Chapter 94: Ninety-five

Hope

I could sense everything and nothing at the same time. I could hear everything and nothing. I could feel everything and nothing. All this without opening my eyes.

As I finally pried my eyes open, I saw a little crack on the ceiling above my head. I have been living in this chamber for months, but this was my first time seeing this crack.

Every single morning when I woke up and looked at this ceiling, I have never seen the crack before. Where did it come from?

I turned my head around. I could hear thousands of footsteps from outside. I felt like I could hear the footsteps of people outside the castle as well.

My entire body felt light, as I thought I could rise up and fly. At the same it was hard for me to lift my body up. But once I managed to do just that, I realized something.

"I should be dead." I said out loud.

I looked down to my stomach. I was wearing a blue night dress. I rolled it up to check my stomach, and there was no mark of the stab wound that Light had designed on my belly.

I couldn't even feel the slightest pain. How could that be possible??

Light had stabbed me with the Morati knife. She had looked at me and smiled. All that happened that night surely hadn't been a dream. It couldn't be.

As I was trying to wrap my head around the situation, I heard loud and quick footsteps. It sounded as though the person was heading straight to this room. I couldn't explain how I knew that.

The door to the room opened up and Darius stepped in. His eyes widened as he took me in.

"Hope... You're awake..." Darius spoke as though he was in a trance, frozen to the spot he was standing on.

"Darius. There's something wrong." I said in urgency.

With those words, Darius quickly jerked into action as he rushed towards me.

"You're awake. Are you feeling any discomfort? Is your body too heavy? What are you craving now? Water? I'll get you water." Darius moved to reach for a glass, but I stopped him.

"What are you doing? What happened to the rebels? Light?" I questioned with an anxious tone, scared to even hear the answers I would receive from Darius.

Darius bowed his head solemnly. My hands squeezed the sheets at my sides. Something was wrong. And I couldn't tell what it was.

Darius was still alive. We were still in the castle, so what was happening? How did things turn out after Light stabbed me with the Morati knife?

"What happened? Why are you silent? What did she do?" My voice went an octave higher and held an edge of anxiety mixed with desperacy.

"The child... Our child is gone." Darius said quietly. Without waiting for me to say anything, he continued to speak.

"All the conditions for the usage of the Morati knife were met. There was no saving the child. So I had to choose you."

"Choose me? What do you mean by that?" My heart started to beat fast.

"You were human. Being stabbed by the Morati knife could instantly kill a royal Lycan, not to talk of a normal human. I had to... I had to save you." Darius spoke one by one, slow enough for each word to sink into my head before he said the next one.

He had to save me. Save me how? What way did he save me?

'I had to do it.'

Darius didn't say these words out loud. I heard them inside my head. This was what I understand to be mind linking. But how come? How could I...

"You made me like you."

Reality suddenly dawned on me. Darius continued to bow his head.

"I know that you wouldn't have wanted this, yet I did it. I couldn't bear to lose you. Not when I just had you. Not now, not ever. I couldn't bear to do such a thing." Darius reached to touch me but I slapped his hand away on reflex.

"You should've have let me die instead. How could you do such a thing to me? Why couldn't you have let me to die?! Why did you make this way?!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Darius continued to apologize nonstop.

His apologies went through one of my ears and left through the other. My entire life... Everything seemed not to make any sense to me again.

The child was truly dead and I was a Lycan now. How had things escalated to this point?

"Light..." I suddenly said, Darius paused raining apologies. "Where is she?"

"In the dungeon. By the time I arrived, she had already bled herself unconscious. Though still alive, she doesn't have much time to live. Her injury to the head is too severe." Darius explained.

My heart hardened. How could Light do all these things and end up killing herself at the end? Her goal, the things she did, what was the point now? She must have surely not succeeded in what she set out to do, but she made her sure to drag me down with her and ruin everything.

I didn't know that I was already crying until I felt a cold hand against my cheek, wiping away a tear.

Darius' face was up against mine as he said, "I'm sorry that things turned out this way. I had hoped... I had hoped that things would be better. I had hoped for peace to reign, but before that would happen, every Lycan would have to pay the price."

"It's not your fault..." I said slowly.

The blame could be put on the ancestors long before us. The ones who had made mistakes and decided to punish their descendants for it.

I could only hope that from now on, there would be true peace.