, I landed on top of the beast, slamming my fists down into its body. I absorbed its life force into me and healing a little of my bleeding wounds, stopping the blood as it fled from my body. The Beast flipped backwards, throwing me afar. Harland quivered in the corner, beaten to a pulp, unable to get up any longer.

  Lucian came next, rushing over to save me from the mean old monster. But I didn’t need saving, the mean old monster did. It wasn’t a fairy tale with a helpless princess, where a saviour in the style of a dashing prince would save the day. No, this was reality. This was my reality, my life, my fate, and I damned well would shape it. No dashing prince would take the kill from me. The Beast was mine to kill. He took my kin and he would die the only death worthwhile, one to match the pain in my heart as I leapt up, rushing at the Beast once again. Jumping on to its back, my teeth grew serrated like the dark ones. It appeared I had gained a little ability from Lucian's bite after all. I took the biggest bite from its fiery neck, tearing away its burned flesh as its inner strength wept from its body.

  It was angry, now, vicious and enraged. It knocked Lucian flying straight into the wall and then it thudded forwards, towards me again. It was serious. This was my chance. I had to rip it apart, let the monster in me take over, and it did. But not quick enough, it seemed, as it slashed its claws out at me. Looking down, I gasped as my lower abdomen lay open and my small intestines began to fall. Piece by piece I fell apart, the omentum was not enough to hold me together. The layers of skin would not keep me closed, my insides trickled to my outsides, and I fell to the floor in a huddled mess of blood and guts.

  I choked as I fell to the ground, collapsing in a pool of my own blood and faeces. It wasn’t a pleasant ending, it was a realistic one. I hadn’t won, hadn’t avenged my brother. Instead, I had left the beast alive to kill every other person I cared about; two of which were lying unconscious in the cave not so far from me.

  As I lay there, I quickly bled out. My organs were visibly on show with my muscles ripped apart. I could no longer move. There was nothing more I could do, and no one left conscious to save me. I accepted my fate, took my brother's broken hand, and looked out of the cave to the night sky. Outside, the stars shimmered as they fell, finally falling down to Earth, just as I had dreamed it.

  As I died, it felt like time stood still, the few moments that surrounded that time lasted an eternity. Every second lasted forever and it was as though time had ceased to exist, yet the flickering of light before me resembled reality; the present time. I was living an alternate path, one that could see the beginning, the middle, and the end. I saw the beast as it rose high, heard the roar from its infernal lungs and felt the wind as it blasted through the cave with a magnetic force. It was drawn towards me like the pull of the future clashing with the present.

  The beads of rain gleamed over the top of the mossy walls, the scent of dew swept through the cave like moths to a lamp light, clinging to me, encasing my body with the aroma of humanity's mortal existence. Time was ending, my life’s string would be cut as I oscillated through the channel of realism and make believe. Passing back and forth through each second, watching the film play like the flickering cinema reel of a 1940's production.

  With each passing moment, the sky continued to fall. Armageddon had come early and there was no turning the clock back any longer. Death was nigh, and the rebirth of humanity would take place. My time in that realm had altered. It no longer endured, I would no longer exist. I changed, and as an abomination, I would perish at the passing of an unsuccessful martyr, never to save the life of another.

  I could feel each breath as it waned through my body, felt each heart beat last for an age. My fiery core fizzled out, sodden and wet. My body had fallen, a mortal’s soul would be taken as the figure around me rotted and died. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, dying while bathing in my own bodily fluids. It certainly wouldn’t be a swift ending, by the looks of it. At least I would live long enough to see the stars fall and the world freeze over. Maybe it was time for another Ice Age? A new species to be brought into our reality, given the chance to live as we never did. Mutants roaming the Earth, with no chance of decimation. But alas, it was too late, we had already ruined the world for them. There wasn’t exactly anything left to save after the monsters had taken it all.

  The new world would be a phenomenon; a place of beauty, love and life. A place where the new species could hope and dream. It sounded perfect, but as we know, perfection isn’t normal. And if there were such a thing as perfect, wouldn’t it be boring? What would my version of perfect be in comparison to your version of perfect? Surely it would be different. If this was the case, then wouldn’t all minds have to coexist as one, so that all minds saw perfection as the same thing? That would be possible. But then, if that happened, wouldn’t there only really be one true mind? One true existence and all others would be slaves to its beliefs? Perfection wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but sure, the vision is nice.

  I rambled through philosophy after philosophy, contemplating mankind’s historical conquests and deterioration. Each second that passed in your reality, my new reality lasted much longer. I felt as though I had aged years in mere moments, seen the sparkle of wonder shine through the stars as they fell. If only I had such an insight before the world ceased to exist, before I lost everything. Perhaps then time could have been changed in time.

  A misstep in judgement was what landed me there that day. An inaccurate calculation, a lack of thought remarked how I had failed in life in that moment, the moment of my death. It only took one wrong decision and the whole world had literally come crashing down. But why? Why were the stars falling? Why were they falling in sorrow of my demise? I was just a mere mortal with a few latent abilities. Life did not revolve around me.

  Shimmering in the distance, an enchanting light flow
ed, travelling through the surroundings, and brightening the cave around me. The cave shone with the magnificence of pure energy. A warmth radiated as it passed through its walls. The raindrops glistened with the beauty that betrothed them, the moss grew longer, deeper, and faster, taking on the life force of many years in one prime second. The Beast filtered its wretched face to protect its demonic protoplasm from the warmth of the angelic illumination.

  Then, for me, time began to speed up. As Lucian stirred and Harland groaned, I passed back into our normal reality. The beast pulled back to the only shadow left by the wall. My brother’s corpse continued to rot alongside me. I took his frail little hand and whispered, “I love you little brother.” And with my final words, my last breath, I entered the cave of light, taken away for an eternity.

  There was a time that I had died before, come back, and died again. I had become quite a professional at dying. But this time, it was different, life was different. I was different. I had lost hope, I’d given up, moved on. But as I did, I saw them. The reality behind the fallen stars, the beings they shaped with their lustrous light, the beauty behind our image. They walked the earth as new born children, they shimmered. Shimmering a face of bewilderment and worship, filled with a purity never seen by a mortal’s eyes. The children were the essence of life’s creation itself, faultless and magnificent in every way possible.

  They were the children of the future, the children we all desired to become, the perfected sublime we ached to achieve. With each step they took, they grew, forming from new-borns to toddlers, toddlers to children, then adolescents to adults. They reached a new age of dawn, a new perfect, a unity within unity and a passage through time.

  I saw the one with the blinding light. As it shimmered across my dead body, it acknowledged my floating spirit, took hold of it from mid-air and pulled me away. With the great power of God's given life, it pushed my soul back into my broken body. Taking the dead and resurrecting. But why, why did it not resurrect Caleb? Was he too far gone? I lay silently still, in a comatose state. The angelic creature before me let its light pass right through me, stitching me back together physically, mentally, and spiritually with all the miracle that is life.