My Husband

My Husband
Emilia's POV

“My Duchess, you are awake,” someone cried beside me. I looked to my side to see a maid standing just beside my bed, her hands covering her mouth, eyes sharpened with excitement.
“You are awake, my Duchess. Finally, another screamed by the other side of the bed, her eyes stretched wide over her head, which was tilted back, suspended in extreme shock.
“You are eventually awake, my Duchess.” They both screamed again.
I inhaled and exhaled hard to relieve myself of my panting. But just before I could ask them what was going on, they bolted out of the room, like their legs were wheels screaming at the top of their lungs as they ran out of the room, their shoes stomping down the hallway, their voices reverberating back into the room to me in sharp, discordant parts.
I dragged my eyes from the door and stared down at myself, checking out my arms and my body. I was no longer wearing the jeans and silk blouse I had left the real world with. Around me was another of those flashy Duchy dresses, but this was fancier. The chest area had dark pearls sewn into it, and the collar was all fur. And my skin… I gasped, fine tremors splitting me as I stared at it. It was pale, very pale, almost like I’d been sick.
It was then the maid's words hit me. They’d been screaming about me coming awake. Perhaps I had just been sick in this world and didn't just disappear like the last time. I was still looking at myself when the door snapped open with a massive bang that terrified the room. It screamed.
I looked up fast, and our eyes collided. He held the doorknob tight as he stood in the doorway for a moment, his fingers too tight, making the doorknob squeal in pain.
I had been thinking when I’d finally met him again, I’d be screaming, running fast to throw myself into him, but I just sat here, unable to move even a limb up to him.
My eyes burned hotter now, but I didn't dare blink to chase back the tears. I let them drop, let them stain my cheeks, and cover my eyes with a watery veil. I should never have left. I should never have. The man staring at me with eyes hooded and body frozen in shock, as he leaned against the door, looked nothing like the man I loved. He looked nothing like my devastatingly handsome husband—the man before me now was a ghost of the man I loved.
His hair was thick and dirty over his head, and his jaw was packed with an equally dirty and unkempt beard that consumed not just his jaw but the whole of his chin and cheeks. His velvet shirt was worn from the back and was dirty, soiled with soup stains. His beard and hair wore bread crumbs like he grew them.
“Sebastian. I am sorry.” I muttered gently. “I shouldn't have left. I shouldn’t…”
I expected him to speak, expected him to say something, but he just stared blankly at me, saying nothing, his eyes fixed on me. It took more than a minute for me to know his mind was blank again, recognizing that blank, lost look hidden behind the shock in his eyes.
“Sebastian!” I called, dropping fast from the bed and moving toward him. He dropped the door then and charged at me instead, his fingers folded almost like claws to catch my neck.
I slumped against the end of the bed, slightly missing the wooden frame as I dodged his grab.
I grabbed my chest as the breath I had held for that brief moment suddenly crashed down against my lungs, rising to lie on the bed as I caught my breath.
I’d thought he’d stop for me, but he just continued on, charging on in that same motion as he had come for me, until he crashed against the wall.
He did a pivot then, and when he turned back, his eyes were more blank than before and sparked not of life but extreme madness. His hands dropped then to his sides, and he began pacing about, scratching his hair very hard, while simultaneously biting his fingers until they bled and muttering strings of nonsense to himself. “...That's not her. She's gone. She left me. She’s gone….” Those were the only intelligible things I could make out from the nonsense he was saying.
My heart sank as I watched him, and the pain in my chest tightened harder, squeezing out the whole of my insides. He was worse now, terribly worse, so bad that he didn't even recognize me—recognize his wife, the woman he loves.
I tried to move from the bed and reach for him, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to. My limbs shook, cold tremors drilling through me as I watched him. What if he strangles me again? What if the madness in him has eaten so deep into his mind that I can't get to him? My brain kept repeating those suppositional questions.
I was terrified, but I had to try. I had to bring him back again. I had to get through to him before he was completely lost in himself. I blew huge puffs of hair, exhaling hard too to force some courage into myself. My body felt heavy as I dropped carefully from the bed. I could almost hear my soundless footsteps as I ambled slowly to him, my heart going on a rampage in my chest, drowning out every sound from my ears.
My hands shook as I reached to grab his wrist as he paced. My heart stilled, and I started, my whole body freezing as my fingers finally latched on his wrist.
He stopped, and he turned to me, his incoherent mumblings dying to a whisper. Then he just stared blankly at me, his eyes lost, unmoving. My heart resumed its tantrums beneath my chest as I looked to his other hand. It wasn't moving to grab my throat. I sighed then, heavily, and that lightened the chaos in my chest a little.
I moved closer to him, planting myself just a few inches from him. It was then the sordid smell slammed against my nostrils. I doubt he’s had a bath in weeks. He definitely hadn't. I had to squish my nose tight to survive the smell from him.
The smell was a challenge, but I didn't let it stop me. I guided his hand to my waist, letting him grab it, and I leaned on my toes, grabbing his head, and I kissed him as much as the heavy beard he now carried could allow.
I was about to pull away when his eyes suddenly snapped with life. “Emilia.” He murmured.
His grip tightened against my waist. He slammed me hard against his broad body, and he latched back to my lips as if his life depended on it, sucking hungrily at my lips.
“You are back, Emilia. You are back, wife.” He murmured against my lips, licking and sucking harder at my lips.
I held tight to him, moaning to his kisses, but then the smell slammed against my chest again. And I remembered, he smelled worse than a week-old carcass, and I pushed him away from me.