With light streaming within me, it came; a working heartbeat, two lungs that inflated, limbs that moved, and blood that flowed through my body. As I awoke, taking my first gasp of air, I came face to face with the future. Before me it smiled, leant into my face, kissed my lips, and whispered in my ear.
The warmth that circulated through me caressed my soul, not only bringing life to my physical body, but igniting a pure energy within, piecing my spiritual side back together. It manifested a beauty inside, bringing light to what I was and who I would become. Time did not matter to me in those moments; the past, the present or the future. An unadulterated clarity became me, and I knew my time would come. I saw the end, pictured the beginning, and lived the moment.
The angelic being whispered in my ear, something in a language from a time forgotten. As it did, Lucian sat up. Harland quietened in awe. The world slowed to a stop as I drifted into a long and peaceful sleep.
Living with life is not always an easy task. It is one that is filled with uncertain times, painful memories, and woe. But it is also the one that brings the delights of love and family, little children I would one day bore, a husband by my side, and a quaint little cottage in the country with a dog named Milo. The picture was perfect, my version of perfect. Blades of tall grass would shimmer across their fingertips as they ran through the fields with laughter and joy. Catching up to them as I ran, chasing their little souls across the glimmering meadows of devotion.
My husband would appear holding my hand. We would read bedtime stories to the children and sit by the night fire together, telling tales of fantasy and fame. It was a dream, a dream I lived for and one I would have one day, in another life.
My mind was an escapism of the reality that I would walk through, knowing one day my future would be bright. But, also knowing a fight was to come, as the angelic being had whispered my name. I knew this body was one of many, a collective mind, a supple perfection. But this body was also me, also Taylor Lane, also the girl many knew as the mortal next door.
Life may change, it may come apart, but it was worth fighting for, they were worth fighting for. My future was their future and the future of mankind. They would be blessed, blissful, and abundant. My children would roam the Earth in hope, as saviours for all, heroes and heroines. Until that time, I had to wake up, needed to face the pain before me, live and try to piece it all together. It’s time to wake up, Taylor Lane. Wake up now, Taylor Lane, wake up!
CHAPTER 25
I awoke to the strained voices of many, the screams of the unjust and undignified. It would be a blissful vacation in Hell, should I ever get there. The agony in the air choked me, cradled my lungs like a mother holding her dead child too tight, screaming and crying, sobbing, and yelling. The voices, they wouldn’t stop. Humanity was dying around me and I couldn’t open my eyes anymore.
I knew I was waking, knew I was living, that I had remained alive for a purpose, but the pain of my existence tormented me. It crept through me like the slinking creatures of the night, awaiting my devastated soul to burn and boil, laughing with their kin as the cauldron bubbled my humanity away.
There was a thin line between love and hate, good and evil, light and dark, and I was teetering on the edge. I was alive by the blessed touch of something angelic, something amazing, but also touched by the Beast himself as he ripped open my soul and laughed as I wept.
Then I remembered, my agony in sorrow, the loss of a broken heart smashed into a thousand pieces. My brother, Caleb. How would I ever forgive myself? Was it my devastating actions that had caused his carnivorous demise? How would I ever tell my father that his only son was killed by a beast from the world beneath our own? He said I was special, he believed I could be a hero, his belief in me was limitless. Well, it would have been until I found his limit, when I got his son and his wife killed. How many more had to die for my selfish existence?
I’d tried to die, give myself in their place, in Caleb’s place. But it wasn’t enough. The beast wanted me to suffer first, play with my weakness, my family, and devour it in front of me. I would never live past the memory of my brother tearing his own skin off as he ruptured his oesophagus while trying to separate himself from the beast within. He had choked on his own blood as he stumbled into a land of darkness and bereavement. That type of pain was unjust and undignified. No one should end like that, especially not my little brother. Yet it appeared that life was just too cruel to be human.
They surrounded me; the noise, the stress of a multitude of voices battling in my mind. Get out of me! Damn it. Get them out of me! The blasted arguments and screaming. The end is nigh, the end is nigh. To anyone who saw, I must have appeared as a mad woman, clawing at my own head, pulling my hair, desperate to silence the souls.
As I opened my eyes and saw it, the shimmering light wrapped around me, my body glistened and glowed, luminescent, and perfected, beautiful, and pure. I had been given the gift of an angel, an embodiment of blessed supernatural in the shape of a mere mortal.
But little did I know my body now bore the soul of a new born in the bodily cage envisioned as Pandora’s box. I had power, unique, blinding power. I could feel it flow through my veins; its energy relentless, pure, and perfected. I walked the Earth as a child, open to the defiant possibility of something more. Now I was the something more. I would be the saviour, but I also felt the darkness within, the definition of evil. And yet I could be the purest of light. I embodied it all, blessed with both light and dark, teetering on the edge of humanity.
The screams were deafening my senses on overdrive. Why were they arguing? What was happening around me? It was clear I no longer resided in the mossy cave beside Lake Meed.
