The Ritual Two

The Ritual Two
Sophia POV

As soon as I opened my eyes, I found myself in a gigantic space, so vast that I couldn't fully comprehend its size. It was as if I were an astronaut seeing the Earth from afar.

I realized that as my mind adapted to this new dimension, things began to make sense. Walls of clay appeared, along with various doors and stairs. Many of the doors were already broken, with some pieces still hanging, but many parts had fallen to the floor where the door should have been. I also noticed broken chains.

I walked to the nearest door and looked through the space where the door should have been. I noticed green smoke filling the room. I shivered, understanding what it meant—each door represented a creature I should have had, but which was now taken by the Mother of Monsters.

My heart tightened as I looked around and saw so many broken doors, so many shattered chains, each representing a part of my soul that had been taken. Sadness began to set in, as many creatures would never see the light of day again, knowing I was the last of my kind. My knees wanted to give in, making me fall to my knees, but I fought against that urge, as crying now would serve no purpose.

"Some would say you have no heart..." I heard a voice behind me and turned around.

In front of me stood a woman with platinum hair, a heart-shaped face, and intensely green eyes that glistened as tears ran down her delicate face.

"Naomi..." Her name escaped my lips like a prophecy I didn't yet know was good or bad.

"You..." Naomi couldn't finish her sentence before falling to her knees, her sobs echoing through these walls like the song of a sad bird, expressing all the pain and suffering her soul carried.

It was as if the weight of this place and all these deaths had fallen on her delicate shoulders and was now being released in the form of lament. Once again, I felt the urge to kneel, but I only sighed. There were so many things I could say to help ease Naomi's burden, but words would be like wind in a storm, useless against the devastation she felt.

I know Naomi is a part of me, but it's a part that needs to accept that the past cannot be changed, that we can only accept it and move forward. I don't know how much time passed until Naomi's pain subsided.

Only after her sobs stopped did I approach, crouch down, and touch her face, wiping away the wet trail her tears had left.

"I have a heart, Naomi... It just learned to bleed in silence." My voice was firm, without hesitation.

Her eyes widened at my words, perhaps finally realizing that this was no longer the same Sophia as before. I was no longer the girl who asked for permission to exist. I was a woman who had faced hell with open eyes and won.

"You are a part of me, the part that bled, that suffered, that had her innocence stolen, that begged for it to stop, that sank into depression thinking it was all her fault..." I spoke with determination, even if it meant hurting Naomi.

"Without you, I wouldn't exist, because you needed to exist for me to be born. Without what you went through, I wouldn't be the woman I am today. I wouldn't have the knowledge I've attained, and I wouldn't have found my destined ones, my mates." I completed.

Naomi stopped crying. Her expression of pain gave way to a mix of surprise and respect. She didn't say anything, but I felt it. I felt her essence, her energy, begin to calm, as if being reconnected to my soul again.

I extended my hand, and Naomi took it.

"From now on, I will not be Sophia Turner, or Naomi Blanchet..." I said.

"But something else, because I didn't die..." Naomi completed.

"And I didn't die..." I said.

A golden glow began to emanate between our hands, and I could see the green smoke trying to escape through the broken doors, but the chains that had been shattered began to rebuild.

And I smiled, as the energy helping to link the chains had a reddish hue, and Naomi and I knew that meant our destined ones were helping us and would never abandon us.

The golden light expanded, and in the distance, I heard the sound of a door opening, a new creature being born, something that would unite Naomi and Sophia. From this door, a sound echoed, as ancient as time and as beautiful as the dawn of a new day. It was a sound that didn't belong to this world but made sense within me.

The warmth subtly increased, not like fire that burns, but like the embrace of the sun at dawn, delicate and inevitable. From the center of that newly opened room, particles began to float, like small suspended ashes, dancing in the air with lightness, slowly spinning around us.

These particles were not gray, however. Each one glowed in shades of red, orange, and gold, like living embers that didn't burn but healed. It was as if each fragment brought a dormant memory, a forgotten emotion, or a promise that still needed to be fulfilled.

Naomi squeezed my hand tighter. I looked in her direction and realized that her skin seemed slightly illuminated from within, as if a silent flame burned beneath her epidermis. And then, without needing to say a word, I understood that the same was happening to me.

From the non-existent ceiling, a kind of glow began to fall. It wasn't light, but it seemed to be made of it, warm, ethereal, almost liquid. When it touched the ground, it made ancient symbols grow, as if each drop sealed a new truth about who I was becoming.

From the center of the room, a figure began to emerge. Still wrapped in shadows and embers, its silhouette was slender, elegant, and at the same time imposing. It had no face, no voice, but its presence was like a whisper in my soul:

"Reborn, but not destroyed."

And before I could understand the real meaning, the floor beneath my feet broke, like glass from an old dream, and I didn't scream, just accepted the fact as Naomi and I embraced and accepted our future, because in the end, we would no longer be us, but the new creature.