NP: The Words by Christina Perri

All of the steps that led me to you

And all of the hell I had to walk through

But I won't trade a day

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Everything felt light; my head, my feet. Even the sounds were muted as if I was under water. The world warped around me. My mouth tasted like strawberries, which was impossible since I had been allergic to strawberries since forever.

I treaded the hallways, following the colors that danced around me. They brought me to an arched window. The colors swirled together into a bright incandescent light. From it, stepped a ghostly figure of Rosario.

I leaned over the ledge to get a closer look. "You're not real, are you?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "Just accept it, Aramis."

"What?"

"Just accept that it's too late for you," she scoffed. "You're officially too FUBAR even by immortal standards and you know it. Vincent's going to waste his time going on a wild goose chase just so he could find a—" she quoted with her fingers "—cure for you. We both know it's pointless."

"You're not real," I murmured to myself. "None of this is."

Snickering, she hopped into the window and sat on the ledge. "Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, you know I'm right."

When she tried to touch my face, her luminescent hand just passed through me.

I wobbled away from her reach. "J-just... go away!"

"You wanted my advice?" With mock sympathy, she folded her arms in front of her. "Well here's one. Just take a dive already, stupid. You're doomed anyway. The more you delay the inevitable, the more you're dragging Vincent down with you."

"I... know that," I answered meekly. "But how can I help him if I'm dead?"

"You're helping just by being dead, Aramis," she said matter-of-factly. "Master Vladimir needs Vincent. Whose funeral do you think he would rather have? Yours or his beloved brother's?" She tapped me on the shoulder only for her fingers to disappear into me. "Acceptance, Aramis. Acceptance."

I thought about it. It was amazing how easy the decision came. "Alright."

With a nod of approval, Rosario vanished. "Good talk." Her voice lingered within the walls of the castle.

I walked aimlessly. My legs seemed to know where I was going, but my brain didn't. All I knew was that I had to something and now. I found myself taking the abandoned hallways to the dungeons.

Automatically, I went inside the laboratory. Any other day, I would rather die all over again than go back to this hell, but at the time I didn't feel anything. The voice at the back of my head told me none of this was real. This was just a dream. But every fiber of my being ached to run off screaming.

The shattered glass crunched under my boots. As soon as my eyes had adjusted to the lack of lighting, I went to a pile of broken tanks, skirting the half-dead Millie clones crawling on the floor.

I quickly spotted a Helcium shard big enough to use as a dagger. I picked it up and tightened my fingers around it. Blood trickled down from my hands as the sharp edges bit into my palms. The pain made my nape crawl, but I unblinkingly positioned the pointed end toward my throat and pulled.

The shard barely dug into the skin over my throat before it was knocked off my grip. To my surprise, I was being hauled away from the broken tanks by a pair of strong arms.

As the fact that I was in Hector's lab began to finally sink in, I started screaming my head off. "No! Don't lock me up!!!"

"It's okay." It was Alexis' silky voice. "It's only me."

"Please, no!!!" I kicked as hard as I could.

"Sshhh..." he hushed. "No one is going to hurt you, Aramis."

I stopped fighting back and looked at him. His eyes glowed in the dark, uncannily mesmerizing in ways I couldn't explain.

Quickly, I stumbled out of the laboratory. I sagged in the hallway, catching my breath. My teeth were rattling as I tried to muffle the whimpers with no success. I couldn't seem to focus. I kept looking around just to make sure I wasn't inside one of those tanks again. I embraced my legs until my knuckles turned white to keep them from shaking. The blood from my palms trickled down my legs.

Alexis hunkered down in front of me, setting his laptop on the floor. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket, tore it into two and wrapped them around my hands.

"Look at me," he said, flashing a light on my eyes. His forehead puckered as he put down his phone. "What were you trying to do, Aramis?"

"I... I don't know."

"Come on," he urged, leaning closer to meet my eyes. "It's just depressive-junkie-old-me. I won't judge."

He didn't need to ask twice. Without further thought, I rambled on up to the very last agonizing detail. It felt weird. Sharing wasn't something I usually do, even with Vincent. But with him, it was like being high on truth serum.

"I don't know what's real and what's not anymore," I murmured to my knees. "I'm losing my mind."

"Are you on drugs? I mean... while you were in the vat, did Hector drug you?"

"No. But... Millie was slipping SirenSoul in my water to help me with the... t-tests." I winced as the memories of the experiments came rushing back.

Alexis drummed his fingers on his laptop. "Wait here."

He went back into the lab. I risked a peek from the sill and saw him head straight for the main consoles. Somehow, he managed to turn it back on before plugging his laptop in. Never ending gibberish and numbers flashed on the giant monitor. I cringed back into the hallway the minute he started smashing every working computer in sight. Soon, he came out, his face grim. He helped me to my feet and led me out of the dungeons.

"I downloaded all the data from Hector's database," said he, looking both ways as if to decide which turn to take. "His RAM's deleted. Motherboard's wrecked. Hopefully, he wouldn't retrieve anything useful."

