Soul Master

39. Amèlie

I felt firm hands grab at my arms. Nails sunk into my skin and I felt the air leave my lungs as somebody pushed me over the edge, my body felt the force of the push and I felt as though I was somersaulting through the air before sensing myself descend quickly, giving my stomach the strange lurch of being on a ride that moves too fast and leaves your stomach behind.

'I found you.' I heard Aphador's voice screech, the feeling of her still holding my arms tightly, descending with me down the waterfall. 'Let me in.' She shouted in urgency.

I shook my head. 'I'm dead.'

Her hand slapped my face hard but the feeling of pain was lost to me. 'I am aware of that you fool.' She seethed. 'I'm here to bring you back.'

I didn't want to go back. 'No,' I said softly, 'I like it here.' My voice was peaceful, as though I was drifting off to sleep.

'The darkness will swallow you!' She shouted, over the sound of the fast approaching waterfall crashing around us, it was so loud, I wondered how I hadn't noticed before.

'Let it.' I smiled blissfully. 'I am done now.'

I felt her shake me as we tumbled endlessly. 'You don't want to be claimed by the lake of souls.' She shouted fearfully. 'You will find no peace in its depths, what you feel now is a lure baiting you to its poison.' She shook me harder. 'Stop being so stubborn.'

'I can't.' I answered, feeling the darkness consuming me more. 'I don't want to go back.'

'Asha is waiting for you.' She coaxed, failing to hide her annoyance from her voice.

I shrugged without care. He would be better off without me.

'How can you give up so easily?' She demanded. 'Breathe me in, let me heal you.'

'So you can take over me?' I asked. 'I won't be me.'

She seemed irate. 'You idiot brat, I have always been you. I am the part of you that you left behind years ago.'

'You were a witch before I ever met you.' I corrected.

'I am one of two souls,' She explained. 'Born just like you, missing the rest of who I was, I dabbled with spells and the real world, toyed with sadness and sorrow, while waiting for you, the second half of my soul.'

'No.' I whispered. 'Not true.'

'Where I am the darkness, you are the light. But we cannot be whole without accepting one another, I have waited nearly two centuries for you. I will not lose you now I have found you.' Aphador sounded like she was crying. 'Not after losing almost every piece of myself along the way.'

I ached for the first time in this world of darkness. An ache that started in my heart and I felt like I maybe knew what she meant, remembering her struggle to find her husband back when Zayne had been seeking her out to break the bond. In that memory I remembered the bad things she had done, to Penteluck, her family. 'You aren't me.' I said. 'I will never be evil like you.'

'Because you can't be,' Aphador shot back. 'How can you feel or understand me when the pieces of you that ever would, don't exist in your soul as you are now.'

'I don't want to understand you,' I replied shaply. 'I don't want to feel hate, I don't want to be cruel.'

'And you won't be, how can you expect me to be anything but darkness when you are my entire light.' She tried to reason with me. 'How could I have chosen good when all I ever knew was bad, as I awaited you, my good side.'

'Let go of me.' I shouted, as I felt a strange weight drop on me, I knew it wasn't her, this weight, it felt like gravity oppressing me.

'We are running out of time.' She wailed. 'I promise when you accept me this will be your last chance to live. Whole, strong, powerful.' She tried to entice me, 'just say yes.'

A laugh erupted around us, so evil and malicious I felt my body stir.

'Amèlie,' I felt her hands now on my face, I felt her trembling. 'Where we are descending to will be worse than what you experienced before you died. Please.' Her voice sounded urgent. And the laugh around me sent a cold chill into me.

'She's not gonna live.' A male voice cackled, his voice hot and seductive.

'Amèlie,' Aphador again. 'He is the one who consumes all, evil in disguise as seduction, please!'

'Come now,' he purred. 'I do good deeds too.' His laugh was heavy in my head. 'I have been waiting for another chance to taste the Shygurn. Shyra is ageing, I can't keep using her.'

I stared into the darkness, and for the first time I saw two feline like eyes staring back at me, the slitted pupils of someone or something lurking in the shadows.

'She is about to splash.' He chuckled excitedly, his eyes blinked and he vanished.

'No.' Aphador shouted shaking me more. 'Wake up.' I felt air collide to my skin as she began hitting me but no pain followed her assault.

Those eyes, unnatural and sinister. Waiting for me, an image of a white haired girl with one violet eye and one aqua eyes flickered into my head, and I wondered who she was. She smiled back at me and turned away, walking side by side with a pack of wolves. A purr like growl in the air around us. Feral, moody.

'Amèlie!' Aphador's shrill voice was almost a terrified scream.

'Take me home!' I shouted over her. I made the decision quickly, the way them eyes had stared upon me, the sinister coldness within them. I had felt that look before. I wasn't going to be a toy for another monster.

'Finally.' Aphador breathed in relief. I felt her hold sink into my skin. My body came to a sickening halt in its descent.

A roar of fury from the cat eyed male surrounded us.

My body convulsed. I felt myself shudder, shiver and tremble and Aphador's soul began to possess me, to claim my body and cloud my own mind as I struggled to fight for the body I was in.

She no longer had a voice, and inside me I felt as though two golf balls were clashing together, cracking and bouncing off every part of my body. I twisted and contorted in unnatural ways as the blows within me awakened a familiar feeling that I had been so blissfully avoiding in this darkness. Pain.

My stomach heaved and I felt my eyes roll, light flooding into the darkness around me as my body no longer moved neither along the river, or down to whatever had awaited me below the waterfall. I burned hot one minute and froze like ice the next. My breathing shallow, as I felt the waves of water drown me I fought back gulping hungrily for air, not able to get enough oxygen into my constricting lungs. Panic set in, I found myself flailing fighting to resist the darkness. Too reach the blinding whiteness of the light as it continued to push back the dark, until finally I felt my body drop.

I crashed hard and painfully into my body, the light and darkness fading around me to reveal a familiar pastel pink room for just a moment before my vision went blank once more toppling me into an intoxicating darkness, blinding me in its entirety. All the pain in my body returned.

I hadn't realised I had been withering in pain, screeching in fear and terror of the unknown. My body continued to convulse, my muscles ached, my broken bones protested and I wished my existence to come to closure. My body stilled, and I waited with bated breath in the darkness of a world I no longer knew.