My head screamed inside with the treachery of an orchestra setting fire to my nervous system. Where was I? I’d been transported back to the Darkwater mansion, with the essence of my life’s history left behind. I appeared to be in an old hospital ward below the mansion itself. I knew they kept tunnels and many rooms I’d never yet seen, but this was one Lawrence had once spoken of. A vintage ward used in the war to cater for the victims of the blasted bombs. Charles had worked those wards, cared for the humans he so despised, but why? What made him stop caring? He clearly cared for them once upon a time.
Lying on an old cot bed I stretched. Every part of me seemed to work, toes wriggled, hands twitched, it was as though I was human but with a deluge of power corrupting me.
Where was my brother's body? He deserved a true burial. I needed to tell my father and sit with him, holding him as he sobbed. We still had each other, there was hope for the Lanes yet. But sitting upright, glancing around and taking in the deep humility of the room I couldn’t see him. I needed to get up, to look around and find my brothers soulless body.
Gripping my head, I pulled my solemn body up. Stumbling a little the room swayed as the tides rushed in and dizziness came in abundance. Then I saw him, the broken corpse of my brother lying on a bed further down.
Cold and crisp, my brother's skin withered. The stench of his decay had decorated the room with its polar ability to ignite anger and hatred within oneself. I felt it; the pain, the pure animosity towards life itself. I took a moment to weep the glistening tears of the fallen, covering him over with a bright white sheet as I said my goodbyes.
In my hospital gown, I unhooked the saline drip, pulled out the cannula, and trod the path of the broken. I climbed up the stairs, away from darkness and into the daylight. As I stepped bare foot across the concrete passageway, the light surrounding me darkened, greyed and shimmered. With each step the anger boiled, the hatred fermented, and my fists balled, ready to re-enact a battle with the beast of my brother’s demise.
My state of mind had not come to pass. I had not awoken in a clear frame, having missed quite an amount of time; enough time for my brother’s body to start to decay and wilt. How long I’d been down there was unknown. Did my father already know of his son's decaying state, or was it something I had yet to burden him with?
/> There it was again, the constant yelling and agonising screams. A battle above with friend or foe. Whatever was happening was taking place at that moment, and I had to get there to speak with my father, tell him the truth, tell him I tried, tell him I failed.
Why were they yelling? It wasn’t their brother dead on a platter. It wasn’t their body bruised and battered. I recognised Lucian's voice, yelling and growling. Harland, too, bickering and biting. His feral side was clearly snapping, using the monster within.
I walked the spiral stairs up to the light of day, and as I rose, I could smell something, something different, something strange.
I walked into a slanging match, a bickering of sought with Lycan against Disciple; forms changed, blades raised, and teeth bared. The whole of the Darkwaters were battling the Arellanos. Charles had remained at the side with Lawrence, playing peacekeeper with Harland’s clan.
They meant business and they were not happy about something. The Beast, however, was nowhere in sight. I rose up, opening the door, and as I did they turned to face me, jaws dropping with a fear deep in their eyes.
Why did they fear me? How could they express anxiety at the girl that stepped into the light before them? Was it the angered face she showed at the voices as they argued of her presence? Or was it the darkness that snaked its way around her body, slipping its silken serpent-like mannerisms across the pathway ahead?
I wilted at the thought of their apprehension. Since when was I the beast to be feared? Even Lucian's eyes widened at the sight of me. What had I become to deserve such a horrific glance? And where was the Beast that had taken my brother's body and tortured his little heart until it gave out? The thoughts transcribed a novel of ideas through my mind, blissfully ignorant of the raging vengeance I gave away. The evil within did not care for the pitiful excuses of mortality. I wanted to know why he had to pass on and why the angels didn’t save his body but had taken mine instead. What had they turned me into? Who was I now?
I saw snippets of a life I once had, dreams I had walked and hopes demised. I knew the past and the future, yet the present I had not yet seen. Life was uncertain, and this path had not yet been trodden. I smelt it again, the casualty of heartbreak and destruction. Where was my father amongst this battle with the clans? Where was my family in this strange existence called life? Where was I in this path called time?
Then I saw him, lying on the floor beside a broken window frame. Running over I slipped on broken glass, without a touch of blood or decay affecting me. My father lay still, fast asleep, or so I thought. I gently patted him to wake him, show him I lived once again. But his body felt cold, raw to the touch. I shook him awake, kept rattling his bones. He didn’t wake, never opened his eyes, and no matter how hard I beat down on his chest, he did not take a breath any longer.
“DAD!” I screamed, beating harder as I wept. His heart had stopped pumping long ago. He was dead and decaying on the floor, filtered over by the sleeted wind from the forest of tragedy behind us.
I got snippets of who I was swiftly flow through my mind, then they disappeared just as quickly as they once came. Who am I now? I ask. With so much loss flowing through my veins, and the pain of the memories embedded into my very being? It hurt too much to speak of it, it pained me deeply with regret, the regret that I did not say what I needed to, what I wanted to I was not there for them in their time of need, and they died alone, terrified of the monsters that lurked in the shadows. Now I was an orphan with no one left to speak my name. I was Taylor Lane, but who am I now?
Then I felt it, a hand as cold as ice and one as hot as fire. Fire and ice entwined, one on each shoulder, two souls together with one, mine. They pleaded with me to stop, asking me to falter, to look, to see myself.