We took a dark corridor. He opened the first door we saw and pushed me inside, making sure we weren't followed before he came in.

It was some sort of a study room, more like a mini library. Dust covered most of the shelves. The musty air told me it hadn't been used for a while.

Alexis cleared a table and started to work with his laptop. His eyes were focused now. The noise of his fingers tapping on the keys was somehow calming. I pretended to scan the shelves. Instead of a book, I found an old picture frame. I wiped off the dust with my sleeves and saw a smiling redhead with the blackest eyes I had ever seen.

I was startled to find Alexis standing right behind me. He reached over and took the picture. Carefully, he replaced it on the shelf.

"That's Sasha," he said, looking at me from the corner of his eyes. He went back in front of his laptop. "What do you remember when you were in Hector's lab?"

"Not much. Once the SirenSoul kicked in, that is."

He looked around again, searching for the nonexistent intruder. "Alessandra... If I'm right, that's the name of your soul."

I began to nod. "How—"

Frantically, he began motioning with his arms, seemingly unable to translate his thoughts to words. "That name was all over Hector's files. I... haven't cracked everything yet. Unluckily for us, m-my brother is more paranoid than me. His security is excellent."

"So give him a trophy," I muttered. "What about Alessandra?"

"Has she been trying to... possess you lately?"

"Now that I think about it, no. Last time she was up, she walked me right into Hector's lab. She hasn't surfaced since."

He scowled at the screen. "Are you sure?"

Closing my eyes, I let my consciousness drift deep within me to the darkest parts, but I couldn't find Alessandra or her cave.

"Weird," I said. "But yeah. I can't even feel her presence anymore."

Suddenly preoccupied, the Seventh went back in front of his laptop. He began typing feverishly, his brows pulling together.

"She's gone... for good, right?" I asked him.

He spent another minute in the zone. "Hopefully, no."

"What do you mean?" Impatiently, I pushed the monitor down. "Talk to me, Alex. If she's not gone, then why do I keep h-hearing voices and... seeing things?"

Letting out a deep breath, he looked at me. "It looks like you're having symptoms of SirenSoul withdrawal."

I lifted a brow. "Oh."

He shook his head. "Clearly, you don't see the gravity of your condition. D-do you know what SirenSoul is made of? It's the pure concentrated essence of Strays. In other words untainted souls. Have you ever noticed how they are virtually catatonic? B-because that's what SirenSoul does to you. It makes you numb, apathetic while you ride rainbows or, or play golf on the moon inside your head." He tapped his temple with a finger. "With prolonged, uninhibited use—I would wager my own brother—you wouldn't even bat an eyelid if a pack of wolves are chewing on your innards. That's why it was banned in the first place."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, you're one messed up girl, Aramis." He returned his gazed toward the computer. "You're hallucinating. And it's just the beginning, b-believe me. Soon, you'll need the stuff like you need air. It will be torture."

"Geez," I groaned. "Don't sugarcoat it, Alex."

He began squeezing his hands. "I'm just trying to prepare you for the inevitable. Even if you survive this, you'll never be the same. T-take it from someone who knows."

"You got jacked up too, huh?" I muttered. "After Sasha died?"

He nodded.

"Sorry."

Another nod.

"So this thing about Alessandra going MIA?" I said just to change the topic. As a general rule, my pain's always easier to talk about than others'. "If she's not gone-gone, what else is wrong with me?"

"Try to remember, Aramis."

"Sure thing." I held a finger up. "Evoking severely traumatic memories that will scar me for life. Still evoking... Almost there. No. Not happening."

"Then, I'm afraid to break it to you," he breathed out. "It seems as though you're soul is in what we can call hibernation."

"And that's bad how?"

Alex picked up an old book and tore a page from it. "Let's picture this as your soul. Alessandra. Now while you're in Hector's lab, this is what he did to Alessandra." He crumpled it, tore it to pieces and threw it in the air.

I swallowed. "So what you're saying is, my soul was jammed into a paper shredder to make confetti?"

"Basically, yes. My... theory is that it's trying to recover from the injuries Hector had inflicted. It has weakened to a point where it's just about d-dead. And when a soul dies, you know what happens."

"So? How do we fix me? Rehab? Some kind of soul glue?"

He grazed the back of his neck. "I'll... get back to you on that."

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Hi! It's me again. Next update's gonna be in a few days so don't go away! So for the last poll, I asked ya pipz: If you're gonna be a familiar, whose familiar are you going to be and why. And the winners are *drum roll* Alexis--basically cuz he's hot and dreamy-- and Vlad --cuz he's the reasonable and adorable one. If I was gunna answer, I'd say... Kyoshiro. Lol. He's just... laid back, doesn't have anger issues, not a control freak, not a psycho, doesn't wanna kill his brothers, has no taste for torture and drugs, low maintenance and most importantly, he lives in Japan!