inferno | 18+

XXXII

"Loving you was the most
exquisite form of self destruction."
- d.j

DEVINA

I wake up to the smell of eggs. It takes a minute for my eyes to register where I am and when they do they widen. I know where I am and I should be panicking but I'm not. For some strange reason I feel a feeling of comfort.

I slip out of the soft bed, letting my feet meet the soft rug. I'm wearing a soft t-shirt with a pair of soft boxers on. My hair smells newly washed. I walk toward the door and wrap my hand around the doorknob. I'm met with Max, his tail wagging. He jumps up on my chest and I let him, returning his kisses.

When he finally jumps down, I walk toward the heavenly smell that's coming from a plate on the kitchen island. There's eggs on it. I take a seat and start eating, trying my best not to roll my eyes at the taste. It tastes like a dream. I gulp down the glass of orange juice, and follow the sweet music coming from what backyard.

I open the doors, seeing the sight of a forest. And then I see him. My smile grows so big, it hurts my cheeks. He sees me, and puts his guitar down before holding his arms open. Something in my body is telling me to be wary, to not trust him, but my body defies me, as I sprint toward him right into his arms.

He lifts me from the grass and spins me before taking my lips with his own. I wrap my legs around his torso, letting his scent fill my nostrils. I pull back from the kiss, and rest my head in the crook of his neck dragging the moment out as much as possible and he lets me.

He plants kisses on my hair and it feels like I'm in heaven.

"I love you, angel," he whispers, and I ignite by his words. Everything is so soft.

Clear!

I pull my head back and look at him in confusion but he simply takes my lips again, kissing all the worry away. It's such a hot day today- the sun is out, the forest green with the new leaves on it.

We're losing her!

Clear!

I pull back from Zakaria again, but this time he doesn't seem very admandt on kissing me.

"What's going on?" I ask him.

"They're trying to take you away from me," he whispers down at me. "Stay with me here, where everything is better, angel. Everything is so soft, so hot, so nice. Stay."

I shake my head, not understanding. "Where's all that yelling coming from?" I question him.

He cups my face, looking so deep into my eyes drawing the sound out. "I love you Devina. Is that not enough?"

"Of course it's enough!" I gasp. "It's everything I've ever wanted...for you to love me, the way I love you-"

"Then stay! Stay here with me, where everything is better, my dear," he pleads, but I begin to shake my head. Something isn't right.

"But everything isn't better." It's all coming back to me, like bits of a flashback. "You tried to murder me...you...you put me in the asylum...you gave me paralytics, you-"

"All of that was before! Don't you understand? I can love you here! I will never hurt you here. Stay with me, baby, please!"

Come on, Devina wake up!

Clear!

I back away from him, looking around. Everything is slowly decaying. The grass is turning grey. The sky is filling with rainy clouds.

"What's happening? Where am I?"

But he doesn't reply. I watch as he slowly becomes nothing more than a fog. He dissolves right before my eyes. Tears prick my eyes.

"Clear!"

I gasp looking around me. People are crowding me. A man is standing with a defibrillator in his hands. He looks like he wants to fall to his knees, and thank God. I take everything around me. The black walls, the black floor, the long mirror. I move my finger, and to my surprise it moves. I try to wiggle my toes, and they wiggle.

"What happened?" My eyes widen at the sound of my own voice.

There are nurses here. Some I recognise from when I was the one working, and not locked up.

"Your heart stopped," someone tells me. "You were out for six minutes. One more and we wouldn't have been able to bring you back."

I look around in the room, my throat sore. I'm so thirsty. I've lost any sense of time and place, until it all comes back to me. Hearing is the last sense that stays right before you die, which is why I could hear the doctors trying to revive me.

Tears prick my eyes when I remember where I went in those six minutes. I look up, and search the room for his face, but he isn't here. He left me to die, the same place his brothers left him. The nurses seem to gather the tension, and they slowly leave the room, leaving me and the doctor alone. I think he's a doctor.

"Why am I here?" I manage to ask.

"We have reason to believe you're on the schizophrenia spectrum and in danger to yourself- and those around you," he explains to me calmly and I can't help but smile at this. This moment right here is worth gold.

I look up at the ceiling. He did it. He finally got the revenge he craved for every since he met me. Everything that happened in my seven-minutes-of-heaven were all dreams. Fantasies. None of it was real. But this? This is very real.

"Did Mr. Christ tell you that?" I ask him, my tone ice.

"He did bring you to us, yes, after you tried to kill him."

My eyes grow twice their original size. After I what? I'm about to yell at him despite my sore throat, but then remember all the cameras Zakaria had in my manor. All the evidence he could have tampered with, to make me look like an absolute maniac. To make me look like a bloodthirsty murderer. A big sigh escapes my lips. I look at the doctor and I catch a glimpse of sympathy in his eyes.

Realisation hits me, and tears start breaking me in half. The doctor finally leaves the room and I catch my own reflection in the mirror. The long mirror. The mirror with a room behind it.

"I'm sorry," I cry at it. At whoever is standing on the other side. "I'm so sorry. I just wanted to help my friend. Please, let me go. Please," I beg and cry until my voice is so hoarse until my fingers are shaking until my head is a pounding mess until I feel my eyes drape shut from the pure exhaustion.

Darkness takes over me until the only thing in my head is an echoing sound of a clock.

Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok Tik Tok.

That's the funny thing about time. It may always seem in your favour until you're lying dead in a bed for something you wish you could take back. It may always seem in your favour until you wish you could scroll back in it and redo everything. Until you're in a safe haven away from things that are not your business.

I lost my favour in time the second I met Zakaria Christ.