Within Temptation

Eleven (I Walk into the Fire)

Ben's eyes widen as he takes in his surroundings. Euphoria's lobby is white, the beams are golden it looks exactly like the inside of a palace. Yumi waits for him with her arms crossed over her chest. He can't recall a time he ever saw her in a truly good mood. He walks towards her his footsteps echoing in the open room. What was this place? The atmosphere is peaceful, the longer he remains the more at ease he becomes.

"Where are we?" He asks.

"Have you ever had a morning where you wake up fully refreshed? Like you just had the best night's sleep of your life?" She raises an eyebrow. He nods, he hadn't experienced it in quite some time. A byproduct of working on the album. He was surprised that he was dreaming at all.

"This is Euphoria, a place of peace and tranquility. It is a neutral ground where Enforcers and Supernaturals meet." She explains.

Ben's eyes widen, there had to be some misunderstanding. The supernatural didn't exist, there was no way they could be real. The look on Yumi's face conveyed she was not joking. He walked with her down the hall entering a sitting room. There was a pint awaiting him on the table. He wasn't going to complain. Lord knows he needed one after the day he had.

"I need you to take this."

Yumi held a vial out to him. He didn't think twice about taking it. If being poisoned by his wife's best friend was how he went out then he accepted his fate. He downed it doubling over in pain, memories crashed into him like a tidal wave. There were flashes of a wedding ceremony, Corinne with lavender skin staring at him with jet-black eyes. His focus shifted to Andy, the evil glint in his eyes. Andy tells him that Cori belongs to him. He suddenly feels sick. On cue, Yumi hands him a rubbish bin. He empties the contents of his stomach inside. The pint on the table suddenly looks unappealing.

"What the Hell was that Yumi?" He demands.

"Didn't you tell me that you were willing to do whatever it takes to protect your family?" She smirks at him. "Are we having second thoughts?"

"How can I have second thoughts when I don't have a clue as to what I saw?" He stands up, and a wave of dizziness crashes into him as he collapses back into his chair.

"Do you remember the week Cori had those extremely vivid dreams?" She asks.

"I do, it's hard to forget. It was the same week she told me about her and Danny." He flinches at the memory.

"Those dreams were not really dreams, Ben. There is a world that exists beyond the one we spend our day-to-day lives in." She explains. "This is the world of the supernatural; vampires, werewolves, Incubus, and other creatures use it as their hunting grounds."

Ben allows the words to sink in. He believed in ghosts and there were some occurrences where he believed in angels and demons. In the case of Corinne, he believed the Fates brought the two of them together. He paused, remembering the rules Yumi had spoken to them before their face-off against Andy.

"I asked for my memories to be erased. Why did you give them back? Isn't that against the rules?"

"Technically, yes but we've got ourselves a problem. The demons brought Andy back into the fold." Yumi sighs heavily.

His body tenses, she doesn't have to say anything more. If Andy was an Incubus, then it meant he'd be gunning for his wife. He had to learn how to fight, to protect Corinne and Orion from the darkness that threatened to consume them.

"I want to learn how to protect them." He puts up a hand. "No, I need to learn how to protect them."

"This is not going to be easy, Ben. Becoming an Enforcer? We haven't taken new recruits in centuries." She stands.