Baekhyun didn't know how his body would feel after waking up from a (somewhat) coma, he expected it to be a gradual progress. But it wasn't at all what he expected it to be. Coming out of his subconscious proved to be a lot more painful than he had prepared himself for.

A burning hot wave of pure agony washed over him, rendering his mind incapable of processing what was currently happening.

Everything was discarded apart from the overwhelming sense of pain that came with thousands of years worth of memories, a tunnel of darkness that seemed to go on forever without a ball of light at the end.

Baekhyun wished that the pain would end, that he would be able to overcome it after having survived far worse.

Before he was incapable of concealing his hurt, because he believed that Chanyeol wouldn't be there to help ease him out of it.

First with Jessica, he expected the wolf to remain by her side and yet when he learned of her death he found that his soulmate had spent the past couple hours trying to find him.

When he was bitten and things seemed as though they would finally end, Baekhyun expected his death to drive the final wedge between himself and the Alpha and yet he was told that the entire time he thought like this, his mate had been working on a way of saving him.

This pain was a mixture of both of these times as well as the hurt he felt after killing his parents, after realising that he would be forced to spend the rest of his life as a blood sucking vampire, the pain that came with thinking he would never be able to love again. Not with a family or a significant other. Plus the pain he felt when he learned the story of his son, and the pain that came with how tragic his previous story had ended.

This white hot ache he felt now, was even larger than all of that.

And yet Baekhyun still willed himself to push through, because he knew that his mate was at the other end. His friends, the people who he cared about. The students at Millennium High, Kihyun, Changkyun, Shownu, Wonho, Skylar, Colin, Ms. Lee. They were all waiting patiently for him to wake up.

He couldn't remain dreaming of the life he wished he lived, it was time to face the reality and although the reality was darker than a fairy-tale, it was still a magical story. One he needed to share with his child.

So with whatever strength he had left over from the mind-numbing tests he was forced to undergo, Baekhyun took a deep breath and allowed himself to feel. He felt the years of torment eat away at his mind. He felt his heart break over and over again as he loved and lost his mate. He allowed himself to experience all of his previous life's pain, finding it crashed into him like a massive wave hoping to disturb his strong foundation.

And he let it go.

He blew out a breath of air and willed all that pain away, into the universe.

He was done with it.

The past was the past and he wasn't going to let it stop him from ruling his life, the darkness had been plaguing him for a long time and it was finally time to set it free.

It's time to let go.

Eventually the dark tunnel he found himself travelling, came to an end.

But it wasn't a giant ball of light that greeted him.

Baekhyun felt his lips pull upwards as he stared at the ball of flame flickering ever so gently in a void of pure nothingness, it appeared to be waving to him.

As if welcoming an old friend home.