Exile || Sebastian Sallow

8 | The First Pause

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"I'm scared
I've never fallen
from quite this high."
- Billie Eilish

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8 | The First Pause

Belle's Perspective

My heartbeat drummed so loud in my chest that everything else around me turned mute, the ground spinning beneath where I sprawled.

The girl in front of me, who swam in her own crimson puddle that pooled out of her slit throat, looked so young, frozen in a helpless state, all innocence taken away.

My throat had gone raw from the scream I'd let out, but no more sound came out of me after. Just uneven breaths, coming out in quick small pants. I couldn't even bring myself to get up off the floor and away from the hot, thick blood seeping into my trousers. My hands were sticky with it, and my sweater streaked.

I wanted to run, but it felt like my body weighed a ton and I couldn't be bothered to move myself. Ancient magic surged inside my body from the building emotion in me, yet I could do nothing to stop it.

Because suddenly, the dead girl in front of me transformed into someone I knew. Her face morphed from stranger to an uncanny familiarity that it froze me in my spot. And for the longest time, I'd convinced myself it was my fault.

I couldn't unsee it. I couldn't turn away from it.

"Run, Belle! Don't look back, run!"

The desperate scream echoed over and over again in my head, the slap of my small bare feet against the rough pavement and the cold biting into my torn, bloody skin. My youth was nothing short of its horrors.

Footsteps sounded behind me, startling me. For a moment, I was convinced I was back in the past. When I was ten.

Still, my eyes stayed glued to the young girl, my deadly ancient magic daring to burst out of me.

The surroundings blurred around me, ringing and echoing in my ears. Someone called my name, someone inside that mansion, then the courtyard...

"Go, Belle! Run!"

I blinked, my surroundings morphing into the present.

I was back at Hogwarts. I was back in the library.

Sebastian. 

He had been the one to call me. No one else.

And somehow, he was enough to tamper down the building ancient magic inside my skin. Such powerful magic that had been fighting me for over a year since I hadn't used it.