Officially a high school graduate!!

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[P.S- song attached to this chapter is associated with the lyrics in the chapter.]

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            A heaviness spread like a coverlet over my eyelids as I tried to surface  from my oblivion, an external force preventing me from opening my eyes.

            "Sleep."  

            That was the last thing I remembered. One command, no gender behind it. A single word, fluttering through my brain like a disoriented butterfly over and over again. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Where had the word even come from?

            With a whimper, my head thrashed sharply to the side in my slumber. Wake up!

            I couldn't.

            I let my other senses take control, soaking up the cold  tiled floor beneath my back, the fresh air-conditioning, and the slightly overwhelming scent of bleach and other cleaning products lingering in the air as a inhaled. My head felt bulky and swollen, like I had slammed it against concrete, and my ears began to  ring so unbearably loud, that I clutched them with two hands and let out a raspy cry with dehydrated, worn out vocal cords.

            The ringing stopped after awhile, and when it did, I finally found the energy to pry my eyes open. I was confused, groggily staring up at a ceiling that  was so white, it hurt to look at.

            I sat up slowly, gradually adjusting to the bright lights, taking in a foreign room with wide eyes.

            I was in the center of a seemingly endless white space, with no furniture and florescent lights on the ceiling that flickered once in a while. I was wearing an all white jumpsuit that covered my body completely, leaving only my feet, hands and head bare. I cautiously touched the fabric with my finger tips. It was a scratchy material that seemed to tighten whenever I breathed.

            "The patient is conscious, doctor," an overhead voice said.  

            I jumped effortlessly to my feet in an instant, fully-alert, heart pounding passionately in my chest. My long ponytail swung around and whipped me in the face as I turned  a quick 360 degrees around. Now there were walls around me that I knew I hadn't seen before. A mirror. A canvas turned against the wall. A bed with white covers and a single pillow.

            Where was I?

            "Hello?" I started to move around the room until I reached a wall, sliding my hands around it. "Hello? Someone help me!" There was no visible door. No way out. Just me, alone, in an endless white room with no escape. "Who are you? Where am I? What is this place?!" I was breathing hard, sweat bubbling on my forehead and descending down my back. "I saw this in a movie once, and I swear to god, if you aliens think I won't kick your ass when you try to probe me--!"

            "Patient seems to be exceptionally disoriented, doctor."

            "I'm perfectly fine! And I can hear you!" I replied bitterly to the voice, bolting across the room to climb up onto the bed. I pounded my fists against the low ceiling like a crazy person. "Let me out! Help! Let me out! I didn't do anything wrong! Let me OUT--!"

            "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."

            I slowly turned around at a woman's singing. It was my mother's voice, and suddenly, I was no longer in the  white room, but in Little Faith's bedroom.

"When the blazing sun is gone,
When the nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night..."

             My mother sat on a wooden rocking chair with me on her lap, singing softly under her breath, brushing out my long hair that cascaded like an obsidian waterfall down one of the arms of the chair. Little Faith's had on a pink puffy dress, chubby legs kicking out as she leaned forward on my mother's lap and painted nonsense doodles on the canvas in front of her with red paint, splattering it all over the ground and on her bare feet.

"Then the traveler in the dark,
Thanks you for your little spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so."

            Then I felt it. The sensation that I was no longer invisible in the room. My mother turned towards me at the same time, locking eyes with me, and suddenly, she looked afraid. "Mom?" I asked, not really wanting a response. "Mom, it's me. It's Faith."

            "Who are you?"

            "I'm your daughter," I rushed out, feeling as though my words were slurred and foreign.

            "My daughter is dead."

            I pointed to the little girl on her lap. "No, she's alive. I'm alive."

            "'You're dead. You're dead." My mom started to sob, the little girl on her lap oblivious to what was going on. She had a knife in her hand now, gripped tightly in her trembling hand. "There is no peace,' says the Lord, 'for the wicked...'" Mom began to whisper. "There is no peace,' says the Lord....THERE IS NO PEACE!!"

            Gripping Little Faith by her tiny head, she stabbed her neck with the knife and let the body fall to the floor. Blood spurting wildly out of the child's body. And before I could react, the sound of a bullet pierced my ears and I was knocked back, falling in slow motion as the room crumbled around me.

            I fell, and fell, and fell.

            "You have no idea who I am,"Death's voice slipped into my mind like a velvet rumble. "You have no idea what I've been through. What I can do to you. What I will do to you. You silly little girl, you can't save the one's you love when they're already dead."

            I was free-falling, staring up at a stormy sky that had a gaping, black hole at the center, where lightning struck around it and clouds spun around like a vortex. I was wearing a yellow dress, which was oddly untouched by the air around me as I fell. I was calm. I reached my arms outwards towards the clouds as if someone would grasp them, but nobody ever did.

