Darkness

Emma POV

My heart was full for Leo. He had found him a man, a person to love him the way he deserved, the person to hold him, wipe his tears away when the skies go dark and cold, the person to make him laugh. He found his true love, or as the voice of my other-self within me said – his mate. Somehow, in my heart I knew this from the first time I ever saw Cassius. Everything within me screamed family, screamed recognition, screamed belonging, and the clarity hit me - as if I could see their life before them, their love and their day unfold. When Cassius called me to get advice as to how to set up a romantic date and dinner for Leo, I was only too happy to oblige. Plus, planning a romance took me away from dark thoughts about Mr. Locke, dark doubts and fears that were currently plaguing my mind. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, as Leo suggested. I knew that life sometimes turns good people into bad ones. However, all that I have seen in the files could not be justified by such a simple statement. However, that was a story for another day, perhaps something I should think about tomorrow, I thought to myself.

I missed Leo, even though I was happy about his date – I was simply lonely, stuck in this room with my thoughts. As I was anxious, I thought about stretching out, pacing around and getting some energy out of my system. I felt weird. In fact, much more anxious than I had ever been. I wanted to think that this was because I missed my brother, or had fears about Mr. Locke, or because our whole life was turned upside down and headed in the direction I could not control. I wanted to say those things, and if I did, all of that would have been the truth. However, somehow, somewhere, deep inside me, I knew that was not the whole truth. I knew there was something else, there was something within me, woken, something I did not understand. There was almost a magic of some kind within me, something illustrious, something powerful, something I could not and did not fully grasp, but something that made me feel as if I was complete. For the very first time in my life.

“We are complete.. we are one Emma”, I heard her voice yet again, and while grateful for her support, her words simply spiked another level of anxiety. I was also burning up, I felt as if I had a fever and desperately needed water or a very, very cold batch. The fire burning within me was enveloping me, coiling itself around my insides, feeding itself on my very soul. I did not know what was happening, but soon, I felt my body ablaze – fully, even if I could not see any actual flames around me. I was still hooked up to the machine with a long cord, something Dr. Sina insisted upon it, and while I did not see any obvious changes, as the fire burned within me, something started beeping incessantly, piercing the silence of the room.

Celia rushed in followed quickly by a couple of nurses I had known, and my ever-present, ever-gentle, ever-amazingly supportive and kind Dr. Sina. “Emma, what must be the matter??? How do you feel child?”, he asked, his face furrowing with obvious concern. I was struggling to talk, the fire burning within me, cutting off my ability to think almost… “I…… Doctor……… I … “I tried to speak in a broken voice and almost lost my step. I was getting dizzy.. Stars dancing in front of my eyes… I heard him give orders in a muffled sound, Celia calling somebody, a rush of footsteps and a general sense of emergency… I was present, watching it, yet not able to see it.. It almost felt as if I had stepped out of my own body, as if I were a ghost of my former self watching things in slow motion. “Emma…. Listen to me… I need you to stay with me…. Nod if you can hear me”, I heard Dr. Sina’s steady instructions. Something was pulling me, pulling me into a hollow, some place I did not recognize, yet strangely was not afraid of.

“EMMA!!! HEAR ME!!! MY VOICE… I NEED YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO MY VOICE”, Dr. Sina now yelled, and best as I tried, I could not respond. My throat was dry, parched in fact and words were not coming out. I was here, seeing things as if an daze, but really not here.. “She is about to shift…” I heard somebody say, followed by “the room is too small”… “she will burn up”…. “Her mind is not stable, we need to be careful.. she needs to be guided..” “this is not the way… she will hurt herself”…. All the sounds and echoes of words that somehow got strung into sentences that in reality did not make any sense, yet somehow I understood them. I did not even know or could discern for sure if they were talking about me, but something told me they did. The voices seemed here, yet far away…

The room was spinning, and I was struggling to stand. I could tell Celia was behind me, and that the nurses were watching me with laser focus, speaking something I did not hear, chanting in fact. “EMMA…. EMMAAAAAA!”, I heard a scream but laced with authority of some kind, authority I recognized, but could not place. The voice was familiar, soothing in fact, and my other self nudged me and responded to it quickly, somehow seeking that voice, bee-lining for it… “EMMAAAA… EMMAAAA… MY BABY…. EMMAAAA… WAKE UP DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!” the voice spoke and I for sure thought I was hallucinating at that point. The voice was not that of my mother and I never knew my father anyway. So, while it appeared to shake me temporarily from whatever haze I found myself in, I was sure it was some type of illusion, a dream of some kind I was sure to wake up from any minute now, or so I thought.

Slowly, somehow, I started cascading into the hollow, and I felt in the present that my knees were weaker, my eyes now completely blurry, the voices behind me fading. Everything was fading, yet I felt a fire, an ever-lasting, non-faltering, non-extinguishable kind of a fire burning from the depths of the hollow ground I was falling into. It was pulling me, its heat burning but not searing me, its power pulsating and vibrating something within me, something that responded in kind, something which got in tune with the flames of the fire I was about to fall into. I had seen its gold and amber speckless, the tips of the flames, yet when my skin touched them, they simply felt familial. They did not burn me, or harm me… “INJECT HER NOW!!!!” I heard the roar of the velvety familiar voice, a roar that shook the walls of the hollow I was falling into, nearly extinguishing the flames of the fire nestling on the ground. I felt the cold needle in my neck and then everything was obliterated.. completely.. into the darkness.