Death's Bitter Embrace (#Wattys2015)

Act II, Chapter XII: It's Always The Thing You Love The Most

I wake up? I wake up dazed and confused. "Why was I awake? Why didn't Death welcome me into her arms, did I not deserve to die?" I thought with confusion, it seemed I was confused all the time since those two men showed up at my house. I look next to me, Alex was there, laying on me, resting peacefully. Her chest rising and falling slightly with every breath. I remember saying those three words and hearing a bang.

"What was that bang?" I ask aloud to no-one in particular, waking Alex up as a result, disturbing her from her peaceful slumber, she looks up at me and smiles, but then her face turns from the really nice smile with tiny dimples, to a face of shock.

She was looking around frantically, looking left then right then back to left again—I couldn't work out why she was doing this. Like she woke up crazed, woke up in a state of insanity. She whispered a few words that made me realise why she was shaking her head, she was looking for something;

The Hellions.

All the Hellions had disappeared with the bright light, they had disappeared into the thin air, and then there was the bang that I heard, I wonder if Alex had heard it too? My mind keeps bringing me back to that loud continuous bang and won't let me put a finger on what it could have been.

I felt somethimg itching at the back of my mind, like something big was missing, something that meant a great deal to me. I don't know why but I became sad, emotional-sentimental even, this itching was slowly killing me, making it hard to concentrate and even harder to talk to Alex while searching 'The Nightmare Room' for all the Hellions that had disappeared into the night. Night...night? What time was it, we had lost all sense of time whilst in this room. Whilst fighting these demons, I glance at my wristwatch, it read: 10:26, we arrived at Lucifer's abode at 10:12, had it only been 14 minutes since we walked inside this Hell? Had we only been destroying those 'things' for only 6 minutes? Did I really succumb to Death that quickly? I knew the answers, yet, I still asked them.

"Hello? Dante? What's on your mind?" Alex asks curiously, a puzzled look on her face, I hadn't spoken in a while—she was getting worried. I snap out of it—whatever 'it' was, and I answer her question...with another question.

"Nothing, just thinking, did you hear a loud bang just before we passed out?" I ask oddly—on purpose, letting her know that I was struck with the utmost confusion.

"Yes." One short simple word to answer my question, was she scared? Did she know something I didn't? Why would she answer with just one word? Her face turned to a look of sympathy, sadness and sorrow again, her smile, her gracious smile faded and didn't shine through her pores anymore, all that shone through was the sorrow. It shone through more than ever before.

She knew something, she knew what that bang was and she wasn't telling me. "Why wasn't she telling me what it was?" I ask my conscious, it didn't answer, it couldn't answer—I had no answer for it, I still searched every corner of my mind for an answer, for any logical answer, but yet, to no prevail none was found.

"The bang...the bang wasn't something exploding, it was someone." Her face bleak, Alex said this with a completely monotone voice, not shaky, not panicked, but bland and lifeless. Alex was playing the pronoun game so I would have to ask who that 'someone' was. I had a feeling that it was someone whom I didn't care for, but I still asked her who it was anyway.

She points to where the Alpha once stood, on the ground their was someone—whom I cared for more than anyone in the world, She was lying on the cold hard steel floor, she was broken. She was gone, never to return again, gone to...where? Heaven? Hell? Limbo? Wherever she went, she doesn't deserve to be there, she deserves to be here, with me, in my arms, along side Alex.

She, of all people, was the one to leave me, she was the one to be taken away by him, by Lucifer, who ever took Raven away from me is the Devil, in this case it was Lucifer. He was right, betrayal did lead to victory, he destroyed me, he destroyed my soul, killing everything I loved. Everything I lived for taken away to be replaced with emptiness.

Lucifer would pay for what he had done, for who he had taken away from me, from my life. Mutiny was growing inside me, and this, this was the turning point. He had taken away Her, the one I loved;

Raven.

I no longer feel pain, no longer hurt from the pain of life, what remained was a burning hatred for Lucifer, for the Devil, he will know what it is like to feel pain, real pain, real hatred, real betrayal. He took away Raven, my one companion, the one I loved dearest. He took Her. He took Raven

Raven is gone.