            I turned over, spreading my arms out, facing the dark, menacing, and endless seam of ocean water below. I was gaining on it. Feet away, inches... I closed my eyes as I crashed through the freezing cold water, spiraling deeper into the ocean's belly. Like a cyclone, the water spiraled around me, cocooning my body in a tight prison, suspended in-between the surface of the ocean and the bottom.

            Underneath the black surface, the water was a bright, clear blue.

            A large body crashed through the water at an awkward angle, dark red ribbons of blood and bubbles surrounding their massive frame. They were almost immediately wrapped in a cyclone of water, just as I had been before, except this time, the cyclone was black and much larger and frightening, and it was forcing its prey rapidly towards the bottom of the ocean.

            Something bad was going to happen. I reached outwards, stretching towards the surface of the water, as if someone would grasp my hands and free me from the ocean.

                I had this particular dream many times. This one seemed... different....

            Massive black feathers the size of my forearm floated in front of my vision. I tried to reach out towards them, but my hand went right through each one, and the feathers sank deeper and deeper into the water until they disappeared all together.

            A muffled scream from the inexplicable cyclone met my ears. My gaze switched to the black cyclone beneath me, and the prisoner's arms shot out of the cocoon before they reached the bottom of the ocean. They had bulky, muscular arms -- different from the arms that were usually enveloped with beautiful, yet haunting obsidian colored markings in the other dreams. These arms were bare. All at once, the prisoner viciously exited the cyclone, rocketing towards me like a shark, using their powerful arms and legs to eat up the distance between us. There was shadowy that fell over his face, too thick for me to process anything about him except his lean physique, and torn, odd clothing. The cyclone of water seemed to reach for the man's feet as he raced towards me, but he was swimming too inhumanly fast it to catch up to him.

            Then the facade shattered, the shadow around his face escaped into the water, and I could now see who was plummeting towards me. He was dressed flawlessly as usual in black slacks and a tight long-sleeved button-up shirt that clung wetly to the muscles in his arms and chest. The dress shirt was folded up, and I couldn't help but be drawn to the veins that were exposed on his bare forearms, especially the ropy veins that snaked from the top of each of his large hands to his wrist bones. His hair, which was once a mix of blonde an brown, was a monotone color of brown, matching his milk chocolate eyes. 

            David hooked a strong arm around my waist, bringing us both towards the surface of the water, but before we reached the shell of the ocean, the cyclone beneath us latched onto his leg and we slowed down. The darkness crawled up David's body with giant black claws, he visibly strained to escape it.

            We didn't have to breathe. We were escaping. We had to be free.

            This time, I was doing the saving.

            David and I locked eyes, and I knew right then and there what he was going to do next. He let go of me, pushing me up to the surface, and let the shadows consume him, covering his mouth and nose, suffocating him.

            I couldn't leave him.

            David's head went sharply back in the water like he had been punched hard in the face. His eyes shut, unconscious. I gripped his body, yanking him hard away from the darkness. The black shadows reached towards me then repelled backwards like two of the same sides of a magnet. I kicked out, struggling to bring David's heavy frame towards the surface of the water. It was like he was a cataleptic, stiff and fixed in the same position. I stared at his still, paling features, helplessly tugging him through the thick water.

            That was when flashed in front of me. I was seeing them from another's eyes. Death's. The memory I had almost accessed from him. There was a man. He was at my feet, laying on his side, convulsing. His hair was longish and brown and soaked with sweat and blood. I looked at David's hair, flowing in the water, and suddenly, it was leaving streaks of blood behind as I yanked him towards the surface. He wore some sort of ancient armor, and a sword was buried deep in the center of his chest. Blood. Blood was all in the water now, pouring out of the man's chest. David was too heavy to bring to the surface, so, in a last resort, I ripped open his shirt, and to my utter horror, gold armor lay on his wide chest.

            The black cyclone came towards us like a rocket, vacuuming David and I in it, bringing us into another world. There was an endless amount of black and silence. Then, there was a uproar cheering and sunlight. My back hit compacted dirt, the hooves of a horse startling me. I could feel the humidity in the air, thick and moist. There was an awful smell of alcohol and horse manure. The sound of metal clashing against metal.

            I stood up to my feet, smaller than ever. I was in some sort of arena and thousands upon thousands of people stood in the stands around me. I was way out of my time period by the way everyone was dressed, and, well, the fact that I was clearly in the middle of some sort of fight to the death.

            I looked down at my hands. They were a man's and were covered in blood. This was it. I had to kill this man. Then, it would all be over. This was it...

            My head whipped to the side, finding two men standing a bit uncomfortably at the center of the arena like they didn't quite know what was going on. They both had on a Roman military helmet covering most of his head, face and hair, and one of them had an identical chest piece David's that had been under his button down. Iron panels were arranged horizontally on their bodies, overlapping downwards, surrounding their torsos in two separate halves, then fastened at the front and back with brass hooks and leather laces. The sword in their hands looked heavy and glistened wetly in the scorching sun from the sweat dripping off of their tanned arms.

