When Stars Collide

Chapter 34- Shadows and Smoke - Ioannis

Why did no one tell me how much glass bullets would hurt? I grimace when my eyes finally flutter open and I look around the room, confused as to where I landed myself in. I can distantly hear a flurry of voices arguing and it’s only until I spot the picture frame with me and Meena at a christmas party that I remember everything that happened.

Like an unwanted memory, everything slams into me. I remember the fight with Scampers, Skylar and Freya’s ribbon and the bullet I took for her. I try to speak, but a wheezing cough comes out instead and when Z runs into the room with Leo, somehow that seems to shock me more than the fact that I’m still alive. When the shadows pull me under, I just let them do their thing.

I’m falling and I don’t even know why. As my eyes close again, my heart starts racing, the panic that I might not wake up again making me want to scream. But as the shadows whisper their thoughts, I feel my consciousness drifting and when my eyes fly open… I’m not in the bedroom with them anymore. I’m back in the spirit realm. Or a semblance of it.

The ghosts look at me warily and the black fog surrounding me seems to thin out and when a man with blue eyes in a dark blue cape walks toward me, I start running. He seems to have control over me because as he pulls me back with his fingers, the magic allows him to drag me back. I start to scream when the spirits get closer and he grabs my arm, unleashing his own scythe to fight the spirits who are hungry for my soul. They get closer to him and when he taps his scythe three times, we disappear again and end up in a new room. When I look up and look at him, he lets go and sighs.

“Skylar should have a better control of her souls,” he says simply and I look at his tall figure and the dark throne room. I gulp and look at him.

“Are you.. Him?” I ask him hesitantly. One thing was to be dragged by spirits because they want you to die. Another thing was to be summoned by the devil himself and to be dragged here for goddess knows what.

“Goddess, no. If my father were here, you’d be roasting on the fireplace. Skylar and him don’t get along. I’m the Harbinger,” he extends his hand, and out of habit, I shake his hand.

“Not afraid of death are we now, Ioannis?” he asks me and I glance at him warily.

“Am I dead?”

“What do you think? Obviously, no.” he snaps at me and the fire in the fireplace seems to roar more with his emotions. He sits down on the throne chair and his scythe rests on one of the armrests of the chair. The lights in the throne room grow dim and he looks at me.

“You know the language of the spirits and you’re still alive,” he states and I nod.

“I probably won’t live much either because of it,” I huff out and I stare at the room and shiver. I was at death’s doorstep and realizing the magnitude of that caused me to stumble. He snaps and a chair appears nearby him.

“Sit. We have some things to talk about,”

“Do I have to?”

“Does it look like you have a choice?” he gestures to the throne room and I shake my head, sinking onto the chair he offered.

“Why am I here, Harbinger? Because I’m sure we’re not here to discuss my death and how I’ll die. And we probably won’t sit down and have tea either,” I snap at him and he starts laughing.

“Wow. A defiant one was something I never expected. No, we won’t talk about your death because you’re still here and I hate tea,” he muses out and summons a smaller demon to bring him a cup of coffee. The demon itself has small wings and the dark red body looks more muscular than me, making me envy it for a second. Yeah, just a second because a red body would be pretty ugly too.