From the violet spill of light emerged the heavy thudding of footsteps. The door only peered open, illuminating but a sliver of the room in its dark purple tones. The rest of the canvas was a mystery, shrouded in shadows that not even Eden's nocturnal gaze could filter.
"D-don't come any closer!" The girl suddenly exclaimed in warning. A jolt of panic shot through her like a lightning bolt at the sound of her voice. It was unfamiliar, different in a way that she didn't recognize. Eden's eyes grew wide, trembling with alarm. "Mm?" She tested, wrapping her hands tentatively around her throat. "Mn?" She tried her voice once more. It felt lower, more mature.
"The hell're you mumbling about?" Osiris' grating voice tore through the girl's internal dilemma, shocking her back to the grimy, cimmerian room that cocooned the both of them. The man's voice was suddenly a hair away from Eden's ear, and she instinctively leapt forward, spinning back to face the foreboding silhouette in an instant. A ragged chuckle suddenly arose from the stillness of the room as Osiris lowered his head, long clawed fingers traveling down the side of her face as he sighed deeply.
"I wanted to give you everything..." The man's hands fell to his side limply, a forlorn amber light dancing about his tall form wistfully. It gradually deepened into a raging mahogany flare; growing with an intensity as the light turned to a bright flame.
"WHY WASN'T IT ENOUGH!?" Osiris roared, his hands flying out like projectiles as they shoved the girl back harshly.
Eden's frail body fell back, sliding on the cement floor of what she could only assume was a basement. Her cuffed wrists stung as metal chains dug into the thin surrounding flesh. She grunted in discomfort, wincing as she warily used her palms to leverage herself.
"YOU STAY RIGHT FUCKING THERE!" The man howled, somehow more menacingly than the first time. Eden shivered in the shadow of his rage, tucking her gaze away behind her scarlet bangs like a caged and frightened animal. Fingertips grazed her chin, then suddenly squeezed.
"Hey! Look at me when I'm talkin' to you...it's the least you can do." Osiris held Eden's face harshly in his hand, sending a disgusted glare back into her petrified cardinal orbs before letting go.
Eden wasn't sure what would be worse, remaining silent or trying to reason with the man. "I'm sorry...but I don't know what you're talking about-." She began, meekly, gasping when the man's voice bellowed over her.
"WHO the fuck do you think you're talking to, Mae?" Osiris lowered his voice to a threatening growl. The world grew immediately still, a spine-chilling reality dawning on the girl who was beginning to question her entire identity. 'Mae?' The name rang out in the confines of her mind, searching for some sort of correlation. Why did that name sound so familiar?
"Mae...ve?" Eden slowly allowed the sounds to spill down her tongue, a cascade of realization swallowing her in an instant.
Whuuak!
A sharp stinging like molten lava buzzed along the left side of the young woman's face. She laid in shock, wide-eyed and afraid to move.
"I'll call you whatever I like." Maeve heard her husband say, footsteps beginning to move about the room once more.
"This isn't like you, Cyrus." Eden felt the words spill out, a gallery of empty memories befalling her. It was disorienting, as if the controls had all suddenly become inverted.
"Just like it wasn't you who prostituted yourself out to some goddamn human..." Osiris's fuschia glare fumed brightly in the darkness that seemed to be growing thicker with every breathless moment. Eden faltered back with a start, staring in silent disbelief. 'A human...?'
YOU ARE READING
The Shadows Within Us
FantasyEden has spent her entire life outside the city slums of Hell's capital. Growing up, she had quickly learned just how different she was. Her outlandish sense of morality isolated her from the locals and her family alike. She lacked the demonic bloo...