            One of the men was barefoot and significantly larger than the other, with raw, crimson wounds and scars wrapped around their ankles and wrists, like shackles had been recently around them. I figured he was some sort of slave.

            The crowd was going wild now, but neither of the men were making a move towards one another. When the stalling continued, a man with black hair and military attire stepped onto the stone wall. I instantly recognized the man as Malphas, the Raven Demon, by his warrior braids and the fact that he looked the same exact way that he did in the modern age. Malphas shouted something malicious at the man with the slave in a foreign language, then jabbed his finger in the direction of the slave's opponent. The slave's helmet shook left and right in a silent, rejected 'no', and the crowd exploded with unhappiness.

            "ADORIOR!"Malphas roared. Charge.

            A gate lifted into the arena and in came two wild jaguars the color of midnight. The two armored men stiffened, falling into a defense position. The animals circled the arena at full sprint, clawing at the walls, howling in misery, earning heckles from the crowd. People threw food at the poor animal, aggravating it further. Growling, the starving feline beasts finally began to stalk closer towards the two armored men, their heads lowering, ears flattening, as if they was about to charge at their next meal.

            The slave with the raw circles around his ankles and wrists waited until the last second to bring up his sword, cutting the head right off of the first jaguar in an explosion of thick ruby liquid and fur. The second cat lifted its attention away from the opponent and bolted towards the slave. The man had no time to react as the animal attacked him, knocking him to the ground, claws digging into the flesh of his shoulders and ripping apart thick tendons. The slave held open the animals jaws with his bare hands, bleeding profusely, his helmet protecting him from the jaguar's nearing fangs. The opponent, who had seemed in somewhat of a daze up to that point, now hurried to the wrestling match and speared the animal right in the heart with his sword, shoving the lifeless thing to the side and helping the bloodied slave up to his feet.

            The crowd booed.

            Malphas leapt over the stone wall, military clothes shifting over his powerful muscles as he neared the two men. Rage didn't even come close to his expression, it was so cold and empty.

            The two opponents stared at each other from under the shadows their helmets casted over their faces. Out of breath, blood dripping all over the dirt, the slave reached out and clasped a crimson hand on the man's shoulder like they were old friends.

            Maybe they were.

            Suddenly, Malphas reached the two rivals in a storm of rage and immorality and shoved the slave away from the other man, kicking him hard to the ground, drawing his sword and holding it at the slave's throat. Malphas spat foreign words at the slave, jabbing his finger once again at the other opponent, who silently watched the entire exchange. When the slave was unresponsive to Malphas' words, the Raven Demon began to kick the poor man so hard in the side that I winced with every crushing blow.

            That was about when all hell broke loose.

            The opponent, with the chest piece I had seen in Death's memories, lunged towards Malphas, saving the slave from Malphas by heaving his entire weight into the demon's arm until he dropped his sword. The crowd went louder than ever, stomping their feet in the stands and clapping.

            Malphas' eyes went wild with pure wrath.

            The slave quickly rolled gingerly onto his soon to be bruised stomach and stumbled onto his feet. Malphas had the opponent on the ground and was thrashing him raw by the time the slave reached them. The demon picked up the opponent by the armor and held him up in front of the slave, ripping the opponents helmet off and gripping him from behind by the throat.

            A small wheeze of air left my body. The opponent was David Star. No, not David Star. Someone else. But he looked identical to him in every single way. How had I not seen that before? Manipulation? It was David Star who had been in Death's memories, on the ground with a sword through his chest and blood caked in his brown hair. I had seen something Death hadn't wanted me to see, so he made sure I didn't see the rest of it. He  made sure nothing clicked. And now I knew the rest of what was going to happen. The slave was going to kill the identical man to David Star.

            The slave?

            I looked down at my clean, soft hands, recalling the large, calloused hands that I had seen in Death's memories. They had been covered in blood and were definitely Death's. I knew the size of his hands, even if they were always covered with gloves.

            My eyes fell on the slave with raw ankles and wrists. He was heaving hard, his body swaying forward and then back as he looked at Malphas' wicked gaze from under his helmet. Malphas was holding the man who was identical to David out like a present for the slave to kill, and the slave was, abnormally enough, appearing to want that kill. The slave charged at the opponent with his sword drawn. I knew exactly what was going to happen next and couldn't bear to look, so turned sharply away. A wet crunch and a groan of pain brought the arena to an uproar once again.

            Oh my god.

            I shut my eyes, willing myself to escape the arena. This explained everything, but at the same time, it didn't explain anything at all. That man, whoever he was, who looked identical to David, had been killed by Death. The soul behind David Star's face was long gone, and now, a monster wore his skin like a visage, a thin layer over pure evil. This was sick.

