you're incredibly wicked

36: waxing crescent in aquarius

"Nikolai? What is going on?"

"If only I could tell you without making you seem like a horrible person."

"Nikolai? You're scaring me. What is happening? I want to go back to my roommates, to my normal academy life. I don't want to be stuck in this... intensive care forever."

"You won't be. We just have to figure this out."

"What out?"

"This.... demon inside your body. Devil's Flu doesn't get as intense as your case did."

Serena held onto his hand in the bed. Nikolai pulled strings to stay with her day and night. Letting everybody know that she was doing fine but had suffered some injuries, causing her to take a hiatus from the academy. He went along with her secretly. For now, they were outside the academy, in a village named Blagoslovlini where an intensive care unit was located.

"Demon?"

"What do you last remember before you ran away on the night of the exam?"

Serena started to cry and sighed to hold it in.

"I just remember my body losing control. My head was doing one thing but my body was doing another. No matter how many times I tried to stop myself, it felt useless. All I could see was myself living outside my body. Watching myself do things I never normally would do."

"You had no control of yourself, was it? Had this ever happened to you before?"

Serena nodded.

"Yes. It happened quite a bit in heaven. Everybody thought I was just an impulsive child. But, it wasn't that. It was like I was running away from something, and it escalated from there."

"What were you running away from?" Nikolai's worry increased by a ton.

Serena by then couldn't contain the tears and could barely get herself to spit the words out.

"Everything." She whispered.

Nikolai felt her pain and wanted to kiss her to make it go away. But, he knew that this wasn't the case.

"It was just..... that I never felt like I belonged as an angel. No matter what I did, I would mess up and make everybody get upset at me because I couldn't do a simple task. At times, the expectations of becoming the next heir of heaven were weighing down on me and..... I was even contemplating planning my own angelic sacrifice. Everything was getting to my head easier than the average person's... but...."

Serena sobbed as waterfalls of tears cascaded down her cheeks. Nikolai almost felt himself cry for her, seeing her upset made his heart break.

"If that happened, then..... no. I wasn't allowed to die. I never knew where to go, but at one point I thought that the place to go to get my head straight was to hell. And, one day I went to hell to deliever a person to the gates.. and I met this demon. We were inseparable for about a year and our relationship escalated, yet there was no more than a kiss."

Serena broke down again.

Nikolai was speechless.

"But, they harmed me in ways that I cannot bring myself to express in words. And, my family found out about us and what they did to me."

She took a breath.

"Contrary to popular belief, heaven and hell do get along, we are just bound by a contract that keeps our realms distant and civil. Many people in hell are actually misunderstood souls that made the wrong decisions and were aware. But, some people are naturally born evil. You can't change that."

"Serena..."

"You can just say that I'm an name that you would call a horrible person. I can take it."

"Serena, no that's not the case at all. You were young, you didn't know better. There were things that you were dealing with in your life that you never could properly cope with, and you coped in ways that never could be undone."

"There were more scars on my body from them, mainly on my back. Hell had to get involved and execute the demon. After that, I was thrown into an intensive care unit for a year. Which is why these kinds of places freak me out. I spent too much time in them. Doctors, therapists, medications, everything about these places sends a shiver down my spine."

Nikolai held Serena's hand to let her know that he was never going to leave her side.

"It was a secret that only my family knew about, but there were depths that only I knew about. Never told a soul about. Dark times, times where I felt like a fucking idiot for letting this happen to myself. There are sides to me too that make my personality seem like a facade."

She chuckled softly.

"And I truly thought that I could suffer in silence alone for the rest of my days. But, I met you."

Her head turned to Nikolai.

"Who knew how much of an impact you'd have on me in such a short time? How you flipped my world around and made me thristy. For more. Not only you, but for living again. I'm the happiest I've ever been."

The smile that she had for a while faded while she went back to staring at the intensive care's ceiling.

"But, I guess now I'm back at square one, staring at a ceiling of an intensive care."

Suddenly, she felt a pang inside her body, causing a sudden throb and causing her eyes to be shut before a red glow emitted over them.

"Serena?"

Her head cocked back to him and the tears flew down once more while her eyes were flashing between red and blue.

"Nikolai please, save yourself...."

"NO!"

Serena's eyes shut for a second until they turned red once more, Nikolai recoiled back up.

"So, this is how you want to play, is it?"

"I just want the old Serena back. What are you doing to her?"

Serena moaned teasengly.

"Oh, Nikolai. This has been me all along."

"That's a lie and we both know it!"

"It seems that you don't know me truly now, do you? What a disappointment for you being my soulmate. And, you should know everything about eveverybody."

Nikolai readied his wand.

"I will not hesitate, for you to reveal your true form."

"I'll let this go, on one condition."

"Anything."

"Take me out of this place, please."

At that one line, Serena's eyes glimmered the blue that they always had, and he lowered his wand.

"Fine, I will let the nurses know immediately."

"Thank you."

"Of course."

Nikolai left and shut the door.

"I just hope this is the right choice."