Hellbound - 001/Henry Creel/Peter Ballard

019

Henry Creel.

This girl will certainly be the death of me, her stubbornness and her moral correctness have gotten us in more trouble countless times.

I chase her down the dimly lit halls, her feet leaving behind bloodied footprints as the wounds that I tried so hard to heal reopen with each step.

I shouldn't have told her. I should have come up with a good lie and avoided this whole situation.

"Eve please stop!" I call out but she doesn't listen, as always.

I don't know how she's managing to run this fast while injured. I must have upset her, I must have triggered some switch in her badly.

I thought that she was becoming more and more desensitized by death and murder, as much as anyone can be at least. She has seen too much by now, she has faced a good part of the cold, hard and unforgiving reality and I thought that she was ready for the real world. 

But she isn't it turns out. She still doesn't understand what it means to survive in a world that just wants to kill you, she doesn't understand that I had to make some sacrifices and do things that I'm not proud of.

I had two choices, kill or be killed, and in this world, in this cruel and ruthless world that seems to hate us, I had only one plausible choice. I gave up my soul, I tainted my hands red, and I stripped myself of any innocence and childhood happiness left in me.

I did this for a better future, and yet Eve still thinks that I'm a monster. I did this for her, for the life she deserves.

I did this so that we could have a better future, and yet Eve still thinks that I'm some cruel monster that has no regard for human life. I did this for her, for the life that she deserves and she's barely thankful for it. I did this to save her, and now she's running away from me, to the real monster that wants to kill her instead of killing to save her. 

"Eve!" I shout again, knowing what she will face in a few steps.

I knew that I shouldn't have brought her here, I knew that bringing her here would trigger old memories. It would just backtrack us. But I did because if I didn't she would lay dead now on the forest floor of the other world.

She rounds the corner to another corridor, and I know what she will face there. A corpse. The body of a victim that I killed.

When she finally does she freezes in place like a marble statue. Not a muscle moves in her body. She's horrified, I can tell from the widened eyes and the slightly open mouth. She looks disgusted, disgusted by the consequences of my actions. She stares at the bloodied and now rotting flesh of a staff member, but there is concentration written all over her face.

Her right palm forms a fist, and I can feel the energy humming around her, the energy I'm too familiar with. I can't sense her controlling anything though, it seems that whatever she may be doing is happening inside of her.

No.

I shake her shoulders, I try to pull her out of it. I scream her name, again and again, urging her to break out of the spell. But she remains focused on her task.

I try to combat her power with mine, I try to fight her back from her own body, I try to save her from herself but it seems like she's pushing me away.

There is a blockade I can't get past, she built a wall, so that I couldn't interrupt before she was done. She knew I was going to try and stop her, of course, she did. She knew that I wouldn't let her go, not without a fight. 

Her face turns purple from the absence of oxygen in her organism. She's going to crush her lungs to nothing but ashes and I'm going to sit here, idly by, and watch her kill herself. 

Her right hand flies up to her throat, clutching it by instinct at the lack of air in her lungs, but her left hand still forms a fist. There is a fight in her, the part of her that wants to survive is fighting, but her will is stronger than that. 

A tear escapes from my eye as I try with all my might to find a grasp on her lungs and throw her off control, even if it is for just a second.

"Eve darling please don't do this." I beg her, hoping that she can hear me.

Her eyes shut, and it's as if she's already gone as if she's dead but she's still breathing, she's still there but a breath away from death.

"I love you." She barely whispers, but I don't let those words go by unheard.

If it was any other circumstance I would be 10 shades of joyful and I would have grasped her body and held her in my arms for as long as humanly possible. I would be grinning ear to ear. I would be ecstatic. I love her, I love her so much. I've loved her for so long that the thought of not loving her seems wrong. I've wanted to hear those words spoken from her mouth for so long. It was all I ever dreamed of. All I have ever wanted.

Now, it feels wrong. I wish that she hadn't said it. It was more of a goodbye than a proclamation, they were her final words, my final memory of her.

Perhaps she wanted to die and confess, she didn't want her soul to be any more weighted over than it already is.

I want her to tell me that she loathes me, I want her to take those words back. I want her to hate me for the rest of eternity, I want her to never glance at me again. I would rather her not be mine than be dead.

I break into sobs, merciful sobs that tear me apart inch by inch, hearing the echoes of my father's voice tell me that real men don't cry.

I guess I'm not a real man, I guess I must not be human at all because the scream that I let out is one of a wild animal. I shut out my father speaking in my ear, I shut out everything because Eve has told me that she loves me, but Eve is now laying unconscious in my arms, and I'm afraid that she's already dead.

"No Eve no." I grab onto the back of her head and pull her towards my chest.

I'm on the ground, heaving, my tears creating a pool around us and the dried blood filling my peripheral vision with maroon.

This is not our end, we can't end like this.

Eve was supposed to live a long and happy life. It didn't have to be with me necessarily. I just wanted her to live.

"Please come back, darling." I form a fist and delve deep into her body, trying to find her lungs and pump air into them.

There is not a wall this time. Eve is not blocking me, or she's far too powerless to block me.

"I love you, Eve. Come back. Hate me all you want, kill me if you want, just come back." I plead to her unconscious body as if she can hear me.

"I'll do anything. I'll raise the dead from their graves for you to come back to me."

My tears drop down her cheeks, making her look as if she's crying.

My powers continue to pump her lungs, but there seems to be no difference. 

I scream at the ceiling with all my might, I cry out like a wounded animal. The walls crack, and the lights flicker dangerously and explode. 

Everywhere is chaos, everything is chaos, just like my life without Eve.