Darling in the Dark: A Melizabeth Fanfiction

Chapter 18: Self Exploration

Her face tickled from silver strands of hair, whipping in the breeze. 

She was floating, held aloft in the winds as her wings caught the wind, moving her forward towards something that was horrifying to witness.

Sapphire eyes widening with disbelief, Elizabeth took in the horrible sight before her.

A great host of heavenly beings descended upon a rampant, screaming mob of Demons, the cries of humans sounding from both ranks. Flashes of bright light came from the Goddesses and Angels, disintegrating demons and humans alike in their wake as they met the earth in explosive nova's of power.

With snarls and roars of fury, the Demons let loose swaths of black flame, ingulfing the Goddesses and Angels as they screamed, their bodies falling to the earth with their blackened feathers trembling down earthward with them.

Fury shook the heavenly ranks, and both the Demons and Goddesses readied more displays of power, more blood, and more sacrifices. Some Demons formed wings and slaughtered the Angels with their claws and swords; many Goddesses charged forward with lances and spears that ran through and purified the demons, sometimes sending both to crash against the lands beneath them.

In the midst of  this chaos and horror, the desperate hollers and moans of humans were heard from either side, with some being disintegrated in the flashes of light, and others obliterated under the burden of the hellish flames. Brother was against brother, family against family as the terrible slaughter continued.

Elizabeth's hands shot to her face to cover her mouth out of reflexive horror at the bloody sight, tremors of nausea sweeping over her when a familiar yet distant figure appeared within the midst of the blood and slaughter, their silver hair a ribbon of light within the darkness.

Darting in and out of the midst of calamity and death moved a figure bathed in red, golden eyes shining with bloody determination. Demons faded to ash beneath her touch, weapons were broken at the beat of her wings, and thousands of humans screamed as light from her fingertips destroyed them.

Slowly, the tide shifted into the heavenly beings favor, and eventually the Demons retreated in the face of the silver and red entity, four wings set afire with heavenly glory as she watched their retreat.

The figure wiped blood from her face, and finally Elizabeth could understand who it was when the cheers of the winning forces smothered her.

"Bloody Ellie! Bloody Ellie! Bloody Ellie!"

It was herself.

Horror overwhelmed her at the thought of the countless lives her hand had taken within just this battle, of the blood that marred her very soul in a past she could not even remember. 

How could this be? 

Had her upbringing this time changed her so much?

What could have ever compelled her to be... to be like her mother, to be a...

Murderer, somewhere inside her whispered, and she flinched as the truth settled over her, a veil that cloaked the world in a hellish nightmare. 

Now she understood Lord Azrael's words of how receiving her wings could be more painful than losing them—seeing herself like this, like her mother, was a far worse torment than the physical pain associated with losing or regaining them.

Shaking, Elizabeth began to turn away, only to feel a whoosh of wind pass her, and surprised, her eyes sprang open before widening again.

The other Elizabeth—Bloody Ellie—flew past her, destination unknown. Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief at not having to gaze at her other self—until a tug at her navel sent her throttling towards the same direction Bloody Ellie went.

"W-wait! No, let me go!" Elizabeth cried out, anguished at the thought that she could be forced to watch yet another blood bath at the hands of someone who both was and was not her. However, she was but a shadow and a thought, a ghost of the future tethered to the past; no one could hear her desperation nor her cries, not even herself.

On the verge of panic, she closed her eyes as the world flew past, and she willed herself to disappear, to escape this place.

'I-I've changed my mind. I don't want to know, I-I don't want to see this! I...'

'...'

'But... I want to return to Meliodas... I want... I want to have this child...'

Battling within her were two sides—the child who was afraid of everything within this world, and the stronger, more brave woman she was learning to become.

The child held itself close, shivering and shuddering and chattering as if she was facing Death itself in the face and was too scared to move; the woman stood calmly over her young, five year old self, at the girl who had been killed and replaced with a coward after that time with her mother.

'I-I'm scared... Mama will, Mama's gonna kill me! I-I just know it, s-so, I sh-should stay he-here and not see a-anything...' the child blubbered and whimpered, too scared to do anything aside from remain blissfully empty, to grow up. 

The woman her eyes while Elizabeth opened her own to gaze at her past self she had yet to know, at the one heralded as "Bloody Ellie".

'No, I can't decisively say that she—I was like my mother; knowing me, there had to be a good reason; I just have to find exactly why the past me was like this.'

Narrowing her eyes, she began to observe the other her more closely, to approach her.

Meanwhile, the woman approached the child calmly, lovingly, her arms open and secure—arms that she used to wrap around and comfort the terrified child. Rocking her back and forth, the woman hummed a lullaby while the shaking of the child slowly lessened.

When the shudders and the hiccups of tears slowed, she leaned in and whispered in the child's ear a promise that she child had never heard before.

Steadily approaching her other self, Elizabeth's eyes widened and brow tightened as she saw something in the other Ellie that she should have, but had failed to notice when considering her past self.

'I'm going to protect you know, okay? Your mother isn't going to hurt you every again.'

The child peeked up at the woman, eyes wide and broken, innocent and hopeful.

'R-Really? Mama... Mama isn't going to hurt me anymore? Y-You're gonna protect me... y-you promise?'

Smiling sweetly, she woman held her younger self closer before whispering words she wished she heard whenever her mother abused her.

'Yeah, I promise.'

Bloody Ellie, the 'murderer', was crying.