How to Survive Your 19th Life [BL]

Chapter 67: Hopeless

I awoke that night sitting completely upright. My arms and legs couldn't move and I couldn't speak. If not for the discomfort from my neck and arms, I would have taken this for sleep paralysis. I raised my head, but it lobbed from one shoulder to the other.

"Are you awake?" a muffled voice said.

Through my parting eyelids, I saw three blurry figures in front of me—one on the floor, one seated, and one standing. As my vision clears, my heartrate quickens from the shock of what was before me. I was in my apartment, tied to a chair in my living room. Finn was unconscious or dead on the floor. Emiel was standing beside Henri, who was tied up in a chair across from me. A quick look down at my own body, and I saw that I was tied up too.

Deep red gouges pockmarked Henri's body, from his legs to his torso. His head drooped forward; chin tucked into his chest. Blood soaked his clothes.

"H-Hen..." I said hoarsely. Tears stung my eyes. Trembles spread across my entire body, starting at my shoulders and moving down to my finger and toes.

He didn't respond. Panic truly set in. Emiel stood beside him, holding a bloodied knife.

"I tried to save him for when you woke up," Emiel said with a sigh, motioning his chin towards Henri's corpse. "He wouldn't shut up, so I had to do him in early. All that planning for nothing..."

"Chicken," I cried breathlessly. I leaned forward in my constraints, trying to get a glimpse of his face. "Chicken please don't be dead." Bile rushed to my mouth and spewed it out all over my lap. My throat burned.

I turned to Emiel, saying, "You didn't have to kill him."

"Of course I did," Emiel said matter-of-factly. "I have been trying to get you to open up to me for weeks and your ex comes along, and you are talking more than you ever have."

"I told him I hate him," I snapped. I couldn't hold in my tears. They spilled along my cheeks and trailed to my jawline.

"Exactly!" Emiel pointed the knife at me. "You were shouting at him, running... You're emoting Solomon. All I ever get is that stale expression of yours. If doesn't matter if we're fucking or sleeping. Same face. I am glad you threw away that keycard, Sol. Otherwise I would have needed to wait for him to come out of the hotel to grab him."

Laughter echoed up from my stomach, mixing with my sob. "You're so fucking selfish, Emiel. You can't just fucking break up with me like a normal person."

"Of course not."

"Of course not," I repeated, more to myself than to him.

Emiel came over to me and knelt. His expression was sorrowful, but empathetically so. It was as if he felt pity for me being so dense, rather than being a victim of his cruelty. "You're mine, Solomon. Everything about you belongs to me. Your feelings, dreams, goals, past, present, future. Your life is mine."

"You're insane," I cried, laughing still. "You'll never be satisfied."

"How could I be satisfied?" he suddenly snapped, rushing at me until his face was mere millimeters from mine. "You're so boring, Solomon. You love me and suddenly you're drained of life!"

"Even if I were happy, you'd still do this."

He scoffed. "And how did you know that? Have we played this game before?"

"Of course we have."

"With poor Henri here?" Emiel asked.

"With you," I snarled. "I wish I never met you." Emiel reeled back as though I slapped him.

Emiel cried when he killed me last. He pleaded and cried. My heart stung at the memory. I wasn't sure why that came back to me now.

I gazed at Henri's dead body. Tariq died in one of the past lives as well, now Henri. I knew he would live again, memoryless, after I looped back, but that gave me little comfort. The fact that he had to suffer and die at all was horrible.

These lives had all of these moving parts and I failed at keeping the pieces together. What was worse than my own death was the death of someone I cared about. What if I found a way to live but Henri died instead?

"It's better for me to just die," I murmured, switching my eyes to Emiel's. "Kill me, Em. Just get it over with."

Emiel's mouth opened, then closed. His lips pressed together, hard, and he nodded.

He slit my throat from ear to ear. The knife burrowed deep, practically cutting my head in half. The pain was unimaginable, but I couldn't even scream. I could only gurgle and burn and bleed while staring at Henri's corpse.

I'm sorry, Hen. I'm so sorry.