How dare they? How dare all of them? My family was dead, my pain was real, and I could feel it. I could only cry for it, to see it as they did not. How could they tear me away from it? It was my God given right to feel loss, grieve for their existence. If I didn’t grieve, who would? They would remain lost souls, forgotten forever more, a number in a notebook... "Just one life distinguished, nothing much happened today," God said.
“GET OFF ME!” I screamed, yelling at the top of my lungs as the two hands dropped, leapt backwards in dread, fearing what I’d become.
Then as I turned, I saw it. I saw the brightness in the mirror ahead. The darkness had overcome me, taken over my mind with grief and fear. I could no longer take the pain, the sorrow. I faltered, falling to my knees, crying with the anguish and torment of a thousand petrified faces. Beating the floor with my blackened hands. With each hammering, the ground rumbled, until I could no longer summon the strength to exist. Breathing turned to torture as the blind shear panic of the excruciating agony of life itself took over. I screamed, screamed, and screamed.
Glass shattered, the mirror smashed, and my bleeding ears burst with the vibration of my own voice. A frequency of pure terror filled my lungs as I exhaled out the powerful wail of God's own banshee. Through the shattering of life itself, the artful scream within emanated throughout me, releasing itself into the minds and souls of everyone in that room. Time stood still for a split second as I saw what I did, what my grief had done. Birds swooped and fell from the sky, paralysed in horror. Leaves that had danced through the wind, froze in fear and silence. The fountains spring water bloodied and stagnated.
In that time, those seconds, I screamed. As I did, the world crippled in a helpless desire to die in my grief with me. Turning around, I saw my friends fall paralysed in horror, sucked into the culling of life itself. Fallen and forgotten, they died cold and crippled, alone on the floor, silenced for an eternity.
Before I knew it, the wail stopped. The pain remained but the scream diminished. I saw myself, in the shattering of the broken mirror. I reflected the embodiment of evil; the darkness of a shadeling wrapping its claws around me, the beauty of the reaping of life itself, the necrotic stench of the Beast that broke me, and the power of the angel that touched me. I had given into my darkness, lost in anger, agonised by the annihilation of my loved ones.
My pain had been a fever trickling through my body, destroying me one cell at a time. It ate away at my humanity, cannibalising all hope I once had. My family was gone, my humanity diminished, and I’d frozen the world in grief by the power of God itself.
I stared emptily amongst the littering of corpses around me. I had silenced the world, cancelling time, culling the lifelines, and closing the door on existence. My anguish had ended the lives of life itself. No creature stirred, no blade of grass shimmered, no water fell from the clouded sky, and no heart struck a beat from any creature in the room.
The Arellano’s hearts were always beating free, yet now they were numb through fear on the floor, dead to the world around them, and blanketed by sorrow itself. The Darkwaters were the same, although some of them had never had a heart beat in their supernatural lives. Their bodies were altered, encased by anguish and torment, reaped by my loss, and purified by the pain of an immortal’s death. What had I done? They were all gone, all ceased to exist, all lay still in time itself.
Stepping over body after body, I came to my final goodbye, my ending scene. I saw him lying there, cold and glacial. Encased with the beauty our love once lit, my Lucian was now deceased. I was no longer his light in the darkness and he my saviour forever more. I did what any tragic love story must do, and like Juliet to her Romeo, I took the poisoned vial before me and kissed Lucian's lips as I serrated myself on the blade of anguish, closing my eyes and dying in the arms of my lover once again.
Slipping away, ending the story, I saw them out of the shattered glass window. The house remained silent as I floated away, watching my angelic children fight in a bid to save humanity as Lilith rose once again.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Eternal Creation
ANNALEE ADAMS
PROLOGUE
Mutated past the accomplishment of humankind, what was I? It was as though I bypassed th
e rarity of a perfected being and morphed into something greater. The embodiment of good and evil, blessed by God, corrupted by darkness, blissfully unaware of the nature of my birth. I was perpetually alone having accidentally murdered my own family, killed the immortal love that surrounded me, and breathed the air of the reaper's curse. I was the devil on this god forsaken Earth; purely and divinely evil.
I couldn't even speak, for if I did my voice screamed out a chorus of pain and anguish. Birds fell to their death, the living turned to ice, and my screams froze the world around me. Granted, it appeared to be only momentarily. But that had been enough time to stop a heart, enough time to murder my friends, and enough time to surpass the immortal expectations of my lover, my Lucian, my Dark One.
There I stood, weeping on the frozen chest of my lover, praying for a miraculous beat of a long dead heart, trying with all my power to heal him, unfreeze him, anything to bring him back to me. The horror was written on all their petrified faces; a shocking eclipse of thought lasting an eternity pasted over the once fresh-faced beings I had grown to love. My family, my life was all gone, destroyed.
I couldn’t take their anguish, their pain. How could I live another day after seeing my little brother Caleb murdered in front of me? How could I be such a powerful being when I couldn’t even save him? I was no-one, nothing. We are who we are because of the people around us. If there was no one around us, then we were empty.
The Celestial Rose BoxSet Page 23