            Death was sick.

            "I prefer extremely masochistic with Antisocial Personality Disorder," Death whispered huskily at my ear. Now I was back in the all white room, standing in front of a blank canvas with the heat of a muscular body flat against my spine and big leather gloved hands tightly wrapped around my waist. "Now paint. Paint me like one of those French girls, cupcake. I want to see my pretty eyes."

            "Get off of me!" I squirmed against him, but he tightened his thick arms around me like a cage and squeezed like an anaconda. "You lied to me! You lied to me! That memory back there proved it!"

            "Why cupcake, whatever do you mean?" Death nuzzled my neck with his face, his hood brushing against me cheek, stubble and many cold piercings brushing against my skin. "I would never lie to my little pookie-bear, or expose my pookie-bear to a destructive memory of the past..."

            "Shut up! Just shut up! You're not funny! This is all a game to you. You think you can put me in one of these stupid dreams and mess with my mind, and you'll drive me so crazy that'll I'll slip up and willingly sign your contract. I know exactly what you're trying to do."

            He tightened his hands on me, lowering his voice to some strange degree that sounded almost melodic. "This is real." Just like that, I believed him without delay like I was his brainwashed little toy. He patronized me with a tone that was so cruel it brought tears to my eyes. "Maybe the world that you think is real, with Mommy and Daddy, and bestie Marcy, is the fake world. Or maybe you're just crazy and nothing is real to you..."

            "I'm not... crazy," I breathed out, but deep down, I wasn't so sure what was real and what was not. "You knew, that I knew, what you knew, that I knew, so you made up some crap story about Carrion-whatever angels, who, by the way, probably don't even freaking exist--"

            "Let me get this straight." Death seduced my neck with the slight brush of his lips. "You knew-knew, what I knew-knew-knew? So I knew-knew-knew?" He snickered. "Whatever you say, crazy-pants."

            Losing my self-control, I thrashed against his embrace. "I'M GOING TO TEAR YOUR STUPID SHADOWY FACE OFF AND THROW IT TO ALASKA! I KNOW YOU ARE DAVID STAR! YOU KNOW YOU ARE DAVID STAR! WE BOTH KNOW YOU ARE DAVID FREAKING STAR!!!!"

            "That was intense." Death shivered against me. "And hot. I love it when you're all delusional and angry like this. Keep this up, and maybe you'll make me forget that you were a bad girl before I made you fall asleep. Maybe I won't keep you in this dream for hours and hours and hours. Doesn't that sound fun? Hours?"

             I stilled. "You're punishing me," I said. "That's why you'll never admit your David and you've been screwing with my feelings because you're punishing me. This is you punishing me for tuning in on your damn memories. You're stupid, piece of shit memories that I don't want anything to do with! But you showed me the rest of it anyways. Do you think I want any of this crazy power crap that's going on? Cause I don't! I don't want anything to do with this prophecy, redeeming crap that suddenly involve in."

            At some point, Death had stepped away from me.

            Now I was blisteringly mad. "Oh, walk away, why don't you? Walk away from your problem. Me. You think I can control what happened?! Do you honestly think that was my fault that we kissed? That I wanted to know anything about a psychopath's past? That I care? Do you really think I cared, and that's why you showed me the rest of the memory? Instead of talking to me about it, like a civilized person, you hid from me! You vanished! Poof! And you know what--?"

            "Shut your fucking mouth." Death gripped me by the throat, lifting me off the ground so that my face was level with his shadowy one. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head, he was squeezing me so tightly. "I wasn't really punishing you by doing this, moron. That's for another time. I just wanted to see if the warlock gave you any valuable information about you and I. Now, I know he did, and I can slice the rest of it out of him.  You know why I'll do that instead of just squeeze it out of you? Because I can. And if I wanted you to sign my contract right now, you would. And if I wanted you to kneel between my legs for the rest of your pathetic mortal life, you would. I'm just having fun making you crack apart into little pieces, princess."

             I could sense Death grinning as I just stared at his empty face in shock.

            "TTYL. You have about four days until you're mine. Four days of fun now, just for mouthing off to me. Believe me, Mean Girls has nothing on this. I push people in front of buses out of sport. You want hell? I'll give you fucking hell in a stylish cloak."

             Death dropped me harshly to the ground, and as my dream shattered to a million pieces, he growled in my ear, "And if you press those precious little magical lips of yours against another man's ever again, I'll leave their p3nis in a picnic basket outside your bedroom window."

            I woke up curled in a tight ball with Ace, Thomas, and the intimidating woman, Trixie, hovering over me.

            "Told you she wasn't dead. Pay up," Trixie said.

            Ace and Thomas reluctantly took cash out of their wallets and slapped it into her hand.

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