Rheostat

41.End of a fairytale

It's only a bad dream.

It will all be over when I wake up.

I just need to endure it a little longer.

I repeated the words Noah would often tell me when he found me crying in a corner because of Diego.

"It's real only if you believe it is." He would say to me before running away to follow Diego.

Back then, I never understood what he meant.

Even if I convinced myself it was a dream the pain would still be there serving as a reminder that this was very much real.

Being delusional wouldn't change the reality.

"You choose," Azazel whispered next to my ear. "Do you want to live or die?"

"I want to live."

Azazel smiled, "You know what to do, tesoro."

I knew.

But I didn't want to.

I raised my trembling hands higher, the gun held in them pointed towards the girl before me who had mirrored my actions.

I had never seen this girl before in my life. She was older than me. Maybe the same age as Kai would be now. But I knew she was just another innocent victim like me. She didn't deserve to die.

And neither could I bring myself to kill her.

But I also knew the consequences that would follow if one of us didn't drop dead in the next five minutes.

I had by my own eyes witnessed them carry two dead bodies before me. One of Norah and the other unknown to me.

Apparently, they were given the same choice. But both of them had refused to kill the other and now they were both dead.

I didn't want a repeat of that.

I had always thought death would be easier than living. For days in the basement with Azazel, I begged him to kill me.

But now that I was given the opportunity, I didn't want to die.

I wanted to see Kai again.

"I'm rooting for you, Aylin." Azazel encouraged. All I wanted right now was to turn around and shoot him in the head instead.

But the men inside the room who had their rifles pointed in our direction, waiting for us to make one wrong move, kept me frozen in my place.

"I'm sorry." I heard the girl opposite to me mutter. And from the sound of it she really was sorry.

'Shoot her, Lili!' My hold on the gun tightened as a foreign voice rang inside my head.

Even though the girl opposite to me looked determined to save herself she still didn't shoot.

'Do it, Lili.' the voice inside my head became louder, filtering out all the other noises in my surroundings.

But I didn't want to listen to this vile sounding voice.

'Do it!'

I saw the girl lowering her gun, the fight leaving her eyes as she refused to play this sick game any longer.

She gave me a soft smile as understanding flickered in her eyes.

Or maybe it was all in my imagination.