CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(73) half in you, half in me

ZILLIAH wakes up, her heart pounding against her chest. "Easy", she hears a voice tell her but she can't recognize who that is. She can't recognize anything. She can't see for her vision is blurred. She can't feel for her hands are numb. The whole of her mind feels like a ship caught at a turbulent sea. "Zilliah, just breathe", the voice tells her again. But she can't find the air to suck in. 

"She's awake". there's another voice she can make out through the buzzing of her ears. "Inform Malfoy", it says.

Malfoy.

Draco.

The memories come flooding back to her in an instant. Supernova, Theseus, McLain and Yaxley, Lilith, Draco- everything. All the pain and all the rage come crashing down on her, making her feel like she is imploding under the weight of it.

"But he's wound up bad-"

"Just call him."

She goes in and out of consciousness. All the fatigue in her body overpowers her and she feels like she is standing in quicksand, struggling to find her way out of it.

"Zilliah", a voice calls again but she recognizes it this time. She recognizes it because it is Draco. She will recognize his voice and his breaths and his touch, even through the crumbles of her mind, even at the end of the world. "Look at me, my love", he says, his voice a feather that caresses her soul.

She blinks her eyes into focus and peers into those silver orbs that hover above her. "Draco", she croaks out, trying to lift her hand with much difficulty, to feel him, to touch him, to know he's real and not just a figment of her imagination.

"It's okay", he cracks a weak smile, pressing down on her hand to a soft surface, possibly the bed she is in right now. 

No quicksand.

She heaves a sigh of relief at that touch, her gaze lingering on his ghostly pale face. "Are you okay?', she mumbles out in question, knowing the pain and fatigue within him somehow. She doesn't recall much after Lilith took control of her body but she does remember how she had pinned Draco down onto the ground, enclosing him in a safety barrier before her power unleashed itself upon anything and everything in its vicinity. 

He brings a hand to her face, straining too hard to brush back the hairs that had fallen on her face. "I'm okay, my love", he says, in all the gentle strength he could muster. But she knows that he is lying. She knows it. "Rest for a while now."

She shakes her head in protest, not wanting to leave him in the clear vulnerable state he was in. But she had no choice but to drift off to sleep as she felt something being injected into her veins.

•

Zilliah is in utter shock as she sees Draco shirtless, the veins from his left forearm up to the side of his neck turned completely black. He keeps his eyes on the floor, his shoulders slumped in pain. "How did this even happen?", she asks.

"From the barrier", Layla answers, making Zilliah spin around to meet her eyes in pure confusion.

"What barrier?"

"The barrier you put up, Zilliah", she says with a huff. "This happened when he crossed that. Some sort of curse, I'm guessing. If you tell us what it was, we can maybe try working on an antidote."

Everything Layla is speaking seems like utter nonsense to Zilliah. "I didn't put up any curse."

"You did."

"I didn't!", Zilliah's voice pounds as she feels herself growing more agitated.

"Then how come Julien is dead because of it?!", Layla seethes back.